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Full Description
In 1999, leading dissident Jiang Qisheng was given a four-year sentence for inviting the Chinese people to light candles to honor the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Drawn with indignant intensity from Jiang's time in prison, his memoirs record chilling observations of the modern "civilized" Beijing jails in which he was held.
While awaiting a farcical trial, he shares a cell crowded with common criminals, among them a murderer who had dismembered his victim with an electric saw. Along with intriguing vignettes of his fellow prisoners, Jiang describes the brutal conditions they all faced: inmates led to execution with necks corded to silence them, savage fights between prisoners, and rare moments of unexpected kindness. He describes the frequent beatings by guards, the use of the electric prod, and a dehumanizing regime aimed at humiliation and the destruction of individual personality.
After he is sentenced, conditions are even worse. Prisoners, used as slave labor, become bitterly exhausted and emaciated, while facing new depths of mental degradation. Throughout, however, Jiang retains his dignity, his detached and perceptive intelligence, and his concern for his fellow sufferers, guards included.
Written in a light and ironic style, Jiang's stories of prisoners, many of whom come from the most primitive and impoverished layer of Chinese society, are related with vividness, insight, humor, and compassion. Dismayed by their fatalistic docility, the author asks, "Where lies China's hope? Can democracy ever take root in China?" The answers, surely, lie in the voices of those, like Jiang, who dare to speak out.
Contents
Foreword by Andrew J. Nathan
Introduction by Perry Link
Part I: The Detention Center
Chapter 1: A Trip to the South
Chapter 2: Dark Clouds Appear
Chapter 3: A Sleepless Night
Chapter 4: In Section Seven
Chapter 5: Maintaining One's Dignity
Chapter 6: Verbal Tussles During Preliminary Examination
Chapter 7: Peaceful Coexistence with Fellow Prisoners
Chapter 8: Avoiding Self-Pity
Chapter 9: Death and Life by the Wall
Chapter 10: Looking on the Bright Side
Chapter 11: The White Hole of Human Rights
Chapter 12: A Brief Look at Evidence of Corruption
Chapter 13: Longing for Books
Chapter 14: Chess and Cards
Chapter 15: Litigation Records
Chapter 16: The Trial
Chapter 17: Falungong Adherent Sun Wei
Chapter 18: Gao Shuo of the Electric Saw
Chapter 19: Treated as Guilty Even without Evidence
Chapter 20: Precious Messages
Chapter 21: Occasional Loneliness
Chapter 22: Victims of Injustice and Crackdowns on Criminals
Chapter 23: The Clank of Chains at Dawn
Chapter 24: A Sketch of the Detention Center
Chapter 25: The Campaign for Democracy
Chapter 26: Reading the Newspapers
Chapter 27: The Taiwan Question
Chapter 28: "Give Birth Early and Often"
Chapter 29: Teachers' Low Self-Esteem
Chapter 30: The Joy of Books
Chapter 31: Blood on the Sleeping Platform
Chapter 32: A Small Society in a Narrow Room
Chapter 33: Three Encounters with Falungong
Chapter 34: When Would My Case Be Settled?
Chapter 35: From Detention Center to Transfer Center
Epilogue to Part I
Part II: In the Transfer Center
Prologue
Chapter 36: Encountering Prohibitions
Chapter 37: Unwritten Rules
Chapter 38: A True April Fool's Day Story
Chapter 39: A Frightening Interlude
Chapter 40: Visitors Day
Chapter 41: Guinness Record Levels of Suffering
Chapter 42: Others May Be Biased, but I Am Impartial
Chapter 43: When the Cock Crows at Dawn, the System Is Even More Cruel
Chapter 44: I've Never Been Afraid of Hard Work
Chapter 45: The Long May Day Holiday
Chapter 46: The Unchanging Transfer Center
Epilogue to Part II
The Day I Was Released From Prison
