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The Earnshaw Vault
Hooligan fiancéePosted by Jeremy Goldkorn, April 16, 2008 4:56 PM
Graham Earnshaw was the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 1980 to 1984, and he's been looking through his clippings, which seem to prove both that China has changed completely and also that China has stayed exactly the same. This spring and summer, Danwei will be publishing a series of these reports from the past. This is today's resurrected item: Fiancée of Diplomat "Hooligan" The Chinese authorities have accused the jailed fiancée of a French diplomat in Peking of being a hooligan, according to the China News Service. The service said Miss Li Shuang, 25, an artist sentenced recently to two years "re-education through labour", was "involved in hooligan activities on a big scale and committed crimes against public decency." Miss Li lived with M. Emmanuel Bellefroid, the French diplomat, for two months before being arrested. The Chinese authorities have refused to specify the charges against her. M. Bellefroid has since left China.
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Comments on Hooligan fiancée
Interestingly enough, Li Shuang is now Shuang Bellefroid, a mother of two teenagers, working in her workshop in Paris.
She was freed after French president Mitterandt's visit in 1981 and settlled in France in 1983, when the two married.
Beautiful story indeed with some of our all-time favourite plot ingredients: French diplomat, Chinese artist, love, government, tragedy and happy ending.
Boycott Carrefour if you want, people like Li Shuang will always be welcome in France!
(more info on the story here.
Do we need combine an emotive love story with childish Boycott in a comment to make us noble? Don't some french clamour boycott Olympic Game? Same hysterics.
http://www.artzinechina.com/display_print.php?a=421
I believe they are subverting the government is main reason to jail her.
More interestingly and funny is the Chinese early 80s youth relationship with foreigner,especially in all the people in the first picture of the link.
Mmmh, sounds a lot like the 'M. Butterfly'-story
Madame Butterfly was my first thought as well, which brings us to this naughty limerick that I have just composed:
A Frenchman deployed to La Chine
kissed an artiste while in Pekin
He found something wrong
with his bride Li Shuang
when his 阳 tried to enter her 阴
*standing ovation* for Spelunker
In 1920-01-17, Volstead Act (Charter Amendment 18) took effect in U.S. and in 1933-12-04, Volstead Act was put off by Charter Amendment 21. Volstead Act prohits producing, transfering and sale of drink which has more than 0.5% alcohol. The Act was a law reflecting Puritan moral requirement.
The Hooligan Crime can be seen as parallel of Volstead Act, but in the more hurting, even deadly way.
Even nowadays, offence against morality is still crime in some western countries, but the scope is narrowing now and then.
BTW, China lagged behind western several hundreds years in the sense of "modern" in modern history. So paralle here is reasonable.
i hate to let Lark in Cloud draw me off-topic, but ... ... ...
is it not significant that:
(1) the Volstead Act was narrowly tailored to criminalize the trade and possession of a psychoactive drug (alcohol) rather than criminalizing broad swaths of social behavior, including certain interpersonal relationships such as those between unmarried persons or persons of differing nationalities;
(2) the Volstead Act, however ridiculous, was passed by the supermajority vote of U.S. citizens' directly- and democratically-elected representatives as an overwhelming--if unwise--expression of popular sovereignty; AND
(3) persons subject to the Volstead Act were entitled to the protections of a reasonably independent judiciary, the freedom to publicly criticize the Act and its enforcement, and most importantly, the right to repeal the Act by popular vote--which rights and protections were then and still are set forth in the Bill of Rights (specifically the 1st, 4th-6th, & 8th Amendments), and elsewhere?
(1) is it only psychoactive drug? It is about "moral corruption of life style" ATM.
(2) does this perhaps mean democracy not always do good? Isn't democracy sometimes tyranny of majority vs minority? Isn't religious belief sometimes dangerous, and should be kept far from law decision?
(3) Yes, you may have more chance to revert a bad decision in democratic system. But it tooks 13 years to undo Volstead Act, and nowadays in some states, there are still rules like Volstead Act.
very OT:
Democracy with blind trust and bias, with superiority complex and without comprehension, is also dangerous. With this kind of democracy, you commit crime with proud, and say sorry and commit next crime with proud, proud about that you will say sorry and those devil will not say sorry, and no suspicion on why you do it wrong at the first place.
And you are able to pay back the crime you committed? Think about U.S Indian, they are genocided both in ethnic and cultural sense, by the "democratic" U.S. You are still proud that you can say sorry, and you are savior, aren't you? Think about "democratic" Nazi German.
(disclaimer: "you" here refers to a group, not single person)
So this post has devolved from a romantic tale of tragedy, love, loss and redemption to an hysterical, garbled, nationalistic rant. Is this a sign of the times? I never thought the Olympics would be this interesting. Roll on August...
Does anyone can give this article and comment link to Ms Shuang? I am really curious about what she is feeling now about her love story. Is she happy all the way from beginning to now on her marriage.
What she now is thinking is much more meaningful for younger Chinese generation.
By the way,Spelunker's poem is really....liberal.
You must be a Democratic.