one of my professors got a huge grant to study the family and china. i went with him and his thesis wanted to prove how bad and miserable it was for the chinese people. but a farmer told him without a firm support more people would have died. during the fan and i was 5-years-old when it took place. we were able to eat from the province in which china. three or 4,000 miles away. so the government shipped him

wild vegetables and grain from far away to help people survive. so the government did a lot for the chinese people. and partly because i think the government enabled the people to work together, to organize them and work as a community, not just work for themselves. i was talking on the way here and two days ago one of the chinese scientists he would teach in this country, in california, the technology of california and 1949 when they can to power he wanted to go

back and the american government, the supreme said i would rather kill him than allow him to go back because his knowledge [inaudible] so they arrested him for 15 days then they arrested him for five years. eventually he went back in 1955 and helped china develop the rocket program that in 71 was done by him and his colleagues. he became a aware and that revenue him. when he died most people in china particularly scientists demand the chinese government give him a state funeral but the

government didn't do it. why? because he said something i don't think the government liked. he said he was excited only three times in his life. the first time was when he got back to china after five years of house arrest. the second time in a in 1958 he was able to join the communist party. the third time was when the chinese government in the early 50's elected him as one of the five people that moved china. all of these four honors were workers, farmers. and he said he was excited because he was able to be the

person who with a worker, a former. this is what china was like. the intellectuals, it is a big owner to be ranked with the working class. people work for themselves for their own rank but work help to make the community, make the nation better. 1985 the new chinese government gave him a big donner as the scientist to made the most contribution to the science and technology. when he got that honor he said he was not excited because it is the only three times excited he just mentioned above and he says something very well that made me think a lot.

he said if china abandons socialism, if china abandoned modern thought chinese nation will suffer and the chinese state will feel. at the time he said that, most people didn't think very hard about what he means. looking back today, i think he was right. this summer i was [inaudible] i will mention in my reading this afternoon. i was there on july feared and the riots broke out on july 5th. and it struck me to see 50,000 people came out with big knives

and axes and began to kill people. i never thought china had an ethnic problem like that. and i thought a lot afterwards. i don't think that is an ethnic problem. it is a classic clash, and most people said is in the people who were trying to kill the high chinese and the height chinese tried to kill the ethnic? it's not fair -- not that simple. this area is the region where the war leaves. there are 13 minority people. they were the biggest. in the old days when the enterprises were owned by the state in china we call all

people china ownership. when the state around the enterprises, they made sure that these people were treated equally. they get equal employment opportunity, the same pay, the same benefit like the chinese like myself, and the ethnic minority work together very well like brothers. i was so moved when i was there this summer. on the one hand, the war were killed in chinese. there were a lot of them that came out shaking hands with chinese are telling us we are brothers, we are brothers and the people killing people are minorities. of course it's not that simple. the reason why they were able to

tell chinese they were brothers because they lived in this time. the literally worked together like brothers, cared about each other like brothers. but today is a different story. in the last 30 years most state-owned enterprises were privatized. the guy who was in charge was a guy from my hometown province and he had been number one leader here for 18 years. during this time most enterprises became private property mostly owned by people from my province. so the private capitalist from the province had a very, very different hiring policy -- practice. they would hire chinese from my

province of first. if they couldn't find any chinese from mine to work for them the hire chinese from other provinces. so these people couldn't get employment anywhere. if they didn't get a job they were treated very differently because they did speak the same language. they didn't have the same culture so they were mistreated. right? so they have a resentment against the rich chinese number one. number two, in the old days the resources were developed, they were developed for the benefit of all chinese people, and today the call this developer is with a capitalist. they develop these resources for their own benefit.

and the people that resentment against that. that is why they rioted. the reason i say this is important is because i think this could happen anywhere than in china. the class clash, the class contradiction of china has been intensified with capitalism. i think in no way china will be allowed this capitalist path. the chinese government tries very hard to suppress people's discussion of the cultural revolution. they do not allow people to talk about it. i think the reason they were able to get away is because the government said we will not discuss the issue. that is what happened in china. but as things become more and

more, the gap between the rich and the poor become bigger don't think the chinese of the late to suppress this will be very long. [inaudible] yes of course there are. the majority of chinese people are. why? they are working class, farmers, workers who enjoy a free education, free medical care, lifelong job security, to get their benefits back. every year i take students to china. they were always amazed to see the long lines outside. the chinese working class still has fond memories of the

cultural revolution, of the socialist private dustin china, and i feel i will stop here. if you have any questions. [applause] >> again, i want to thank everyone for coming out. what we are going to do is open up to questions, and i was when to kick off with one question to do and then let the audience speak we are going to have the migrants while we get them ready going out on people so you should raise your hand and if there is anyone that wants to write at the question and said it forward they can do that too. so again just one question i want to ask maybe you could give

