Broken Fact: The Brutal Killing of Teachers

The Original Story:
On Page 44 of Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping told this unusually gruesome story:

On one afternoon, the Red Guards gathered us to watch a teacher be thrown head first into a deep well, and another quartered by four horsemen on the soccer field. Later they beat to death an older boy for a prank he had pulled involving a cat because the Chinese word for cat, mao, has the same pinyin spelling as Chairman Mao's name, differing only by a subtle tone change. Crime and punishment were meted out haphazardly, so no one among us black elements ever felt safe.

She recited the same story to Dick Gordon on the American Public Media's The Story show on March 9, 2010:

When we first got together in the dormitory, they gathered us all to a soccer field. It's a big soccer field in the middle of the living quarter of the student dormitory. They killed two teachers right in front of us to scare us. So, they basically said that, if you dare to say anything wrong or do anything wrong, this is what gonna happen to you. One teacher was tied up on 4 horses on the field and, when the 4 horses going 4 different directions and she just got split. We were forced to watch it. That was in the first 10 days I was there.

The Changed Story:
After Fang Zhouzi openly questioned her tall tale involving four horses, Fu Ping made the following clarification on March 6, 2013:

To this day, in my mind, I think I saw it. That is my emotional memory of it. After reading Fang's post, I think in this particular case that his analysis is more rational and accurate than my memory. Those first weeks after having been separated from both my birth parents and my adoptive parents were so traumatic, and I was only eight years old. There is a famous phrase in China for this killing; I had many nightmares about it. 

The Debunking:
To Fu Ping's credit, this is the only occasion so far that she has publicly recanted a portion of her story, although she chose to hide behind the phrase "emotional memory." As Fang Zhouzi had already decisively pointed out -- and Fu Ping concurred -- the four-horse-style execution is only a legend and impossible to carry out in real life.

Fu Ping's candid admission showed that she may have trouble separating her imagination (nightmares) from reality, which actually could explain a lot of discrepancies we are debunking in her story.

She also chose not to respond on questions of the other two killings. Some readers have investigated NUAA campus and concluded that there was never a deep well near the soccer field. During the Cultural Revolution, many people had suffered unexpected, and some lost their lives, due to unfortunate word associations, but that between "cat" and Chairman Mao had not shown up in all the existing literature.

The Telegraph: Doubts over Chinese Author Lauded by Michelle Obama

The following "Book News" was written by Felicity Capon and published on The Telegraph on February 5, 2013:

Ping Fu's descriptions of a tormented childhood growing up during China's cultural revolution fiercely criticised 

Doubts have arisen over the veracity of an autobiography written by the executive of a major US technology firm. 

In Bend Not Break, Ping Fu describes the horrors of growing up during China’s Cultural Revolution and her remarkable rags-to-riches tale that saw her become the chief executive and co-founder of the 3D software company Geomagic. She was named Inc. Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005 and was invited by Michelle Obama to the White House after the 2010 State of the Union address. 

The book describes how Fu was forcibly removed from her family by the Red Guards and sent to a re-education camp where she was starved, tortured and gang-raped, forced into child labour and deprived of an education. 

But her claims are now being challenged by several readers and Chinese critics who suggest her version of events may be exaggerated or fabricated. 

In one interview, Fu has described how she was forced to watch a teacher torn apart by four horses. 

But the influential Chinese blogger Fang Zhouzi claims that there is no evidence to suggest that such a barbaric act ever took place and considers it an unlikely practice at that time in China’s history. No witnesses have come forward to corroborate the claims. 

Indeed, Fu has now accepted that this detail could have been an “emotional memory”, confessing that her nightmares have blended into her memories: “Somehow in my mind I always thought I saw it, but now I’m not sure my memory served me right. I probably saw it in a movie or something, and I acknowledge that’s a problem.” 

Other questions have arisen in relation to her alleged deportation from China to the US. According to the book, Fu was forced to leave because of her thesis on female infanticide, which was published by the People’s Daily. This subsequently led to an international outcry and her detention. 

Yet the likelihood that the newspaper would ever have published such a piece has attracted widespread doubt. 

“In fact anyone with a bit of political common sense knows that People's Daily at that time was full of nothing but glorious and wonderful news and it's impossible anything affecting China's image as much as this would've received coverage,” commented Fang. 

Fu has attempted to defend herself against the allegations in a blog post for the Huffington Post: “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…People who have not read the 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.” 

As a result of the negative publicity surrounding the book, ratings on Amazon.com have plummeted, gaining a meagre 1.6 star rating. Vitriolic responses from Amazon users have flooded in, accusing Fu of being a liar, which has led some news outlets to suggest that critics are simply unhappy about the book's "airing of China's dirty laundry". One comment read “ It is too bad that innocent American people have to learn about China, Cultural Revolution and Chinese people through this kind of lies” – a statement widely echoed across the book’s webpage. 

