In memory of my mother who passed away 5 years ago

(Translator: this aricle has nothing to do with the topic of politics as is usually written by Mr. Ran, but the great love hiden in the words of this article is too powful and moving for me to flip over, thus I translated it, sharing with all of you. Respected Mr. Ran wrote it in April, 2009.)

My dear mother, when you were still with us, every year from January to April I would recall my own birthday because you had forgot the day I was given birth to. Every year when I celebrate my birthday, I think of you, my mother, since it was that day you delivered me through which you suffered; I, thus, always talk to myself and remind myself of the deep affectionateness that you had to me. But since five years ago you left me, I have learned my own comprehension of the verse “April is the cruelest month” by the great poet Eliot. Because of the existence of the Swiping Day, April is a season of grief for Chinese; because you, my mother passed away in April, it is also my saddest spring.

The day in five years ago, my mother who led a life of hardship passed away, setting up a partition between us and you, our most important family member. Whenever recalling the hardship you had walked through, I, who am less inclined to tears, could not help crying. The days when you were with us have gone, them with poorness but filled up with warmth because of you; but they have been part of my life, improbable to be separated. Recalling your smiling face in the hardship in my childhood; recalling my every single birthday that you never forgot no matter how hard the days were; recalling the moment you taught me Tang poetry; all of these snapshots could be pictured as clearly as the time when I went through together with you. But, my mother, can they be back someday? Sometimes I become too sad to hold my rationality, figuring that however close the people are to us, they will eventually walk away; such inevitable grief, why is the part of the fate of us human beings.

My mother, owing to your passing-away, I have a deeper grasp of such type of relationships; I have a furthered love toward my families; and I have a better understanding of the bitterness between generations. As a consequence, I cherish more the moments that I could share with them, and I am aware that being a blood-related of mine, albeit accidentally, deserves cherishing for my whole life. No matter how close the family members are to each other, everyone loses one day after the day spent, which is the so-called living toward death. It is right because of living toward death, we should live in dignity; although we might have no less hardship, the blessed and interesting life is what deserves our effort. Previously, I was stricter with my family than warm to them, but since the day you left us, my mother, I started to realize they are so import to me. This is the last lesson that, my mother, you taught me through your own leaving.

Last year my friend Cai’s mother was dead at the age of 97, he asked me to compile a collection of memorial. I was tearing for the bitter life that Cai’s mother had experienced, which reminded me of missing you at times. My mother, the blessings you had granted me could hardly be returned, hardly even through my whole life. My mother, we have gone through a lot changes in these five years. The sweet and warm family you had witnessed when you were with us is still going on, your children and grandchildren are still happy and safe; this might be the only comfort for you. Your offspring live in this world with their own principles, straightforward and sincere, as were you with a kind and merciful heart; this might alleviate the worries you always had over us when you were alive.

My mother, the spring has come; the flowers growing up before your coffin must have expressed gratitude to you on behalf of us. Your son, whose is unable to kneel down before your coffin due to the distance partitioning us, has his heart already been with you.

Moving and touching for 20 years

Yesterday was the Memorial Day for the Tian Anmen Square event in 1989 (commonly referred to as June 4th), the Victoria Park in Hong Kong saw more than one hundred and fifty thousand people gather around—majorly people from Hong Kong and some from mainland. The gathering was for commemorating the spirit of June 4th, for consoling the dead and, more importantly, for demonstrating the Chinese people’s unshakable persistence in pursuing the freedom and democracy. Since 1989, the Victoria Park of Hong Kong holds candlelight celebration for June 4th every year, this celebration has gone through 20 years unceasingly development, having become an inalienable part of the spirit of Hong Kong society and the culture of the residents. Because of the thriving of the internet, the people who are interested in this activity can immediately access the live of the celebration. Through the internet, furthermore, they can participate in the celebration interactively. Such interaction protects the spirit of pursuing the democracy and freedom from being masked by the information-blocking project.

