Word: heng
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Vietnamese troops who have been occupying Kampuchea since 1979. And each year, when the parched rice paddies sprout nothing but stubble, the Vietnamese seek revenge, rolling out their tanks in an effort to eliminate the 45,000 armed "nationalists" opposed to the Vietnamese-backed government of President Heng Samrin. But this year the Vietnamese have instigated something more than the usual rite of spring. In their most deadly and deliberate offensive yet, they have been training their guns not only on the insurgents but on unarmed civilians and even on neighboring Thailand...
...Maoist Job, he suffers repeated indignities and hardships without losing faith. He is not a Western man with democratic ideals on whom communism has been forced Rather, he has a selfless devotion to the state personified by Mao. In this unusually impartial view of life in modern China, Liang Heng successfully expresses the strength of the communist faith as it conflicts with filial loyalty, romance love and urge for a better like. Unlike foreign visitors or disillusioned exiles, Liang Heng can reveal the psyche of the Chinese people to the West, for though he brings a certain skepticism to bear...
...American, with whom he co-wrote his memoir, and he presently studies at Columbia University, but he clearly has not abandoned socialism His expressions of the fervor of past political movements can be excessive, but they reveal an undercurrent of loyalty. The influences shaping this loyalty started at birth. Heng's original given name (in China the family name comes first) was Dien-Jie, or "Good news from Dienbienphu", celebrating the Vietnamese victory over the French in 1954. The political naming of children is the first step in a long process of indoctrination centering on Mao which continues throughout...
Even the neighborhood children joined in the systematic humiliation of the Liang's throwing rocks at the family's windows and beating up Liang Heng. Liang makes little criticism of them, for no one expects rationality from children. But when the cruel methods of public humiliation and torture spread to adults during the "Traveling Struggle" movement, the parallel is disturbing...
...renders many of Liang's observation ambiguous--even the questions which he presents at the memoir's end. Still, this insider's view, with all its uncertainties, allows Westerners a rare look at the Chinese as a people rather than simply as the propagators of a political ideology. Liang Heng is more than a son of the revolution; he is very much a son of China...