Wei Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A85-G22
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号：A85-G22
Release Date: November 13, 2004
发布日：2004年11月13日
Topic: Journey of a Human Rights Defender (1) - by Ciping Huang
标题：一个人权捍卫者的历程（节选）-- 黄慈萍
Original Language Version: English (Brief Chinese version at the end)
此号以英文为准（英文在前，简译中文在后）
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Journey of a Human Rights Defender (Excerpt)
-- Ciping
Huang
Nov. 13, 2004
I have not been able to release newsletters for a while and I own our readers, especially these who inquired, an apology and an explanation. I was not able to. But now I can. Now I can also admit that I had a problem - I had a spectacular fall a couple months ago and hurt my left half, especially my left arm. That was bad, really bad. For a while, I prayed it would get better the next day, but it did not. Now, after this long enough ordeal, it is much better and things are picking up speed again.
For a while, I did not want to admit that and I tried to do things as I usually do. However, after nearly 4 decades of "discrimination", my left arm finally protested. I called it off and totally changed my daily routine. That was nice. I was able to do a lot of things that I love but did not do these last several years, especially visiting my old friends and the companies I worked at previously. Like President Bush and Senator Kerry, I, the single armed heroin, also had a very good coverage of the America soil (especially Ohio and Michigan) during the last two months. Last week, I even met with a friend who I have not met for over two decades. He is a professor in Physics now, a dream job I once thought of. My former colleagues were happy to see me as well and I got a look at their newest designs before they hit the market. Once an expert on that field, I had little to comment and felt a little chill in my heart, for I have not kept up with the newest technology as I wished. I love my old work - for a curious creature, I also had the first play with new technology toys. It was a fun job in a family like friendly working environment, the salary was good too. Our work was to predict the future trends of the technology and the consumer market, and to catch the tide by design the most suitable, less expensive yet most advanced machine vision equipment to inspect varies industrial products. These were my favorite years, a lot of satisfaction and excitement.
Like a protest, my left arm only hurt when I tried to make it work. So this sense of "guilt" really hit me. I had never been very fair to my left arm since I was a child at about 4 years old and first learned how to write. So much praise I received because of my ability to write and to calculate out a result (by my right hand of course :)), that I treasured my right hand and made my left hand do all the boring, heavy duty, and even dangerous work such as cutting glass and touching cleaning acid. I even tried to force it to learn how to write. In the cold winters, my left hand was the one soaked in ice-cold water to do laundry and dishwashing, as well as biking in all type of weather. In those days, our family could not afford gloves and now and then I had to warm my right hand under my neck or even in my left armpit, but the left hand never had that royal treatment. Every year, my left hand got frostbite so bad it appeared thicker than its width. In my adult years, the left arm got more reasonable treatment, but still it had to do most of the driving and all the "trivia work".
I had never fully realized the extent of the problem until my left arm hurt. I could not type with both hands, so I had to give up and occasionally compensate the loss by writing with my right hand, something I have not done much nowadays!
Nevertheless, this pain is the silver lining of that terrible accident to make me appreciate all these years of the excellent service my left hand had. Just like six and half years ago, after a spectacular ski accident in the USA that fractured my rib, I was double jeopardized after been detained by the Chinese secret police when I went back to China to visit my parents. With all the threat from the Chinese government, I learned the harder way to appreciate life and freedom, which was the gold lining of a worst nightmare.
Since then, I have been running around so much and doing all the work that I rarely got time to quiet down and to think. So the bonus of the accident is that I had more time to think and to write (with my right hand) instead of typing. Before 1998, I had quite a few writings that were published in many publications and received hundreds of readers' responses. In the last few years, I did not have the luxury to do so anymore, not even to write a diary. I received quite a few invitations that I was not able to accommodate. As I got further and further from where I was, the invited topic has been shifted from asking me to write my experience as a new immigrant in the USA, to my effort to advocate Chinese human rights on the world stage. I know that there are plenty of writings as a new immigrant, although friends often tried to assure me that my experience is very unique. However, I guess that it may be beneficial to share my work, experience and thought from my human rights and democracy advocating journey, so I will come forward to publish this series.
I thought this over the last two months and got about one dozen topics for content. They are the true feelings and experience I have and would like to share, instead of a maybe a much more sophisticated theoretical or academic work.
For the next issue, I will talk about the 2004 Presidential election in the USA and my stand and thoughts on the subject.
* Ciping Huang
Note: This article and its sequels only reflect/represent the author's opinion and stand, without anyway to representing Mr. Wei Jingsheng or the Wei Jingsheng Foundation. Depending on readers' responses, we shall decide the fate of how many issues we will release.
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中文版
Wei Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A85-G22
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号：A85-G22
Release Date: November 13, 2004
发布日：2004年11月13日
Topic: Journey of a Human Rights Defender (1) - by Ciping Huang
标题：一个人权捍卫者的历程（节选）-- 黄慈萍
Original Language Version: English (Brief Chinese version at the end)
此号以英文为准（英文在前，简译中文在后）
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一个人权捍卫者的历程（节选）
-- 黄慈萍
2004年11月13日
我已经有很久没有与大家交流了。最起码对那些关注或询问的朋友们，我现在可以有个交待了。两个多月前的一个雨日，我不幸摔了一个极其漂亮的大跟头并伤了我的左臂。谢天谢地，现在已经好多了，最起码又可以打字了。
这次的灾难倒也带来了许多好处，使我得以作许多这些日子里想作却没有时间作的。两个月来，正值美国大选，步小布希总统与克里参议员之后尘，我黄慈萍这个独臂英雄也跑了小半个美国，访问了不少过去的朋友与同事。当然，我的访问是轻松而愉快的，比那两位满头大汗的老兄要高一筹。
这一大跟头的另一个好处是它使得我的右臂也变得谦虚了许多。我不再能打字，不再能作很多事，只能想一些问题，写一些文章了。我曾经写过一些英文文章，受到过数百封的读者来信及讨论。这几年来，也时有朋友建议我写一些来美国后的体会，及我为人权捍卫者之经历。这两个月来，我想了不少，也写了十几个题目。民运队伍中写洋洋洒洒，尤其是探讨高深理论的笔杆子不少。我是实验物理出身，又多年搞产品设计为生，所以我只想谈一些我的经历与想法，与大家交流。
下一期，我将谈对2004年美国总统大选之我见。
-- 黄慈萍
注：此文仅代表作者本人之立场与观点，而非魏京生先生本人及魏京生基金会之立场与观点。此系列发布之多少，将由读者反馈所决定。
（魏京生基金会首发，请注明出处。）
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