Bent Fact: Fu Ping's Early Work in Countryside

The Original Story:
Compared to factory works, Fu Ping spent much less time talking about her doing child-labor in farming in Bend, Not Break. The only significant mention is on Pages 142-143:

After just six months making speedometers, I was sent on rotation to the countryside outside of Nanjing for half a year. I found similar situation there -- the farmers were decent people. We black elements had to work hard and do our share without complaining about our aching bodies or the bloodsucking leeches that attached themselves to our legs in the rice fields... 

All in all, working in factories and on farms proved far better for me than my first two years of existence under the tyranny of the Red Guard. I wasn't being abused any more, and I had a tribe to belong to.

The Changing Story:
After her tale of forced labor being widely criticized, Fu Ping issued the following "clarification" on March 6, 2013:

Why did you say you were in a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution? 
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.  

The Debunking:
According to her book, this happened after she "built radios for almost a year" when she started that at 10. So one and half a year later, when she was around 12, she was supposed to be sent "outside of Nanjing for half a year."

Presumably that, at that time, her little sister who at 8 was old enough to take care of herself, a little detail Fu Ping forgot to mention in her book.

Mao wanted all the children to "learn from farmers, soldiers, and workers," not just those "bad elements". It was part of the normal education at the time, not a punishment. It might go as long as a couple of weeks but it was unimaginable to last for six months for kids that age.

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Early Factory Jobs

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping chronicled her experiences of working in factories throughout her early youth years. On Pages 137-149, she detailed her factory working from the age of 10 to 18:

When I was ten, several months after the attack on the soccer field and two years prior to the appearance of Uncle W and Nanjing Mother, I received my first factory assignment. A local Communist organization, in accordance with Mao's teachings, made arrangements for all the children of black elements in our area to be reeducated by workers. I was assigned to a stie about an hour's walk away from the NUAA dormitory. I would work there six days a week for six hours a day, with a two-hour break each day for a study session of Mao's teachings with other children.
...
I built radios for almost a year, completing on average forty to fifty a day... The following year, Wang was transferred to another department of the factory, where he would be making speedometers for cars. I went with him; it seemed we had become a team.
...
I went back to factory work in 1971 at age thirteen, after having spent some time completing mandatory military service.
...
From age fifteen to eighteen, I worked on and off at a factory that made car parts.

On Pages 88-92, she said (when she was about 12):

I had recently been assigned to a job at a nearby factory, and the next morning I rose early to walk to work. Hong went to a study session with kids her own age.
...
For the next several days, we followed the same pattern. In the morning, I would go to my factory job and Hong would go to her study session.
...
From then on, Uncle W and corresponded regularly, swapping letters several times each month. I wrote him about daily life, my factory job, and Hong when she got into trouble or amazed me by quickly picking up new skills.

Then, on Page 128, when she was 14:

I still had no life outside of caring for my family and working at factories, but political pressure against black elements lessened.

And finally, in 1976 as a grown woman, she was working in a factory when Cultural Revolution ended (Page 225):

I notfified my factory boss that I was heading off for two weeks, and he gave his approval.

For all this work, she accomplished quite a lot really early on (Page 84):

My life took another turn for the better shortly after my twelfth birthday. By then, I knew how to forage, grow, and cook my own vegetables, raise chicken, spin silk thread, build radios, march in military formation, remove leeches, operate milling machines, harvest rice, navigate cities without a map, and survive in wildness.

She also recounted the child labor years in several of her media interviews. For example, on Leopard Lopate Show on Jaunary 14, 2013:

Lopate: And then at 10 you were sent to work in a factory?
Fu: I started factory pretty early, I think even at 8. Soon after. A few months after.
Lopate: Were you getting any schooling at this time?
Fu: Not official, not the academic study. I did learn a lot by doing things.
Lopate: Well, what kind of factories were you working in?
Fu: When I was 8, I was there peeling plastic covers to separate them and then I started to build radios around 10.

The Changing Story:

After her tale of forced labor being widely criticized, Fu Ping issued the following "clarification" on March 6, 2013:

Why did you say you were in a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution? 
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. 

The Debunking:
There is really no need to debunk this one. Either she was lying throughout her book and her interviews, or she was lying in her clarification with "I also did not say I was a factory worker".

Chinese children "don't get put in labor camps", they don't work in factories when they were 8 or 10 years old either, Jay Leno's frequent jokes notwithstanding. Did Fu Ping actually work in factories? The answer is yes, after she had graduated from high school. But that's another interesting fact that deserves a separate post of its own.

