An American Communist in China
The man in this interview has a fascinating story. Sidney Shapiro or 沙博理 has lived through Mao’s China into Hu’s China. Now in his 90’s, he enjoys a quiet life in his adopted home in Beijing. He is one of the few hundreds of ‘communist sympathisers’ (for lack of a better term) who joined the Communist Party’s effort in building the PRC. Most of them left China forced by circumstances. But Shapiro managed to stay.
Trading his U.S. citizenship for Chinese and joining the Communist Party all makes him seem like a fanatic and regime collaborator. But in fact he came to China by chance, and it was through the force of daily life engulfed in earth shattering historical developments that has shaped his life rather than a single burning belief. Perhaps our lives are always a bit more interesting in other’s view.
And speaking of Communists, you will be surprised to find what a modern day communist is like. A few of my friends are registered party members. They work in media, drink Starbucks and watches Lost. Joseph McCarthy would be stunned.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 5:50 pm and is filed under inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
5:05 am on September 11th, 2008
My eyes were opened to whatad it is to be a communist in a communist country a few months ago when I was reading a fictional diary type book called “Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers” (at least that’s a close approximation of the title).
It’s hard for me to put into my own words but it certainly is not the anti-communist propaganda hype I was brought up on. Not that Australia is a big anti-communist country but you can’t live in a western country and not be affected in some way by all the movies and tv shows that touch on the subject.
The thing that really gave me the realisation was on the topic of ‘work units’ and how much each person depends on the unit, and how much the unit depends on the ‘one’. It’s not some autonomy of mindless drones working for the motherland… it’s about having a purpose to being a single person within a nation of over a billion… being part of something greater than yourself.
So much of my life, and those around me, in Sydney is spent looking out for number one (self) even when working as part of a team at the office or similar.
What I find hard to understand is the class/caste system that exists within that communist whole. I realise that there must be leaders, and that some peoples’ jobs are more highly valued to society than others but why does this transfer over into daily life?
I read somewhere once about the difference in importance of different jobs in society and it was pointed out at how important some of the often considered lower paid jobs are just as important, if not more important, than the highr paid jobs. The example they used was a ‘garbage collector’. At face value, this is a low-level job… but think of how our lives would be with out them..? There would be a huge piles of trash everywhere!
12:57 pm on November 29th, 2008
Because of the Cold War, “Communist” has a negative connotation in English. When I first saw your title, I thought you were writing in opposition to Mr Shapiro. In any case, thank you: good post.
由于冷战，在英文“共产主义”这个词有不好的含义。这样我一看你的标题，就觉得你是要抗议沙博理先生。反而谢谢你这个博客，写得蛮好。
9:58 am on November 30th, 2008
Ben,
It’s like our reaction to the word ‘capitalism’ for a prolonged period of time. But fortunately we’ve moved on. Thank you for your encouragement!
9:02 am on December 1st, 2008
was it really because of the Cold War that Communist does have a bad connotation? what about gulags and the genocide of the kulaks in Ukraina? those events were independent from Cold War, most of it occured before WWII. If the US had remained neutral throughout WWII (as the like of Gore Vidal wanted) it woud still have condemned what the Nazis did to the Jews.
Communism wasn’t any better than Nazism, and it would be very good for communists to endure the same moral stigma that neonazis bear now.
12:35 pm on December 24th, 2008
Interesting post — thanks!
I was given “The Man Who Stayed Behind” last summer, which is the autobiography of Sidney Rittenberg (李敦白), another American who ended up in China by chance and stayed there for most of his life. He was with Mao in Yanan, and one of the few foreigners allowed to join the Communist Party at the time. It is a fascinating story — you should check it out if you’re looking for a book to read while it’s cold outside!
2:39 pm on December 24th, 2008
Ted,
I read that Sidney Rittenberg and Shapiro later became bitter enemies, each believing they preserved more integrity during the upheavals in China and had more objective views about what happened in the country. Another interesting book I came across is ‘The Man who Loved China’, which chronicles the life of Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, his fascination about China and the pursuit for why China’s creativity stagnated in the 16th century.