sort of a on the ground picture of the kind of new values that were being created in the village in which you lived. people actually change their thinking about each other and caring for each other or how was it it became a community and what was the sense of responsibility or did it change? maybe you could get some illustrations about how the values of people went through changes during the cultural revolution. >> okay. i always lamb the so-called human nature. it is a product of the social climate and social institutions. we are what we are because the social institutions in society. and the thing that changed the cultural evolution changed the people's minds, their behavior during the cultural years because people the government, the community care about each

other. and in this country the reason why we are selfish is because nobody cared about us. if we don't care about ourselves nobody would care about you. but during the cultural years in the socialist climate you don't need to care about yourself. other people will care about you. they will care about you as much as they care about themselves. i think i remember i told the story one time is my friend and he was two years older than i was. he couldn't get up in the morning. [laughter] there are people like that. i can't get out myself, too bad. i was able to get out because my mom, my father would wake me every morning.

so every morning came out to work and this friend of mine didn't come out. the leader said don't we cannot, so i went to we cannot. i yelled at him outside of his house. the first day he answered on will be there in a minute. right? and he cannot the first day. the second day they said we cannot. so i have yelled and came back to the leader and said he didn't even answer this morning. go in, we can up. we go to his house and the grand mosque she is asleep. his mom for all the time i come back to the leader and said his granddaughter is upset. he said don't care about his grandmother, go wake him up. [laughter]

so i did that almost every day when i was in the village, and this guy is a very intelligent person. when he was up working with us he worked very hard, right? he worked very hard, so everyday we dragged him along and he did fine. he was very popular with his peers because he knew how to play instruments and he was able to tell jokes and all that. he did very well getting married , he was very handsome, very tall. [inaudible] he was a handsome guy but he was not smart. and 1982 when the word disbanded

nobody will cannot any more and he got into a problem and his wife left him and he became developmental problems. it is my belief if a person who deprived his right of work together with others he will developmental problem. right? so he was sick so 1998i went back home to the village of gannet and saw a person walking down the street in the distance. i said that's him. so i was running after him. he saw me and ran back home. and i followed him into his house. i said is that you come walking naked on the street?

he said yes. i don't want to leave. life is not good. i miserable. right? so i try. i say don't think negatively. think about positive things, right? like start something new. there are a lot of people playing instruments at night. why don't you join them? you are very good with your instruments, right? he said i don't want to see people, i don't want to see others. i said you can paint. que used to be a very good painter. i said remember you painted horses very well, why don't you. he said no, i don't want to do anything like that. she said i will be in the village of other ten days. i will by a penny from you so do one for me. he said okay. i will do that for you. and the next day he came to buy

a house, he said don't you know i cannot do it. give me one year, the next year you come back i will give you a painting. i told him i said you know i'm not interested in your painting. i am more interested in you. i want you to stand up and live like a person. he said yes i promise you i will. but came back here three months later my sister wrote to me and said he committed suicide. and when i read my sister's letter i cried, cried for a long time. i knew if he had given this [inaudible] if the village was still working as a community somebody would help him along and she will not meet to kill himself. but nobody cares. i wanted to see more about that.

the reason why chinese society became like that during this time isn't because people care of each other. if you have a problem the community would come to help you. i would tell when my father worked at the time, whenever he was sick they would use their only truck to come to the village to pick him up to send him to the hospital. when people go for example, very young people before they knew the village would give him some grain, money to help him establish a new family so the

workers were being cared by, and in return the workers returned their loyalty to the management. that's not a tradition. that is socialism. and when there was riots in my village for example everyone [inaudible] to take care of the grain. ns node everybody came out to clean the street without asking. hard and committed work. every morning i would get up one hour early with three classmates to go to start a fire and then a public spread was never asked.

nobody would do it. we don't tell anybody but we just feel it is a good thing that we did something for the community, for the quote team. so it is a sort of climate that made china what it was like during this. [applause] what we are going to do is take one question from the audience and then i will read one question. we've got a number that have been passed up so let's start one from the audience and wheat until the microphone reaches you. there's someone in the yellow shirt back there. thank you. ytoy to know what you see to be the essentials elements for the creation of a constructive social revolution. what are the foundation pieces?

of the revolution that ends up being constructive with people engaged in it. i think that has a lot to do with more aspiration as revolutionary. [inaudible] most american scholars writing, they think that these years were very loose and hard to grasp. i think for the chinese people, people like my mom, my father who were illiterate most language is unbelievable and there's the one famous chinese language to said most writing is very unique. for scholars to write things were very high style but at the same time it is the language

common people can understand. we still cite most articles to certain people. and that article -- most people don't ask what is common as about, for most perspective communist is somebody who is dedicating for the service to the common people. the reason why the communist party, communist revolution of china was so fascinating is because they believe they sacrifice themselves too liberal yet 95% of the chinese people. the hard working not for their own benefit but to work to make sure the oppressed, they get what they deserve as a society.

