A Heart for Freedom (37 page)

In 2000 Bob officially joined Jenzabar as full-time CEO, and we held fast to our vision. We believed if we could raise a few hundred million dollars in financing, we could transform the entire higher education industry. With our system, anyone could teach, learn, communicate, and be friends. Physical campuses, requiring billions of dollars each year to operate, would no longer be necessary. The highest level of education could be offered to anyone, anywhere across the globe.

Unfortunately, the dot-com bubble popped in April 2000, just weeks after our closing of a large, private-equity financing and merging of several acquired companies. That and several factors prevented us from going public and raising all the money we needed.

No one believed the game could end so quickly. But it did.

Our East Coast investor group was less interested in the vision and more concerned about getting a bigger stake of the company and turning a bigger profit. In the aftermath of the dot-com bust, we spent a lot of time and money in litigation and refinancing negotiations. We had to adjust our business strategy to focus on earnings, not growth. Still, those years helped me grow into an experienced business manager—from building a team to developing strategies to creating a corporate culture to launching new products.

I also learned true leadership from Bob. Days after 9/11, when our nation was under attack, so was our company. An aggressive investor threatened to force us out so he could sell the company and cash out his position, and our employees came to us in confusion. “What should we do, polish up our résumés or work like we did yesterday?”

Bob said directly and firmly, “I don’t know about your blood type, but mine is ‘B positive.’ That’s what I’m going to do: stay focused on running the business. So get back to work.” That was inspiring.

It was also critical to the survival of the enterprise. As a CEO friend later pointed out, for any company or organization to be put into a vacuum state for a month or more, it could lead to confusion, chaos, and rapid deterioration of key employees and customers. How close we were to the brink of disaster! But Bob’s instinctive response of determination, sharpened by years of playing competitive sports, infused energy and focus into the entire company. We went back to work and turned the business around. Within six months, our pretax profit margins reached 20 percent, and we have never looked back. We have since grown the company by 70 percent, while remaining profitable, building the strongest balance sheet among our direct competitors. We now employ almost three hundred associates. Through the Jenzabar Foundation, which we created to work with hundreds of colleges and universities on humanitarian efforts both domestically and internationally, we now contribute 10 percent of our corporate pretax earnings, providing more than one million dollars a year for these projects.

Even with our successes, however, I felt I hadn’t achieved my dream of freedom. Though I was making money, raising a family, and running a successful company, I thought I should be happier. Instead I felt trapped. I had established a small platform, but my vision was to change the world. Each day I continued my fight. Before I knew it, we’d been in business for more than eleven years, and the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen movement was fast approaching.

32

Wrestling with the Past

During my absence from the Chinese democracy movement, attacks against the Tiananmen leaders had taken on a whole new life on the Internet. In February 2007, I googled my name and was linked to selected clips from one of the documentaries and an article saying I should be held responsible for the deaths of three thousand students at Tiananmen.

Tears streamed down my face as I contemplated this latest assault on my character. What would my coworkers and employees think if they googled my name and saw this? Would other parents still want to arrange playdates with my children? Once again I felt overwhelmed by the world. Whoever said truth and justice will prevail? It seemed that politics and power were far more influential. How could I fight against the massive power of evil?

I decided I couldn’t deal with the China issue. I wasn’t big enough or strong enough. I put it on a back burner and focused on building a great enterprise. Maybe then, with more experience and more money, I would be in a position to help bring justice and freedom to China.

The bottom line for me about Tiananmen Square is that the student leaders never expected, hoped for, or anticipated the Chinese government would actually open fire on its own citizens. Some have suggested the massacre could have been avoided if the students had left the Square sooner. I don’t believe that at all. I believe the decision to use force was made by hard-liners in the government on April 25 and 26, when the
dong luan
verdict was announced. By then the protests had engulfed the nation, spreading across the entire society, not just at the epicenter with the students in Beijing. The government wanted to terrorize the people back into submission, and they did everything they could to keep the students on the Square until the crackdown.

Even if we had abandoned the Square before June 4, some other event would have triggered the massacre. The government was determined to retake control of the city and send a message of fear and intimidation to the people—to “kill the chicken to shock the monkey,” as the Chinese saying goes. Don’t forget, the massacre started on the western side of the city as citizens of Beijing took to the streets in protest. By the time the killing reached Tiananmen Square, hundreds had already died during the army’s advance through the streets. As central as Tiananmen Square was to the events of that day, it was only part of the story. In the larger view, it was the Beijing Massacre, in which Tiananmen Square was a key symbol in the push for greater freedom and democracy in China.

* * *

One morning in May 2009, as I came out of my daughters’ school after dropping them off, I saw an Asian woman taking pictures of the school, my car, and me. She was a reporter from a Hong Kong newspaper who wanted to do a story on what my life had become after twenty years. (They were under the false impression I had gone back to China, gotten rich, and forgotten the victims of Tiananmen.) It was scary to realize someone could find my home address and the school my kids attended and show up with a camera. My first thought was,
What else do they know, and what will they do next?

That same day, I heard from Feng, with whom I’d had a few polite interactions since our last meeting, that Fang Zheng, the student from Beijing Sports College who had lost his legs when he was struck by a tank during the withdrawal from Tiananmen Square, had been sponsored out of China by Zhou Fengsuo’s organization, Humanitarian China, and was coming to Boston to be part of a rally. I decided to go see him.

When I walked into the hotel, Fang Zheng was waiting in the lobby. A lump formed in my throat at the thought that I could have ended up like him if the tanks had come from the front of the line of retreating students instead of the rear. In twenty years, Fang had overcome his injuries, mastered the wheelchair, and rebuilt his body to the point that he could compete in the Paralympic Games. He was married to a beautiful woman and had a child the same age as one of my daughters, and he was free in America.

