Grace Wang: Caught in the Middle, Called a Traitor
Grace Wang, a Chinese student at Duke University, was caught in the middle when she tried to mediate a confrontation between pro-Tibetan and pro-China protesters on campus recently. She and her family were later harrassed by nationalistic Chinese who called her a traitor. Wang reflected on the experience in an article published on Washingtonpost.com:
It has been a frightening and unsettling experience. But I’m determined to speak out, even in the face of threats and abuse. If I stay silent, then the same thing will happen to someone else someday.
Wang was on her way to library when she saw two groups of people holding Tibetan and Chinese flags facing each other.
I hadn’t heard anything about a protest, so I was curious and went to have a look. I knew people in both groups, and I went back and forth between them, asking their views. It seemed silly to me that they were standing apart, not talking to each other.
Her effort was not appreciated, but regarded as offensive to many Chinese protesters.
The Chinese protesters thought that, being Chinese, I should be on their side. The participants on the Tibet side were mostly Americans, who really don’t have a good understanding of how complex the situation is. Truthfully, both sides were being quite closed-minded and refusing to consider the other’s perspective. I thought I could help try to turn a shouting match into an exchange of ideas.
Wong lived with Tibetan students for several weeks during Christmas last year, which helped her to understand their perspective and beliefs.
Every day we cooked together, ate together, played chess and cards. And of course, we talked about our different experiences growing up on opposite sides of the People’s Republic of China. It was eye-opening for me.
She wanted to learn the Tibetan language, because she felt ashamed that she could only communicate with her friends in Mandarin. She is an ambitious learner — after having mastered five lanuages, she plans to learn five more by the time she is 30.
I want to do this because I believe that language is the bridge to understanding.
In an open letter to her fellow Chinese, Wang said that Tibet is part of China, but Tibetans’ freedom should be respected: (translated by Thomas Bartlett )
Tibet is our country’s territory; how could it be abandoned or given to others without good reason? Putting people inexorably under pressure will only result in turning friends into enemies. Forcing the naturally peace-loving Tibetan people into desperate opposition, into a fight for survival with their backs to the wall, is to create a serious and irresolvable conflict.
Many people in China find it hard to understand Wang, and pour their anger at her. Someone emptied a bucket of feces on the doorstep of her parents’ apartment; the high school she graduated from convened a meeting to condemn her and revoked her diploma, according to Wang.
I understand why people are so emotional and angry; the events in Tibet have been tragic. But this crucifying of me is unacceptable. I believe that individual Chinese know this. It’s when they fire each other up and act like a mob that things get so dangerous.
Click here to read an interview with her by Radio Free Asia and watch a video clip of her in the protest of Duke University in early April.
Read a blog article A hero or a victim of western media in which the writer, who claims to be Wang’s roommate, describes Wang as naïve and arrogant.
The website of China Central Television posted Wang’s photo on its index page captioned “The ugliest overseas student” on April 17.
On a related news, CBS reported: E-mails Target Cornell Professor For Showing Tibet Film:
As international attention on the situation between Tibet and China has increased over the past few weeks while China prepares for the Olympics, a Cornell anthropology professor was the subject of personal attacks posted to two University listservs last week in response to a film screening and discussion she organized on “the prospects for peace in Tibet.”
After Prof. Kathryn March, anthropology, began publicizing the event several weeks ago, it immediately provoked a wave of impassioned e-mail responses, most of which criticized the event. A handful of the responses on the listservs were personally directed at March.
“I … was told to ‘go die’ on the Chinese Students and Scholars Association listserv,” March said at the opening of her event last Thursday, “[I] received personal emails saying things like ‘I spit on you’ or telling me that I needed ‘a brain spa’ where I could get ‘botox [for my] brain and age,’ advice that another e-mailer applauded by writing ‘well said! support!’”
UPDATED: Fury vented on Duke student on New Observer.
POSTED COMMENTS: 13 Responses
Wang said, “Tibet is part of China, but Tibetens’ freedom should respected.”
Hey Wang….Tibetens’ do not have any freedom to be respected. You are naive. Your beloved China would kill all Tibetens’ today if they thought they could get away with it.
