Guest: Orren Wang was born in rural China in the early 1960s, just after the famine of 1959 to 1962, to parents who never spent a day in school. His father taught himself to read and was recruited by the Chinese Communist Party as a township-level official; his mother was illiterate all her life and sent her children to a school carved out of the village ancestral hall. Wang taught himself English by radio, took part in the December 1986 student protest in his provincial capital and the nationwide 1989 democracy movement as a graduate student in Chengdu, Sichuan, and came to the United States as a student in 1994. He earned a master's degree in accounting at Western Kentucky University, is a Certified Public Accountant, became a Christian in China, and became a United States citizen fourteen years after he arrived. He has written a memoir about his life in China. This episode is part of The Jenny Beth Show's Surviving Communism series.
Key topics:
• Thirty-three days to Election Day: why The Jenny Beth Show is interviewing survivors of communism, and what the Democratic Socialists of America platform calls for
• A famine Wang calls man-made, not natural: farmers who owned nothing and could not feed themselves
• The two underpinnings of socialism: no private ownership and central planning
• Shortage is the feature: a pound or two of brown sugar per family, once a year
• The firecracker craft his neighbors worked at night behind covered windows, and the officials who stormed in and took the tools
• The peach orchard the county government uprooted in its prime because peaches were a cash crop
• Deng Xiaoping's 1979 reform: one year for the villagers to feed themselves once their hands were untied
• A father who taught himself to read outside his cousins' tutoring room and was recruited by the Party
• A mother who called herself blind with perfect vision, and the school in the ancestral hall
• Ten years with the universities closed: the Cultural Revolution and the professors sent to raise pigs
• His son, a UC Berkeley graduate who calls himself a socialist, and why Wang says China's growth proves the opposite
• December 1986: a local election with one Party-picked candidate, and the student protest it triggered
• Steel quotas, bribery and inflation: the corruption that set up 1989
• Why 1989 was nationwide, not just Beijing, and why the Party almost collapsed
• Voice of America, English learned by radio, and the campus bulletin board
• May 19, 1989: martial law declared at 11 PM, an all-night march in the rain in Chengdu, two weeks without a voice
• June 4, and why a low-profile student was never arrested
• TOEFL, the GMAT, and five years to find someone to sign an I-20
• Landing at Los Angeles International Airport with $1,000, and $900 by the time he reached campus
• Religious freedom right away: a Friday Bible study that was banned in China
• Two years to a job, fourteen years to citizenship, and why he backs President Trump's immigration policy
• With God, everything is possible: the billboard on Interstate 65 and the son he kept
• His warning to young Americans who want to abolish the police, ICE and the Senate
• No doctors in the countryside under socialism
• Free markets, antitrust, and why breaking up monopolies is a Republican idea
• Calls to action: tell Jenny Beth Martin your survivor story at jenny.beth@teapartypatriots.org, and sign up to get out the vote at iwillsaveamerica.com
Timestamps:
00:00 — Cold open: a Communist Party official's son who stood against the Party
00:30 — Thirty-three days out: why the Surviving Communism series
01:22 — What the Democratic Socialists of America platform calls for
03:00 — Friday panels and one-on-one interviews through Election Day
05:16 — Survivors of communism: tell Jenny Beth Martin your story
07:11 — Ten ways to volunteer at iwillsaveamerica.com
08:20 — Orren Wang joins the show
09:21 — Growing up in rural China after a famine he calls man-made
12:08 — The underpinnings of socialism: no private ownership and central planning
14:06 — Shortage is the feature: sugar rationed once a year
15:40 — The firecracker craft, and the officials who stormed in
18:22 — The peach orchard the county uprooted
19:52 — Deng Xiaoping's reform: one year to feed themselves
21:26 — His father, recruited by the Party as a township official
25:20 — Blind with perfect vision: his mother, and school in the ancestral hall
28:07 — The Cultural Revolution closed the universities for ten years
29:27 — His son, a UC Berkeley socialist, says look at China
30:19 — 1989 was nationwide: December 1986 and the one-candidate election
34:01 — Steel quotas, bribery and inflation: what triggered 1989
36:02 — The Chinese communist government almost collapsed
36:57 — Was he afraid? I actually wasn't in Beijing
38:07 — Voice of America and the campus bulletin board
39:12 — May 19: martial law at 11 PM, an all-night march in the rain in Chengdu
41:18 — June 4
41:56 — Two more years of school, and why he was never arrested
43:31 — TOEFL, GMAT, and five years to find a sponsor
47:11 — Landing at LAX with $1,000 in his pocket
49:50 — The Friday Bible study that was banned in China
50:39 — Two years to a job, fourteen years to citizenship
52:15 — Why he backs President Trump's immigration policy
53:28 — With God, everything is possible
55:43 — The billboard on Interstate 65
57:18 — One last question: his warning to young Americans
59:56 — No doctors in the countryside under socialism
01:01:46 — Break up the monopolies: a Republican idea
01:03:59 — Free markets and less interference: closing thoughts
01:04:40 — Thank you and sign-off
Links mentioned:
jennybethshow.com
teapartypatriots.org
iwillsaveamerica.com
jenny.beth@teapartypatriots.org