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Lei Feng's Immortal Spirit
China Revamps Revolutionary Hero
By ALEXA OLESEN
Associated Press, Feb. 28, 2003
BEIJING -- His boyish smile beams from the pages of China's major
newspapers. Lately, he's on the television news every night. Dozens
of Web sites are dedicated to him. But he's no pop star. This is Lei
Feng, a 1960s propaganda icon, a dead soldier hailed as a model of
charity. Dusted off and updated, he's being promoted as an example
of cheerful self-sacrifice by communist leaders who worry economic
reform has made Chinese selfish and fed social tensions.
Killed in 1962 in a freak accident, the 22-year-old soldier was
immortalized by Mao Zedong the following year, when the communist
leader exhorted Chinese to "Learn from Comrade Lei
Feng."
March 5 marks the 40th anniversary of Mao's declaration - and,
coincidentally, the start of the patriotism-infused meeting of
China's National People's Congress. And amid the high-tech din of
China's openly capitalist ambition, Lei Feng and his classic
communist virtue are everywhere.
Schoolchildren visit exhibitions about Lei Feng, who is said to have
helped the elderly and done such good deeds as secretly washing
other soldiers' socks. Humble citizens are periodically elevated
from obscurity by the government and dubbed "living Lei
Fengs." Press reports say the southern city of Changsha has
used the selfless "Lei Feng spirit" to cut crime and boost
economic growth.
But Lei has not been a static figure. He has evolved over the years,
changing as China changes, a mutable symbol of the moral virtues the
country needs most. Lei lacks the single-minded revolutionary zeal
he once had. Today, the media focuses more on his compassion -
something China's new leader, Hu Jintao, named Communist Party
general secretary in November, has been keen to promote in the
country's citizenry. Hu has made helping the poor and unemployed a
key theme of his leadership and is expected to be named China's
president at the legislature's annual session.
"Lei Feng suits Hu's agenda well," said Zhou Xiaozheng, a
professor of sociology at Beijing's People's University. "`Lei
Feng spirit' is to help the weak and do good things, and since he
came to leadership that's been Hu's project."
On Friday, the Web site of the Communist Party's People's Daily
newspaper also invoked Lei, saying senior leader Li Changchun had
told party faithful "the `Lei Feng Spirit' should be carried
forward" - to inspire Chinese toward greater devotion to the
country's modernization. "Upholding the spirit of Lei Feng in
the new century ... will serve as a spiritual catalyst for the
building of a well-off society in an all-around way," the Web
site quoted Li as saying this week at a Lei Feng conference.
For all the attention Lei gets, doubts remain about whether he ever
existed. If he did, he probably bore little resemblance to the
saintly depictions offered up by state-controlled media. According
to biographies of Lei, he was born a peasant in 1940 and lost both
his parents by age 7. At 20, he joined the People's Liberation Army
and rose to become squad leader and party member. Then, on Aug. 15,
1962, Lei was killed when a truck backing up struck a pole that
toppled and killed him.
Posthumously, through the details of his diary and testimonials from
soldiers, he emerged as communist China's ideal, an icon of
dedication and heroic selflessness. His modest deeds became
legendary. Many Chinese can recite passages from Lei's diary from
memory, such as the entry for Oct. 20, 1961: "A person's life
is limited, but to serve the people is unlimited."
The modern Lei, revamped for a new generation, is a little more
pragmatic, a little less perfect and slightly more believable. China
now is being introduced to that Lei through books like "The
Song of Lei Feng," a warts-and-all biography written by
19-year-old author Zhang Tiantian and published last month by
Liaoning People's Press. "He made some mistakes. He was
naughty, and even heroes have emotional problems," Zhang said.
"He was a really normal, realistic person. I put all of that in
my book." Zhang said many Chinese have misconceptions about Lei
and don't know, for example, that he was short, skinny and
nearsighted. She modeled her book on "Lust for Life,"
Irving Stone's biography of Vincent van Gogh, which she said
inspired her to write a realistic depiction of Lei's life and
motivations. "Before that book, many just thought van Gogh was
crazy," said Zhang. "I wanted to write a book like 'Lust
for Life' -- to write it very realistically, to help people
understand Lei."
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