Hong Kong’s last remaining dawn markets are under threat, unless the government acts now. Shirley Zhao spends a morning catching up on the banter in the illegal stalls of Tin Shui Wai

Five o’clock in the morning. The sky turns from dark blue to greyish white. The small, green river under this bridge looks somewhat murky but remains tranquil in the early morning haze. All around in this New Territories town, there’s a sleepy ambience. But a dozen hawkers – mostly elderly, with the wisdom of the years etched out on their faces – are awake on the bridge, slowly pottering about and enjoying the crisp daybreak air. They amble up with their trolleys, pick a comfortable spot, settle down and lay out their merchandise on the pavement. Soon their first customers will arrive and they will be able to sell their wares, make a fairly scant amount of money and survive another day.

Welcome to a dying breed – Hong Kong’s dawn markets. And we’re at Tin Shui Wai – one of seven early morning markets in the SAR. There used to be a plethora of these early morning traders’ havens as the city’s poor bartered and haggled for anything from the day’s first catch to the oldest trinkets and clothes. But, due to supermarkets and a more modern way of life, these markets have dwindled over the years to just seven. And, apart from two of them in the city, they are illegal. But they are nevertheless popular with shoppers and are certainly a lifeline for many of the traders who gather at them. However, soon enough, with a government which maintains their illegality, they could sadly become a part of the history books in Hong Kong.

On our visit, the market in Tin Shui Wai, a new town in northwestern New Territories, shuffles along until about 9.30am – and then there’s a sudden burst of activity. It’s the cops. “Jau gwai ah!” some alerted hawkers shout out – the Cantonese warning that the police have shown up and it’s time to go. Some hawkers get moving immediately. They hastily collect their goods, load up their trolleys and make a quick exit as two officers approach. Some stay, though, ready to take the heat – but today they’re lucky. The lawmen just slowly saunter past, seemingly satisfied by the fact that most of the hawkers are actually leaving.

This is the threat to the future of our dawn markets. The hawkers here are unlicenced, thus trading illegally. And, any day, the government could really clamp down and disband the markets. It stopped issuing hawker licences in the early 1970s. The market at Tin Shui Wai always ‘closes’ by 10am every day because hawker control officers often start patrolling after that time. But, as we see, they can certainly turn up as early as 9.30am.

Under the dotted orange lamplights, the dawn market in Tin Shui Wai is run by mostly elderly residents of the town and middle-aged housewives. They sell vegetables, fruits, herbs, dried seafood, Chinese medicine, snacks, umbrellas, clothes and an eclectic range of underwear. Some of the vegetables are grown by themselves and freshly picked from a nearby field. Near the end of the bridge an elderly man is cutting up live fish for his equally-aged customers in a makeshift basin. The air is lively with greetings, bargaining, chatting and laughing. Some people simply come to chat with one another.

By 7am, the hawkers clean up and move, pushing their trolleys about 30 minutes away to settle at another gathering spot closer to a housing estate. There are more traders here – some younger – with more customers poking around.

Lau Chi-kuen has bought some fresh herbs picked up by a hawker this morning to treat her cold. “They are fresh and not polluted,” says the 60-year-old. “You can’t find them in supermarkets. Goods are cheap here – and you can still bargain and buy things in very small amounts.” The reasons why Hongkongers like dawn markets, according to Lau, are that commodities are fresh and cheap, and that people can spend the whole morning at them in conversation with their neighbours.

With almost 61 percent of its population living in public housing, most Tin Shui Wai residents have a tight budget. The town is widely dubbed as the ‘city of sadness’ for its high rates of unemployment, suicide and family abuse – the result of highly limited commercial development and a town planning strategy which has been criticised as a ‘failure’. There are only malls (mostly run by private developers) in the town but no street shops or markets of any kind. The average monthly median family income here is more than 20 percent lower than that of Hong Kong as a whole. “Tin Shui Wai is a monopolised town,” says Athena Wong Wing-chi, project officer of the Tin Shui Wai Community Development Alliance. “The value of the dawn market is that it gives residents here a cheaper option. It’s the residents’ way to fight big private developers.”

Another important value of the dawn market, according to Wong, is that it provides a rare occasion where nearby residents can get together and communicate, as well as, at the same time, attracting those who would otherwise prefer to hide at home to come out into the community. “There are many low-income new immigrants living here,” she tells Time Out. “They often feel alienated and discriminated by society and are afraid to go out. But we find they are more willing to come to a dawn market because of the friendly atmosphere.”

Ho Ying-long is a 57-year-old father who has been a dawn market hawker for 12 years. He speaks to us after the police have shown up. He sees the markets as central to his life – but the presence of control officers makes their ultimate survival difficult and extremely uncertain. “The police are easier on us these days,” he admits, though. “Two or three years ago they were extremely strict, treating us unfairly and with a bad attitude like we were thieves.”