i think that is the central thing that made the chinese revolution different from other revolutions number one. number two, it started with most ridings. and most people, talk about in my book, in which china before the cultural revolution many village leaders believe the different from the traditional officials. they are fairly similar, their working styles were similar to the officials and the cultural regime started by teaching the working class most ridings. there are many chinese farmers who began to read most ridings and began to realize most

reading and, most ideas about socialism is very different from what is going on in china, right? and officials according to most ideas need to work with the working class people. they need to share her ship with the people, and during these years they developed a very different standard. for example [inaudible] who used to be very big official in the county were asked to work with the farmers 200 days a year. you will see -- we saw county officials on bikes everyday working with the villagers in the field. and the leaders were asked to

work 300 days a year, and a leader was supposed to work with the farmers almost every day except when they need good meetings. so it is a comprehensive transformation. two if the people they talk about how the government persecutes by asking them to work with farmers, right? but at times there are many people seem as prosecuting today who at the time thought the revolution in power to them as well to come out of their university to work with the farmers, it was revolution as well. professors, doctors use to only working in urban areas, now the government encourages them,

right? to integrate with working-class. so it is a different sort of climate. there are many other things, but it is a climate of working for others as an owner, has a great owner to be able to help others and to do selfless things for the community and for the public that is what happens. >> here is a question. the drugs are a huge problem here in the united states. could you discuss dee dee to discuss how drug addiction was dealt with in the people's republic of china during the socialist period? >> when i was in college almost every year somewhat come to talk about the drug issues. fighting the war in latin

america and i raise the question to the other scholars if you are serious about getting rid of drugs then we need socialism. [laughter] [applause] royte? we do. why people use drugs. people have mental problems sometimes. too much stress in their lives. they worry about losing their job, they worry about their children getting middelkerke. the wording about losing their care, and this system solved all the problems, the workers during a certain type to the eckert time had a lifelong security. they never needed to worry about losing their jobs.

the factory, the work consider their own factory. when my father would tell me my father was sick in the 70's. he has a breathing problem, so when he called he was breathing very hard. on the chinese new year the chinese society closed for about seven days so every factory was closed for seven days at holidays. but my father always insisted he needed to be the guard for the factory when other workers go home to celebrate. ..

the factory cannot fire him. why? if a worker refused to work, there must be something wrong with the management. [laughter] because a worker naturally wants to work. don't you think that is true?

if a worker refuses to work there must be something wrong with the management. that is very, very true. that is why no allowed workers to strike. workers had the right to strike. and, this was very important. when people had work, when people had no danger of losing their house, medical care, when their children were taking care of, all this stress in their lives was removed. when we would live in a community, we needed help, your friends, your colleague would help you. why do you need to use drugs? people use drugs for a reason. people who use drugs in this country for example, are mostly

distressed. they need help. but we treat them as criminals. and of course i think this issue is a phyllis utt vote-malcolm-- philosophical issue as well, right? [applause] >> we will call and let's see hansen mable get the mic circulating about, so can i see -- do you want to ask a question here? okay. >> professor from my understanding you were very young when you started organizing a red guard unit in your village and you were saying that, or so i read that there are a lot of newspapers around and everybody was writing,

publishing and debating so as a young person what were some of the subject can remember that people were widely debating? >> the counterrevolution, i will always consider the counterrevolution as an empowerment movement and some chinese khaled, somebody before my talk ask me, mao tried a counterrevolution, and i don't agree with that. i think mao's power is very, very solid at the time when he started the counterrevolution. he was so solid. nobody in china-- most people did not understand, there reason why no one so powerful was because the government did not allow people to criticize mao. because your friends will not

tolerate you criticizing now. why? because no's policies represented the best interest of china's working-class, 90% of them. if you criticized mao you criticize them. you are hurting them, so they would not allow you to talk about that. the reason-- if the working class was not empowered, then the revolutionary accomplishment , the chinese revolution achieved could be taken away by the elite very easily. i am not just talking for my own-- actually there is evidence to prove, no rule on the margin-- there was a book he was

reading, an economy textbook. in that textbook it talked about how the workers in a socialist society enjoyed free medical care, enjoyed the right to work and he did many things, but mouse said on the margin if the working class people don't-- this state all of the benefits could be taken away by the elites. if that has been proven in china already, right? so i think the controversy was made to empower the working class, to empower the people, to take the state of matters into their own hands. and mouse said people were to educate themselves, to empower themselves so he was willing to go through all of the chaotic

period in the beginning to allow the young people to criticize their leaders. let me tell you what i did when i was 11 years old at the time. and, i felt so empowered because mel said, students can criticize their teachers. can criticize the principle. and i ran into big cabinet posters when i was only in third grade. [laughter] wide? >> for the counterrevolution my family had a knife. my grandfather went to france to work there. he took it home as a gift. very valuable for that family. i took it to school. and i did not know you were not allowed to bring in knife to school at the time. so when the teachers all this knife, he took it. and my father asked me, where is

the night? where is the night? he knew i was very naughty. so i had to lie. i said, i didn't touch it. my father did not believe me. he beat me again and again so at the beginning of the counterrevolution i wrote in the beginning of the book, where is my knife? [applause] and the teacher actually, the teacher was very upset. i did not get my knife back by the way, but i was able to write, where is my night? ifill tso empowered. [laughter] and, my friends and i published a small pamphlet where we use stenzel paper, where you write with a pen and you print and distribute in the marketplace and you feel empowered that you can do that.