Oh and by the way they are probably trying to figure out how to kill you seeing how you want to see another point of view. That is not acceptable.
Live From Las Vegas
The Masked Millionaire
This article is so typical, actually Tibetan in China has more freedom than other ordinary people. Please refer to this article for more information about Tibet’s situation, http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=68073&postdays=0&postorder=asc&topic_view=&start=0&sid=5c06417ab2461e191ab61f8a063ca909
This is an excellent letter that appeared in the Taipei Times newspaper a few days ago. I think its worth posting here. (resubmitted)
There were two very distressing news items this week. One was footage of Chinese Australians demonstrating in Sydney against Tibet, and another was a New York Times article about Grace Wang, a Chinese student at Duke University who became Public Enemy No. 2 in China because of her efforts to mediate an on-campus Human Rights demonstration and a pro-China rally.
What was really horrifying was that the participants here are, in the former, Australians, and in the latter, university students with access to information and seeking to be educated in a system that values pluralism and reason. If those Chinese demonstrators cannot see the irony of the situation or refuse to apply their critical thinking skills dispassionately, I have a message for them.
First, to the Chinese Australians: Why have you all naturalized and pledged your allegiance to Australia and then gather en masse to wave the Chinese flag and demonstrate your solidarity to China?
Are you all just there to take advantage and freeload off the kindness of a country that embraces people without regard to their race, religion or ethnicity? Or are you there because you earnestly believe that rights otherwise denied would improve the quality of your life?
Here’s the ironic part. Why are you all exercising freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in Australia to espouse support for a policy in China that denies such a right?
Is it because as Australians you cherish such a right so much that you could justifiably and selfishly guard it jealously from ever burgeoning in China? Or is it just a knee-jerk reaction to support Chinese Communist Party policies that permit freedom of speech and assembly only when it suits its purpose?
To the Chinese students in the US: You all have no excuse for your ignorance. In this country your Web sites are not filtered, you can access most information you want in your libraries and you have a legal right to almost all government documents thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. Don’t lose your critical reasoning skills — there’s some truth to what you perceive to be negative reporting of your country.
Will you ignore the entire message simply because you have a problem with the delivery? Go look up texts on human rights and learn what it actually means! The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789 explains two fundamental ideas underlying the intellectual and substantive concept.
First is that the will of the most powerful is not and can never be the final and valid justification for actions that affect the vital interests of individuals.
Second is that simply being a human being is sufficient in and of itself to allow claims for particular goods that are basic for a life of dignity and autonomy.
In the pursuit of knowledge, you must realize that you cannot understand why you are right until you understand why you could be wrong. You have the right to be ignorant and misinformed, but I strongly suggest that in light of what you consider to be a concerted effort to make China look bad in recent weeks, you all would do well to moderate and educate yourselves on the grains of truth embedded in the criticism.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/04
/22/2003409926
Yes, Ms. Wang has the right to be misinformed and ignorant as well.
[...] to say, and to try to get both sides to talk to each other instead of just shouting at each other, is a traitor too. She has been insulted countless times and received death threats; her parents, who live in [...]
You Westerners miss the whole point of Chinese protests against your hypocritical shedding of tears and anger over the ’shabby’ situation of Tibetans in China. Chinese protests are, in the main, from the educated, democratic and Christian Chinese educated in Universities in the West who can see through your despicable hypocrisy in your uproar over the Tibet issue. We are not the silly, ignorant Chinese in Mainland China who do not know the virulent white racism underlying every knee-jerk criticism against China and who remain dumb and cannot answer any unfounded criticism from the West.
It is exactly the freedom of information at Western Universities that enables us to see that all your OSTENSIBLY ‘NOBLE’ PROFESSING FOR FREEDOM FOR TIBETANS is just a HYPOCRITICAL SHAM, a circus conducted on the crunching and bleached bones of the Red Indians (USA), native Indians in Canada, aborigines in Australia and the tortured cries of the ‘naturally peace-loving Irish people’( Britain’s Tibet) and Kanak Pacific islanders ( France’s Tibet), the dead bodies of Kashmiris….the list is endless.