According to Ho, if hawkers are caught by the officers, they are fined at least $450 (the penalties increase the more times they are caught) and all of their commodities are confiscated. This is certainly a heavy blow to hawkers like Ho, who earns around $300 a day. In 2006, a 65-year-old hawker who was afraid of being caught by control officers jumped into the river from the bridge and drowned. The death was later ruled an accident. “We’re not asking for much,” says Ho, with a look of hope in his eyes. “We just want to survive. Even though I’m not earning much, I feel happy and satisfied being able to live by myself.”

Athena Wong Wing-chi says control officers have become more understanding of the hawkers’ plight recently through more communications with community groups. But that doesn’t take away the feelings of the street sellers, she says: the groups have, at the same time, been stepping up their calls for the government to legalise these markets like the old days. “It can help the poor to survive and make the community more lively as well,” she says. A spokesperson from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department says the government ‘keeps an open mind regarding such suggestions’ but requires support from local residents as well as their district council’s agreement to proceed.

Ken Chow Wing-kan, Yuen Long district councillor and Tin Shui Wai Area Committee member, expresses his concerns. “There are complaints from local residents that the market creates noise, hygiene problems and other nuisances,” he says. “There’s also a possibility of cradling gangsters in markets like this.” Chow agrees that, with proper management, the market could become a ‘local specialty’. He suggests turning the mobile dawn market into a settled central market at premises provided by the government. The hawkers, he suggests, could join by paying management fees and organising a management committee.

Wong, however, wants to keep dawn markets in the open air to preserve the neighbourhood communications and the ‘cheerful’ atmosphere. In July, her organisation managed to get a one-month licence to start a temporary market in Tin Shui Wai. They paid $500 for the licence at a discount granted for charities and another $3,000 for ‘responsibility insurance’. They also bought necessary facilities like fire extinguishers. They call it the ‘dusk market’ because it opens at around 4pm. So it’s a start – but at the wrong end of the day.

“We hope to be able to continue doing this,” says Wong, who also admits it’s ‘unlikely’ the government will renew the licence. “Some district councillors object. They don’t want to take the risk. They would say it’s good to have a dawn market – as long as it’s not in their area.”

Our morning markets

Aberdeen
Located on the south shore of Hong Kong Island, Aberdeen is known for its floating village and restaurants harboured within its Typhoon Shelter. They are popular with locals and tourists. However less well known are the groups of people striving to make ends meet in the thriving seafood market here. Every day around 4am, hawkers gather near Aberdeen Promenade to sell their early morning catches. Most of them are middle-aged or elderly with low (or no) incomes. The market, like Tin Shui Wai, does not hold a licence.

Mong Kok
Located behind Mong Kok Stadium and opening between about 5am and 7am, Mong Kok’s dawn market is cheap and cheerful (but also unlicenced). Hawkers sell live goldfish, tortoises and common freshwater fish like danio, tetra, barb and koi. Fish food, medicine and appliances like small aquariums, lamps, pipes and pumps can also be found.

Sham Shui Po
Sham Shui Po and Tin Shui Wai are Hong Kong’s two poorest districts. Dawn markets here are really about life struggle of the poor. Hawkers are often the scavenging elderly selling what they’ve collected such as clothes, household utensils, electronic gadgets and toys – all used. But there are bargains to be had. You can buy a used radio for just a few dollars. The market is near Tung Chau Street Park, usually opening from 4.30am to 7am. And yes, it’s still illegal.

Hung Hom
Set off around 4am to Hung Hom’s Bulkeley Street and you may stumble upon treasures. It seems like everything can be found here – clothing, shoes, cosmetic products, accessories, cameras, electronic appliances, phones, books and magazines, coins, stamps, DVDs, toys and furniture – all at low prices. Customers include youths, housewives, maids and the elderly. Hawkers leave before 7am or officers will be on the scene.

Sheung Shui
Here’s one of the special brace of markets which actually does hold a licence! This 30-year-old market on Shek Wu Hui’s San Fung Avenue can safely stay open from 6am to 10am. There are around 200 stalls selling all kinds of vegetables and fruit at half the supermarket price. Fish can also be found here, freshly caught and delivered from the nearby Starling Inlet.