Adrian Zackhein, the president of her publisher, Porfolio, commented: “We are proud of the book, and of Ping, and of her perseverance. Ping worked hard to get her facts right, but it’s her memory that she’s offering…it’s a personal memoir that’s written with candor.”

Fang Zhouzi: Fu Ping's "Legendary Life"

On January 28, just a few days after the initial Forbes profile on Fu Ping was published and then subsequently made available in its Chinese site, Fang Zhouzi wrote the following blog to question Fu Ping's story. This would turn out to be the first in a series of such blogs.

In this blog, Fang Zhouzi focused on a few stories Fu Ping told the public media in several of her interviews, including:

1. Fu Ping and her younger sister were too young to be sent to a labor farm as reported by Forbes. Forbes later corrected this error from its title and story.
2. How could Fu Ping get into college in 1977 with her "black" family background and no formal education?
3. Fu Ping's story of being forced to witness a teacher being killed by four horses.
4. Fang Zhouzi searched the archives of People's Daily around the time of Fu Ping's alleged arrest and found no article about the subject of infanticide.
5. He also pointed out that it's impossible for UN to sanction China, a member with veto power.
6. It's ridiculous for the Chinese government to resort to a mafia-style operation to arrest Fu Ping in 1981.
7. It's also ridiculous that someone got in political trouble with the government at that time could be deported.
8. The many different versions of "three English words" clearly indicated that Fu Ping knew more than three words when she landed in the United States.

For those who can read Chinese, below is the original text of this blog:

傅苹的“人生传奇” 

　　近日国内门户网站和微博公知都在传福布斯中文网的一篇报道《从劳改犯到高科技企业家：傅苹的人生路》，傅苹被称为“3D打印机的创始人”——其实她和她的前夫创建的杰魔公司（Geomagic）是做3D数据采集、分析和建模的，并非做3D打印机；又被称为“奥巴马团队的人”——其实她只是美国商业部组织的创新和创业国家咨询委员会（National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship）的二十多个委员之一。福布斯的这篇报道，是为傅苹新书《弯而不折》（Bend, Not Break）造势的众多报道之一，关于她在中国的经历，离奇得让人难以置信。 

　　该报道称，傅苹在文革期间，“离开父母身边后，傅苹需要照顾自己和年幼的妹妹，在南京劳改队里度过了十年。她在那里接受思想改造，忍饥挨饿，饱受折磨，惨遭轮奸，被迫在工厂里当了一名童工，没有接受良好的教育。” 

　　傅苹出生于1958年，文革期间她还未成年，未成年人和年幼妹妹被送进劳改队的，闻所未闻，不见于其他人回忆文革的任何资料，算是傅苹一个人的独特的残酷经历吧。问题是，1977年文革结束恢复高考，傅苹就考上了苏州大学（苏州大学是1982年才办的，也许她上的是其前身江苏师范学院）。1977年的高考是要政审的，傅苹既然一直在劳改队，怎么通过的政审？1977年的高考竞争极为激烈，录取率不到5%，傅苹既然是在劳改队长大的，没有接受良好的教育，她是怎么考上苏州大学的？天才吗？ 

　　福布斯的报道称，傅苹回忆：“我们被告知自己身份低下——我们的父母犯下了反对人民的罪行，我们待在这里替他们赎罪。他们给我们吃泥土和树皮。我们还被拉到现场，亲眼看到我们的老师被杀害。” 

　　在2010年傅苹接受美国国家公共电台（NPR）的采访时，说红卫兵为了吓唬他们这些黑帮小孩，在他们面前处决了两名教师，其中一名教师是用四马分尸的方式处死的：身体被绑在四匹马上，马朝四个方向跑，身体被撕裂了。 

　　关于文革虐杀的情形，有很多回忆，有活活打死的，有活埋的，但四马分尸的酷刑，也是闻所未闻，只见于傅苹的口中。问题是，按她的说法，这并非像她被轮奸那样死无对证，劳改队的其他小孩也都被集中起来目睹了，为什么这些小孩没有一个人后来出来说他们见过如此奇特的惨无人道的一幕，难道这些小孩都死绝了？ 

　　要把一个大活人用四马分尸，说起来容易，做起来难，光是要找到四匹训练有素的马就不容易，红卫兵如此大费周章处死一个人，就为了吓唬小孩？中国传统有五马分尸的说法，那是对车裂的通俗说法，车裂时犯人是被绑在马车上的，而不是直接绑在马上，用马车显然更容易操作。而且车裂是酷刑之最，在中国历史上就没有搞过几次，每次都有记载，五代之后就绝迹了。四马分尸是古代西方的酷刑，竟在20世纪60年代的中国南京被红卫兵复活了，这中国历史上的首个活人被四马分尸，傅苹是唯一的公开的亲历者，不值得酷刑研究者找她好好探讨吗？把受害者和其他目睹者查个清楚吗？ 

