From: usenet@news.acns.nwu.edu (Usenet on news.acns)
Subject: Re: What About Tibet? 
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:35:49 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.170101.3480@Princeton.EDU> muyu@burn.Princeton.EDU (Muyu  
Guo) writes:
> From article <1992Aug25.143807.12175@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>, by  
mlibucha@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Libucha):
> > In article <1992Aug24.104235.28567@doug.cae.wisc.edu> yidao@cae.wisc.edu  
(Yidao Cai) writes:
> >>In article <1992Aug24.131954.27915@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>  
mlibucha@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Libucha) writes:
> >>>
> >>>Don't you have any stronger evidence to support the the claim that "the
> >>>Chinese treat the Tibetans better than they treat themselves"?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>       Here I am not going to give an answer to your question, I just want
> >>to provide you some infomation
> >>       1. If you visit Putala Palace in Lasa, you would see the skins of  
the
> >>slaves still hanging behind the seat Dalai Lama used to sit.
> >>
> > 
> > 	That strikes you as pretty strong evidence, doesn't it? Did it ever
> > cross your mind that maybe, just *maybe*, the CCP put those skins there?
> > 
> > 	You remember Lei Feng, don't you?
> > 
> > 	"Lei Feng was a conscript who died at the age of twenty in a banal
> > accident. Only after his death was it discovered what a humble and  
admirable
> > pupil of Mao Zedong he had been during his short and hidden life. His ideal
> > had been 'to be a small cog in the machine' working for the party and 
> > Chairman Mao. The biography of Lei Feng had some strange variants before  
the
> > definitive version was prepared by the writers of the Propaganda Department
> > in 1964. 'Lei Feng Exhibitions' were organized in the large cities,
> > *simultaneously* showing many 'original' copies of the hero's diary. These
> > exhibitions also showed remarkable photographic documents, such as 'Lei  
Feng
> > helping an old woman to cross the street,' 'Lei Feng secretly [sic] doing
> > his comrades' washing,' 'Lei Feng giving his lunch to a comrade who forgot
> > his lunch box,' and so forth. Only cynical and impious spirits will wonder
> > at the providential presence of a photographer during the various incidents
> > in the life of that humble, hitherto unknown soldier."
> > 
> > --Simon Leys, "Chinese Shadows", pp.80-81.
> > 
> > 
> > Do you buy the Lei Feng story, too? Or just the Dalai Lama story?
> > 
> 
> Bias is worse than ignorance, as the old saying goes. I would also
> say, knowing little about China with preoccupied thoughts is worse
> than knowing nothing about China.  The Lei Feng thing and the
> Dalai Lama are completely irrelevent matters, with very very
> different context and implication.  The author of above post seems
> have little or no idea about how huge and complex China really is.
> China is a world by itself. You must see and live there to know
> what it really is. Simple minded stereotyping is the easiest and
> most misleading thing for an outsider to do, unfortunately.
> 
> -- 
> --
> Muyu Guo


I am not sure whether the skins were put by CCP or not. But one thing is clear.   
In China, if the government says something, it is really difficult to get the  
evidence to support the opposite side. Only history can prove later. This is  
the power and skill of control of CCP government. We have to admit that the CCP  
government is good at fool its people. .

Remember TAM incident? I guess you have to agree with me that what the CCP  
government said is not the truth. But several months later, my relatives in  
China wrote to me that some (even many) Chinese thought that rebels were at  
least partialy responsible for the incident. Do you know the reason? Those  
Chinese did not live in Beijing and they did not actually see the incident.  
Gradually, they were probably brainwashed.

I feel it not so easy to believe that the PLA forced to monks and nuns to have  
sex. We can not just simply believe stories from one side. But we also should  
not blindly reject them. At least I know a true story that happened during the  
Culture Revolution. A group of Red Guards went to a temple in Jiangxi Province  
and re-educate the monks and nuns. They DID force them to abandon their  
religion and live "normal men and women's lives". They DID force some of them  
to marry each other. Most of them surrendered. One monk jumped off a cliff and  
died.

The incident I mentioned above might just be and isolated event. The point here  
is when we are accusing somebody of being brainwashed, have we ever thought  
that we might also be brainwashed.

Carl

Newsgroups: soc.culture.china