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A 30-YEAR JOURNEY

Mao to Now

China is thousands of years old but has been made anew in the last three decades, and my family with it.

By Melinda Liu | NEWSWEEK
Dec. 31, 2007 - Jan. 7, 2008 issue

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  • Posted By: JojoChrist @ 01/19/2008 9:13:04 AM

    Comment: As an ordinary Chinese girl born in 1986,in Shenzhen,i didn't feel myself lucky until i got to know more and more about the past of China,especially Culture Revolution time.And i always wonder why such an impenetrable and lamentable event could happen to the generation of my parents and break out in China.Quenching Tiananmen affair is right even though I don't know much about it or the whole country would have gotten into the endless depression and lag.As a matter of fact ,my parents,not so-called red guards, didn't suffer so much as others .
    It has not been important and siganificant to go behind Mao's fault notwithstanding I am always shocked by tragical Culture revolution .What's really important is reflection of such a tragic and to search for effective ways of stopping similar things from happening.
    Nowadays i'm very glad to witness pleasing changes and progressiveness of China and i wish it to last forever.

  • Posted By: whnzxz @ 01/17/2008 3:41:07 AM

    Comment: Chinese like peace. If foreigner hv chance to come here, you must fell it. But i just confused why Western pay more attention to China trend. Acctually in recent 200 years , other country frequently invaded my contry. When we want to develop peacefully, they again intercept us. It's Democracy! very very democracy!

  • Posted By: kcho1348 @ 01/08/2008 11:23:47 AM

    Comment: tears come to my eyes

  • Posted By: kcho1348 @ 01/08/2008 11:23:02 AM

    Comment: tears come to eyes

  • Posted By: yahoo.hell @ 01/08/2008 5:32:49 AM

    Comment: Mao is still the great in Chinese's mind, even though He made serious mistakes in his later years.
    Mao never intented to harm his country and his peoples, and his allegiance to China is much more than any others.
    Mao dedicated his life, his son's life, even his family's to his mother country--China.
    No one can be perfect.
    What do you expect that Mao should be?

    The real criminals that ruined China are:

    1) the Manchu Government ( made China closure; fooled and pressed the majority Han Chinese for maintaining their regime)
    2) the western invaders ( tried to make China as their colony, robbed China for almost one century, especially , the British the French, the American ...)
    3) the Japanese invaders ( attacked the seriously wounded giant China during its weakest time )
    4) Some CCP's wrong policies and political campaigns ( the theories by Marx are unproved and idealized)

  • Posted By: irene.couillerot @ 01/08/2008 4:07:22 AM

    Comment: Melinda Liu:
    You labeled yourself as "American". But you may haven't realized the fact that Newsweek hired you and assigned you to China was just because your blood is of Chinese type.

  • Posted By: irene.couillerot @ 01/08/2008 4:03:55 AM

    Comment: Melinda Liu,
    You labeled yourself as "American". But you may haven't realized the fact that Newsweek hired you and assigned you in China just because you have Chinese blood. Pathetic banana.

  • Posted By: FancyChina @ 01/04/2008 8:59:37 AM

    Comment: Many Chinese citizens, especially those living in the cities, are very open-minded and pro-democracy, as far as I'm concerned

  • Posted By: ipfreak @ 01/02/2008 4:39:15 PM

    Comment: "China's leaders needed the Games the same way they needed Hong Kong. They had to keep earning the public's confidence"

    when your mind has been preset and think that everything done by the government is for ccp, then you would never understandchina.

  • Posted By: ipfreak @ 01/02/2008 4:37:29 PM

    Comment: test

  • Posted By: catalystcode @ 12/31/2007 11:43:47 AM

    Comment: I???ve been going to China for two years now. The buzz and frenetic pace of entrepreneurial activity is just amazing. The Chinese have been extremely success at developing business platforms???businesses that make money by matching different kinds of customers together and helping them interact. That???s abstract so let???s get concrete. Alibaba is a massively successful platform that helps businesses find suppliers; most of the buyers are large Western companies while the suppliers are small and medium sized Chinese firms. Baidu is China???s answer to Google???it brings searchers and advertisers together. There are many more. And for an upstart consider FaceRen which brings Chinese domestic and expat students together just like FaceBook. For more see my book on platform businesses???Catalyst Code; the Chinese edition is coming out next year.
    Thanks,
    David Evans

  • Posted By: winning @ 12/31/2007 5:15:22 AM

    Comment: euifhn faf

  • Posted By: HFong @ 12/30/2007 8:45:11 PM

    Comment: Melinda,

    Your breathtaking survey of the last 30 years left me with chills.

    Thanks,
    HF.

  • Posted By: HFong @ 12/30/2007 8:37:40 PM

    Comment: Melinda,

    This is breathtaking survey of the last 30 years.

    Thanks,
    HF.

  • Posted By: Frogsad @ 12/30/2007 8:44:25 AM

    Comment: Are you moronic? Who stole your brother? It is your irresponsible parents that deserted him and fled to a 'safe haven'. The very first paragraphs alone have told me reading the rest of the gabbage with which you earn your bread and butter is a waste of time. Can you not put aside your bias and view the country you have been bashing--in a dispicable manner, no less--for money in an objective perspective? No conservative patrons would then cast coins in your beggar's bowl any more, right? You are pathetic to be called a journalist at all. Period. ps: Shame on you.

    • Posted By: Greaterchina @ 01/02/2008 5:19:13 AM

      Comment: How old are you? A student or not? If a student, please take this chance to read the history. If you are a man, you should have the courage to face the history, the reality, you should take a tour to visit your mesuem. Like a man, sir.