　　福布斯报道说，“在（苏州大学）毕业前几个月，傅苹发表了一篇毕业论文，讨论中国农村溺杀女婴的现象，引起了全国新闻界的关注。但她也因此入狱，被判劳教。” 

　　2005年傅苹接受《公司》（Inc.）采访时，对这段经历说得更详细：1980年她向教授递交了关于中国农村溺杀女婴的现象的论文。几个月后，1981年1月，上海最大的报纸（在电台采访中，她说是《文汇报》）报道了她的研究结果。随后《人民日报》也报道了。然后引起了国际舆论谴责，联合国对中国实施制裁。于是在1981年2月，她被关进监狱。 

　　我检索了1981年1～2月的《人民日报》，并没有关于傅苹或有关中国农村溺杀女婴的报道。实际上有点中国政治常识的人都知道，那个时期《人民日报》关于国内的新闻都是歌功颂德的，怎么可能有这种影响中国形象的报道呢？说联合国制裁中国，也是没有常识的说法，联合国怎么可能去制裁安理会常任理事国？她不知道中国作为安理会常任理事国对联合国的制裁决议有否决权吗？为什么没有其他中国人知道联合国曾经在1981年制裁中国？傅苹是怎么知道的？ 

　　在接受美国电台采访时，傅苹对自己被捕的经历描述非常有戏剧性：她在校园里走，突然被人用黑布套住头，塞进车里带走……这完全就是黑帮电影里的镜头嘛。在1981年，中国公安要在中国大学校园带走一个学生，竟不敢光明正大地来？ 

　　据《公司》的报道，傅苹只是被关了三天就放出来了，并没有被判“劳教”，而是判决把她驱逐出境，驱逐去美国留学。两周后她被送往去美国的飞机，到新墨西哥大学学英语，她说她不知道为什么要被送去那所大学。 

　　因为写了一篇负面报道的论文，就被驱逐去美国留学，天底下居然有这样的好事？中国判决驱逐出境只限于对外国人，到90年代才有把异议人士赶到美国的做法，那也只限于非常著名的异议人士。傅苹当时是一个默默无闻的大学生，就享受了驱逐到美国留学的待遇，那真是个奇迹。在80年代初要自费去美国留学，是多么困难的一件事，没有特殊的海外关系，根本不可能实现。 

　　她说她不知道为什么会被送去新墨西哥大学，但是在其新书《弯而不折》中，她却说她到达美国后，试图和一个姓盛的先生联系，此人是她父亲的学生（她父亲是南航的教师），她去新墨西哥大学是盛先生联系的。 

　　福布斯的报道说：“傅苹在美国开始了她的新生活，当时她独自一人，身无分文，只会说3个英文单词。” 

　　傅苹在接受采访时，多次说她刚到美国时只会说3个英文单词。但是对哪3个英文单词，她每次的说法却不一样。《公司》说这三个单词是please, thank you, help。其新书的介绍说这三个单词是thank you, hello, help.（http://www.bendnotbreak.com/about.php）她接受NPR采访时，说这三个单词是thank you, help, excuse me。把这三种说法综合起来，都有五个单词了。 

　　据《公司》报道，傅苹去苏州大学时，是想学工程或商业，但是党分配她去学英语，怎么可能只会三个英语单词呢？即使她不是英语专业的，上大学期间总要上英语公共课的，即使没学好，又怎么可能只记得最简单的三个英语单词呢？ 

　　所有这些说法，都只能骗骗对中国情况不了解的老外。傅苹也知道这一点，所以当她面对中国人时，就老实多了。比如她在接受美国之音中文部的采访时，对她在文革期间的经历是这么说的： 

　　“在中国的时候，我成长的时候是文化大革命，没有读过什么书，大多就是下乡、学农、学工那样的经历。”http://www.voachinese.com/content/article/460383.html 

　　下乡、学农、学工，不就是当时所有中国学生的普通经历吗？有什么稀奇的？怎么一面向美国英文媒体，就换了另外一幅嘴脸？福布斯的报道原本是英文的，她大概也没有想到会被翻译成中文并广为传播吧？ 

　　真实的情况可能是这样的：相比于当时的其他中国学生，傅苹在文革期间受到了比较好的教育——毕竟她有一个在大学当教师的父亲，所以高考一恢复她就能考上大学。大学毕业后，又通过她父亲的关系，到美国语言学校读书，后来去读计算机科学的学位。她说她留学期间是通过当清洁工、在餐馆打工来谋生的，这属于非法打工，且不去管她。当时的中国留学生，为了能在美国留下来，会想尽各种办法。其中一种做法是编造自己在中国受迫害的离奇经历申请政治避难。反正再离奇的经历，美国人也会信以为真的。有的人编着编着，连自己也当真了。

Fu Ping: Clarifying the Facts in Bend, Not Break

Amid a major "backlash" to her life story, Fu Ping published a blog on Huffington Post on February 1, 2013, in an attempt to clarify her facts. While answering some of the questions raised, she avoided other more significant ones. She also insisted on what was in her book Bend, Not Break, even though she had frequently told different versions of the same "facts" in her various online interviews, see "In Fu Ping's Own Words" here. She did clarify, however, that the infamous "four-horse story" is likely only her "emotional memory."