You know what they are shouting about?
“WE WHITES CAN KEEP THE LANDS ( and live off the fat & resources)THAT WE ACQUIRED THROUGH AGGRESSION AND THE GENOCIDE OF MOST OF THE ORIGINAL NATIVES , BUT YOU CHINKS CANNOT DO THAT !”
Their justification: Because we are whites ( that alone gives them the right to ignore their genocides and to point fingers at others ) and because the genocides (or subjugation)happened either long ago or cos the natives now accept our rule through the the sheer brute force of our armies which put down their rebellions repeatedly.And they add a moral twist: And, you know, we genocide them for their own benefit, for altruistic motives, you know, in order to bring them civilization and democracy.( That perverted moral is being applied in Iraq now.)
Time lapse does not justify any crime in any way, and the survivors of their genocides ARE STILL ALIVE.In God’s eyes, a crime committed 100 years ago has the same seriousness as a similar crime committed today. When did God ever give whites the moral authority to rewrite immutatable laws of morality?
So why is the Chinese occupation of Tibet more vile than their occupation ( even now and on-going ) of native lands and the usurpation of their resources?
The colour of the perpetrators makes a difference,doesn’t it ?
Haven’t you noticed that the loudest protesters are those whose hands are the most blood-stained with the blood of the natives they exterminated?
Far bloodier than the Chinese hands, cos there are only a few natives left in those white dominated countries, despairing in desert reservations or
unproductive lands.
The point we want to make is this: IF YOU ARE THAT PERFECT, we don’t mind you criticising us, but YOU ARE JUST AS BAD AS US, AND MORE SO, COS YOU DON’T FEEL ANYTHING FOR WORSE GENOCDES AND SUPPRESSIONS you have carried out on the natives, and you still have the brazenness to point fingers at the Chinese who have let millions more of Tibetans survive than the natives/aboriginals in your New World. It is as if by bashing the Chinese over Tibet their guilt and injustices committed on the genocided natives can be expiated and washed away . They think that the louder they bash China, the better their victims( Red Indians, aboriginals, Irish, Kanaks) would feel, and the less the world would remember of their genocides.
Sorry. We educated Chinese do not accept such skewed/perverted morality or double standards.
Every person is equal in front of God and each ( including Whites, not just the Chinese) must answer for his/her wrongdoing. Colour of skin does not mitigate or excuse a crime.
Jesus said to self-righteous whites like them: “You whitewashed sepulchres!YOU CAN SEE THE SPECK OF DUST IN YOUR(CHINESE) BROTHER’S EYE BUT CANNOT SEE THE PLANK COVERING YOUR OWN EYES.
We are going to hold on to Tibet until you( those nations that bash china)are humble enough to see that you are no different from us, and in fact worse, cos you shout so loud and point fingers at China while you don’t feel the slightest tinge of remorse for the victims of your genocides.
Verbal remorse is not enough. (Any one can do that. )
You must make amends, restitute, indemnify ( hundreds of trillions of dollars) the poor victims, return the best lands, give them political power and a strong say & representation in your parliaments or Congress,and let the natives rule – that’s what you are asking for the Tibetans.
If you shout “Free Tibet”, then GET OUT OF USA, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, N. ZEALAND, NORTHERN IRELAND, THE FALKLANDS, THE FRENCH PACIFIC ISLANDS (the native Kanaks there don’t like you one bit, and don’t you Frenchies use the Pacific for testing nuclear weapons), KASHMIR etc.Only if you get out from these occupied lands do you have the moral authority to bash China over Tibet.
We demand the same moral standards for EVERYONE, not special privileges for the Whites and a special moral burden for the Chinese.WHO has ever said and accepted that your actions are exempted from any moral scrutiny and censure?
We will be generous: You don’t have to quit these occupied lands which you think are yours by virtue of forced submission to your aggression. Just give the Red Indians and Canadian Indians, Australian aborigines, the Northern catholic Irish the best and most fertile lands back to them ( it was and is theirs originally),and allow them a MAJOR REPRESENTATION (two thirds majority)in your governments. Then we will quit Tibet.