Before Hong Kong was recovered, the mainland dramatically depreciated Brain’s colonization of Hong Kong, to an extent of worthlessness. After its recovery, following the orientation of mainland media, the common people think of Hong Kong as a desert of culture, over commercialized. As a matter of fact, if you opened your eyes, if you pandered in your own mind, if you captured more information, you would not agree with the purposeful demonization of and wanton depreciation of Hong Kong by the government. While the colonization is a process of agony, commercialization accompanied by force could hardly be avoided for a society ruled by the “survival of the fittest”, a society of low civilization, or of half civilization and half jungle (the society refers to Hong Kong before occupied by Brain). It gets complicated to appraise this historic process. Seen from the angle of the legacy left and judged with objective facts, however, Hong Kong today still preserves certain facets of Brain’s civilization, especially that of institutions, which plays a key role. It is just because of the convention of legality and a resultant civil society left by the Brain, that Hong Kong people are still holding the possession of indomitability even though the society of Hong Kong has been encroached by the autarchy from mainland.

Led by Liu Shu, with attendance of many Hong Kong people, the “yellowbird movement” saved many suspects of the June 4th event chased by the government, and many salvagers were killed because of this movement. So brave! What’s more, the media of Hong Kong have carried off many works such as interviewing, protecting precious materials as well as uncovering the history in order to compete with the control over the truth of the June 4th by the Chinese government. Read the article, kid, be brave, written by the president of Apple Daily, one could not help tearing; hear what Liang Wendao said, “we protect our memory until the last one left”, how overwhelmingly unyielding and persistent are they! As to others, there are Li Yi, Lian Yizheng, Cui Shaoming and Kong Jiesheng etc. that unceasingly reflect on and unveil the truth of the June 4th, and criticize the retroaction of the government. People that are familiarized, like Dong Qiao and Tao Jie, are actually also condemning the totalitarianism and the mainland government. But their critiques are less known, since they are willfully blocked and suffocated by the mainland government. While the media in Hong Kong are very commercialized, their value and ethics of reporting are far beyond that could be imagined by the mainland media. Even the supplement of their newspaper, its quality and weight, is too far beyond to catch up with by the mainland media.

Once I wrote an article called Hong Kong is collapsing, in which I accentuated that, in order to control Hong Kong, how the mainland government racks its brain to penetrate into every corner of the society, attempting to massively “mainlandize” it from political, economic and societal aspects. In the process, due to incremental immigrants from mainland including students, many of them have experienced little of what the democracy and freedom are; they have assorted interested connections with the mainland; in addition, they are afraid that the mainland government would persecute their families who are still staying in the mainland. Thus, these people are predisposed to advocate the malicious actions of the mainland government; people like Cheng Yie, a student from mainland in Hong Kong University, are such pragmatists. If their ideas were naturally growing up they would be the result of a diverse society, the problem, though, is that they are probably intended plantation by the mainland government. At the meantime, because of the power of the mainland government over the economy, many merchants and officials in Hong Kong are controlled, harboring a great detriment to the democratic development in Hong Kong.

The god is still watching us: for our suffering country, concerning the holocaust in the Tian Anmen event, we are lucky to still have Hong Kong that can speak up that can be relied on. Owing to a powerful matrix (which refers to the mainland government), however, the prospects of Hong Kong is not that optimistic. Thus, not only are the media and scholars in Hong Kong responsible to remind the people there with increasing frequency that they are living under the threat of the matrix--such threat is like the process of slowly boiling frog—that they should be precautious. But also, the people in mainland who are struggling for the democracy and freedom should pay more attention to the developments in Hong Kong in that they are not only “them”, they are concerned with us and they are part of us: either from the perspective of the value of democracy and freedom or the current interests, the development of Hong Kong to the mainland and the way around are both getting more and more interlocked. Therefore, we should work with them together to defend and further towards the perfection of their current institutions of democracy and freedom, and, meanwhile, shedding the light of the democracy and freedom on the people in mainland.

Thanks to Hong Kong people for the 20-year’s remembering the painfulness of the June 4th, thanks for your persistence in commemorating; this is not only the blood-relationship, but also the adherence to the ideas of democracy and freedom. As being the mainland people encroached by the system of autocracy, the best we could do to reciprocate Hong Kong people is to bury the polity of autocracy together with them, in order that they are off the threat from the twenty-three evil laws (the day when the democracy is fulfilled, for the whole China, there will not be two systems, maybe something like the U.S. federal system). It’s is our common dream.

