by Linda Jaivin
I’d like to express very sincere thanks to the entire Hou family. Hou’s immediate family graciously endured hours of questioning. Hou Dejian’s brothers Dewei and Dejun were enormously helpful, as was his sister Xiaoling and his mother Luo Yingwen. Dewei shared with me his precious collection of Hou’s old letters, diaries and manuscripts. His father, Hou Guobang, provided me with a ninety-page autobiographical memoir written specially for me. When I visited Dragon Village in 2000, the Hou clan there also warmly welcomed me. I want to thank Hou Dekang, Hou Dejiao and his family, and Hou Yongming and Wang Xiaoping for their hospitality. I also thank Hou Deying (Dechen), Fang Xiaoyin and Hou’s old friend, the fabulous An Ge, for accompanying Tim Smith and me on our trip on the Yangtze and up the mountain from Wushan to the village, and who has kindly allowed me to reproduce several of his excellent photographs. Hou Dejian’s wife Yanmei was also unstinting in her support and hospitality when I visited them in Taipei.
Many of Hou’s friends and acquaintances in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China have been more than generous with their time and memories. These include Yan Zhuang, the late Dai Hongxuan, Shu Kuo-chih, Zhou Yu and Sun Weimang in Taipei; Winnie Yeung, Teddy Robin, Tsui Hark, Shu Kei, Nansun Shi, and Ann Hui in Hong Kong; and in Beijing, Yang Xianyi and the late Gladys Yang, their daughter Yang Zhi, Xie Yunpeng, Hou Muren, Jin Zhaojun, Liu Xiaobo, Wang Kun, her son Zhou Yue, Robinson ‘Lao Luo’ Randriaharimalala and many others who asked to remain anonymous.
Kim Wong of Sound Sound, Hou’s long-term manager, has my great appreciation for the hours he spent with me discussing Hou Dejian as well as for his willingness to open his files to me—much of the information on Hou’s remarkable income and spending habits come from those files. Ni Zhonghua of Taiwan’s Mandala record company lent me rare and valuable materials on Taiwan’s campus folk movement. As with so many subjects touched on by this book, I was only able to include a fraction of what I learned about campus folk. I hope that Ni and others don’t feel they wasted too much time sharing their knowledge with me.
Jaime (‘Jimi’) FlorCruz, who was promoted to Time’s Beijing bureau chief, and in 2000 named Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in the US, and who is now Beijing bureau chief for CNN, deserves very special thanks. Jimi was most helpful and has been kind enough to read several drafts. He is a wonderful friend and a great journalist.
A number of other Beijing-based foreign correspondents who’d had contact with Hou were also most generous with their time: thank you to Jane Macartney, another great friend from that era, to Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn, Adi Ignatius and Peter Ellingsen. The Hong Kong journalists Lee Yee and Fong Su of Jiushi niandai (The Nineties), and Jin Zhong of Kaifang zazhi (Open Magazine), as well as Ouyang Yuanmei of the Lianhe bao (United Daily News) in Taiwan also offered much useful advice and support. Australian diplomats, particularly Richard Rigby, have also been extremely helpful; both Richard and his wife Tai Fang read sections of the manuscript.
The Contemporary China Centre of the Australian National University very kindly provided me with an office and a library card and other facilities from 1990–92 when I began researching this book, and many lecturers and fellows at the ANU were enthusiastically supportive of it from the start, including Keith Forster, Gavan McCormack, Barrett McCormack, Jonathan Unger, David Kelly, W. J. F. Jenner (now at Leeds University) and Mark Elvin. Gary Clintworth, David Pattinson, and Jeremy Taylor all offered their help and support in the early stages of the project, as did the former Beijing correspondent Yvonne Preston. In later years, when I returned to Canberra for short periods of research, the Contemporary China Centre continued to help me with library access and other resources.
In the course of my work in libraries in Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong, I received much help from staff who patiently led me through the intricacies of the Chinese cataloguing system. Of these, Jean Hung of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s University Services Centre was particularly patient and enthusiastic.
Thank you too to Nancy Lan, Lu Yueh Chu and Jane Chia-mei Coughlan. I am also grateful to Nicole Aberdee for letting me read her unpublished paper on ‘International Dispute Resolution’.
My parents, my old and dear friend Scott Neeley and my ex-husband, Geremie Barmé, had all saved letters I’d written to them during the eighties; these letters, which they gave back to me, provided many anecdotes and details that would otherwise have been lost.
I owe a lot to Geremie, the most extraordinary of ex-es. Now a professor at the Australian National University, he plays a big part in the book and he very kindly took time to read through it and offer many useful comments and criticisms, not to mention humorous asides. He also supported me financially during the first stages of the writing of this book. It’s Geremie’s calligraphy that decorates the title page of the section ‘Tiananmen’. Geremie—feichang, feichang ganxie.
Nick Jose also read the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions and corrections. Thanks, Nick, for your efforts, suggestions and friendship. Another good friend who appears in the book, Sang Ye, read several chapters and astounded me, as usual, with his photographic memory and grasp of detail—Sang Ye, tai ganxie.
Rani Sheen converted currencies, checked facts and helped me keep my life and files together while I was working on the final stages of the book. Thank you, princess. Dominika Debska picked up where Rani left off—thank you, Dom.
Tim Smith’s encouragement, love and cooking got me through the long hard slog of writing and revising. His detailed note-taking on our trip to Dragon Village proved invaluable, and he is a natural-born editor. You know what you mean to me, baby.
My agent Rose Creswell supported this difficult, and at times seemingly unpublishable project from the start. Thank you so much, Rose. Michael Heyward was the first publisher—of the many, many approached by Rose—to say it could be done. Michael. You legend.
The great calligrapher and friend Huang Miaozi contributed the wonderful calligraphies ‘Monkey and Dragon’ which decorate the title pages.
While I was writing this book, Hou Dejian gave me unlimited access to his friends, his family and even his enemies, put up with countless hours of questioning, and yet never demanded any kind of editorial control. I thank him for his support, his friendship, and the opportunity to share in a small way the adventure of his life.
Any errors are mine alone.
