The sheer brutality, terror, and constant fear of death or deportation could have broken Ming’s spirit. It took Ming’s mom two years of bedrest to recover from dozens of broken bones, only to be deported for two years upon her recovery. His mom and other professors rushed to defend their work, only to be beaten to death or nearly to death. They doubled down on their commitment to overcome the brutality and inhumanity of a regime that oppressed, persecuted, tortured and even publicly executed its People.ĭr Ming Wang’s mom was a university teacher until the night the Red Coats descended on her lab. It was a humiliating and unfair punishment for a crime he did not commit, but Ming and his parents knew he was lucky it had not been worse.
He was no longer positioned as a star student, but labeled as a lowlife and relegated to the corner. But the academic honors little Ming worked relentlessly to achieve were stripped from him. He would not be given a black dot in his file, meaning should he somehow manage to avoid deportation, he would not be blacklisted from employment. He would still be subject to the forced deportation that resulted in 20 million Chinese students being sentenced to labor camps far from their families, but that was still some years away. He was given a reprieve of sorts – he would be allowed to live, and stay home with his parents for the time being. So when Chinese Communist officials swarmed down on his home and accused him of being a counter-revolutionary, Ming and his terrified parents pleaded for his life to be spared. He was an amazing big brother who never complained about the hard life they led. He was a hard working, high-achieving student determined to make his family proud.
Eight year-old Ming Wang had no idea why his parents were so angry, or what he’d done wrong.