Communists

The girl who I would consider my best Chinese friend from when I studied abroad last year is a Communist. Or rather she's a party member. In fact, she's not just a party member but she works for the CCP in the party's equivalent of the foreign affairs office, a job she started this summer. Now, I hadn't actually heard her say that she was a member until very recently (see later in the entry) but I had basically figured it out last summer when I found out that a different girl, who i worked with, was one. The Communist Party in China is not what it used to be, in that it really is only communist in rhetoric only. In fact, many people join the party for the reasons that my former co-worker gave: job opportunities and connections, both of which are pretty darn capitalist. I haven't asked my good friend why she joined the party, but I'm guessing that her reasons would be similar though probably not identical. She's smart and ambitious (the party recruits and only accepts the best and the brightest) and also interested in government and international relations. From conversations, I've gathered that she also has faith in the party's governing ability. (While the CCP has done some really horrible things in the past and continues to do some less horrible things, they have also helped raise tens of millions of people out of poverty - the largest number in the shortest amount of time in human history).

I brought all of this up because I had dinner with her and Jason this past weekend. We caught up and then went to our favorite place to hang out from our time together at bei da - a tea house where you pay 18 RMB for all you can drink/eat, though it becomes increasingly difficult to get the attention of the waiters and waitresses the longer you have been there. They also screw up your orders frequently, but it's fun to see what you actually end up with.

Anyway, one of Jason's other friends met us there, and we, again, told each other what we were doing. When she found out that my friend was a party member, she exclaimed, "you're a Communist?!?!" in shock. Her shock was rather shocking to the rest of us, as I'm pretty sure this girl attends Bei Da, which of all schools in China, should have one of the highest rates of party membership amoung its student population (second only to Qinghua, oh and the party's graduate school if you count that). Awkward silence follows of course, and I, also somewhat awkwardly, tried to brush it off by saying something along the lines of "you really can say anything in front of her, she's not going to report you or anything," which is true. I've had many conversations with my friend about topics that would be considered sensitive both before and after realizing she was a party member.

Two minutes later, at least a partial explanation for her shock/outburst is given. Jason's friend asks my friend if she knows why the government is recently cracking down on house churches and deporting foreigners who preach at them. As a Christian in China, she has two options; she can either attend state-sanctioned churches or churches held in people's houses, which are illegal but often permitted as long as they don't cause political trouble. Of course, my friend, a very new employee of the party's foreign affairs office, has about as much information on that topic as you or i do.