BLUE EAR - Lend Us Your Ear Read an excerpt from A Sparrow's Voice by Tommy Wu .
Corruption is endemic in many Asian countries, including China.
The difference when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party is this. I recently traveled to the city of Yan'an, where Mao Zedong and his followers holed up in mountain caves in the 1930s and '40s while directing the revolution. Some older people there who remember those days say that the Communist troops were always very careful to pay peasants for their food, not to abuse hospitality, to help farmers bring in their harvests. Not surprisingly, this helped the Communists win many a heart and mind. He began to live like the emperors of old, in his own secluded and heavily guarded residence.