maisel ouelett the time, there were about 13 papers published by students. it was very powerful. i see people today in china. they are the men this to chinese society because they are-- during the cultural years. >> here is a question. how long did it take for the women to become free from oppression during the cultural revolution? >> i would argue that the-- from the very beginning, many people in this country criticize the communist party for their human rights violations but they don't know the communist party was the first to-- particularly women's rights in in the early days the

chinese government encouraged women to work, encourage women to come to political meetings. my mom was a literate. blye mom learned so much from these political meetings in the village. she likes to listen to the commune document read in the village, because that taught her some new ideas that she never knew before. let me give you an example. in old china society women were subservient to their husbands. this meeting empowered my mom. my mom always debated with my father, that is not with the government says. you cannot do that. it was very powerful. this one thing. another thing is, the chinese government helped organize a women's federation in the village.

every community had women's federation and every leadership group had a woman member. and did my village, the women leader, every time there was a quarrel between a husband and wife, the woman leader would take the group of women to their family to fight the husband. and, they really thought. they forced the husband to apologize, and to make them to amend. this was serious stuff. the chinese government did not allow men to divorce their wives unless the woman agreed. that is a very good policy i think. most people didn't know how much the chinese government protected women's rights. the first chinese government said the state will protect women and children. most people don't know what that

means. that means that the woman says i don't want a divorce, that means no. when a divorced a place everything goes to the woman. the house, the children, no argument. [inaudible] that is true. i mean before. i'm not talking about today. and not no, no, no, the reason i said this, i had to colleagues when i was teaching in china and my professor, cully professor, he actually lost to opportunities in 1985. in 1965, the chinese government university was about to send him to. and he lied to the president and

said he won't divorce me. the president called him and said, is that true? he said he yes. we have plenty of other good men, so he was not able to go. in 1979, the chinese had a new embassy in the u.s. for the first time. the chinese government sent him to the u.s.. his wife again went to the president. he still wants a divorce. he did not get it. he did not get the job. i want to say there are no absolutes, no divorce that the women did not want but in most cases i know, when the wife said no, the man could not get a divorce. i just want to use this example

as how the chinese government protected women. i am not arguing that it is right or wrong but they tried very hard to protect the women and children. maybe there were exceptions but still the chinese government did more than most other societies in protecting the women and the children's rights. >> we will take questions from the audience or comments. let me just see, yeah. >> you started your talk with a very exciting observation about people not being forced to work, that people would work for social need and so forth, and i think that is a great, i mean that is a very exciting concept in a very important concept to building a revolutionary movement but i think mao

hesitated on that question as though the socialist movement did generally in those days and didn't go as far as the idea of that i understand that millions of comrades on the left of mao argue for the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of wage slavery in whatever form it takes an especially in light of the developments both in russia and china. i would like to see a comment on that in marrying it into your earlier observation that people don't need to be forced to work for the right social causes. >> i don't really get with your main point is but i would argue for my own experience and from what i know about chinese government policy and people who refuse to work was that people who refused still got their fair share in the village.

the chinese communist system in the rural area, the communists were for the countryside. all of the production of the grain harvest was distributed on 70% of the crane was distributed on a per-capita basis so whether you work for not, as long as you were in the village you got 70%-- only 30% was distributed on the basis of how much you worked. the other 70% was enough for you to get by, right? in a factory, my father worked in a factory, and i know there was always one worker in that factory who was not happy with the management, and refuse to work but he always got paid. he always got paid.

and nobody-- i think this argument also, for example there is also a philosophical argument made. in 1949 when mao came to power, now made decision to keep all the people who used to work for the national army their job. the former state employees for the nationalist party were cap by the new government. when people argued, can we afford to keep them, to pay them, right? mao asked come mckinley afford not to keep them? if you don't give people a job to work to make a living, they will do something else to hurt you. i will always argue,

unemployment is the worst waste of the human resources. don't you think? in this country the reason we have such a big prison population, 5% of the working population works that 25% of the prison population has a lot to do with unemployment. when people don't have a job to make a living, they do something else to get by. and that is what can hurt society. i think there are a lot of good things in this so-called pheasant moral economy argument. you want to make sure everybody in your community survives, because if you don't, they will hurt you.