Tai Po
Opening from 6am to 10am, this is the other of the two legal dawn markets in town. Around 20 elderly people come here every morning to sell their farm products. The prices aren’t as cheap as you may expect but there are some rare products such as fresh roselle and homemade pickled vegetables not often seen in other places. Do come early or goods will sell out due to limited supply. It’s that popular.

http://www.timeout.com.hk/big-smog/features/52742/dawn-over-the-city-of-sadness.html

【大纪元2012年09月11日讯】（大纪元记者吴雪儿，李真香港报导）香港反洗脑运动踏入另一波高潮，香港学联星期二发起罢课行动，要求香港特首梁振英立即撤回国民教育科，共有八千多名大专学生参与，月底则举行中小学罢课。

集会于下午两点开始，参与罢课的学生挤满了中文大学的百万大道，大部份身穿黑衣，由于天气酷热，不少人都打伞抵抗热浪，大会并向集会人士派发矿泉水，以及沿途喷水消暑。集会人士拉起横额，并自制标语，反对中共强推洗脑教育。大会安排教师、学生，家长关注组，以及曾经参与绝食的人士发言，也有内地网友专程来声援，并带来很多微博网友的支持。“香港人，你们一定要撑住，一定要顶住，支持你们反洗脑行动。”

这是自1989年六四事件以来，首次有香港大专学校发起罢课，共有超过188个学生团体联署支持。

“香港人创造了历史。”学联秘书长李成康说，政府声称给学校自决是否开科，只是小修小补，担心一日不撤科，将来有机会再洗脑。除了要求梁振英政府撤回洗脑教育科外，这次活动也向北京发出声音：“香港社会各界都担心国民教育科是一个政治任务，如果这真的是一个政治任务，我希望中央政府收回。”

逾8,000名大专生罢课集会，在中文大学的百万大道举行誓师仪式，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回国民教育科。（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

逾8,000名大专生罢课集会，在中文大学的百万大道举行誓师仪式，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回国民教育科。（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

参加集会的不少大专生斥责香港特首梁振英是假让步，强调要抗争到底。

大会安排教师、学生，家长关注组，以及曾经参与绝食的人士发言。当中亦有来自中国大陆的声援。一位来自深圳的女士说，她是应在她微博上留言的网友请求，为港人送上关心，希望学生一定要支持下去，他们会在后方支持。

有博士生也参与这次大专生罢课活动，他表示，国民教育科根本问题会妨碍中华文化的命脉延续，而这种教材会教出一堆只相信中共、不相信正义、倡导谎言、会压制自己良心的犬儒等，并不敢有反对声音，谁也不服谁的一盘散沙，而永远被中共专制和各种霸权所宰制。

他说，中国共产党是一个暴力和谎言的集团，也是一个群体性的坏，从过去历史中的延安整风和各种整治运动中可以看出。在建政之后为了维持伟光正的神话，中共就继续这样宣传下去，所以中共基础是建立在颠覆传统、否定传统文化上。

逾8000名大专生罢课集会，在中文大学的百万大道举行誓师仪式，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回国民教育科。（摄影：余钢／大纪元）

逾8000名大专生罢课集会，在中文大学的百万大道举行誓师仪式，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回国民教育科。（摄影：余钢／大纪元）

大专生罢课为反国教、反洗脑（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）。

33度高温下的中大校园，8,000大专生走出课室齐为下一代发声，要求政府彻底撤回国民教育。（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

逾8,000名大专生罢课集会，在中文大学的百万大道举行誓师仪式，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回国民教育科。（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

对于CY的在国民教育不设定三年期限的看法，他表示这是让反抗运动化整为零，让反对的人没有办法在像之前到政府总部抗议，变成各校的家长和学生要和校方斗，而校方要和政府或中共斗，如果抵抗不过，那中共政府就有充足的人力、资源和谋略和你慢慢玩，所以要根本上完全的否定国民教育科，连撤回都否定，那中共迟早都会再拿出来，如果由民间自己编写国民教育科那会更好。

逾8000名大专生罢课集会，在中文大学的百万大道举行誓师仪式，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回国民教育科。（摄影：余钢／大纪元）

中文大学学生游同学说，大学生都经历过差不多所有的教育阶段，学生应该去学如何思考，而不是去学要思考些什么。他又认为反对洗脑国民教育科是身为市民、有公德的人的责任。

有穿学校的中四学生也参与罢课行动，她说，在开学初期都有参与在政府总部的集会及帮忙做义工。她有感抗争未完：“因为梁振英虽然说过撤回3年开展期，但我觉得他会再拿出来，强行把它变成一个必修科。我觉得他在9月9日作出让步是政治目的。”她不担心参与活动会影响学业，因为她会在课余抽空参与。

逾8,000名大专生罢课集会，在中文大学的百万大道举行誓师仪式，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回国民教育科。（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

8,000名大专生罢课为反国教（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

一位香港浸会大学学生说：“我们觉得梁振英政府今天所讲的或者之前的一连串措施或者手段，都是为了平息我们的愤怒，我们站出来，是要告诉政府知道，我们要真正撤回这科德育和国民教育科。”香港中文大学新亚学生则强调，国民教育是教导错误的东西，只是共产党洗脑的工具，所以站出来反对，“如果我们知道这件事是错的话，我们就不能给政府硬推。”