An article about my book, Bend, Not Break, which appeared in Forbes and was translated into Chinese for ForbesChina.com (this link is to a Google English translation), contained several inaccuracies in wording. The posts have since been corrected. Meanwhile, Chinese blogger Fang Zhouzi posted a story in which he questioned my credibility, and John Kennedy reacted to that blog in the South China Morning Post. Though factually correct based on the original version of the Forbes article, both Fang and Kennedy made comments based on inaccurate information, rather than on material actually printed in the book. I would like to respond to their comments, as well as the comments of other critics who have since posted to various websites attacking the authenticity of my story. 

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. 

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) 

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. 

In a 2010 NPR interview, you say you saw Red Guards execute one teacher by tying each limb to a separate horse and dismembering her by having each horse run simultaneously in a separate outward direction. During the Cultural Revolution, dismemberment using four horses was unheard of and would have been quite difficult. This was a legend from several hundred years ago. 

To this day, in my mind, I think I saw it. That is my emotional memory of it. After reading Fang's post, I think in this particular case that his analysis is more rational and accurate than my memory. Those first weeks after having been separated from both my birth parents and my adoptive parents were so traumatic, and I was only eight years old. There is a famous phrase in China for this killing; I had many nightmares about it. 

You claim you were brutally gang-raped. Gang rape doesn't happen in China. 

A: Rape is a very private matter and this definitely happened. I know this was not a hallucination. I have scars. My body was broken. 

In the Forbes piece, you say you wrote your undergrad thesis at Suzhou University on the practice of female infanticide in rural China. Your research received nationwide press coverage at the time, and you were sentenced to exile as a result.NOTE: The Forbes editorial mistake noting that I "published my thesis" on female infanticide in rural China has been corrected. 

I said I was asked to leave quietly. I did not say my research was published; it was never published. I was told that the reason I was arrested was because of my research (book p. 257). 

In the 2005 Inc. Magazine article, you explained that your findings on female infanticide were later covered by Shanghai's Wen Hui Bao newspaper and later then by People's Daily, resulting in condemnation from around the world, sanctions imposed by the UN, and you getting tossed into prison. People's Daily archives for the period when your research would've been published have nothing regarding female infanticide in rural China. 

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. 

Why does nobody else in China know that the UN placed sanctions on China in 1981? And how do you know that? 

A: I heard about the sanctions in China while awaiting my passport. I was told that the UN was unhappy about this issue. A quick web search shows that the American-based journalist Steven W. Mosher wrote about female infanticide in China in 1981. His book, called Broken Earth, was published in 1983 -- the same year I was waiting for my passport. Knowing this, it makes sense that I was asked to leave quietly. Anything else would have drawn more attention to the issue. According to the Los Angeles Times, Mosher successfully lobbied George W. Bush to cut UN funding for China. His story and the timeline are consistent with my experience. 

You say you were walking on campus when a black bag was suddenly thrown over your head and you were stuffed into a car before being arrested? 

Yes, this is how it happened. I never returned to classes and I did not graduate. My classmates were told that I had a mental breakdown. After my release, I did what I was told and laid low at home (book, p. 255, pp. 258-259). I originally had been planning to go to graduate school to study comparative literature in Nanjing, but that could not happen due to the circumstances. 

You said you were held three days and narrowly avoided being sentenced to reform through labor when authorities decided instead to send you into exile. 

A: I was asked to leave quietly and never come back again (book p. 258). 

Why would you, an unknown, be deported/expelled to study in the U.S., a treatment reserved for very prominent dissidents? 

As I describe in the book (pp. 257-261), I was told that I had to leave China, but not given a specific destination. I got a student visa, which was secured through a family friend at the University of New Mexico. On pages 258-259, I detail my application process to live abroad and how I ended up in America. 

Chinese international students had many ways of being able to stay in the United States. One of those was to fabricate bizarre tales of having faced persecution in China and apply for political asylum. It didn't matter how fantastic you made your experiences, Americans would still believe them to be true. 

I didn't apply for political asylum; I was explicitly told not to attract attention. 

According to Inc., you arrived at Suzhou University wanting to study engineering or business, but the Party assigned you to study English. 

When the acceptance letter came in the fall of 1978 (this is a typo in the book, where it reads 1977 on p 232), it said that I had been assigned to study literature at Suzhou University. Inc.magazine made an editorial error on my major in China; I majored in Chinese literature, not in English literature. (p. 99) 

Forbes said you arrived in the United States knowing only three words of English, yet there are different sets of those first three words: Inc.: Please, thank you, help; Bend, Not Break: Thank you, hello, help; NPR: Thank you, help, excuse me. 

