Broken Fact: Fu Ping's 1977 College Entrance Exam

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, after the end of Cultural Revolution, Fu Ping got the opportunity to attend the newly reinstated college entrance exam. She wrote on Page 231:

Nine months later, in the spring of 1977, China held its first university entrance exams since 1966.... I raced to view the public bulletin board where the results were posted a few months later after the test. I had done it! My score was above the minimum require for acceptance.

... 

When the acceptance letter came in the fall of 1977, it said that I had been assigned to study literature at Suzhou University. 

The Changed Story:
After her tale being questioned, she published the following clarification:

Suzhou University did not reopen until 1982. How could you go there in 1977? 
A: This is a typo in the book (p. 232). I took the college entrance exams in 1977 and 1978, and was admitted in 1978. When I entered, I believe it was called Jiangsu Teachers College or Jiangsu Teachers University. Its name changed to Suzhou University before I left; it was the same university in the same location. 

The Debunking:
So Fu Ping actually took the exam twice and got in on the second try. It's amazing how she could forgot or confuse such a life changing event. But as we shall see, her explanation of "a typo" in her original story is simply not true.

The first national college entrance exam after the Cultural Revolution actually took place in December of 1977. Half a year later, another exam was held in July of 1978. Thereafter, exams took place every year in July. There was never any exam in the spring of 1977 or 1978.

On Page 232, after learning about her "assigned" major (we will come to that in next post), she wrote about her mother's reaction:

"Maybe you shouldn't go," Nanjing Mother advised, "You can get in trouble so easily with a degree in literature. Wait half a year until you can take the entrance exam again. You may get into a science program."

When Fu Ping took the exam second time in 1978, she should have learned the result some time in that August (instead of "a few months later" as she claimed in the book) and reported in school by September. If she adhere to her mother's advice, she would have to wait for almost an entire year to take the exam again, not "half a year."

Maybe her mother had this conversation with her after her failed first attempt. But then the whole premise of this conversation is lost. Her mother wouldn't be telling her not to go to school and she would be taking another exam anyway.

Again, this is not as simple as a "typo" and it's amazing how she could get this important story wrong in the autobiography. Maybe she was taking "literal license" to elevate the drama of her success with passing the exam on the first try. Maybe she had issues with separating fantasy with reality. The truth is that her fact is broken.

Questionable Fact: Dinner as Mao Died

The Original Story:
On Pages 226-227 in Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping describes how she learned Mao Zedong's death in 1976:

On my second day in Shanghai, Jie Jie took me to celebrate our reunion by going to eat at the only Western-style restaurant in town, Red House...We walked over half an hour through the bustling streets of Shanghai to the elegant restaurant, which spotted a bold red roof, and found a dozen patrons seated at tables inside...Jie Jie and I were so enraptured by our conversation and the tantalizing food that we paid no attention to our surroundings. Suddenly, about an hour into our meal, she gave me a puzzled look....Then the announcer's voice came on: "Our great leader Chairman Mao passed away today."

The Debunking:
Mao Zedong's death was such a shocking event at the time that everybody remembered where they were and what they were doing when the news broke out. So, it's not surprising that Fu Ping could recall the details of that moment.

What is questionable, however, is the timing in her memory. The news was broadcast at 4pm nationwide that day, which means Fu Ping and her sister would have started their meal around 3 in the afternoon. That was right between lunch and dinner time. Most, if not all, restaurants did not open during those hours. Apparently at this Red House, it was not only open but had a dozen patrons enjoying their mid-afternoon meal.

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Red Guard Photo

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping provided a photo of her in a group under a big Red Guard flag.

The photo was not mentioned directly in the book itself, but it has the following caption:

When I lived in the dormitories, I spent much of my time with students my age. During our mandatory study sessions, we recited slogans from Mao's Little Red Book. I am second from the right in the bottom row.

The Later Clarification:
After being widely questioned whether the picture shows that Fu Ping was a Red Guard herself, she clarified:

In the Fast Company story image, you and other kids are wearing Red Guard armbands under the Red Guard flag, yet you claim you were not a Red Guard.  

If you zoom into that picture, you only need to look closely to see I have no red band on my arm. The image was taken in front of a Red Guard flag at the school that I attended in the late 70s. I wrote in the book that the situation got better after 1972. Still, I was never a Red Guard. 

The Debunking:
There are several issues, some of which are blatant lies, in her clarification.

First of all, she now admits that she was attending school in the "late 70s". Yet her original caption was insisting that she was in "study sessions," not school. She was spending time with "students my age", implying that she was not a student herself.