罢课四个小时后，六点并举行誓师大会，誓言抗争到底。在场人士一起高唱，并将左手放在胸前，立下誓约，为中小学罢课进行支援。并再次高呼口号：“反对思想投毒，全民抗争到底，CY（梁振英的简称）撤科，撤科。”

活动在结束前，大会带领参与罢课集会的学生读出宣言，表示要捍卫香港核心价值，坚持反对国民教育至最后一刻，令下一代能自由思想。其后带领参加者，在额前绑上黑丝带，又以双手做出交叉手势，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回科目，并齐声高喊：“CY要撤科！”。

33度高温下的中大校园，8,000大专生走出课室齐为下一代发声，要求政府彻底撤回国民教育。（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

8,000名大专生，在誓师大会中，以双手做出交叉手势，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回科目，并齐声高喊：“CY要撤科！”（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

罢课活动结束后，学联号召再到金钟行政长官办公室外集会，要求行政长官梁振英，撤回国民教育科，大约100人参与，大部份是大专生，他们分成小组，讨论对国民教育科的看法，集会晚上十时半结束。

8,000名大专生，在额前绑上黑丝带，又以双手做出交叉手势，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回科目，并齐声高喊：“CY要撤科！”（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

33度高温下的中大校园，8,000大专生走出课室齐为下一代发声，要求政府彻底撤回国民教育。（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

逾8,000名大专生罢课集会，在中文大学的百万大道举行誓师仪式，批评政府是假让步，要求政府撤回国民教育科。（摄影：宋祥龙／大纪元）

（责任编辑：乐慧）

http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/12/9/11/n3680440.htm%E7%BB%84%E5%9B%BE-%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6%E7%94%9F%E5%8F%8D%E6%B4%97%E8%84%91%E5%A4%A7%E7%BD%A2%E8%AF%BE-%E5%85%AB%E5%8D%83%E4%BA%BA%E5%8F%82%E4%B8%8E?p=all

8,000 Students Strike in Hong Kong

An attempt to decisively kill the ‘brainwashing’ program from China

Related articles: China » Democracy & Human Rights

Students went on strike on Tuesday Sept. 11 in an attempt to eliminate the moral and national education program imported from mainland China. On the weekend the Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung said it would no longer be mandatory, but now students are pushing for more. (Song Xianglong/The Epoch Times)

More than 8,000 Hong Kong university students boycotted their classes on Tuesday to protest a Chinese-required law that they described as “brainwashing,” in what has been the largest student demonstration in the city since 1989, the same year as the Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.

The protest culminated a nearly two-week-long series of demonstrations in front of the main Hong Kong government building over the so-called “Moral and National Education.”

Last weekend, the protesters wrang from Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying the crucial concession that the classes will not be mandatory as previously stipulated.

But now, dressed mainly in black, demonstrators called Leung Chun-ying to put the kibosh on the plan once and for all. Not only that it not be mandatory, but that it be scrapped entirely.

The education curriculum, if adopted by any school, would teach revisionist history from the Chinese Communist Party, critics say. The curriculum is similar to the patriotic education that is taught in mainland China.

The classes would touch very little on the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, or the Tiananmen Square massacre.

A high school student told The Epoch Times that “I feel like [Leung] will bring it up again and then forcefully it make it mandatory” in the future.

So they are maintaining protests to kill the plan entirely.

Another student, who attends Hong Kong Baptist University, told NTD Television that Lueng’s administration is merely trying to “pacify our anger” and the plan will likely come up in the future.

Some students expressed anger that Hong Kong’s national education committee, headed by Anna Wu Hung-yuk, is trying to look for ways to revive the plan, the Hong Kong Standard newspaper reported.

Lee Shing-hong of the Hong Kong Federation of Students said that “Hong Kong created history” by staging the boycott.

“Hong Kong people are worried there are political motives behind such national education classes. If there are political motives, then I hope that the central government will withdraw them,” he continued.

Read original article in Chinese.

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Click www.ept.ms/ccp-crisis to read about the most recent developments in the ongoing crisis within the Chinese communist regime. In this special topic, we provide readers with the necessary context to understand the situation. Get the RSS feed. Who are the Major Players?

US Congress Hones in on Vast Organ Harvest in China

Related articles: United States » National News

Witnesses addressed a congressional hearing about organ harvesting in China on Sept. 12. Tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience have had their organs taken from their bodies while still alive. (Matthew Robertson/The Epoch Times)

WASHINGTON—One congressman said the term “crimes against humanity” seemed inadequate for the atrocities just decribed. Another said it was the “most monstrous crime” he could conceive of.  

They had just heard testimony at a congressional hearing Wednesday telling how the Chinese Communist Party has since the turn of the century killed tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience for their organs. Most victims were practitioners of Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual discipline. 

