Bent Fact: The Ghetto at NUAA

The Original Story

In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping describes how she was led to an old student dorm in NUAA and found her little sister there. On Page 28:

Along with several dozen other children who either wept or wore blank expressions, I was escorted up to the second floor of the dormitory. At the top of the stairs, I gazed, terrified, down a long, dark hallway illuminated by a single lightbulb that hung by a wire from its socket. Identical rooms lined each side. The door hinges all were smashed, leaving the doors hanging at a slant.

She went on to say how the room had no sink, water basin, or toilet. Then, on Page 32, she observed the same hallway in the morning:

There were people in the corridor, their faces no more distinguishable in the dim light than pancakes. Many seemed to be Red Guards who had taken up residence with their families; others were orphaned children like me.

So, this dorm room was not a designated residence for children of bad elements. It is a mixed with the all-powerful Red Guards and their families. 

However, in versions she told the press in many interviews, this fact was conveniently dropped and the dorm became a punishing ghetto for the unfortunates only. For example, here is what she said on Jaunary 14, 2013 on the Leopard Lopate Show:

Lopate: You just lived in a school dormitory? 

Fu: Yeah, they put us into the emptied university dormitory which is kind of a ghetto for all the "black elements" kid.

Just so that there is no misunderstanding of her usage of the word "ghetto," she has this passage on Page 44 of Bend, Not Break:

My German neighbor in Shanghai had told me once about how German soldiers had taken millions of Jews like him out of their homes during World War II and forced them to live in "ghettos" before burning them up in ovens. Is that why we had been brought here to live in this ghetto? Was mass extinction awaiting us? Were they going to starve us first, or put us straight into ovens and burn us alive?

The usage of "ghetto" must have left a strong impression that, when Forbes first published a profile based on her book, they titled it as "One Woman's Journey from China's Labor Camp to Top American Tech Entrepreneur". It was only after a backlash of questioning that the magazine changed its title, no using the term "labor camp."

The Debunking:

The conditions of the university dorm sounded horrendous. But for China in the 1960s, the lack of indoor plumbing, the barrack-style hallway and tiny, identical rooms were the norm of universities and other government facilities. Some might even say it was an above-average living compared to other living conditions. Claiming such condition as that of a ghetto is a grave exaggeration.

In her book, Fu Ping speculated that all door hinges were deliberated damaged so that they could not lock them for privacy. This did not make any sense with Red Guard families living on the same floor. Wouldn't they want some privacy for themselves?