20160708 CNDY omPrintsite BSECT CHN-BRO LIF 008 020 ... · 20LIFE|People Friday,July8,2016...
Transcript of 20160708 CNDY omPrintsite BSECT CHN-BRO LIF 008 020 ... · 20LIFE|People Friday,July8,2016...
20 LIFE | People Friday, July 8, 2016 CHINA DAILY
TRAVELERS OF A HARD ROADNearly eightdecades since theLong March ended,only a handfulof the survivors arestill alive. SatarupaBhattacharjyainterviews twoveterans in Tongren.
HISTORY
Top: Long March veteran Meng Shaojin, 95, during the interview in Yinjiang county, Guizhou province. Above right: March veteran Huang Jianjun, 93, and his wife, ZhangChunyun, in a hospital in Tongren, Guizhou. Above left: The former house of Zhou Yiqun, a Communist patron, is turned into a museum dedicated to the campaign in thesame city. PHOTOS BY YANG JUN AND SATARUPA BHATTACHARJYA / CHINA DAILY
H uang Jianjun hasbeen staying atTongren City People’s Hospital for
the past four years owing tohigh blood pressure and ailments related to his heart andlungs.
He was in his early teens in1934, when a column of Communist troops was passingthrough his hometown inNorth China’s Shanxi provinceas part of the Long March,which was a strategic retreatover 24 months undertaken bythe Red Army since that yearto avoid being captured bythenruling nationalist Kuomintang forces.
The Red Army, the forerunner of the People’s LiberationArmy, lost thousands of itsmen and women during themarch from the country’ssouth to the north and west. Alarge number of civilians whofollowed the soldiers were alsokilled by the KMT and warlords, according to historians.
Tongren is a prefecturelevel city in Guizhou province, inthe country’s southwest,where Huang has lived sinceretiring as a PLA surgeon in1957.
Less than 15 such veteransare alive in Guizhou, local government officials say. Theyestimate that nationwide, onlya few dozen — mostly in their90s — remain.
Huang, 93, largely ranerrands for the Red Army during the march. He carried messages for the Communisttroops hiding in rural Shanxiand served in their makeshiftkitchens, he says in a very softvoice when asked about hisearliest memories of the campaign.
His second wife, ZhangChunyun, 80, relays hisanswers to make them audible during a recent interview.The former employee of a textile company has shifted toher husband’s hospital roomthat has a TV, cooking stoveand two beds, among otheritems of daily use. They liveon government pension.
Huang used to work at thesame hospital earlier.
“He (Huang) once wrotediaries about his days in theRed Army but doesn’t remember where they are,” Zhangsays.
She helps him wear hismossgreen military jacket,on which are pinned medalsfrom the several battles he
participated in, includingPingxingguan during the Japanese invasion in 1937 andLiaoshen from the civil war of1948. Huang treated soldiersinjured on the front lines.
“A simple way to stop infections from spreading was tocut off their (soldiers’) limbs,”Huang says of war scenes atthe time.
He learned surgery in thebattlefields from the lateCanadian physician NormanBethune, who was assistingCommunist troops in the1930s in China’s northern villages.
At a distance of some 120kilometers from Tongren isYinjiang,acountywhereMengShaojin, another veteran of the
march, lives. He too was in histeenswhenafactionof theRedArmy that was being led byarea commander He Long,visited his village in 1934 tomobilize local support.
Meng, now 95, betrayssigns of aging like Huang.Both have heavily pigmentedwrinkled skin on their handsand are hard of hearing. But
sitting at a restaurant that isby the side of a small river, ina blue shirt and dark trousers,Meng appears more collectedin his thoughts while talkingabout the march.
Along with an older brother, Meng had joined the village militia to helpCommunist troops. Theywalked long distances for
weeks, with spears in hand todefend against attacks by theKMT or local warlords, occasionally functioning as porters for the troops carryingcrops and goods from villageto village, his son, Meng Shaoping, says.
In October that year, whenthe troops were in Lan Bagou,a neighboring village surrounded by hills, they cameunder fire, Meng Shaojin says.
“The fighting startedaround noon. We were suddenly attacked by KMT forcesfrom up in the hills,” MengShaojin says.
Most Communist fightershad swords or spears. A fewhad the Tao Tong handmadeguns, he adds. He was in thevicinity when the bulletsstarted to rain from the otherside and was asked by a seniortrumpet player of the RedArmy to seek cover behind abig rock.
“It was fierce,” Meng Shaoping, 65, quotes his father astelling him later.
Many Communist troopswere killed and after thefighting was over, the remaining soldiers had dispersed.Meng Shaojin stayed underground for months fearing hewould be executed by KMTbackers if found. Slowly hereemerged in his village andtook up farming. He workedin the county’s forest department until 1957.
