(I know this article is coming about very slowly. But hey, at least I am making progress!)
As I have said before, I don’t want to get into politics – anywhere. But I am a naturally curious person. I am thus a little relieved to know (sort of) the answers to the questions in my mind. This led to a period of online activities towards the end of August 2005.
But I did not feel good. My mood was reflected in the first entry on my new blog Chinese, eh? – As a Canadian immigrant, I felt I was in a dilemma and that there was not much I could or would do. Indeed, I thought what Chinese and US governments did to each other was quite “pathetic”. And I certainly did not want to be any part of it. What I could do was to be a bridge between China and western societies and to promote understanding between these two. One issue I cared about was China-bashing in the media as I had experienced many along my journey to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang (and blogged about before). Not only was China-bashing bad for China, it’s also bad for Chinese immigrants here. Sometimes it was simply a subtle form of racism. Besides, a lot of western journalists, when they criticized China, did not seem to have a sound knowledge of it.
Of course, now that a fly had gotten into my stomach, I needed to get it out. – I had to say something about General Zhu’s comment. Actually, that was the initial objective when I started a separate blog because I wanted to separate it from my main (and single) issue about Cecilia Zhang. In other words, despite the perception that General Zhu’s comment was connected to my situation, I attempted to disassociate myself from it. Talk about tough life!
By then, more than a month had passed since Zhu made his comments. Bashing him right after I started the new blog would seem – well, wired – for me. I guess I had become too self-conscious. It would have been much easier for me to criticize Zhu without knowing the circumstance surrounding his comments. Instead, I felt particularly awkward as if I was taking on a heavy task.
At the mean time, I felt it was important to let people know my true intention and interest. And I certainly knew that the ultimate solution to my quandary was to get my story out before it got even more complicated. I decided to contact a reporter at New York Times. The reasons I picked Times were: (1) I had tried virtually all mainstream Canadian media before; (2) I became more sure of US government’s involvement in Cecilia Zhang murder cover-up (and thus a US media outlet should be interested in my story); and (3) I thought I would have the best chance with Times amongst US media outlets. The letter I wrote to the reporter was quite long. Indeed, I spent a lot of energy and quite a few days on it. In it I reiterated that my goal was to be able to work for Warren Buffett someday. I figure that I had made a strong and convincing case for myself. I fell short of saying that I did not have any “political ambition” only because it would have been presumptuous for me to do so. I sent out the letter to the reporter on August 27, 2005 via email, knowing that my email would likely be monitored and then broadcasted. I specifically mentioned in my letter that August 30 is Mr. Buffett’s birthdayand “a date of significance for me”. In my mind, I think I had decided that it would be the date on which I would say something about Zhu’s comment. I hope this fact did not lost on those people who were closely following my journey. Indeed, after I had posted the blog entry “Rein Zhu in” on that day, I felt – well, just like I said – that I had finally got the fly out of my stomach. And you can see I did not touch that blog for a long time afterwards.
(To be continued…)
