He chose China, and all that came with it

• Source: Global Times
• [00:12 September 28 2009]
• Comments

 By Tian Wei

He chose a phoenix and a dragon. Phoenix was the name of his Chinese wife, to whom he was married for 50 years until her death. The dragon is the country he has adopted as his homeland since 1963, when he gave up his American passport and became a Chinese citizen. As a result of that, he went through all the ups and downs of China's modern history, just like all his Chinese neighbors living in a small hutong in downtown Beijing.

Sidney Shapiro was originally a young Jewish man from New York who came to China "to have a look" in 1947. As a contemporary of Edgar Snow, the author of the classic Red Star Over China, he too was touched by the great revolution going on in China then and the people striving to fi nd justice and equality in a society that had long suffered from wars and disasters.

So he decided to stay.

Though the times have changed, Sidney still retains the idealistic fervor that gripped some of the Western young people in the 1960s even at the time when the People's Republic is already celebrating her 60th anniversary.

The PRC history, according to Sidney, was a great experiment, and a personal adventure he could always have fun with when looking back. It's not his way to boast or be overdramatic, however, even when remembering the most difficult times.

As he sat in a tranquil garden in an early autumn afternoon in Beijing, his eyes were full of lights, and his hands gestured extravagantly when trying to describe to me, a young Chinese woman, the great socialist construction he once participated in.

"I was building the Ming Tomb Reservoir in Beijing," he said, referring to one of the biggest structures the city of Beijing built during the 1950s, still one of the major sources of drinking water for Beijing residents.

"That was very hard work. The food was terrible," he smiled though, "Black steam buns, something like terriblytasting bread, and a little salted vegetables – I never had to have them before. But I had to eat them then. Otherwise, I would have no strength to continue my work." he said.

Even with the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), during which his beloved wife Phoenix spent 10 years under house arrest, Sidney gives an account very different than most of the people who experienced it. "Factions formed in my danwei, just as elsewhere, with all sides arguing over which was the most Marxist. They fought, not just verbally, but physically. But Song Jiang saved me. They left me alone. The two factions both wanted credit for translating the book."

Song Jiang is a character in one of China's most renowned classics, Outlaws of the Marsh. At the time of the Cultural Revolution, Sidney and some of his colleagues were working on the translation of this great classic from Chinese into English. Then, the stories in the book were believed to describe the battles the have-nots had against the privileged, matching the revolutionary tone of the time.

As a result, the translation was not only not stopped, but encouraged and protected. On that note, referring to piles of books he translated into English from Chinese in his residence, Sidney said "That is my bid for immortality."

Sidney Shapiro is not like some of his foreign contemporaries, who sought the opportunity to become political stars during various stages of PRC history. He was not interested in seeking those opportunities.

His official titles include mostly ones related to his professional work: former supervisor of the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, and a member of the Translators Association of China, just to name a few.

The only one that has a political tinge is his six-term membership of the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

It is not only in Chinese society that he has avoided being high-profile, but also in the foreign community.

While those of his same age or even much younger have already made their China years a commodity through establishing consulting businesses, or at least being a local celebrity, he refused to do any of this and desired to be only an ordinary person, "a particle in the centrifuge that created one of the most momentous changes in Chinese history."

When I asked him to take a look back at the history of the PRC over the past six decades, he said exactly the same thing as the last time I talked to him 10 years ago: "The Chinese revolution has brought a better life for the Chinese people, a better chance of peace and prosperity."

To some, that answer would only confirm a previous description of him by some as "a typical Western radical stuck in the 1960s."

But I see in him a man who sticks to his dream and dares to go with it, just to be true to his heart. I wonder if that is also what we need today in China when facing our past, present and future.

Tian Wei is the host of “Dialogue” on CCTV's English Channel, and the main anchor of CCTV's special coverage of important domestic and international events. Previously, Tian worked in Washington D.C. as a correspondent, and covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her blog is http://blog.cctv.com/html/09/960109.html. Reach her at tianwei.gt@gmail.com