In many cases their organs were taken from their bodies while they were still alive, killing them. And while evidence began emerging in 2006, governments around the world have done little about it.

Each witness on Sept. 12 contributed his own piece of insight in illuminating this story.

Ethan Gutmann, an investigative journalist, referred to the body of witness testimony, much of which he has wrangled, from former surgeons and nurses who have direct knowledge of organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. 

He has also interviewed imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners who have been tested for their blood type, which is needed for their organs to be harvested. He lamented the lack of interest in the West in the evidence that he and others have worked to accumulate, and urged the committee to invite the witnesses to be cross-examined.

Dr. Gabriel Danovitch, a professor of medicine at UCLA, noted the efforts that international medical organizations have made to change abusive Chinese organ sourcing practices. In answer to a question, he noted that at least one of his patients has, against his exhortation, gone to China to receive a “kidney on demand.” Danovitch contributed a chapter to the recent publication State Organs, which is about this topic.

Dr. Damon Noto, the spokesman with the medical society Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, presented a careful historical analysis of the beginnings of organ harvesting by the CCP, and ran through a narrative that led to the ultimate conclusion that the Party has harvested the organs of up to 60,000 Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. 

The CCP’s military apparatus began with death row prisoners in the 1990s and after 1999 moved on to the newly persecuted Falun Gong population. There was an “exponential increase in transplantations” from 2000 onward, Noto said. 

Charles Lee, a spokesman for the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, an organization that facilitates renunciations of the Party, said that the CCP has a long history of killing, and that organ harvesting is part of the pattern.

That the hearing was held itself reflects an advancement in the prominence of the cause. A number of the researchers involved in documenting the crimes that were the subject of the hearing has been laboring in solitude for years, receiving scant journalistic attention and even less recognition by governments, who find it important to maintain good relations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

One man present on the day, David Kilgour, a former Canadian parliamentarian, knows this well. In 2006 he co-authored with David Matas the groundbreaking report, which was revised, updated, and published as a book in 2009: “Bloody Harvest: Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China.” 

‘If this is true, even the powerful, fraught legal term “crimes against humanity” seems inadequate, leached of horror.’

—Rep. Chris Smith

Since then he and Matas, a distinguished human rights lawyer, have traveled around the world telling public officials, human rights researchers, journalists, and anyone else who will listen, about the findings of their research. But generally the topic is not well known.

The timing of this hearing, about a month before the expected opening of the CCP’s largest political conclave when a new batch of leaders will be ushered in, Kilgour thinks is significant. 

“The fact is that organ pillaging is an issue that’s tied, like an albatross, around the necks of the hard-liners in the leadership,” Kilgour said. It has played out in recent political infighting, according to analysts.

“This is all part of a continuum,” Kilgour said of the hearing, wherein the organ harvesting crimes by the CCP will finally meet with a reckoning and become a matter of historical record.

“It’s becoming an accepted fact now, you can feel it,” said Ethan Gutmann. Gutmann has penned a number of long-form investigative articles exploring organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China. “They talk about it like it’s not just something that ought to be investigated. It’s an accepted fact,” he said.

The hearing was organized and co-chaired by two members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chairman of the Africa, Global Health and Human Rights Subcommittee.

Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor from the State Department, was invited to give testimony, but did not attend.

Rep. Smith said the possibility of the crimes discussed by witnesses “pushes us into a horrific beyond, a beyond that challenges our language, making ‘barbaric’ too calm a word. If this is true, even the powerful, fraught legal term ‘crimes against humanity’ seems inadequate, leached of horror.”

Representative Bass (R-N.H.), described the matter as “really deeply troubling.”

Rep. Rohrabacher, who was the main chair of the panel, was outspoken.

“What we’re talking about is a monstrous crime. … To rip open the body of someone who is simply involved in a religious or personal or political idea that is a contrary to the wishes of the ruling elite, and not a physical threat to the regime, this is about the most monstrous crime that I can conceive of,” he said in extemporaneous remarks toward the end.

At one point he addressed the journalists present and asked whether Radio Free Asia and Voice of America had reported on the topic. After he gained the impression that they had not, he said: “Shame on our journalist community. … Shame.”

“This hearing goes to the heart of what America is all about,” Rep. Rohrabacher said. “If we don’t care about things like this, what kind of country and people would we become?”

The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/congress-hones-in-on-vast-organ-harvest-in-china-291603.html

Inside China: Lives of Imprisoned Professor, Missing Wife in Danger in Chongqing

Bo Xilai legacy of Falun Gong crackdown still being felt

07 Sep 2012

Mr. Tang Jian before his imprisonment

NEW YORK — The health of a professor imprisoned in Chongqing for practicing Falun Gong has badly deteriorated and his life may be in danger. The 37-year-old Mr. Tang Jian (汤健) was abducted  during an intensified crackdown on Falun Gong in the city led by former Communist Party official Bo Xilai. After requesting medical treatment for him, his wife has disappeared and is believed in police custody.