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Years during Cultural Revolution

The Original Story:
Besides the various physical and mental abuses, including a grusome gang-rape, Fu Ping claimed to have suffered during the Cultural Revolution, in Bend, Not Break as well as numerous media interviews, Fu Ping maintained two main "facts" of her life in that terrible decade:

1. that she never received any formal education as in regular (the equivalent of K-12) schools
2. that she had been forced to work in factories, farms, and even be a "child soldier" in military camps

A couple of earlier media profiles of Fu Ping went so far as to claim that Fu Ping was sent to "concentration camp", "collective farm", or "labor camp", including the original title of the Forbes article that helped to start the controversy.

The Earlier Story:

There were no such claim in her earlier book Drifting Bottle. (This could be understandable since that book was published in China although it has been free and open to talk about sufferings during Cultural Revolution in China as well.) There were several casual mentions of regular education in China in that book, including this little sentence on Page 66:

I remember when I graduated from high school, all I wanted is to leave the warm cocoon of my parents. As if that as soon as I passed my 18th birthday, my wings became so strong that I had to fly. All the friends close to me were talking enthusiastically of how to fly freely. If not for an occasional hesitation at the time, I would have volunteered with a group of my classmates to go to Inner Mongolia for farming work.
记得高中毕业时，一心向往飞离父母的暖巢。仿佛一过十八岁，翅膀就硬得不飞不行了。而我身边的朋友，也都很起劲地商讨着如何去自由地飞翔。如果不是当时有一念之差，我就会跟着一群同学自愿去内蒙古垦荒了。

The Changing Story:

After her tale of forced labor being widely criticized, Fu Ping issued the following "clarification" on March 6, 2013:

Why did you say you were in a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution? 
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. 

The Debunking:

The above clarification by Fu Ping is clearly a lie as there are many instances in her book that she stated she was a factory worker. Although the phrase "labor camp" did not appear in her book or recorded interviews, one might be able to forgive Forbe's Jenna Goudreau for acquiring that mistaken impression from the tales she had been telling. We will get through that in more detail in separate posts following this one.

There are also evidences as well as hints in her book that she had actually attended regular schools in those years just as every other kid in China did, except for the first couple of years of the Cultural Revolution. The Drifting Bottle paragraph shows that she graduated from high school and had close friends and classmates, a much more reasonable tale than that she is telling today.

Fu Ping's clarification is actually a big hint in itself. It is true that Mao wanted school pupils to "learn from farmers, soldiers, and workers" (学工学农学军) during the Cultural Revolution and a large portion of the school curriculum at the time was devoted to such activities instead of classroom teaching. It is also a fact, however, that all such activities were organized by schools. For Fu Ping to have participated in these learning-through-labor experiences, she would have been in regular schools at the time.

Bent Fact: "Broken Shoe"

The Original Story:
One "evidence" that Fu Ping knew she was raped was that she was called a "broken shoe" after the attack. On Page 77 of Bend, Not Break:

After that day, Zhang spread word that I had a new nickname, "broken shoe" -- a shameful, denigrating expression implying that you are so worn down from overuse that you're no longer worth a penny. 

At age ten, I was a ruined woman.

Shortly after, on Page 79:

I had discovered that "broken shoe" was a label customarily given to prostitutes and promiscuous women. Teasing me with it seemed to be some children's favorite form of entertainment.

Then, two years later, enter the mysterious "Uncle W" on Page 89:

Uncle W's eyes searched my face as I spoke, as if he were looking for clues to my true identity. He asked a few questions, but delicately, so that they never felt intrusive. He was the first one to tell me that I had been raped -- and to explain what "broken shoes" really meant. He told me with a compassionate yet firm voice that it wasn't my fault.

The Debunking:
This timeline does not make any sense at all.

She had already figured out what "broken shoe" means shortly after the attack, how could Uncle W would be the first one to explain its meaning? Unless Uncle W provided a different version from her previous understanding. The last paragraph seems to indicate just that. Somehow Uncle W interpreted "broken shoe" as referring to a rape victim, thus he had to add that it wasn't her fault.

What was on Page 79 is the correct meaning of "broken shoe," which had nothing to do with being raped. Uncle W was wrong, and very strangely so.

