Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta.
About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 1989)
PAGE 11 — The Georgia Bulletin, November 9, 1989 Educator Affected By China's Historic "Spring" BY PAULA DAY Area educator Betsy Fodor has returned to Atlanta after spending a year in the People’s Republic of China bringing her first hand account of the historic events there last spring. The former teacher and administrator at St. Pius X High School was deeply moved by the ill-fated pro-democracy movement. CHINA WATCHER — Betsy Fodor witnessed historic events. ’ St. Thomas More Hosts Artist In Residence Martha Eddins Burgess, writer, director, actress and producer, began six weeks as artist-in-residence at St. Thomas More School in Decatur on Monday, Nov. 6. She will remain until Dec. 19. The residency is sponsored by Artists-in-Education, a program of the Georgia Council for the Arts. She will teach students in grades six through eight about the theater and will also conduct classes for the adult community. Mrs. Burgess is known in Atlanta for her work in musical , theater. She played Molly Brown in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown’’ and Annie in “Annie Get Your Gun” at the Harle quin dinner theater. She has also directed regional theater for years, “every- . thing from opera to children’s theater,” she said. She directed the Atlanta Children’s Civic Theatre in produc tions of “The Wizard of Oz,” “Tom Sawyer” “Anne of Green Gables,” and “Seventeen.” BE A CLOWN — Chester Meng was among parishioners at Christ Our Hope parish in Lithonia who helped make the Anchor Festival successful. His wife, Patsy made the costume. Meng joined the Church at Easter. “It was a privilege to be with these people before and dur ing and after the pro-democracy movement to share the ex citement, share their aspirations,” Mrs. Fodor said. After “the tragedy, the massacre” in Tiananmen Square, she “truly felt their pain.” “I can’t describe to you the degree of despair that has gripped them—the sense of fruitlessness in going on.” Mrs. Fodor’s interest in the Chinese people and culture began when she taught a course on the politics of modern China. She visited China briefly in 1981 with other secon dary school administrators. In 1988-89, she taught conversa tional English at Southwest Petroleum Institute, a research facility for graduate students in the city of Nanchong. The “small city” of 300,000 is in the province of Sichuan about 900 miles southwest of Beijing. China’s larger cities have populations of over one million. The year’s experience changed her view of the Chinese. While she still admires and “loves them deeply,” she sees them more realistically. Their society is highly secularized, she said. They are pragmatic, non-spiritual; a people so caught up in the pre sent that they have little energy left to reflect on larger issues, such as the meaning of life. A constant preoccupa tion is “keeping their thinking in line with national party thought,” as the local Communist Party leader put it in ex plaining the agenda for the upcoming school term. Monks, nuns and ordinary people attend Buddhist and Christian services, and various religions are practiced. But her students did not know the significance of religious tradi tions, Buddhist, Taoist or Christian. “Oh, but Fodor,” one student told her, “we are a Com munist country. We do not believe in God.” However, one young man, while walking her home after class, said he and his family were Catholic, that it had been “very difficult during the Cultural Revolution.” His father had died. See ing his pain, she did not pursue the subject. Temples and churches are supported by the government, which is very much concerned that religious festivals be publicized. There is much public talk about “old traditions,” but government guidelines expressly forbid af filiation with any religious institution outside China. So the national Catholic Church has no ties with the Vatican. Chinese Catholics can and do go to Mass, participate in the sacraments, attend Benediction. A Catholic church built in the 1930s is “jammed” for Mass, but with only a “sprinkling” of young and middle-aged people, she said. A national Catholic Church, it has a seminary in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. The Vatican’s lack of moral support for the national Catholic Church in China disturbs her. She wishes foreign- born Catholics who live in China would practice their faith side by side with Chinese Catholics, giving them moral sup port she believes they need as a tiny minority in a vast secular society. However, official Vatican recognition of the national Church would “sound its death knell,” since it would imply intervention from an outside power, she observed. “Control is the name of the game” in China, she said. The government uses every aspect of Chinese life to emphasize and reiterate “We are in control.” With this insight, she and others watched with excitement but dread as the students, joined by workers, increasingly demanded reform and democratization in 1989. She knew from her teaching experience in China that the young peo ple were naive about history. At a showing of the movie “The Last Emperor,” the younger viewers had “hooted” at the depiction of Red Guard brutality. One young woman ex plained they did so “because that whole period was so silly.” They had not yet experienced how their government could give with one hand and take away with the other. Institute students followed closely through newspapers and television the events as they developed after the death and funeral of Hu Yaobang. He had become a folk hero and his ousting from party leadership a ‘cause celebre.’ World attention centered on Tianamen Square but the demonstrations for reform also took place in other major educational centers, she said. Students from the Petroleum Institute reacted to broadcasts on British Broadcasting Company and Voice of America by banging on pans and holding burning clothes out of dormitory windows. In mid- May they marched into town twice, joining other students in calls for reform. School administrators took no overt action. It was as if they were watching for indications from Beijing on how things would go, Betsy Fodor said. They were also very pro tective of the students, talking persuasively to caution them. She was amazed at the administration’s restraint, she said. When the crackdown came, the young woman who had previously called the actions of the Red Guard silly, called Mrs. Fodor and fearfully reported vicious martial law retaliation and the shooting of students. She despairingly admitted, “It’s just like the Cultural Revolution again.” Betsy Fodor credits the BBC and VOA with bringing critical information and insight into China. She listened with dismay when a close acquaintance who told her just before she left Nanchong, that it was too bad the VOA was “not telling the truth.” He was no longer listening to it because it was better to listen to what his government said. This comment reminded her of reports that Chinese destroyed their shortwave equipment during the Cultural Revolution. Having this equipment meant they listened to newscasts coming from outside China and doing so made them targets for the dreaded “criticism.” This form of public humiliation is used by the Party to cow the Chinese people. After martial law was declared and tanks moved into Tiananmen Square, administrators at the Institute urged students not to panic, that the army would not come onto their campus. But two-thirds of the student body left cam pus, most of them upper-level students whose involvement had been recorded on video. Mrs. Fodor remained in China until August 20. From July 11 to August 19 she visited half a dozen major cities, spend ing 10 days in Beijing before visiting her daughter in Hong Kong. Although she had a sense of urgency about deciding when and whether to leave China, she never felt physically in danger. During those weeks she witnessed another phenomenon, the successful effort to create the effect that the short-lived democratic beginnings had never happened. She is not hopeful about a rebirth. Intellectuals and leaders who fostered the movement have either been used to enforce the party’s position or have been systematically eliminated. Social science departments have been iden tified as “hot spots” and threats to stability. The Chinese government’s message to the outside world and its coveted business is “things are back to normal and we’re back to doing business on our terms.” Mrs. Fodor fears Westeners will “give comfort” to the Chinese government by their tourist and business presence. She is now organizing material from her journal and hopes to write of the students who shared their lives with her, the “beautiful” Chinese people and the momentous events she was privileged to witness. f N Archbishop Marino's Schedule SUNDAY, NOV. 12 — 11:30 a.m. Confirmation, St. Paul of the Cross, Atlanta. MONDAY, NOV. 13 — 4 p.m. Finance Council meeting, Catholic Center. TUESDAY, NOV. 14 — 8:30 a.m. Breakfast meeting with religious leaders, Brother Juniper’s Restaurant. — 7:30 p.m. Confirmation at Holy Family Church, Marietta. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 15 — 10 a.m. Meeting, Priests’ Council, Catholic Center. — 7 p.m. Confirmation, St. Bernadette’s Church, Cedartown. FRIDAY,NOV. 17 — 10 a.m. Vocations Committee meeting, Catholic Center. V — 1:30 p.m. Meeting of Personnel Board, Catholic Center. — 7 p.m. Art in Berlin exhibit, High Museum of Art, Atlanta. SATURDAY, NOV. 18 — 6 p.m. Reception for Hispanic Apostolate, arch bishop’s residence. SUNDAY, NOV. 19 — 12:30 p.m. Celebrate Mass in honor of Our Lady of Providence, patroness of Puerto Rico, St. Philip Benizi Church, Jonesboro. MONDAY, NOV. 20 — 11 a.m. Invocation, Philanthropy Day at Rich Auditorium, Memorial Arts Center. — 2 p.m. Groundbreaking at St. Benedict’s parish, Parsons Road in Duluth. J
