TURMOIL IN CHINA : Chinese in L.A. Watch, Wait--and Hope

Wan Qiang was at a Beijing fast-food restaurant one day in 1985, standing in line behind more than 40 people just to buy a bowl of noodles.

Suddenly, a middle-aged man in the line began cursing: “Those government officials, they just sit in their cars, they never have to come and stand in line!”

No one in the restaurant said anything, Wan recalled. “But I think everybody agreed.”

Two years ago, when Stanford student Liu Dianbin returned to Shandong province to visit his family, a pound of beef cost 2 yuan , or about 60 cents, he said. Now, with inflation escalating nearly 30% a year, he said, the same purchase would cost 5 yuan , or about $1.50.

As a young teacher in Shanghai, Jayne Zhao was required to teach only two days a week. It was a carefree schedule--and it left her utterly miserable. She felt that she had “no future, no chance for advancement,” she said.

Then 27, she resolved never to marry, saying, “If our lives are worse than that of our parents, why bring children into the world?”

Daily Frustrations

These are some of the realities of life, the daily frustrations that have been simmering in the Chinese people during 40 years of Communist rule. The strain has chipped away their patience with the government and the Communist Party, according to Chinese in California who have been monitoring the recent upheaval in Beijing.

Exposure to the West has heightened Chinese expectations of personal freedoms and living standards, said Liu Xinhua, president of the Los Angeles chapter of Chinese Aliens for Democracy, which has 150 members here and more than 1,000 nationwide.

Liu, a Monterey Park resident, is among the scores of Chinese who kept a vigil at the Chinese Consulate near Wilshire Boulevard on Sunday, the day after more than 1,000 people here marched in support of the protesters in Beijing.

The protest in China began in mid-April, when growing discontent erupted into what has become the most forceful call for political change in that country in decades. Backed by the populace, student protesters are calling for democracy, freedom of speech and the ouster of Premier Li Peng and senior leader Deng Xiaoping.

‘Coming to Turning Point’

“When we watch the television reports every day, we cry,” said Qian Minjia, a remodeling subcontractor and Pasadena resident who came from Shanghai. “China is coming to a turning point. Now everybody feels freedom is more than life.”

Teacher Zhao, now 29 and married to a man she met after moving to Los Angeles, has been calling relatives in Hong Kong and Shanghai for news of the protest. “Now I know there is hope for China.”

Even as Liu and his friends maintained a vigil, Chinese worldwide kept abreast of events in Beijing through a computer network. Using an international computer bulletin board, Chinese students at universities from San Diego to Norway vented their feelings and frustrations, debating politics and sharing reactions in a torrent of electronic messages.

Mitch Yang, a USC graduate student who kept a close watch over the electronic bulletin board, tallied the money being collected by Chinese students to support the protest.

Students at the University of Trondheim in Norway donated $500, while those in Canada and the United States pooled more than $58,000, he said.

Student leaders were considering buying and sending a facsimile machine to their peers in Beijing so the latest information could be sent out.

Two Chinese students at UCLA left for Beijing last Friday with $7,000 collected from Southern California Chinese students, said Wang Shiqing, a UCLA postdoctoral student. They planned to give the money to student protesters in Beijing.

The two students are in frequent telephone contact with their Los Angeles classmates relaying information on developments at Tian An Men Square, Wang said.

Sunday night, protesters outside the Chinese Consulate here included doctors, artists, business people, students and at least one political refugee. What brought them together was disillusionment with the Communist regime and a desire to be with their compatriots in spirit.

“I have to be with them, or else I can’t stay calm,” said William Su, who asked that his alias be used in order to protect family members in China.

George Mo said he could have applied for U.S. citizenship but decided instead to seek political asylum to make a point.

“I hate the Communists, so I want to say I’m seeking asylum,” said Mo, whose family, he noted, was persecuted in China because they are Catholic. His father was jailed for 15 years for his religious beliefs, he said, and his mother was criticized for not divorcing her “anti-revolutionary” husband.

On his right forearm, Qian bears a foot-long scar from the time he rammed his fist through a window, vowing to kill himself if he were not allowed to leave China.

Life under the Communist government was suffocating, he said.

Chinese, he said, cannot move or change address without government permission: “You can’t choose your school. You can’t choose your job. Chinese people live like slaves.”

The reinstitution of college entrance examinations in 1977 gave Chinese youths a glimmer of hope, a chance at better job opportunities, Su said. But even that system was flawed.

Su, an artist, said he received the highest college test score in his province but was assigned to the least prestigious college.

To get into the good schools in China, “You have to be politically correct,” he said, adding that his father, who had studied American government and history in the United States before moving back to China, was considered to have a bad background.

Economic reforms in the last decade have improved living conditions in China, but the necessary political changes never kept pace, local Chinese say.

“Economic revolution requires political revolution,” said Monterey Park resident John Sun, who is married to Zhao. “Deng’s changes, they are obsolete.”

Wang Hongkai, a visiting scholar and doctor, said that as the son of a store clerk, he fared better than most during the Cultural Revolution. But two weeks ago, he stood on the steps in front of the Chinese Consulate and announced that he was withdrawing from the Communist Party.

He did it because it was the right thing to do, said Wang, who had been one of 47 million party members in a country of more than 1 billion people.

Pivotal Point

For many of the local protesters, the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s was a pivotal point in their lives. Until then, Liu, for example, was the typical product of the Communist educational system. He was taught to respect Chairman Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party above all else.

“The sky is big. The Earth is big. But not as big as the benefits given by the Communist Party,” Liu recited from memory. “Father is dear. Mother is dear. But not as dear as Chairman Mao.

“If public property were damaged, I would have sacrificed my life to protect it,” Liu said. “If my father did something against the party, I would have exposed him.”

But the excesses of the Cultural Revolution--during which Red Guards, acting with Mao’s blessing, tortured intellectuals and ransacked homes in search of anti-revolutionary materials--opened his eyes, Liu said. “Beginning in 1966, I saw the real Communists.”