xgz: Bend, Not Break: A Lie in Two Worlds (Part III)

The following post was published by xgz on The Daily Kos on February 5, 2013:

Mitt Romney was the champion of flip-flopping in 2012. But he only managed to do that over the course of a whole year, and he can claim that he merely changed his mind about what he would do if he were elected president, and that one is never sure about the future... 

Ms Ping Fu is no doubt the champion of flip-flopping in 2013. What is amazing is that she changed her mind about what happened in the past. Will she claim that one is also never sure about the past? 

Below is a compilation of Fu's own words against herself. 

Please also read part I and part II of this series. 

1. Ping Fu: Story of an Entrepreneur at 10:40

Fast forward 10 years, Cultural Revolution ended the year I was supposed to graduate from high school. I actually never went to school during the 10 years. I went to countryside planting rice fields.

Ping Fu: Clarifying the Facts in Bend, Not Break

After 1972, school resumed (p. 128). We had few formal classes at my school at the edge of Nanjing in an industrial area. I studied nonstop (pp. 229-231) and was known by my family as "the girl who never turns off her lights." (p. 231).

2. Tavis Smiley:  Entrepreneur Ping Fu at 7:22

First two months were just chaos, with those bitter meals, struggle sessions, those screaming at nobody. And I think it was about a year later, I was assigned to work in a factory. Some of the older kids gets to send to the countryside. But I was too young to do that. So I went to the factory to build radios and speedometers.

Ping Fu: Clarifying the Facts in Bend, Not Break

I did not say or write that I was in a labor camp; I stated that I lived for 10 years in a university dormitory on the NUAA campus. Chinese children don't get put in labor camps. I also did not say I was a factory worker. I said Mao wanted us to study and learn from farmers, soldiers and workers.

3. Ping Fu: Story of an Entrepreneur

Nowadays we know that during those times when I was in college, thirty million babies were killed. When I did the research, such a fact was not quite known by the press. When my research came out, the government and also lots of newspapers had not reported it. So they reported it. And that's the first time China admitted such a wide spread killings that existed. So the news immediately being covered by the international press, and steps by UN impose sanctions on China for human rights violation.

Ping Fu: Clarifying the Facts in Bend, Not Break

I remember reading an editorial in a newspaper in 1982 that called for gender equality. It was not a news article and not written by me, and I didn't know it had anything to do with my research (pp. 253-255). When writing the book, I did not name the paper, since I wasn't certain. However, I think that is where I read the editorial because it was the most popular and official newspaper. People who have not read my book made assumptions that I submitted the research to the newspaper, or I published the thesis, but that was not how I described it in the book.

4. Ping Fu: "Bend not Break", Authors at Google at 10:44

I was lucky that Deng Xiaoping had asked, "What happened to the reporter?" And they said, "Well we throw her in jail." And he said, "Why? This is not Cultural Revolution any more." But he didn't give any instructions so nobody knew what to do with me. And I was let out, and then two weeks later I was given a passport and told to leave the country.

Jenna Goudreau: 'Bend, Not Break' Author Ping Fu Responds To Backlash

Late last night, Fu’s publicist emailed me that they “confirmed that Ping started school in 1978 and left school in the fall of 1982 after being held by the government. She arrived in the U.S. on January 14, 1984.” So she was at home for over year before the police asked her to leave China? “The government asked Ping to leave a couple of weeks after her release,” the publicist wrote me. “However, getting a passport was very difficult, if not impossible, at that time. Even though Ping was asked to leave China, she had to wait for an official passport to be issued.”