Word: meng
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...Meng Ruiyun didn't think she was asking too much. For years, she and her husband, Tong Yanqing, had dreamed of traveling to the U.S. for their daughter's graduation from law school. After all the family had been through, she felt she more than deserved a place alongside other proud parents enjoying the Columbia University ceremony. The journey would be the retired factory worker's first visit with her daughter Tong Yi in four years, her first taste of life outside China?and her first ride in an airplane...
...Jingsheng. And she had endured a brutal 30-month term in a re-education through labor camp, then social and professional ostracism upon her release. In 1997 she made the wrenching decision to leave China to seek political asylum in the U.S. Now "after eating so much bitterness," Meng thought, "the family was finally going to have a taste of something sweet...
...explanation, a political protection officer curtly told them they were classified as "persons possessing state secrets likely to impair national security or cause great harm to the national interest" and therefore ineligible to go abroad. Shocked and bewildered as to "how two ordinary workers could possess state secrets," Meng asked to see the charges against her in writing. The police denied her request and called her "wildly lawless." So the couple made the long trip to Beijing to petition the national police. Again they were turned away empty handed?instructed to write a letter detailing their complaint and ordered back...
...That was in November. Meng still has had no news. She had intended to spend these weeks planning the special dinner she would cook for graduation night. Instead, like Tong , she's studying law, poring over exit-entry regulations, searching for a way to convince the authorities to let her make the trip?so she can do nothing more radical than bask in her daughter's achievements...
...never called long-distance much," said Victoria Meng '00. "My phone bill at one point last year was like $3 a month...