As we ate breakfast and I listened to his stories of living in China for the past twenty years, my heart cried out for him and countless others in the same situation. Meeting Fang inspired me to stop focusing on my own struggles and to consider what I could do to bring people hope. Even as I was fighting the big fight and thinking that someday I would have a lot of resources to help many people, I could start right now, with smaller resources, to help one person at a time.

That day, as I joined the rally with the local Chinese community in support of the democracy movement, an invisible mental prison collapsed. The pain of the past no longer had the power to tie me down. As I met some new immigrants, many of whom were in the process of applying for political refugee status, they reminded me of my early days in America—with all the uncertainty, hardship, and hope. I offered encouragement—“Don’t give up; you will overcome, and your dream will come true.” My heart went out to them. But what could I really do to help? With Bob’s encouragement, I pledged to donate one million dollars over five years to help China-related causes. It was a start.

* * *

On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the massacre, as I prepared a speech for a rally in front of the US Capitol, I wondered,
What kind of message can I give on this special occasion? What kind of program will help bring reform to China today?
And then the words began to flow:

Today, those of us who have lived and experienced the freedom and opportunity provided by democracy now appeal to the leaders of China to do the following:

It has been twenty years, and the current leadership bears no responsibility for the Tiananmen massacre. Acknowledge the massacre and begin a dialogue with those who suffered; release from prison the political prisoners from June 4, 1989; repeal the blacklist and arrest warrants still in effect; and create an impartial citizens’ committee to publish a truthful history of the massacre.

Revisit the hard-line approach toward political reform. Studying the successful model of Taiwan and other countries, it is clear that reform does not have to lead to chaos and civil war. Start with permitting freedom of the press, free local elections, and opposition parties.

China’s current leadership need not fear the well-being of themselves and their families if they embark on reform. The Tiananmen students’ beliefs are grounded in nonviolence and rule of law, and the process used in South Africa and Taiwan are models that could easily be followed.

In 1989, I hoped the Chinese government would realize and understand that different opinions can exist together peacefully; that transparency and public participation were reasonable and beneficial. My hope, and the hope of my fellow students, was met by tanks and machine guns, death and maiming, blacklists and imprisonment. My hope, twenty years later, is that today’s leaders will demonstrate the courage to change. The world is remembering Tiananmen and watching.

After the rally, I went to a conference where many overseas dissidents gathered to discuss what was working, what wasn’t, and how to move forward. There I saw blacklisted writers Su Xiaokang and Zheng Yi, as well as Wang Dan, whom I hadn’t seen for more than ten years.

Talking to these comrades from Tiananmen reminded me how I felt when I first came out of China—confused and overburdened, yet determined to pursue the big cause of reforming China, even with few resources. For the first time I appreciated how far I had come. As they lamented how the overseas democracy movement had fallen prey to the Chinatown syndrome—becoming marginalized from the mainstream of life—I recognized how integrated my life had become. I had an education, spoke English well, and had a wonderful, loving, and supportive husband and family. I owned a company, had some resources, and enjoyed my independence. Now the question was how to have a real impact on the world. My heart burned with a desire to go beyond big words and lofty ideals to make a tangible difference in people’s lives.

At the same conference, I met Ms. Jing Zhang, who became a dissident during the Democracy Wall movement in the late 1970s. She was donating time and money to support volunteer work in China to stop forced abortions on women and rescue trafficked children. My heart was drawn to her because of the support Bob and I had given to some Chinese orphanages. I wanted to see what I could do to help.

Then I saw Zhou Fengsuo. In 1989 he managed the broadcast center at the Square, and he was the first student on the most-wanted list to be arrested. He had spent more than a year in jail and had been in the United States for the past ten years. As I got to know him, I learned that at one point he had become so disappointed with the overseas democracy movement and so overwhelmed by his hatred of the Communist system that he could not find a way to overcome it. On the verge of breaking down, he came to faith in Jesus.

Zhou took me to a prayer service at a church, where we spent more than three hours praying for the past, for the victims who died at Tiananmen, and for the future of a peaceful China. There I met Bob Fu, a Chinese Christian who heads a ministry called ChinaAid, which advocates for the persecuted churches in China; and Zhang Boli, who had been one of my three deputy commanders at Tiananmen. Zhang spent two years escaping from China and was now a Christian minister.

During the service, Zhou Fengsuo, Zhang Boli, and Bob Fu prayed for Jesus to enlighten me. My escape experience had made me a firm believer in Buddhism, and I didn’t think I needed any other faith. I also did not want to be disloyal to my original faith. Nevertheless, the prayer service left a lasting impression.

* * *

As the summer continued, the attacks on my character—and my mind—continued. On June 5, a local paper published a column portraying my company and me as villains in our effort to stop the documentary filmmakers’ deceptive use of our corporate trademark to lure users onto their site. I was soon embroiled in depositions, filings, and counter filings. Around the same time, my computer was hacked, and I had a feeling I was being monitored and followed.

My father came back from a visit to China and brought me a message from the Chinese government: If I continued to push for democracy in China, there would be no good results. They didn’t specify what the bad results might be, but the warning sparked a heated debate between my father and me. He lashed out about how painful and lonely and difficult the years had been after the Tiananmen massacre, asking how I could be so ignorant to continue. What would I accomplish—one person against a nation? When I turned to my sister for support, she was also against me, calling me self-centered for not taking into consideration the whole family’s suffering. She worried they would relive the trauma and suffering of twenty years before. Last time they had stood by me and endured with silence and pride. This time I was on my own.