“Disgraced former Politburo member Bo Xilai had a long history of proactively persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, be it in Liaoning province or after he moved to Chongqing,” says Falun Dafa Information Center Executive Director Levi Browde (fact sheet on Bo Xilai). “While Bo is no longer in a position of authority, the legacy of intensified persecution that he started in southwestern China clearly continues.”

Mr. Tang was abducted from his workplace at Chongqing Jiaotong University on November 1, 2011. After months in detention, he was put on trial in February 2012. According to his wife, he was then scheduled to be released because there was no evidence against him. Nonetheless, the authorities kept him in custody illegally and subsequently sentenced him to three years in prison on March 16, 2012 following a sham trial.

“The sentence came out of the blue. I felt like the sky was falling. Every cell in my body felt as though being torn apart.” Mr. Tang’s wife wrote in an open letter published online on the Chinese-language Minghui website (read English translation).

“Jian did not violate any laws. It is totally wrong to detain him and sentence him.”

Mr. Tang was transferred to Yongchuan Prison in May 2012. His family visited him on June 17 and again on July 9. They observed an alarming decline in his health. He was almost skeletal except for swollen feet, and was out of breath after just a brief  conversation. Prison authorities humiliated Mr. Tang by prohibiting him from wearing pants and also deprived him of sleep.

His family fears he has been subjected to torture for resisting the prison’s “transformation” efforts to make him denounce Falun Gong (more on “transformation”).

Mr. Tang’s wife, Ms. Li Xiao (李箫), urged that prison authorities provide him with medical treatment, but the wardens denied the request and threatened her with arrest. On July 18, Ms. Li visited the South Bank District 6-10 Office, the local branch of an extralegal Communist Party security force that oversees the persecution of Falun Gong throughout China (more on the 6-10 Office). They, too, denied her request and threatened her.

Mr. Tang Jian’s wife, Li Xiao

Family members report that the 32-year-old went back to the prison again on July 24 to demand treatment for her husband. She has not been heard from since.

“Ms. Li had learned about Bo’s possible involvement in forced organ removal from Falun Gong practitioners and was terrified for her husband’s safety,” says Browde. “That she would be abducted while appealing to the authorities for what was clearly warranted medical parole further underscores the lawlessness promoted under Bo.”

Broader Chongqing Crackdown

The persecution of Falun Gong intensified in 2011 under the direction of then-Chinese Communist Party head and Politburo member Bo Xilai. Mr. Tang’s abduction occurred precisely at the time of a spike in overall abductions, physical and psychiatric torture at brainwashing centers, and other  harassment of local residents practicing Falun Gong, including the shutting off of their utilities. (read more: news bulletin and news bulletin) One brainwashing class—to which at least 28 Falun Gong practitioners were taken—was reportedly held at a summer resort in Nan’an District, the same part of Chongqing that Mr. Tang and his wife reside in (news).

Young Couple’s Past Persecution

In a letter of appeal that Ms. Li wrote and then posted online, she detailed their family history, which included persecution experienced over the last ten years (read more). As a young man, Mr. Tang experienced numerous health problems, but found remarkable improvements after practicing Falun Gong. His practice was publicly known and Southwest Petroleum University had to drop Mr. Tang from its PhD program when the persecution began in 1999. Because of his excellent scholarship, however, the University made an exception and hired him to teach.

Mr. Tang lost his job when he was arrested and illegally sent to prison for four years in 2002 for practicing Falun Gong. The Chongqing Branch of the ZTE Corporation offered him a position after his release in 2006, despite the prohibition on hiring Falun Gong practitioners. Pleased with his performance, the branch raised his salary two times in a three-year period.

Ms. Li herself has also been subjected to past persecution for her practice of Falun Gong, including being sentenced to a forced labor camp in Chongqing when she was only 19 years old. She has repeatedly been hospitalized due to torture in custody, heightening fears that she, too, is currently facing abuse.

“This couple’s story is a classic example of the domestic brain drain that the Communist Party has caused in its campaign against Falun Gong,” says Browde. “Beyond Mr. Tang and Ms. Li’s personal tragedy, there is a wider impact on society when gifted scholars and talented young people like them are locked up simply because they wish to continue a practice that has brought them health and peace of mind.”

The Falun Dafa Information Center calls on the authorities in Chongqing to release Mr. Tang Jian and his wife Ms. Li Xiao. The Center also urges Western government officials and human rights groups to voice their concern for their well-being and call for this couple’s immediate and unconditional release.