She states that the picture was taken at the school, as if the flag was just a coincidental background. That is not true. The background of this picture is not any school, but a famous park in Nanjing. It is obvious that the picture was a record of an organized field trip in which they had brought out the flags and arm bands of the Red Guard to display their revolutionary spirits.

It is not as clear whether Fu Ping was wearing an arm band herself in the picture. She insists that she was not. But some people have taken up her challenge of zooming into that picture. The result may be convincing to some but skeptical to others. It is a case that you have to know what to look for to see it:

What is clear, however, is that most, if not all, other kids in the picture are wearing the Red Guard arm bands. It would be quite odd if Fu Ping was the only one without it and yet was allowed to join the group in their field trip.

In late 1970s, Red Guards was no longer their initial incarnation in 1966 but more or less an honor organization parallel to the Communist Youth League, which later absorbed and disbanded Red Guards altogether. Although no longer radical or violent, Red Guard nonetheless maintained a political standard that excluded "bad elements." Given that Fu Ping was possibly a member of the Red Guard herself, or at least very close to them, her entire story of being prosecuted during the Cultural Revolution has to be in serious doubt.

Update (6/20/2013): Suzhou University disclosed that their records show that Fu Ping had become a member of the Chinese Communist Youth League in 1973, before or when she started high school. The Youth League is the precursor organization for Chinese Communist Party and only very selective few could gain acceptance, unlike the Red Guards which had a much wider membership. It's extremely unlikely Fu Ping could gain acceptance of the Youth League without being a Red Guard earlier in those years.

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Actual Schooling

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, as well as many interviews, Fu Ping talked about her lack of the equivalent K-12 education in China because schools were closed during the Cultural Revolution years. On Page 128, she stated:

After 1972, when I was fourteen, Mao's iron-fisted grip on China loosened; ... I still had no life outside of caring for my family and working at factories, but political pressure against black elements lessened. Reading Western novels was no longer a crime deemed worthy of severe punishment. For a short period when Deng Xiaoping was brought into power, school even resumed. I was ecstatic to be given old poems from the Tang and Song dynasties to memorize rather than Mao's Little Red Book.

And on Page 230, in 1976:

The Cultural Revolution had ended. All at once, schools everywhere reopened -- not only universities, but also elementary, middle, high, and night schools began to offer classes literally from six a.m. until midnight every day. They opened their doors to the general public, and anyone who wanted to could teach or study at will, free of charge.

The Changing Story:
In a clarification, Fu Ping explained her education experience later:

If you were deprived of an education for those 10 years of the Cultural Revolution, and less than 5 percent of applicants were accepted when universities reopened, how did you get in? Were you a prodigy?  

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) 

The Debunking:
Fu Ping's initial story was that schools only resumed "for a short period" in 1972 and were only finally reopened in 1976, when she would have graduated from high school already. Therefore, she was deprived any formal education for those 10 years. Her later clarification moved that milestone significantly, admitting that schools had resumed after 1972. But that account, she would at least received 4 years of formal schooling.

But that is still not true. When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, all schools were closed amid the chaos. But order were generally restored by late 1968 when the early Red Guards were dispatched to countryside. Elementary, middle and high schools were all resumed at that time. Even universities had reopened, although only the "politically correct" workers, peasants, and soldiers were qualified to enroll as students (工农兵学员).

So, unless Fu Ping encountered some special circumstances in Nanjing, she should have entered school after 1968 and received 8 years of normal schooling, which is consistent with her later "middle school reunion" and "high school graduation".

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's "Study Sessions"

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping mentioned "study sessions" as frequent daily activities during the Cultural Revolution years. On Page 45:

Our time was occupied by study sessions, in which we did nothing but recite slogans from Mao's Little Red Book, and struggle sessions, in which we denounced ourselves and ate bitter meals. Otherwise we had most of our times free.

On Pages 79-80:

I had discovered that "broken shoes" was a label customarily given to prostitutes and promiscuous women. Teasing me with it seemed to be some children's favorite form of entertainment. One of our leaders, Ms. Lu, rearranged the study sessions to move a few of the boys who'd bullied me the most to a different class. But for some reason, Zhang stayed seated at the desk next to mine, tormenting me daily.
...
After that Zhang's taunting remarks grew less frequent and less hurtful. She asked me to complete other assignments for her over the coming months.

On Page 88-92:

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.

On Page 267, when a former classmate contacted her for a "middle school reunion":

It was Winston, a leader of my study group and the son of a high-ranking Red Army officer...He was pulling together a reunion of our study group as we were before we had all gone different ways at the end of the Cultural Revolution, and he wanted me to come to Nanjing to join in... 

