My Life in Prison

Memoirs of a Chinese Political Dissident

Jiang Qisheng

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2012
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781442212244
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Human Rights
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Author’s Preface
• Editor’s Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: The Detention Center
• Chapter 1: A Trip to the South
• Chapter 2: Dark Clouds Appear
• Chapter 3: A Sleepless Night
• Chapter 4: In Section Seven
• Chapter 5: Maintaining One’s Dignity
• Chapter 6: Verbal Tussles during Preliminary Examination
• Chapter 7: Peaceful Coexistence with Fellow Prisoners
• Chapter 8: Avoiding Self-Pity
• Chapter 9: Death and Life by the Wall
• Chapter 10: Looking on the Bright Side
• Chapter 11: The White Hole of Human Rights
• Chapter 12: A Brief Look at Evidence of Corruption
• Chapter 13: Longing for Books
• Chapter 14: Chess and Cards
• Chapter 15: Litigation Records
• Chapter 16: The Trial
• Chapter 17: Falungong Adherent Sun Wei
• Chapter 18: Gao Shuo of the Electric Saw
• Chapter 19: Treated as Guilty Even without Evidence
• Chapter 20: Precious Messages
• Chapter 21: Occasional Loneliness
• Chapter 22: Victims of Injustice and Crackdowns on Criminals
• Chapter 23: The Clank of Chains at Dawn
• Chapter 24: A Sketch of the Detention Center
• Chapter 25: The Campaign for Democracy
• Chapter 26: Reading the Newspapers
• Chapter 27: The Taiwan Question
• Chapter 28: “Give Birth Early and Often”*
• Chapter 29: Teachers’ Low Self-Esteem
• Chapter 30: The Joy of Books
• Chapter 31: Blood on the Sleeping Platform
• Chapter 32: A Small Society in a Narrow Room
• Chapter 33: Three Encounters with Falungong
• Chapter 34: When Would My Case Be Settled?
• Chapter 35: From Detention Center to Transfer Center
• Epilogue to Part I
• Part II: In the Transfer Center
• Prologue
• Chapter 36: Encountering Prohibitions
• Chapter 37: Unwritten Rules
• Chapter 38: A True April Fool’s Day Story
• Chapter 39: A Frightening Interlude
• Chapter 40: Visitors Day
• Chapter 41: Guinness Record Levels of Suffering
• Chapter 42: Others May Be Biased, but I Am Impartial
• Chapter 43: When the Cock Crows at Dawn, the System Is Even More Cruel
• Chapter 44: I’ve Never Been Afraid of Hard Work
• Chapter 45: The Long May Day Holiday
• Chapter 46: The Unchanging Transfer Center
• Epilogue to Part II
• The Day I Was Released from Prison
• About the Authors