Contact information and names of those involved in persecuting Mr. Tang and his wife
Yongchuan Prison: 86-23-49890547 (Phone); 86-23-49890547 (Fax)
Hu Maping, warden at Yongchuan Prison
Yang, Liming, deputy warden
Zhao Youhua, deputy warden
Wang Dong, deputy warden (police badge number: 5016617)
Tang Jun, Gu Xiaolin, Zhou Qiang, and Chen Jusheng, prison guards of Division No. 10 of Yongchuan Prison, where Mr. Tang is being held

Essential Background

In July of 1999, China’s autocratic Communist Party launched an unlawful campaign of arrests, violence, and propaganda against Chinese citizens practicing Falun Gong (or “Falun Dafa”) with the intent of “eradicating” the apolitical practice. Former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin launched the persecution fearing the practice’s growing popularity among the Chinese people (70 to 100 million) was overshadowing his own legacy (article). Since then, the Falun Dafa Information Center, based in New York, has reported over 3,500 deaths from abuse and over 80,000 cases of torture. The United Nations, Amnesty International, Chinese human rights lawyers, and foreign media have also documented Falun Gong torture and deaths at the hands of Chinese officials (samples). Hundreds of thousands of Chinese who practice Falun Gong remain in captivity, rendering them the single largest group of prisoners of conscience in China (article). Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that is Buddhist in nature, but not part of the religion of Buddhism. It consists of slow-moving “qigong” exercises, meditation, and teachings for daily life centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance (about Falun Gong).

http://faluninfo.net/article/1247/

Chinese People’s Misunderstandings of the CCP

http://www.chinauncensored.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=545:the-chinese-peoples-misunderstandings-of-the-ccp&catid=29:think-tank&Itemid=74

September 5, 2012Jing GaoNo Commentsepic, funny, internet humor, picture of the day, quadruplets

Identical quadruplets in Shenzhen get numeral hair-dos for school teachers to tell them apart.

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/09/pic-of-the-day-quadruplets-hairdos/

Brave Exposure

http://www.chinauncensored.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=541:brave-exposure&catid=42:photo-of-the-day&Itemid=91

September 4, 2012Jing GaoOne Commentcorruption, Education, government spending, Macheng, poverty, public education, Republic of Macedonia, rural, rural area, school children, schoolchildren, Shunhe, taxpayers’ money, White House

From NetEase

In China, September 1 is a typical back-to-school day and also time for parents to prepare school supplies for their children. In Shunhe county under the city of Macheng, Hubei province, one part of preparation of key importance is find passable desks and chairs at home and let their kids bring them to the school. The entire Shunhe county has 5,000 students. Before the new semester started, about 2,000 sets of desks and chairs were allotted to a town center primary school and a primary school funded by donations, which means the rest 3,000 children still have to bring their own desks and chairs, which are passed down by their parents, to school.

Soon after the photos hit the press, netizens were touched. Some, after a little web search, found that a set of desk and chair is sold on online shopping sites at an average price of 50 yuan (US$7.8), and about 150,000 yuan is enough for supplies for 3,000 students.

The government office building of the city of Macheng (shown below), which administers and appropriates public funds for Shunhe county, is dubbed by local people “White House,” but its sheer size and grandeur has far eclipsed the residence of the U.S. president. Besides, Macheng has recently allocated a 12-million-yuan fund for a facelift project. It seems that far from lacking the money, the decision makers simply do not think spending money on public education is worthwhile.

September 1, Changchong village, Wang Ziqi is led to school by his grandmother, who carries the desk, and his older sister carrying his backpack. Even though the school is only a few hundred meters away from his home, the weight is heavy enough to make the grandma gasping for air.

Children use desks and chairs of different sizes and shapes.

On the first day of school, kids follow their parents to the cashier’s desk and pay tuition and service fees.

September 1, Changchong village. The sister and brother has had a bit of tiff over who should get the new backpack. Until breakfast time, they are still in their tantrum.

A parent gives her daughter and the desk a motorcycle ride to school.

Top comments on NetEase

芙小小仙子 [网易四川省成都市网友]：2012-09-03 17:08:39 发表
Look at clothes of these kids, the worn-out desks and chairs, the dingy school buildings. Only dogs can arrive at that “62%” conclusion. (Read: China has completed 62% of its great revival.)

网易浙江省温州市网友 ip：183.130.*.*2012-09-03 19:17:08 发表
This is the real mainland China.Stuff like gold medals are all fake.

入侵上海 [网易上海市网友]：2012-09-03 17:11:01 发表
And (the focus of) our strategy is not at home, but in Africa.

网易重庆市江北区网友 ip：222.178.*.*2012-09-03 17:09:42 发表
All the way until graduation from the junior high, they will bring their own stools, desks and beds. I feel so sad.