"So you call that a middle school reunion?" I asked with a hint of sarcasm. 

Winston chuckled. "What else would you call it?"
...
Thirty years to the day since our study group had last sung "The East Is Red," i walked into a Nanjing restaurant for a gathering of former red leaders and black elements -- the abused and their abusers...

The Debunking:
From her own description, we can gather the following facts about these "study sessions" and "study group":

1. They are daily activities with formal schedules
2. They are organized into age-appropriate groups
3. Kids in the session have strict seat assignments
4. There are adult "leaders" who could rearrange seating and even assign kids to different "classes".
5. "Red" and "black" kids are attending the same sessions or groups together.

Indeed, "what else would you call it"? What Fu Ping was describing is typical life in regular elementary or middle schools, an experience that she insists that she never had. In those years, a major part of the curriculum in school was made up of studying Mao's quotations and other revolutionary materials, but that hardly makes schools into "study sessions," which were small-scale, informal gatherings, something resembling book clubs or bible studies.

Fu Ping would like us to believe that she was deprived a normal K-12 (or its equivalent in China at the time), but her book actually hinted an entirely different story.

Update (6/20/2013): Suzhou University disclosed that their records show that Fu Ping had graduated from Nanjing Guanghuamen High School in 1976.

Questionable Fact: Fu Ping's Actual Factory Job

The Original Story: 
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping described in substantial detail on how she worked in factories to build radios, speedometers, as well as being an electrician, all when she was 10-15 years old. We have already debunked that part of the story which she had partially retracted.

The last time she mentioned her factory work, the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end. On Page 147:

From age fifteen to eighteen, I worked on and off at a factory that made car parts.

and in 1976, she was working in a (probably the same) factory, P225:

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

To underscore it, the official book trailer on Amazon contained brief images of her factory worker ID:

The sensational narration in the trailer states:

For the next ten years, she fought hunger and abuse, serving her country as a child soldier and factory worker.

The Debunking:
The narration in the book trailer is certainly bending the truth as we already knew that she was never a child soldier or factory worker for that entire "ten years."

But the factory id (assuming that it is genuine) does prove that she had indeed been a factory worker in her grown up years, possibly after the high school graduation around 1976. This also matches with the photo on the id.

Before the national college entrance exam was reinstated in 1977, all high school graduates were supposed to be sent down to countryside for reeducation through labor. Only very lucky few were able to stay in the city and work in factories. According to Fang Zhouzi, a childhood friend of Fu Ping's indicated that the policy changed slightly when Fu Ping graduated and her parents were able to work out some magic with local authorities and helped her to obtain a factory job.

Even with the policy change, factory jobs were extremely prestige to young people at the time. The fact that Fu Ping's parents could make such an arrangement indicated that her family had substantial influence and power. That is a far cry from what Fu Ping claimed as a family that was under suppression and suffered throughout the entire Cultural Revolution.

Did she actually suffer during Cultural Revolution years?

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Military Camps

The Original Story:
Fu Ping mentioned her childhood "military training" a couple of times in Bend, Not Break. On Page 81, she met her first best friend:

I met Li at my second military training camp -- grueling events all youth were forced to attend at regular intervals throughout the Cultural Revolution. We were eleven years old.

On Page 143, a couple of years later:

I went back to factory work in 1971 at age thirteen, after having spent some time completing mandatory military service.

On the book page on Amazon, the Book Description section also boldly claims that "Ping Fu knows what it's like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner." The term "child soldier" also appeared in a few of her media interviews.

The Debunking:
At least when she was talking about military training camp, she said it was for "all youth" instead of the factory and countryside jobs that she claimed to be for "bad elements" only.

During Cultural Revolution, there were never any mandatory military training camps for kids 11 years old. Elementary, middle, and high schools, however, did have military training as part of their regular curriculum, in which pupils used wooden spears decorated with red tassels (红缨枪) and performed marches and drills under the guidance of soldiers and teachers. It could be physically "grueling" at times but was generally a fun activity for the kids.

What Fu Ping's story told us is that she was actually in regular school when she was 11 years old. If she was not at school as she has been claiming, there was no way for her to attend such organized activities, especially as a "black element."

For the second quote, I tend to think that she or Meimei Fox made a "typo" here and erroneously used the term "military service" instead of "military training camp." Typos, after all, are a mainstay in Fu Ping's defense of her book.

There has never been any mandatory military service for China's youth. Quite the contrary, joining the military has long been considered a privilege, especially during the Cultural Revolution years.

There was certainly no way a "black element" like Fu Ping could be serving military service, especially at 13 years old!