i think socialism is based on a moral economy model to make sure everybody does what they can't and get what they need to survive. if you don't come and you dehumanize them and you dehumanize yourself. that is how capitalist-- you need more profit, but i think as the human race together we face so many environmental challenges today, i don't think we can survive as we do now. we need a different paradigm. [applause] >> this reminds me, in reference to some of the questions that have come up we are going to have two panels tomorrow where people will be able to get more deeply into some of these questions. for instance we will have a panel on the second panel about

the significance of the cultural revolution and also open up an opportunity for us to talk about issues of how do you move a socialist economy forward to minimize and overcome wage differences into ultimately go beyond the wage system and this is a question that might come up tomorrow. i want to encourage people's assimilate there are many important questions to get into about women's liberation in china during the cultural revolution. there was the slogan that was raised, women hold up half the sky and one of our speakers tomorrow is going to be talking about how the cultural evolution challenged notions of gender and what it meant as a young woman to be growing up in that period in which all the old customs and values and mores were being challenged in very sharply how this was playing itself out with reference to women and their role in society and how the

cultural revolution was going up against patriarchy in various kinds of ways and what it meant, so i know one of our speakers is going to be on the panel tomorrow. i don't know if she wanted to speak here briefly in response to issues of women's emancipation and yeah, if you might want to say something or wait until tomorrow to get into that but i think it is a very important matter, a central issue of bennie evolution come any socialist revolution and the chinese revolution and maybe you want to say a few comments about that because it is so, so critical to whether or not a socialist revolution is really going to overcome all forms of oppression. >> i would like to say two things to follow professor han's point. what is the working concept.

professor han talked about how everyone should work. >> by the way-- this is by the who is a professor at jury university. we are very proud to have her here. [applause] she is going to be speaking tomorrow but we would like this opportunity to share everyone's insights and understanding. she was someone who lived through the cultural revolution. >> the same generation. i think professor han talked about on an economic base that everyone should work to contribute. i feel in terms of ideology, mellis china, work is not only encouraged also rewarded the specially in the literature in the ideological steers. that is, so the whole atmosphere was that everybody should be

contributors to a great cause and everybody should-- to quote the chinese phrase, to at bricks and tiles to this, in this building. even that sounds very utopian, but than that is what we believe that that point, so i think a job, some people studied the literature from 1949 to 1976, really, work is glorified basically in the work is a happy moment and everybody should contribute to society, so that is the whole thing. tso later on when dongping han talked about the economic reform, as long as it can-- mao and talk about who can make more money and who is more glorious than it is totally different from mao's idea that working

itself is glorious the workers and peasants, all of these people that sustains human kind, that is a glorious thing. so, that is one thing to try to say that because the literature really and encourages that and i just want to say that i came from a unilateral family. my father was the first to fight with the red guards to-- however when i was 16, i did not graduate from anything but i was not supposed to go to the countryside. i volunteered to go so i spent one-and-a-half years in the countryside and some people last may, why did you go? i felt that that point you should be a contributor and to stay in the city and live a little bit of a privileged life was really a revolutionary way so that part. tomorrow i will go into more detail. i think you talk about the

marriage role. that is really true so after the people's republic of china the first lob pass was not constitution but the marriage role. the perich-- marriage roehl past the second year of the people's republic. really for the first time in china's history, abolished a-- system and for the first time gave the women's right to say the men and women are equal partners in marriage and it also gave women's writes for the inheritance right. so that was really fundamental. my phd's in women's studies and i always compare that to western families movement. so, chinese women's liberation movement was not a byproduct. at the same time the chinese socialist revolution, so it is

not from the top down but you can see the legal system change. it fundamentally changed concept of people however, this is a huge country, china so everything in the low was in place, in terms of law that is really true and also i want to mention in this 30 years, 26 years, right? the women in china enjoy a lot of things. equal pay. equal pacom you graduate from college, men, women the same salary and the second one i want to mention right now was maternal-- maternity leave. you are paid maternity leave, that is from the very beginning. so yeah, in terms of that. thank you. [applause] >> this was the cultural

revolution and she mentions there is the realm of ideas and values and this is something we are going to get into any very big way especially as that was reflected in the art in the struggle to fortress new art that embody a new way for people to relate to each other and to let the world and human possibility. we are going to take a few more questions. let me see hands from the audience, and d.w.i okay. we will go here. >> you said that like education suffers if there is like teachers and professors but like when the farmers and workers who run the school it prospers. d.d. say that? like, do you have concrete evidence for that?