  • Posted By: Greaterchina @ 12/27/2007 9:33:00 AM

    Comment: We should respect each other when making comments. China can develop on its own. You do not need to talk about China in a such narrowminded way. Tell you the truth, we have good freedom, human rights and dignity, we are only not happy with the spreading corruption here.

  • Posted By: Greaterchina @ 12/27/2007 9:28:32 AM

    Comment: What commented by Gustomaybe is totally wrong, the USA is really a robber down to earth, each item in your Museum was robbed from China, Europe, or other parts. Can you deny the truth? Pls do not forget the history, USA history is a one full of bloody suppression of Indians and invasion and crazy robbing. Only after World Ware II, can USA develop in a normal way, but all this cannot cover up his dirty history. Now we have individual freedom, also human dignity, also creative capacity, but what we are not happy is corruption.
    I'm doing foreign trade, I can send you a mirror free of charge so that you can look into the mirror.

    I'm sorry if I'm a little radical in response to your remarks, but really you are not so responsible in making comments. China is developing, USA is developing also, Each country has its good. Your USA is not so perfect actually. From the Iraqi war, people around the world can see how USA poeple are, to make an excuse, you can make up the information to say there are massive destructive weapons there, but when your troops invaded the Iraq, and dug up the earth, you found nothing, you are searching all kinds of mock-up excuse to justify your bloody invasion. What kinds of USA people you are.

  • Posted By: GustoMaybe @ 12/27/2007 8:10:19 AM

    Comment: China would be nothing today if it was funded by the capitalist countries since the 1980s, as part of their new world order plan. Everything they have, the science, the factories, even the military technology, comes from the US. On their own, they would still be carrying their Mao book of quotations and starving. This will end. Because China has no sense of individual freedom, of human dignity or creative capacity, it will sink.

  • Posted By: svll @ 12/27/2007 1:47:53 AM

    Comment: Tiananmen square is not forgotten. I grow up in China during the 80's. What happened in 1989 gave me so much disillusion I had to leave her. As I get older I realize Rome is not build in one day. China is social-economically equivalent to the US 120 years ago. In 1888 the "real" US income is roughly the same as China today. That was before social security, fed reserve, equal opportunity for blacks. Give China 100 yrs.

  • Posted By: bishop3d @ 12/26/2007 2:56:17 PM

    Comment: If Newsweek had more articles like this to enlighten the American mind with regards to the world outside our work cubicles, I would actually subscribe. But then I see more on Huckabee and politics (yawn), short 2 page articles (How informative can they be?) and movie reviews (Oscar worthy? Just shoot me now) to name but a few shortcomings of news in America.

  • Posted By: syu_bjcn @ 12/26/2007 5:03:11 AM

    Comment: Not bad by large, but obviously u are reviewing ur experience from a western eye, inspite of the eastern blood flowing in ur vessels. That's why u pay more attention to Tiananmen Event and more other black sides of a blooming power are included for the most part with details. Maybe u r not doing this on purpose, but I can't agree with u totally on what u've depicted about my country.

  • Posted By: deananash @ 12/25/2007 2:42:17 AM

    Comment: Like a wikipedia article, this perspective is as good a place as any to start. And like wikipedia, NEVER trust a single source of information (sorry mom). If you really want to understand, then you've got to DIG DEEPER.
    Varied points of view help you to see more clearly.

  • Posted By: deananash @ 12/25/2007 2:38:16 AM

    Comment: Overall, I'd say that the article is well-balanced. But I'd also encourage EVERYONE to seek further perspectives. Don't limit yourself to one person's point of view.

  • Posted By: dogone36 @ 12/24/2007 9:36:09 PM

    Comment: wonderful story.... you should write a book, I hope the less fortunate will soon see the government provide protection and they don't end up with kloptracy develop as we has now.

  • Posted By: tonykun @ 12/23/2007 11:29:40 PM

    Comment: except the shadow of human rights, corroption etc. every western media posts no positive images of PR China.

    • Posted By: ipfreak @ 01/02/2008 6:02:51 PM

      Comment: why should they? western medias, largely, driven by profit, if not just political bias. they have to feed what their customers love to hear.

      before i came to the states, i always thought the westerners, especially americans must be well informed coz of "freemdom", just few years i realized i was so damn wrongh.

  • Posted By: yin-yang @ 12/23/2007 1:25:30 AM

    Comment: I carefully went through the article. Based on personal experiences it was truly a review of Chinese history from Mao to now, very objective and a must-read for those who show some interest in China's economic, political and social development in the past over 50 years.

    As a teacher of English here in China, I have lots of opportunities to discuss issues over China with my foreign friends from the world over. They came to see eye to eye that people in Western countries are far from well-informed about what???s going on here in China. One colleague of mine, Eddie, from Seattle once told me ???American people have no idea about China. And I think the information to the public is filtered back in the States. There???s a huge gap between what I had read back home and what I am witnessing now here in China.???

    To be quite honest, I really can not understand how come American people do not get to have a big picture about China as, I suppose, USA is the land of freedom, democracy, and information and beyond. According to my personal observations, the image of China to Westerners, whether Americans or Europeans, basically resides in a bag printed with a Mao figure or a picture of a man with pigtail. The former one represents communisms while the latter for the ancient China.

    Yet I always believe something is wrong here with the two images. Communism? I really have no idea whatsoever about it. But one thing is for sure: China is developing so fast here. Pigtail? That???s a tiny part of Chinese history, a fragment.

    To know our history I suggest Western folks to read books written by Chinese Ancient philosophers such as Confucian and Laozi. Personally by reading them I got to know how Chinese people survived over thousands of years. I am always amazed every time I am exposed to their wisdom.

    And of course I am not a nationalist. I always like to see myself as a global villager. I am also open to Western wisdom. That???s why I am here and what???s why I am learning English. Every culture has its limitations. To take the best from all over the world

 
 
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