Anything less than that, just PISS OFF!!!
I am one of those Chinese who never liked the idea of holding on to Tibet when the Tibetans don’t like at all to be part of China.To me, it’s good riddance if we let them go cos too much of the Chinese taxpayers’ money has been poured into Tibet to build modern infrastructure and facilities without it being appreciated by the Tibetans. The Tibetans in fact enjoy more privileges than other Chinese citizens. They don’t even have to pay bus fares! All the Chinese I have talked to resent the extra privileges given to the Tibetans while the other poor Chinese ( farmers and migrant labour) cry for much needed assistance and welfare.The money ( tens of billions) could have been better spent on the poor Chinese.
However, when I see the shrill self-righteous choral condemnation of China who DID NOT USE lethal force to confront the Tibetan rioters, the racist media villification of everyone and everything Chinese, the complete lack of a reciprocal self-reflection of their own similar wrongs (on a larger scale) on the part of the vocal western protesters, the absolute lack of conscience and humility of the West to acknowledge their own sins, their refusal to make drastic compensation/restitution to their genocide victims , then we will purposely hold on to Tibet for several reasons:
(1) To stand up to your self-righteous and morally perverted attitude: that you can hold on to (and enjoy) the lands conquered through your aggression, suppression and genocide while others cannot, because you are white. We will not accept your ‘Might and white is always right’ principle.
(2) The Chinese have more legal justification to Tibet than you whites have to USA, Canada, Australia, N.Ireland etc. Send the case to the Hague Court and see. Do some research on the history of Tibet and China, please.I used to think that China has a weak case in Tibet, but, to my surprise, my research shows that every major western nation recognized (in treaties ) Tibet as an integral part of China for centuries. No western country has ever rescinded such treaties – Britain and USA both recognized Tibet was part of China.
During the Qing dynasty (300 plus years) Tibet was unequivocally recognized as part of China by Western powers.However, the cunning British did everything to chip and slice away Southern Tibet from China in its ‘Great game’ against a perceived Russian Threat and to create new markets for British India.Independent India later claimed this chunk of Southern Tibet( sliced away by the Brits thru the McMahon line and the infamous Simla Convention -not recognized by China)as their sacred land, leading to the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1963. British machinations in Tibet and later US/CIA support for the Tibetan rebels ( to punish Mao for defeating US forces in the Korean War in 1953) contributed to the persistent current cry for independence or the pretended call for ‘greater autonomy’ for Tibet.
If these two countries had not been so busybody in Tibet, she would long have been integrated with China.
During the Yuan dynasty(Mongols) Tibet was firmly ruled by the Mongols as part of the Chinese empire. The Ming Dynasty also saw Tibet as part of China.
(3)Don’t give me the crap that the Tibetans are ‘naturally peace-loving’ people.I am not talking about their relentless violence against Chinese people ( see YouTube for videos posted by white tourists)in recent riots, but about their history.
Google Tibet’s history ( eg. Wikipaedia)and you find (surprise!!) that they are a war-like race who were marauders into Chinese areas so often that the Chinese forces had to mount major expeditions against them, and that one Tibetan leader even demanded a Chinese princess for his bride. And please don’t cheat me that Tibet was a Shangri-la. Read Parenti’s history on Tibet ( it’s on YouTube). Tibetan society before Chinese entry was a feudal theocracy presided by didactorial monks over serf peasants. Unspeakable brutality was used by the clergy to suppress the serf peasants( watch Parenti’s videos on YouTube).CIA armed and funded a special Tibetan guerrilla army against the Chinese,and paid Dalai Lama a handsome stipend every year.
Please Google “Under the holy cloak of the Dalai Lama” and “Under the shadow of the Dalai Lama” and you will lose all respect for this Tibetan Lamaism and the Dalai Lama immediately.
(I USED TO THINK THAT DALAI LAMA WAS A GREAT HOLY PERSON, but the articles above shocked me and will shock you so much that you will never believe in any Holy Guru or crap religious lesder of any denomination.)