>> my concrete evidence is coming very good example is before the cultural revolution years. it was very hard for women to go to public school. why? because the teachers said they needed to be able to write characters. the reason why because there was not enough space, right? and right after the cultural revolution years when the educators-- the first thing they did was to cut back the number of schools, right? and a argued the farmers' children do not need to go to high school. they thought the farmers' children just needed to know how to read and write in that would be enough. the evidence was very overwhelming-- at reaudit paper

called the professional bias in the chinese education. this country america, we don't allow educators to run education. it is the board of education, right? they are not educators but in china we somehow believe education should be-- by teachers. of course they had to care about themselves first. the fewer the schools the better for the educators because people fight to get a school. so they would ride the teachers, bribed the educators. [inaudible] >> yeah. >> i am an educator like yourself. were both professors of chinese history. at the start of your toka was similarly impressed by your

statements of human nature and how people want to help each other and want to work for the betterment-- >> i said human nature is a product. >> right, so okay during the cultural revolution everybody was working together because the social cultural climate-- but not the teachers. are the teachers different from other human beings or basically a different set of privileges and incentives? >> door in the cultural years the teachers did not play a dominant role in running education. the workers and the farmers were in power. i don't know if any of you are familiar or not, during the cultural years-- the educators. we had a policy of workers propaganda team. every middle school and high school, and policies were made

by this. we have boards of education but it is in a different format. the workers, farmers, were stationed in this room. the missing policy, the educated materials were actually decided by these people, not by the teachers. and after this educational system-- the people who were running education were teachers. this is why we had so many exams, right? and i mean there was a clash between the teachers and students. the teacher used the exams to control the classroom. if you don't listen to me, think about your grade.

and i am not saying that teachers are not necessarily-- but they need to be in the right climate. during the chinese controversial years the climate was different. i will tell you, this teacher who took my nights, right? he and i, to work together, to build up the first school factory in the middle school, and we made cast-iron products, and he had to come to me to teach the first lesson in the middle school. the first class si taught was how did mouse serve the people, the article i talked with a group of students. she changed her tune.

she completely bought into this new idea, a new form of education. the reason i said human nature is exactly because he was different before. after the conversation-- go back to another different format, right? and in a way our human nature, our behavior at least is dictated by--. i strongly stand behind what i said. >> we are getting-- how much time do we have? i don't have a watch on. so come again we have more written questions and others from the floor. again, there are some of these issues that we will be able to get into tomorrow some more. for instance, it is important to

understand for instance dongping will get into this, one of the things that happens in the culture revolution, collective farms of responsibility, management notches in the factory but also in the nick universities and one of the things that happens during the cultural revolution are new combinations in which there is now a collective responsibility. we the politically leadership, students and faculty in the people that work in the university does well that now you for a new kind of collective combinations where people are taking that kind of responsibility for these base level institution so this is something that we can get into tomorrow. how was it that you were able to create these kinds of combinations that are on the one-handed powering the people who had been excluded, the workers and peasants of the past and that the same time bringing others into the responsibility for running these institutions, so this is something we can get

into more deeply tomorrow but it is all part of the excitement of the cultural revolution because these were the kinds of things separate being experimented with been transformed. one of the main things that it was being struggled with, and we can explore this, is one of their relationship between what mao called politics and expertise at the same time how you draw the experts and to the process in changing society? how do you go about that any way that is moving society towards the goals of overcoming classes and social divisions of these are things we can explore tomorrow some more in depth. i want to see the hands again and there is a waiting hand in the far grier. i want to give everyone a chance of let's get the person back there.

>> hi. hello? issa static comment. i have read a little bit about the cultural revolution and a lot of this stuff about what it was not but what surprises me is that a lot of the criticism is you know made against the cultural revolution and they expect the counter-- cultural evolution, it is declared that all of a sudden everything people expect the system to work efficiently, beautifully and everything is supposed to help. when a child goes to first grade, there is a big transformation. the child becomes a new person and is going to become literate but we don't expect them to begin writing essays and analyze philosophy and religion etc. to

me, the cultural revolution is expected to transform everything overnight. >> okay. i don't think anybody expects-- some people would increase the culture revolution. they think the chinese revolution should be perfect at the time. of course it can never become perfect, but i presently feel the chinese rural community, the colonial style of organization, it is some kind of close to a communist society.

and everybody did whatever they could and again whenever they need from the community. of course according to marxist theory we need to see the production. to oil level. we have a huge abandoned. i don't think we can never reach the level, we will never be able to produce enough to satisfy everybody's greed. but we definitely have enough economic productive power to produce enough to make sure everybody has what they need to live adequately. and from that level, i still think the chinese cultural revolution on the whole, in my village, in my county was the typical example of the chinese

society. i was very happy with that. i think it was close to a perfect society. we were pork, no doubt compared to the united states, but we did not have the homeless population. we did not have drug abuse. and we had free education, free medical care. everybody had a home. everybody worked together. there were some problems. we did not have crime almost. mises jurat home, this summer when i went back said you know, in the 13 years when i was nine years old the started working in the village. i started working when i was nine on wednesday afternoon, friday afternoon and sunday.