Among the 300 peoplefrom the county who hadbecome guerrilla fighters, 20were women, he says.
In nearby Yanhe county,40yearold Liu Yongpiao,says he is honoring the legacyof his late grandfather, LiuGuofu, a Communist guerrilladuring the march, by employing more poor villagers in hishoneysuckle and plums business.
Yang Jun and Dong Xianwucontributed to this story.
Contact the writer [email protected]
TECHNOLOGY
Innovator surges on with his dreams of the futureBy DENG [email protected]
The media has dubbed LiuRuopeng China’s Elon Musk,the founder of Tesla Motors,because of their similar entrepreneurial streaks.
Liu, 32, has launched a dazzling range of products oftenseen in scifi movies, such as ajetpack that propels a personinto space and body armorthat helps increase physicalstrength.
He called himself a “dreamer” during an interview withChina Daily after attending asectoral conference that wasaddressed by President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiangin Beijing earlier.
“I’m an innovator whowants to change the worldwith the power of science andtechnology,” says Liu, who hasfour listed companies.
He returned to China fromtheUnitedStates in2009andayear later set up his Shenzhenbased KuangChi Institute ofAdvanced Technology in thesouthern Guangdong province.
The institute now has about1,500 employees across theworld.
A fan of the fantasy genre,he says his hightech productsare designed for the future justlike in Hollywood films. “Ourjetpack is similar to the oneseen in Iron Man and our‘cloud’ in Big Hero 6.”
The “cloud” he talks about isa highattitude balloon capable of sending WiFi signals tomillions of people.
Liu attributes his success toa futuristic approach.
“At first I figure out what weneed in the future. Thereafter,I look for the technology support that would be necessaryto make them and finally I tryto make the products,” hesays.
Liu and his fellow researchers made a splash in the scientific community in 2009 afterthey published an article onthe invention of a Harry Potterlike cloak of invisibility inthe Science journal.
He was then doing his PhDin electrical and computerengineering at Duke University in the US.
The cloak is made of metamaterial that is created todeflect light on its surface.
Liu says the technology ofthe invisibility cloak is used inthe military while metamaterial is at the core of some of hishightech creations.
His Shenzhenbased institutewasauthorized inNovember to build the first State labfor the development of metamaterial electromagnetic
modulation technology.While Liu aspires to build a
global innovation business,some critics say he spendsmore time marketing his concepts than launching products.
“I welcome open discussions on our technologies andscientific research.But I refuseto give in to rumors or hurtfulwords,” says Liu.
“I have unveiled so many
products in a short time thatthe media and public mayneed more time to understandthat.”
When he returned to Chinain 2009, metamaterial wasthought to be pseudoscience.Even in the West, it was still acomparatively new concept,says Liu.
He and four other DukePhDsbegantheirresearchwithonly 200,000 yuan ($30,000)
in their pockets at the time.Liu says his father sold a car
to support his institute inShenzhen.
Setting up his Asian innovation center in Singapore inJune, the man now has branches in about 12 countries andregions.
“I try to finish the urgentwork at hand so that I can bewith my wife when she givesbirth to our baby later thisyear,” says a smiling Liu.
Liu’s wife used to be his doctoral schoolmate at Duke andnow works in the KuangChiInstitute of Advanced Technology.
Yue Yutao, 34, director of theresearch and developmentdepartment of Liu’s Shenzheninstitute, says: “Liu is alwaysfull of strange yet innovativeideas.”
Yue started to work therein 2011. He says Liu is “giftedboth in scientific researchand business management”.The word “tired” is not partof Liu’s life and his ambitious plans can easily excitepeople around him.
Liu draws his inspiration
from Isaac Newton, who in hiswords changed the world inmany ways.
Liu hopes he can be aninnovator who will make significant changes. He knowsthat the road will be a lonelyone.
Liu was born in Xi’an inNorthwest China’s Shaanxiprovince and later moved toShenzhen with his parents.
He says his school years inShenzhenand later in theeastern Zhejiang Universityturned him into an innovativeman who wants to breakboundaries in science.
Liu says that later thismonth his aircraft Traveler,with people on it will have atest flight over the XinjiangUygur autonomous region.Last June, the aircraft had itsfirst flight over New Zealand.
“Themostexcitingmomentsin my life come from successfullaunches of my hightech products,” says Liu, adding that theymake him feel the future ismuch closer to the present andthat’s why he calls himself a“future designer”.
Liu Ruopeng (right) describes himself as a “future designer”. The Martin Jetpack from his companylooks like the jetpack used in the Iron Man movies. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
A simple way tostop infectionsfrom spreadingwas to cut off their(soldiers’) limbs.”Huang Jianjun, veteran,says of war scenes in Chinaduring the 1930s and ’40s