In college, English language classes were offered, but not required. I had "level zero" English, just like most Americans know a few words of Spanish or French. I tried to learn more English when I knew I was going to the U.S., but when I arrived, I only remembered a few. 

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. 

One of my classmates also responded to Fang's article on his blog. What he says is consistent with what I wrote in the book, so he must be a classmate. He made comments based on Fang, assuming that what Fang said was in the book, however it was not. I would like to respond. 

You weren't in a labor camp. 

A: True, I did not say I was in a labor camp in the book, or ever. 

You did not go to college in 1977. 

True, I went in 1978; that is a typo in the book. 

How can the labor camp be 10 years long for you? 

He asked this question based on Mr. Fang Zhouzi's blog, which was an incorrect choice of words. I never said that I was at a labor camp. Forbes corrected this error. 

You did not publish your research and it was never published. 

Correct; I did not publish my research and it was never published. I left school; my mother and I went to the school and declared I had a mental breakdown so I would not be sent to remote China (page 258). You just didn't know the true reason I left. 

I want to say that I respect Mr. Fang Zhouzi, Forbes, and the classmate (sorry, I do not know the name since he used a pen name). Democracy means everyone is entitled to freedom of expression. Criticism is not a form of defamation; it is a form of speaking or seeking truth. I welcome constructive criticism.

Fu Ping's 2010 Interview with APM's The Story

On March 9, 2010, Fu Ping had a lengthy interview on American Public Media's The Story radio show hosted by Dick Gordon. It's one of the occasions that she discussed her life story with her own voice. The story she told in this interview is consistent with her current version, but there are a few interesting details:

1. The only three English words she knew when she came to US was "thank you", "help", and "excuse me".
2. In her Shanghai home, They had nannies for each of the children.
3. When the Red Guards picked her up at Nanjing train station, they took her home in a military motorcycle. [as opposed to car or Jeep in other versions]
4. People were getting shot dead on the street as they drove by.
5. They witnessed the killing of two teachers, including one by four horses.
6. When she was 10 or 11, she was sent to work in a "collective farm" while her sister, who would be 6 or 7 at the time, lived alone in the dorm.
7. Fu Ping had no formal schooling before 18 but apparently had help from older students in studying.
8. News story based on her thesis research of infanticide was first published in Wenhui Daily (文汇报) and then picked up by People's Daily.
9. Someone at Albuquerque arranged her visa to study in University of New Mexico. [as opposed to she didn't know why she was sent there.]
10. No mention of the alleged involvement by Deng Xiaoping in her political case
11. No mention of the kidnapping tale while discussing of her arrival at US. [might have been interrupted by the host.]

The interview can be heard in its entirety here. Or you can read the relevant transcript below:

Gordon: About 30 years ago, a college student from China arrived in the United States. She wasn't here because she wanted to be. She has essentially been kicked out of China because she embarrassed the government there. Ping Fu had a visa and a place at the University of New Mexico. But she didn't even have enough money to get a cab from the airport in Albuquerque.
Fu Ping: I took basically a English phrase book and hecticly remember some of the useful words. By the time I get here, I can only remember three. [laugh] I can't remember many.
Gordon: which were?
Fu Ping: which is "thank you", "help", and "excuse me".
Gordon: "help" would be a good one.
Fu Ping: "help" was a good one.
Gordon: Ping Fu had come through some terrifying times in China's Cultrual Revolution before her arrival in the US. She is now, however, the Chief Executive Officer of the US high-tech firm Geomagic. I am Dick Gordon. This is The Story.
[Program break and discussions of Geomagic and 3D imaging technology]
Gordon: ...Although she was born into an affluent family in mainland China, she suffered some of the worst deprivations of the Cultural Revolution before making her way to this country. When she was very small, she was raised by her aunt and uncle in Shanghai.
Fu Ping: I was the youngest and the most beloved little girl. I think my brothers and sisters tease me sometimes but I don't want to believe it.
Gordon: tease you for not really being their family?
Fu Ping: Right. They say, oh you were not born by Mom. I would go and hold onto her legs and say, "Mom, I am born by you, right?" She would say, "yes, of course." But my biological Mom come to visit sometimes. So my aunt always told me that I am so special it takes two mothers to born me.
Gordon: You bought that
Fu Ping: I bought that.
Gordon: There were nannies for each of the children. As Ping Fu recalls it, it was a very privileged life. But this was also the early sixties of time, just before the Cultural Revolution when the wealthy people in China were being persecuted.
Fu Ping: When I was around 7, I know something was happening out there and I was too young to really understand the political changes but I can sense it. So my uncle already started to prepare me for the change to come and he taught me this three friends of the winter, which is bamboo, pine tree, and there is this flower that blooms in February. So he said, "Ping you must be bamboo that you bend in the prevailing wind and you never break."
Gordon: Ping Fu would soon be tested. When she was 8 years old, the Red Guards came to her house. They took her from her aunt and told her "that woman is not your mother. We are taking you away. You will go to Nanjing to be with your real parents."
Fu Ping: There was three Red Guards. They were holding my aunt away from me. My uncle was not at home. I was screaming and crying and said "They are lying. They are lying. Tell me you are my mother." I was crying and then she cried and she said, "Ping, don't fight. They are right. I am not your mother." And I scream and I said, "You are lying. You are just lying. You told me hundreds of times that you are my mother." And she went silent. She had her hand out and try to hold me. I mean, they deprived me a hug from the mother I knew. So they just took me away. And then I just heard her saying, "Don't fight, don't fight, they will hurt you. Just don't fight." That's all what she was telling me.
Gordon: what does it feel like?
Fu Ping: The last thing I remember, she was kneeing down on the floor with one of her arms reaching up. I always remember that hug... they did not let me have. And then I was at the train station. The train was so crowded, with so many people, literally you can't jam into the door. So the Red Guards literally took me and throw me in a window and from the window they stuff me into the train.
Gordon: This train was going to Nanjing.
Fu Ping: Yes, the train is going to Nanjing from Shanghai.
Gordon: Why did they care about a 7 or 8 years old girl, where she was going to live?
Fu Ping: I think, during the Cultural Revolution, they want to make sure that they have everyone registered. So, since my birth registration is not at Shanghai, they probably had a name call or something and found out I wasn't there. And I heard people calling my name and I looked out and it was a Red Guard, It wasn't my parents.
Gordon: These Red Guards, were they older soldiers, younger soldiers?
Fu Ping: They are usually teenagers, usually I would say between 14 to 18, middle school to high school age. Some of them are late teens but generally Red Guards are middle school to high school.
Gordon: So they are calling your name at train stop.
Fu Ping: Yeah, they have this name call. They have a list of who is coming. I went down to follow them. They put me in a motorcycle, kind of like a military motorcycle. So we are driving on the street and I see blood, killing, people get shot, just driving by. It was at the begining of the Cultural Revolution. Then when I arrived, they dumped me right in the street. There are a lot of people in the street outside, looking. I don't know what is going on then very soon I saw trucks coming. On the truck there are a lot of people on it. And I heard other people are saying those are the people who get sent away. And suddenly I heard my mother's voice. She was calling me "Ping, Ping" from one of the truck. Then I saw both my Mom and my Dad on the truck waving at me. It turns out that I arrived too late. They are taken away.
Gordon: Did you get to go over where they went?
Fu Ping: No. The truck just move very slowly and they move by me. And my Mom said, "Take care of your sister." I was 8 and I remember when they came to Shanghai to visit me with this little girl. I do remember that but I can't even remember how my sister look like.
Gordon: She wouldn't have too long to wait. The next thing that happened, Ping Fu was taken into an old university dormitory...Ping Fu was about to begin a 10 year period as the caregiver to her little sister.
Fu Ping: I got led to this one room and there was a little girl sitting on the floor crying. The room looks like a trash can basically. There are newspapers, cans, broken things everywhere and it was very dirty and very dusty except this one place where she is kicking her legs. It's kind of shinny. She was crying and the minute she sees me she crys, "Mom! Mom!" And I keep saying, "I am not your Mom!" Just that one day I lost Mom that raised me and the Mom who born me and I became sorrogate Mom to my sister.
Gordon: You were 8 years god. Your sister is how old at the time?
Fu Ping: She is 4.
Gordon: Were you cared for? How did you live then?
Fu Ping: No. The first day, the room did not have a bathroom, didn't have a wash basin. I want to go bathroom and I couldn't find anything. And my sister actually knew it was outside of the building. So even though she was 4, apparently somebody took her there. So, she led me to the bathroom. There is no kitchen either. There will be a stove you burn coal outside of your room. In the hallway everybody has a coal stove outside of their room. So I kind of watched the neighbors to see how they lit their stoves.
Gordon: And you have to make your own food on this coal stove?
Fu Ping: We have to make our own food. The first few days we didn't because we didn't have any food so we just kind of starving. And then the nanny distributed some rice so we can cooked our own food.
Gordon: You were managing a household, for the two of you.
Fu Ping: I was managing a household, yes.
Gordon: How did that work out?
Fu Ping: Well, I did learn very early on to manage the household because I have to take whatever is given to me and split half with my sister.
[program break]