i said, we didn't have one crime in the whole village. i don't even remember who died during that time. why? the chinese party doubled during mao's time from 35 year to 69. we were 20 years the head of the india of in life expectancy as far as life expectancy is concerned, so what to expect? a poor country was able to do that much is surprising for me. i did not understand at the time after left china to see what was going on in the u.s., when i first came to the united states i lived in burlington vermont, not in burlington then all of my neighbors were poor people. my next-door neighbors were all

wealthier, and they were much younger than i was. they had four sons and both were illiterate. they were drinking beer on the porch every night. but their four children came to my house, ask me, can i have a piece of bread every day. i was so shocked. that is not the america i thought it was. wit i moved to boston, died rented a cabin from a rich landlord in one day he asked me, what do i think about america? i said, i am not impressed. [applause] he was so angry. he was so upset. i didn't realize how upset he was. he said, why? i said because you have so many-- but at the same time so

many homeless, so many hungry people. at the end of the year, he asked me to move, right? and this guy had a daughter who was my son's age. and my son was six years old at the time. they had a 4-year-old boy and his name was edward. he would say, i don't like dongping. i always wondered why he didn't like me. i didn't do anything to him. i figured that maybe that was what his father taught at home. i hated rich people he said. he said, i have a problem with rich people. and yes, i do. if there are poor people-- i don't think rich people should have that much. i added students this summer and he took a class with me, i told you a classic about third world

countries. he struggled with me from the very beginning of the class. he disagreed with me on most of the issues. toward the end of the class he kind of came around with me. this summer while we were in china he asked me-- he said if somebody was able to help another person who was in need, and by helping that person without affecting his own lifestyle, but that person refused to help, don't you think that person is committing a crime? i said, that is a very tricky question, right? i said more worry i think the person is committing a crime. if you agree that all the millionaires in this country are criminals.

[applause] don't you think? how much money do you need? you will never be able to spend the money but there is still a lot of money because you were keeping your money and as a result some people suffer. isn't that true? the chinese government today released something today. we are in a financial crisis now, right? in the world. the chinese millionaires, their assets doubled. the chinese people thought it was a good thing, right? their wealth doubled. how many people suffered as a result? i am very proud of mao's china. because we didn't have-- because we didn't have drug abuse,

because everybody had a job, because everyone was taking care of. i am very aware, i don't feel the same way about china today. to see that the environmental degradation, to see my hometown the river was so polluted, to see many poor farmers who is children were no longer able to go to school. win pour farmers when they were sick, they were just left to die. i just feel i could not identify with the country, as strongly as i can with north china. [applause] >> we are going to take one more question from the cards and this

question-- could you tell us about how the cultural evolution actually started in your village? >> okay. >> this bybee talking about the red guards. >> there are many-- i was talking before, starting with the army came into the village to teach farmers how to read mel's traditions. they came with a very fascinating format. three came to my house and began to recite. [inaudible] and got me very excited.

when i was beginning to read and i told my mom, and my mom was illiterate. this was one thing. another thing was mel began to-- and and there was one neighbor in my village who was in middle school. he was maybe three years older than i was, traveled all the way to beijing and to be reviewed by mao and when he came back began to tell the stories the big-- on the way there and how we should not criticize leaders. that is how it started. many people began to write big posters denigrated criticizing-- the remember my mom asked me to

write down what he said on a big poster. the production team leader, where was the money he has my family to give to him, where it wins. i look back at the time it was very powerful but when i grew up, looking back i felt this was very empowering. for an ordinary woman, electorate, in a village beginning to question authority. most people started controversy, they don't start with these kinds of things. they never talk about older people like my mom, like myself, who were empowered, changed in this process. and it is a democratic revolution.

it is a revolution to empower all people. that is why it is different from all other. many people said-- it is how it differs from other chinese history. it is really empowered older workers and farmers. and people would suffer, and they needed some suffering to balance. [laughter] >> dongping han teaches history and politicalci carolina. for more information visit evolution books.com.

>> jonathan safran foer exports the policies of factory farming and the politics of vegetarianism. former "new york times" restaurantti discussion. the choice center rainman hatton new york city hosts this hour and ten-minute event. [applause] >> okay, hi. thank you all for coming. it is nice to see a packed house. i actually had to turn family away. and i just want to start by tanking-- thanking my guess, jonathan hickham to do this and i'm excited about it.

i do want to start with icatn ba been a little bit of media hype about the lower versus bruni fazal fun meet. i hope they disagree on some things but i really invited them here for hopefully a more wide-ranging talks on food and its primacy in i think all of our lives so we are going to touch on food as it weaves to their books in their lives in the world right now. and again, because i am jewish a don't want anyone disappointed so i'm telling you right now there might not be blood on the floor. so, let's start with the fact that if i'm going to make a broad generalization, frank, your book made me want the eat, and jonathan your book made me want to stop. and that is an oversimplification because obviously you have done some battles with food, but someone is going to say to you where do you think someone is left in terms of the take-away on food