While "broken shoe" was a fairly common insult in China, the only time it applies to kids as young as Fu Ping was at the time would be a prank among their peers, either as teasing or mean-spirited curse. But for kids using this term, they were just using it as a generic insult, not in its literal meaning. Fu Ping may have been called "broken shoe," but it would have very little to do with whether she had been a victim of rape.

Questionable Fact: Fu Ping's Injury During Rape

The Original Story:
On Page 77 of Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping describes what happened after passing out during a beating and rape attack:

The next thing I remember, I woke up at the NUAA health clinic. A kind nurse told me that I had sustained "deep cuts, a broken tailbone, and internal injuries." It had taken more than forty stitches to close the wounds. I carry the scar to this day. 

She was then sent home to recover for herself, which appeared to consist of purely bed-rest.

The Debunking:
Since Fu Ping has repeatedly stated that she still has the scar from that attack, we can believe that she was once beaten and suffered knife cuts over her body.

The questionable parts here are the other injuries or the lack thereof. There is no mention of any injury of sexual nature, which is quite unusual for a 10 year old being raped by a gang of 10 to 12 boys.

NUAA was not a very big school and a health clinic is not a hospital. As "xgz" had previously pointed out, it is unlikely that the clinic would possess an X-ray machine to diagnose broken bones. The fact that she did not get transferred to a hospital for treatment seemed to imply that her injuries were only superficial ones.

Questionable Fact: Perpetrators of Rape

The Original Story:
When Fu Ping tells the story of her rape, she has been inconsistent with who the perpetrators were, alternating between "a group of teenagers" and "the Red Guards". In Bend, Not Break, Page 75, she wrote:

I noticed a group of about ten teenage boys standing nearby.

In January, 2010, Fu Ping gave a Story of an Entrepreneur speech in North Carolina in which she stated:

My sister was thrown into a river to drown. I tried to save her and I was gang-raped by the Red Guards because I jumped into the river to try to save my sister.

On January 7, 2013, she told the Authors at Google program:

 I was gang-raped by a group of teenagers, broken, cut up with a knife.

Then, a week later, on WNYC's Leopard Lopate Show, she switched to Red Guards:

Lopate: So, the Red Guards raped you?
Fu: Yes. There were about 10 or 12 Red Guards. They threw my sister into the water canal. I jumped in to save her. She was saved but I was not spared.
Lopate: Now, the Red Guards were supposed to be the moral conscience of China at the time. How could they reconcile with what they did?
Fu: At that time, the Red Guards did a lot of things. Raping, killing, taking things from people. And it was encouraged. They were told that they were masters of the country. They were told that the bourgeoisie class had deprived them for better lives so they were allowed to do anything. It's kind of like the Nazis.

A couple months later, it was teenagers again in her speech at the Downtown Speakers Series in Las Vegas:

When I was 10 years old, I also experienced a very dramatic event. I was gang-raped by a group of teenagers, and i was left on the soccer field to die.

The Debunking:
Pretty much all Red Guard members were teenagers, but not all teenagers were Red Guards at the time. Fu Ping seems to be using the two terms interchangeably. But does the difference matter?

Fu Ping never stated it clearly either in her book or interviews, but it appeared that she knew at least some of the boys who attacked her. In Bend, Not Break, she described how the kids call out her and her assumed friend's name while beating her, indicating that they were local kids who knew her well. Therefore, it reasons that Fu Ping would know them and if they were Red Guard members.

If they were, why didn't she state so in her book?

In some aspects, the Red Guards in early days were indeed "kind of like the Nazis," or the Hitler Youth. They committed many brutal crimes, mostly destroying people's homes, public humiliation, and beating. Some of the beatings led to death directly or indirectly.

Just like Hitler Youth, however, Red Guards were doing such dirty deeds with a noble purpose, as they believed it was the only way to achieve a revolutionary victory. For that purpose, they did posses a special set of morality. While beating up and even killing enemies was an accepted behavior, rape was not.

This is not to say that there had been no rape committed by Red Guards. There were, especially in the later years when chaos and disillusion spread among their ranks. But those tended to be crimes committed by individuals in secret.

If the crime was not committed by Red Guards but common teenage hooligans, they would certainly be punished by the law enforcement, even when the victim was a child of "bad elements."

China traditionally punishes crimes committed by groups (perceived as some sort of organized entity) a lot more harshly than those by individuals. It's one of the reasons that gang-rape has been much less wide-spread than individual rapes. Gang rapes involving a group as large as 10 would be very rare indeed.