Fu Ping: When we first got together in the dormitory, they gathered us all to a soccer field. It's a big soccer field in the middle of the living quarter of the student dormitory. They killed two teachers right in front of us to scare us. So, they basically said that, if you dare to say anything wrong or do anything wrong, this is what gonna happen to you. One teacher was tied up on 4 horses on the field and, when the 4 horses going 4 different directions and she just got split. We were forced to watch it. That was in the first 10 days I was there.
Gordon: I listen to you telling these stories and I don't really know how you made it through. Do you ever think about that? Do you ever think about how is it you made it through and remain balanced?
Fu Ping: Back then I think the beginning was very difficult and many times I wanted to die but I had a little sister. So some, maybe the human nature has this instincts because she keeps calling me Mom. And because I had good Mom took care of me so somehow I felt that I had the responsibility for her. My mother also said on the truck to take care of your sister. I was already 8 and I was already being educated as a Confucian  If she wasn't there I probably would have done something stupid and get killed or something. I felt the responsibility for her. I think that was one. The second thing I made it a little easier was it was not just us. There was a lot of us. So there were like, probably, 50, 60 of us in the dormitory  And there was certain comfort on other people suffer the same way you suffer -- I don't know what it is.
Gordon: There was some time later when the Red Guards threw Ping Fu's sister into a pond. Ping went in to get her. Ping said that that so infuriated the Red Guard that they took her off to a soccer field where she was so brutally gang-raped that she passed out. She woke up in a little clinic that was nearby. The amazing thing is that Ping can still look back on some moments of that time and laugh. When she was 10 or 11, Ping was sent to a collective farm. Her sister stayed at home in their dorm room.
Fu Ping: So the first few years, if I have anything nice I will bring it home and she will always try to fight to get more. She was always so hungry and bored. I remember she will...once a week I will bring a little bit meat or egg. Usually we just had vegetables and rice. And I also learned how to pick wild vegetables. And whenever I have meat, she would drop her saliva in there, think that I will be grossed out so. Basically she will go like "Oh, it's so good" and then spit on it, having her saliva dripping in it.
Gordon: hoping that you would not want to have it.
Fu Ping: Right. I had the worst food so I didn't care. [laugh] Her saliva is just fine. [laugh] So that didn't work. Later, when we grew older, we would talk about this. That's when she told me. She said, I was hoping you would gross-out so I can have more. It didn't work!
Gordon: This life went on until Ping Fu was 18. There was no formal school but the older students and intellectuals were also locked out by the government who would work with the younger children. By the late seventies, Ping was able to take the required test to make it into a university. She studied literature and she did well. Ping might have avoided further trouble but for her thesis in her senior year she happened to choose a subject that landed her in serious trouble. This was the time when China's one-child policy. Most parents wanted a son and Ping's work explored the killing of infant girls.
Fu Ping: I heard whims of people are killing baby girls in the countryside. Of course I understand in China the farmers want boys. So I thought that would be a good one to pick as a thesis to do a report on that. Because it is not political. That's why I thought. Because I didn't dare to do any subject that is political. But what really got me in trouble was the teacher actually took some of what I wrote and submitted to the newspaper because everybody had good intention of calling for a stop
Gordon: So was this a college paper or was it the People's Daily?
Fu Ping: This was.. People's Daily picked it up from a different newspaper, the Shanghai Wenhui Daily, which is the biggest newspaper in Shanghai at the time. And People's Daily supported it too so they re-reported the same thing.
Gordon: But this is the paper that belongs to the Communist Party. So if they are embracing your research you must think this is great.
Fu Ping: Yeah, well, at the time there is no authorship. When China is just coming out of Communist so newspapers usually just says what the editor says. It doesn't say who reports it. So this is the first time the Communist Party admited there is a wide-spread killing. It's in 1981. All the newspapers picked it up and UN started sanction on China for human rights violation. That's when nobody wanted to say they did it. So it goes down to look for the scapegoat as where the source come from.
Gordon: So what happens to you?
Fu Ping: I was on campus one day and somebody put a black bag over me and literally carried me like a sack and put me in a car and driven some distance. I was only in a jail in a room where there was no light, no food, no water. For 3 days. No explanation of why I was arrested. I thought, oh my God, I am dead. But it is sad to me now my life has just turned around. Because I absolutely loved to be in a university and loved the learning. It seemed to me my life has turned around and China is changing. I didn't understand it but then I lived so many years with so many things that are not understandable. So many people got killed with no reason. So it wasn't even that strange to me.
Gordon: Ping Fu only spent a few days in that jail but when she was released she was told to leave the country. Her father was able to get her a visa that would allow her to study at the University of New Mexico. She was never even been in a plane. She spoke no English. She landed in Albuquerque but got not enough money to take a taxi to the university.
Fu Ping: That was actually the first time the reality set in. Because when I came over, it was fun while in the airplane. First ride, smiling stewardess who takes care of me, first time to feel air conditioning, constant temperature. I mean, everything was new, everything was exciting. And then in Albuquerque at the airport suddenly I got hit that I didn't know where to go and I have no money. I don't even know how to get to the university. The guy who helped to get my visa has left the city. I have one suitcase and that's all my belongs in there. Just cloths and some towers and things like that. I sat on that suitcase and cried. I don't know what to do. [laugh]
Gordon: in the airport?
Fu Ping: I sat outside of the airport and [unclear]
Gordon: When you newly arrived in the west, was there one person you met or one thing that made you think, OK I can do all right here?
Fu Ping: Yeah, I was waitressing in a restaurant and I met this black waitress -- her name is Alba -- she of course told me a lot about black history, the discrimination, civil war. So we had a debate on who is more black whether black by skin or black by genes. We were friends and she was always trying to help me whenever she sees I may be discriminated by the restaurant manager because I was too nice or I didn't know the rules. She will stand up for me. And once she found out that I was riding my bike 45 minutes each way to the restaurant on top of my study she insisted to give me a ride every day including on her day off. I was so very much touched by her kindness and she taught me when in doubt, always error in generosity.
[Discussions on how Fu Ping entered computer programming and entrepreneurship.]