新十年浩劫 [网易河南省平顶山市网友]：2012-09-03 19:08:02 发表
Macedonia must feel very guilty!!! (Read: China donates school buses to Marcedonia, sparking public anger.)

网易浙江省杭州市网友 [丨鐮刀個锤子丨] 的原贴：1
They have tens of billions to donate to foreign countries and have no money to buy desks and chairs for their own kids?

网易山东省潍坊市网友 [lawyeryu999] 的原贴：2
Arresting a corrupt official is enough to build a primary school

网易广东省佛山市网友 [kaibosoft] 的原贴：3
A primary school needs as much as billions and tens of billions yuan? How did you do the math?

网易河北省网友 ip：175.25.*.*2012-09-03 22:12:17 发表
A corrupt official is equal to all primary schools in half a province, okay? Don’t you know how to do math?

网易广东省广州市网友 [問水] 的原贴：1
If this country had any hope of being cured, I would swallow the display!

网易湖南省长沙市网友 [houyish] 的原贴：2
If this country had any hope of being cured, I would swallow the mouse!

网易浙江省温州市网友 [8888llb] 的原贴：3
If this country had any hope of being cured, I would swallow the computer case!

网易山东省济南市网友(219.146.*.*)的原贴：4
If this country had any hope of being cured, I would swallow the memory sticks.

网易福建省泉州市网友 [叫我委员长] 的原贴：5
If…, I would swallow the stereo speakers.

网易广东省东莞市网友(112.93.*.*)的原贴：6
If…, I would swallow the keyboard.

网易上海市浦东新区网友 [445171650] 的原贴：7
Then I would only swallow the one on the top floor.

网易湖南省网友 [jcyjcm1279] 的原贴：8
If…, I would swallow myself!

网易广西北海市网友 [君子爱坦蛋蛋] 的原贴：9
If…, I would swallow everyone above.

网易四川省乐山市网友 [zya24500680孤军残兵] 的原贴：10
If…, I would swallow the bullet.

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/09/3000-children-back-to-school-with-chairs-and-desks-from-home/

Tiananmen Dissident Wang Dan on Chinese Soil at Last

http://www.chinauncensored.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=535:tiananmen-dissident-wang-dan-on-chinese-soil-at-last&catid=25:real-china&Itemid=77

September 4, 2012Jing GaoNo Commentsbig boxer shorts, CCTV headquarters, CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION, epic fail, fail, Gate of the Orient, internet humor, Jiangsu, Suzhou, Triumphal Arch, Yangtze River Delta

From NetEase

“Gate of the Orient”, an immense structure under construction in Suzhou, Jiangsu province next to the Jinji lake, has been the talk of Chinese social media lately. Some netizens say that the Gate of the Orient looks like a pair of long johns or low-rise jeans. Others say that having the “Gate of the Orient”, the new CCTV headquarters in Beijing will no longer be alone in its comical and undignified design.

Despite widespread criticisms from netizens, the design of the structure is highly acclaimed in the architectural circle. A person in the real estate business in Nanjing told Nanjing Morning News that he believed netizens will eventually change how they view the building after it is completed.

Read: Photos: Netizens ridicule Shanghai’s architectural designs with photoshop

(Left: rendering of the Gate of the Orient; Right: China Central Television headquarters, nicknamed “Big Boxer Shorts.”)

A net user published on the web a photo of the Gate of the Orient in Suzhou, which is close to completion, and its quirky design drew much criticism from net users. Some quipped that the Big Boxer Shorts of the China Central Television headquarters “finally has a brother and will no longer feel lonely”.

Another net user found out a photo of an exhibition center in Zhengzhou and said that it and the Gate of the Orient are like two jigsaw puzzles that “belong to to the same set” and the former can be dovetailed into the letter.

The Gate of the Orient is the centerpiece of Suzhou’s industrial zone. This 88-storey, 301.8-meter-high building will be the tallest structure in East China’s Jiangsu province.

The Gate of the Orient in Suzhou is 6 times the size of the Triumphal Arch in Paris, France. Two classic Chinese gardens will be built at its very top, and a five-level cellar will be built underground, making the Gate of the Orient “The most complex high-rise structure,” “The structure with the most use of steel per unit volume in China,” “The highest Suzhou-style Chinese classic garden,” “The deepest cellar in China,” “the highest overpass in China,” and “the highest swimming pool in China.”

The picture of the Gate of the Orient upon completion was made fun of by many netizens: “Is it a pair of low-rise jeans?” “Crotch of the Orient,” “Not bad. Finally it has stood up. (Note: compared with CCTV’s Big Crotch, which looks like that of a man sitting on a toilet.)”

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/09/design-fail-suzhous-gate-of-the-orient-looks-like-a-pair-of-long-johns/