Fu Ping's tragedy not long involved a group of that size, it also occurred openly in the public soccer field under daylight. There were other children (who called Fu Ping out in the first place) present. Whoever sent Fu Ping to the clinic afterwards must have also witnessed it. And, by the description of the book, those rapists did not bother to hide their deeds either.

It is possible that some horrendous crimes escaped punishment in those chaotic years, but the way this crime was carried out showed an unusual degree of boldness that made it less than credible.

Questionable Fact: The Evolution of Fu Ping's Gang-Rape Memory

The Original Story:
In her book and various media interview, Fu Ping claimed that she had been gang-raped when she was only 10. It is one of the most sensational stories in her life. In Bend, Not Break, she recalls the gang-rape episode throughout different stages of her life.

First, when it happened: On Pages 75-77, she told the story of how, on "one lazy, hot summer afternoon," she was lured out of her room because her sister was thrown into a river and she rushed out to save her. She was then surrounded by "a group of about ten teenage boys" who took her to the soccer field and brutally beat her up:

For a few nightmarish moments, all I could do was feel the boys cutting my clothes off, the knife ripping into my armpits and my bare stomach, and the pain of something blunt pressing between my legs. I lost consciousness. 

The next thing I remember, I woke up at the NUAA health clinic. A kind nurse told me that I had sustained "deep cuts, a broken tailbone, and internal injuries." It had taken more than forty stitches to close the wounds. I carry the scar to this day. 

I did not understand what had happened to me or why, and I wouldn't for several years. We received no sex education in China and I had no parents or guardians to explain to me that I had been gang-raped. I thought the boys had beaten me up badly, which was cruel, but I didn't realize that what they'd done had brought deep shame upon me.

Then, two years later, she told a visiting "Uncle W" of her attack, on Page 89:

Uncle W's eyes searched my face as I spoke, as if he were looking for clues to my true identity. He asked a few questions, but delicately, so that they never felt intrusive. He was the first one to tell me that I had been raped -- and to explain what "broken shoes" really meant. He told me with a compassionate yet firm voice that it wasn't my fault.

After confiding to this "uncle" she just met, she chose not to tell her own mother, who came back half a year after Uncle W's visit (Page 126):

Nanjing Mother had never asked and I never did tell her about the rape, though I suspect at some point she guessed what had really happened. 

Finally, some time in 2005, when Fu Ping was about 47 years old. She was invited to attend a leadership training that involved "a guided hypnosis session," during which she had a sudden, unexpected mental breakdown (Page 222):

I saw blood. I saw the guts of my teacher splattered across a lawn. I saw my journals burning. Then, for the first time in my life, vivid details of the rape flooded my brain. I saw the faces of my attackers twisted into sneers. I heard them shouting, "Beat her!" I felt the sharp pain of something entering me between my legs.

The Debunking:
In a nutshell, Fu Ping did not know she was raped when it happened. The "kind nurse" who cared for her did not mention any injuries of sexual nature, which should have been severe for a 10-year-old girl after a gang-rape. Yet she was released from the clinic right away. (We will have more on the clinic and injuries in a separate post.)

"Uncle W" was a "middle-aged man" and a distant relative who came to visit Fu Ping out of blue when she was 12 years old and befriended her right away. This part of the story is truly unsettling: What kind of a middle-aged man who heard a girl that young -- who he just met -- recalling a beating that happened two years ago would immediately jump to the conclusion and inform the poor girl that she had been raped?!

Other than this mysterious "Uncle W," however, there is no mention of Fu Ping talking to anybody else about this tragedy. Not even her Shanghai mother, who she regarded as the dearest to her, she had visited quite a few times during the same time period. The sentence above she used to explain not telling her biological mother sounded strange -- how would the mother suspect or guess that she had been raped if she didn't tell, just because she was teased by other kids as a "broken shoe"?

As if that was not bizarre enough, Fu Ping would, many many years later and for the first time in her life, saw her attackers' faces and felt the sharp pain of penetration while being hypnotized. Is this gang-rape event a socalled "suppressed memory" that "Uncle W" had at least helped seeding?

Or, could it be another occurrence of the author's "emotional memory"?  After all, in the exact same "awakening," she had also seen the guts of her teacher splattered across a lawn, a "vivid detail" that she could no longer be certain about.

How believable is her story then? We can't know for sure. But in the next several posts we will look into more details of this dark episode.