Fu Ping as Inc. Entrepreneur of the Year

In 2005, Inc. selected Fu Ping as its Entrepreneur of the Year and published a comprehensive report on her work and life. This lengthy profile, written by John Brant, was perhaps the very first time Fu Ping told the current version of her story and served a nice prelude to her book Bend, Not Break.

The highlights in this Inc. story:

1. Fu Ping "attended no school at all between the ages of 7 and 18." "she was educated through torture, exile, and imprisonment..." 
2. "In February 1981, without a trial or even a formal charge, the Chinese government locked 23-year-old Ping Fu in solitary confinement, in a wing of Nanjing prison reserved for political criminals..."
3. "When Ping was 7 years old and her sister, Hong, 3, the two little girls were taken from their home in Shanghai and delivered to a dormitory for the children of so-called "capitalist-road" parents in Nanjing. It was 1965, the dawn of the Cultural Revolution."
4. "Ping was forced to watch the Red Guards tie a kindergarten teacher to four horses. The Guard members -- just teenagers themselves -- then startled the horses."
5. "Ping was forced to watch another teacher be dropped head-first down a dry well."
6. "She watched the Red Guard scald her little sister with boiling water because one day Hong made too much noise as she played."
7. "Another day, the Red Guard threw Hong into a river for the fun of watching her drown. Ping jumped into the river and dragged her out. The enraged Guard members then beat the girls, and raped Ping."
8. "Ping entered the university in Suzhou. She hoped to study business or engineering, following in the footsteps of her engineer father and accountant mother, but the Party directed her to study English as a second language."
9. "For two years she traveled through rural China, visiting hundreds of towns and villages, interviewing hospital staffers, barefoot doctors, and citizens..." to investigate the rumored epidemic of infanticide.
10. "In 1980, she delivered her findings to her professor. A few months later, in January 1981, Shanghai's largest newspaper published a report based on Ping's research. The report was widely praised, although credit, of course, accrued to senior government officials. The story was subsequently published nationwide in People's Daily, then picked up by the international media... The global community was outraged. The United Nations imposed sanctions on China."
11. "'You must never say a word about your involvement in this project,' the official told her. 'You are forbidden to engage in any political activity. You will never return to China, but your family remains here. If in any way you disobey these instructions, your family will suffer the consequences. Have I made myself clear, Comrade?... she was being deported to the United States."
12. "Two weeks later, Ping boarded a United Airlines flight from Shanghai to San Francisco."
13. "She was being sent to the University of New Mexico -- she didn't know why New Mexico."
14. "Ping knew three shreds of English: please, thank you, and help."
15. "Officials had issued her the ticket to San Francisco, and $80 in traveler's checks to get her to Albuquerque."
16. "She spent the 12-hour flight alternatively staring out the window and pouring out her thoughts by scribbling notes on paper napkins. She didn't have writing paper and did not know how to ask for any. When the flight attendant offered her food or drink, Ping shook her head no, and pointed to the stack of cocktail napkins."
17. A lengthy description of the bizarre Vietnamese-American kidnapping tale 
18. A lengthy description of how Fu Ping met Lan Sharman who offered her a part-time job with a six-figure annual income. Sharman even offered her a 5% stake in his company to keep her from leaving, which she declined.
19. "She was Andreessen's boss as he developed the Mosaic Internet Browser that blossomed into Netscape -- she says she suggested that he work on a browser."
20. [Before she met and eventually married Herbert Edelsbrunner] "She had made many friends in America, but no intimate ones, and had allowed no man to get close to her. Outwardly warm and exuberant, Ping felt frozen inside."
21. "In 1968, when Ping was 10, her mother was permitted to return to Nanjing. (Her father was retained in the camp.) The homecoming, however, was far from the tender reunion that Ping had fantasized. Rather than comfort her daughter, the woman, half-crazed by her own exile and suffering, persecuted her."