The crisis of the government’s credibility in the internet era

In a society without good institutions, what are the consequences and jeopardy of the situation in which people distrust each other? It is not difficult for us to figure out: because of the mutual distrust, not only will the mutual trade costs increase, but also the quality of people’s lives will be affected and so are their esteems. The truth has become a type of scarce resources and justice has become rare in China, such that even the simpletons start worried about it. Because the governments at all levels are so used to lying, to being arrogant and opinionated, and also inert to change their bad habits that their first move during their incumbency was to bury the truth and be a “extinguisher” of the true information by all means. The consequence produced, however, is that the government is getting extremely discredited by its people, leading to the fact that the legitimacy of the mandates and regulations is drained out and the cost of administration increased. Furthermore, it triggers the malicious cycle of mutual distrust between the people and the government, which harbors more than a disaster to the society.

Confronting the current global economic crisis, China is badly hit due to its export-driven structure, thus the government targets at exploration of the domestic consumption through galvanizing the public zeal for consuming. The government keeps chanting the slogan, claiming that they have confidence in overcoming the current hardship. What is seen by the people, however, is still the darkness of the institutions, continuation of the corruption and the fact that all the stimulus packages will only advantage the minor privileged even though some people could not share the left-over. Because of an incomplete social security system, coupled with discredit of the government’s stimulus, the people have to lead a life by tightening their already tight belt. Recently there was a piece of news about several local governments in the provinces such like He Bei, Inner Mongolia and Shan Xi etc. issuing governmental bonds, but ending up with no deal reached at all. It is, said by some scholars, because the bonds are of low rate and fluid that no people want it, which sounds really reasonable to me. The deeper reason roots in, however, that the credibility that the government owns has been overused for their lies of the past decades; it is almost impossible to have the people believe the government and purchase the bonds at all means as happened 50 years ago.

As a matter of fact, the government has been veiling the truth and burying the rightness for as long as 60 years, but why do the people start to sense its intensity nowadays? It is because of internet that brings these unrighteous and veiled actions up above the table, making more people, both practically and psychologically, aware of the truth that they are living in country of little justice. Take the case s of Deng Yujiao and Hu Bin for example. Had they happened in the era controlled by the traditional media, they would have not reached as broad as they do now; they would not draw as much attention although they might cause a small stir. Not only because of the limitation of the speed, the tunnel, and the means of the traditional media as well as their limited impacts, but also the costs of paying attention to the cases of out-of-town were high, the normal people had little concern about the lives of others.


It is different now; the costs of concerning about these cases have become relatively lower, means like surfing online, texting, blogging and BBS etc. could expedite the reaching of information. Especially, people are angry at the government’s attempts to block, mask, obscure, and “mosaicize” the relevant information. Such hindrances, however, are diluted along with the development of internet—a gleaner of the people’s will. Due to the lack of righteousness and justice, the gulfs between dissimilar classes have enlarged gradually and the whole Chinese society is going through a series of rips (tearing-apart), a collapsing risk as referred to by Prof. Sun Li Ping. The case of Hu Bin is not only a representation that the credibility of Hang Zhou government is questioned or dismissed—nor is the case of Deng Yujiao—they are indicating the universal questions and distrusts over all local and the center government. In another word, that the credibility of the government at any level is questioned or dismissed will spread out rapidly and reach to people everywhere through the internet, drastically consolidating the distrust from the people to all governments.

If previously that the people felt obligated to trust the government is because of the fooling propaganda, now many people begin realizing the government is something that should be questioned and criticized instead of being trusted. That is to say, the public distrust to the government takes place progressively, now the credibility of the government is severely depleted. It is a huge mistake to expect the same thing to happen as did fifty years ago, during which the people accepted whatever the government fooled them. Furthermore, such refusal to accept occurs not only in the area of politics but also emerges in that of economy. Why does the premier Wen repetitively accentuate to the media that the government has confidence in overcoming this economic crisis and the people should too? We must be aware of some common sense, that is, in a society with little legality and justice the things that are frequently repeated are where the cruxes lie. It is because, in a society without substantial reforms toward democracy, the major means to maintain the public credibility is through repeated admonition. Such admonition, however, has been recurring for 60 years, exhibiting a heavy blend of falsehood and an obvious credibility crisis. In turn, it also precipitates the speed of the unstoppable collapse; the prospects of China do throw the people of vision into discomposure.