and live. i notice a big question but what you think the take-away is for each of you? >> i was hoping you were going to ask him. >> jonathan don't you-- why don't you start? if you walk away from your book, what you think someone ends up feeling about food or wrestling with in terms of food? >> i imagine most people-- in the book, i hope saying i didn't know that and i wish i had known that sooner. i don't expect people are going to reach the same conclusions. i certainly don't expect most people will close my book and stop eating meat. i hope a lot of people will close my book and stop beating factory farms meet, but maybe they are realistic hope is that people will just pause and that is what everyone wants a book to do. every brighter of every kind of

book written was the reader to pause after having read it and think about the next moment a little bit differently so in the case of this book the next moment takes place in the supermarket or in a restaurant or in front of your own refrigerator and maybe it takes a second longer before you reached for the thing and say hey, i read that book and it gave me a reason to think about what i am reaching for. >> for those who haven't read it yet and i hope all of you to read both of these books because honestly-- how would you kind of lay out in a few sentences what they are discovering in eating animals? >> i should say wrote the book or i should say i conceived of the book when my wife became pregnant with my first child and i face the prospect of having to feed someone else. i became a vegetarian when i was nine, only for a couple of weeks and then i started eating meat, it became a vegetarian and ate

meat and there's a swinging pendulum throughout all of my life until quite recently and when my wife became pregnant and i thought well, is my kid going to inherit a swinging pendulum or can i myself paulison to figure out what it is i believe which would require going out into the world, saying where meet comes from and also investigating my own instincts, and then made a choice. so, the thrust of the book does not really deal with the questions is me writer wrong. it is not something i get into. i don't think it is a very important question. it does seem that the question, is the way that we eat meat right or wrong and i've not appealing to french values but very conservative american values. 96% of americans think that animals deserve legal protection. everyone at this point and certainly everyone in this room thinks the quality of the air we breathe matters, the health of

the oceans matter, the water we drink badders, our continued reliance on antibiotics matters and lo and behold there's an industry which is responsible for 99% of the meat produced in this country that is demonstrably bad in the ways that i just described, appealing to the values that we really all share. the very broad consensus in this country that it is wrong to make animals suffered. it is wrong to callously destroying the environment when there are alternatives, and this is the single worst thing we can do to animals, the single worst thing we can do to the environment so what i wanted in my book was to find a way-- unfortunately when we put these universal concerns into the package of meet people get very uncomfortable and testy and they feel accused and sometimes aggressive and i think it is the necessary. i think it's just been framed in the wrong way.

it has been framed as a wagging finger or an absolutist position. you are anneka vegetarian or not. if you care there's a whole spectrum of ways to care, so i wanted to present readers with the specter meant to say you know of course it is acceptable to make different choices but it is not acceptable to willfully ignored these problems, not any longer. >> frank. >> it actually did not occur to me until i was listening to jonathan top although i've read most of the book and it is a great book. we are book riding in some ways about the same thing. were both rewriting about an affluent country. he is writing about the ethical choices that many people but they think it is important to say most people, not most people, can make in an affluent country when it comes to the sourcing of their meat when it comes to everything about where their food is coming from and

how the choices they make about that they can support certain things and turn it back on other things. i am writing, i wrote about a different kind of dilemma one faces in the land of plenty in a culture of affluence, or least in the circumstance of affluence which was how i was raised, which is when you out solve the problem is many people in the country have the of having enough to meet in in fact your were faced with a multitude of options that what you have a certain kind of relationship with food, if you have a certain kind of maybe actual chemistry how do you cast food in the right kind of role in your life and put it in the right place and not let it get the better of you? in my case, that was not letting it get the better of me was about essentially overcoming what would be called the eating disorders over the course of my life but anyway getting back to jonathan, we are both talking about problems that are unique to a culture of plenty in a land of loans. >> i think what you up all so

both having come in which kind of goes to that and this may go the distance you are describing, people are very interest-- invest in their connection to food. you both write about food is memory. it is really powerful and both of your books. you talk about passover, thanksgiving. yours, there are too many examples of your mom, your grandma come of those incredible excursions to rimington's. >> rimington's. talking about a restaurant. >> the thanks givings that were obviously bottomless. it is hard for people to let go of the things that are very powerful in their lives that are connected to food. let's jastarnia with that frank. >> i think there is a longstanding phrase we have heard a million times and our lives which is you are with delete and the phrase is typically been meant to me like what you when just will

reflector state of health, will reflect a lot of that. we have it fall to a point where what we it is what we program our dvr's to report. weeks bresson jot this book is all about this. weeks broussard dina decent large measure based on motley event in some circles it is about what is your epicurean discernment and other circles what it says about your values but we have become increasingly food fixated society and i think it is about the stage of wealth we are in because in some ways we are europe and a little later along. i think people see everything decision they make is a very profound matter of identity. >> will you yourself steak personally for a minute because so much of your work his personal. in what way is your childhood, your growing up in the struggle to had with food also related to the bounty of that, the warmth of it, they love of it? >> in my case it relates