My Life in Prison

Jiang Qisheng

doi:10.5771/9781442212244

Summary

In 1999, leading dissident Jiang Qisheng was given a four-year sentence for inviting the Chinese people to light candles to honor the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Drawn with indignant intensity from Jiang’s time in prison, his memoirs record chilling observations of the modern “civilized” Beijing jails in which he was held.

While awaiting a farcical trial, he shares a cell crowded with common criminals, among them a murderer who had dismembered his victim with an electric saw. Along with intriguing vignettes of his fellow prisoners, Jiang describes the brutal conditions they all faced: inmates led to execution with necks corded to silence them, savage fights between prisoners, and rare moments of unexpected kindness. He describes the frequent beatings by guards, the use of the electric prod, and a dehumanizing regime aimed at humiliation and the destruction of individual personality.

After he is sentenced, conditions are even worse. Prisoners, used as slave labor, become bitterly exhausted and emaciated, while facing new depths of mental degradation. Throughout, however, Jiang retains his dignity, his detached and perceptive intelligence, and his concern for his fellow sufferers, guards included.

Written in a light and ironic style, Jiang’s stories of prisoners, many of whom come from the most primitive and impoverished layer of Chinese society, are related with vividness, insight, humor, and compassion. Dismayed by their fatalistic docility, the author asks, “Where lies China’s hope? Can democracy ever take root in China?” The answers, surely, lie in the voices of those, like Jiang, who dare to speak out.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2012
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4422-1222-0
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4422-1224-4
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 224
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Foreword No access
3. Author’s Preface No access
4. Editor’s Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 8
1. Chapter 1. A Trip to the South No access
2. Chapter 2. Dark Clouds Appear No access
3. Chapter 3. A Sleepless Night No access
4. Chapter 4. In Section Seven No access
5. Chapter 5. Maintaining One’s Dignity No access
6. Chapter 6. Verbal Tussles during Preliminary Examination No access
7. Chapter 7. Peaceful Coexistence with Fellow Prisoners No access
8. Chapter 8. Avoiding Self-Pity No access
9. Chapter 9. Death and Life by the Wall No access
10. Chapter 10. Looking on the Bright Side No access
11. Chapter 11. The White Hole of Human Rights No access
12. Chapter 12. A Brief Look at Evidence of Corruption No access
13. Chapter 13. Longing for Books No access
14. Chapter 14. Chess and Cards No access
15. Chapter 15. Litigation Records No access
16. Chapter 16. The Trial No access
17. Chapter 17. Falungong Adherent Sun Wei No access
18. Chapter 18. Gao Shuo of the Electric Saw No access
19. Chapter 19. Treated as Guilty Even without Evidence No access
20. Chapter 20. Precious Messages No access
21. Chapter 21. Occasional Loneliness No access
22. Chapter 22. Victims of Injustice and Crackdowns on Criminals No access
23. Chapter 23. The Clank of Chains at Dawn No access
24. Chapter 24. A Sketch of the Detention Center No access
25. Chapter 25. The Campaign for Democracy No access
26. Chapter 26. Reading the Newspapers No access
27. Chapter 27. The Taiwan Question No access
28. Chapter 28. “Give Birth Early and Often”* No access
29. Chapter 29. Teachers’ Low Self-Esteem No access
30. Chapter 30. The Joy of Books No access
31. Chapter 31. Blood on the Sleeping Platform No access
32. Chapter 32. A Small Society in a Narrow Room No access
33. Chapter 33. Three Encounters with Falungong No access
34. Chapter 34. When Would My Case Be Settled? No access
35. Chapter 35. From Detention Center to Transfer Center No access
36. Epilogue to Part I No access
1. Prologue No access
2. Chapter 36. Encountering Prohibitions No access
3. Chapter 37. Unwritten Rules No access
4. Chapter 38. A True April Fool’s Day Story No access
5. Chapter 39. A Frightening Interlude No access
6. Chapter 40. Visitors Day No access
7. Chapter 41. Guinness Record Levels of Suffering No access
8. Chapter 42. Others May Be Biased, but I Am Impartial No access
9. Chapter 43. When the Cock Crows at Dawn, the System Is Even More Cruel No access
10. Chapter 44. I’ve Never Been Afraid of Hard Work No access
11. Chapter 45. The Long May Day Holiday No access
12. Chapter 46. The Unchanging Transfer Center No access
13. Epilogue to Part II No access
The Day I Was Released from Prison No access Pages 205 - 210
Index No access Pages 211 - 220
About the Authors No access Pages 221 - 224