The revelatory books of the TRIMONDI couple who were longstanding disciples of the senior monks of this Lamaism will expose to you the TANTRIC OCCULT origins of Lamaism, the sexualperversions promoted by Lamaism(eg. using fresh virgins for older Lamas to achieve higher enlightenment). Read June Campbell’s book exposing the sexual aberrations of senior Lama monks, sexually abusing her. She and other women into Lamaism are now mounting lawsuits against senior Lama monks for sexual abuse. (Google these in “Under the Shadow of the Dalai Lama”).
Google also: Dalai Lama + Nazis
You’ll see the Holy dalai Lama hobnobbiong with senior evil Nazi Officers ( one is a senior SS Officer, another a Nazi Human experiment doctor like Dr. Mengele ) and with Chilean Nazi/ Miguel serrano, who believes Hitler will reincarnate again and with Augusto Pinochet, the brutal dictator of Chile.Any respect I had of Dalai disappeared with his chumminess with Nazi friends and fiends.
Christians in USA are warning us in the article ( Google it) ” The Buddhization of America” that this craze with Dalai Lama will capture large segments of the NON-CHRISTIAN Western population worldwide and will rule the world.The non-Christian whites of the West are as naive as the Moonies, the Hare Krishna followers, the fans of Some Swami Guru of Transcendental meditation ,etc. They will follow any cult.
Personally, if I were in power in China, I would throw Tibet away quickly. Their religion is too eerie, full of dark occult and the people love cult-worship, worshipping the living ‘god’ of Dalai.
Mr. LongWindedPoopbag (B.Singhdee)
Can’t you see in your diatribe that it is you who is the racist. White this, white that….blah, blah, blah.
And when you bring up the American Indian issue, did you ever think what the Chinese were doing during this time period 250 years ago? They were just like the rest of the world, having wars taking over territories, etc. Please get off your high horse and open a damn book before you waste your time with promoting hatred.
To Pacemaker,(Mr Self-righteous,Holier- than-thou, White -is might and- right Honkie , playing Almighty God)
Can’t you see in your western diatribes against the Chinese that it is you who is the racist. Chink this, chink that…blah, blah, blah…
And when you bring up the Tibetan issue, did you ever think what the whites were doing during this time period 250 years ago. They were just like the rest of the World and the Chinese ( really you are no better, and worse cos you conquered the WHOLE WORLD. Why this finger-pointing at the Chinese only?), having wars , taking territories, etc.
Please get off your (immoral) high horse and open many damned books before you waste your time with promoting hatred against the Chinese.
Let he/she without sin cast the first stone, Jesus said.( The men were about to stone a woman caught in adultery).
At least the Jews were humble and wise enough to refrain from doing so because they know that no one is without sin or flaw, but you westerners in this age think that you are so perfect that you can demonize the Chinese for a sin which you have been committing for ages, even today.
If you wish to judge and condemn other people, at least be a bit more humble and look into your own dirty sins first.
Do not judge or you will be judged. ( See this verse in the Bible , you self-righteous non-Christian! You would make a really good recruit for those terrorist organisations who think they alone are perfect.Really there is no difference between you self-righteous westerners and Al Qaeda. Both think they are the best and others are evil. That’s why you both are smooching each other!)
B.Singhdee
Please see a doctor about your mental condition.
[...] just as a Chinese student at Duke University who publicly reached out to Tibetans on her campus was vilified by her compatriots and even Chinese state-owned media, an exile Tibetan student at Harvard who had [...]
[...] Just Now Read About Grace Wang People are idiots in general. I feel so bad for this girl, and I think she’s [...]
If there is one point which is really remarkable in B. Singhdee´s gullable litany is the fact that this writer compares China’s treatment of Tibet to the often brutal treatment meted out by western countries to the inhabitants of their colonies. It is the first time that I am reading a passage written by a Chinese who indirectly admits that China’s behaviour towards Tibet has been and is atrocious, as atrocious as the behaviour of western countries has often been in history. This is really a remarkable admission by a Chinese. I can only say: congratulation to this exceptional self-criticism!
[...] People are idiots in general. I feel so bad for this girl, and I think she’s amazing. [...]