HONGKONG—November 2 was the last day Mr Jia Jia legally remained in Hong Kong before traveling to Thailand to apply for asylum. After unsuccessfully seeking political asylum in Taiwan, Jia was faced with possible deportation to China where he is expected to be arrested and persecuted by Chinese authorities for his defection. As a university professor and expert in his field, Jia lived a relatively comfortable life in China, yet he chose to give it up to walk a path toward democracy. One day before Jia’s visa expired in Hong Kong, The Epoch Times was granted an interview. In the interview, Jia talks about the brutality of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that he witnessed firsthand while growing up in China.
Currently, Jia is a professor and the General Secretary of the Association of Scientists and Technology Experts in Shanxi Province. On October 22, Jia left his tour group while visiting Taiwan. After leaving the group he publicly denounced the CCP and sought political asylum. Jia also urged all CCP officials to quit the party. Below are highlights from our recent interview with Jia.
40 Years of Horror and Hunger
When asked about his life in China under the CCP, Jia said, “There are two things that I can’t forget in my heart, one is horror, the other is hunger. These two things were always with me until I was over 40 years old”.
Jia’s grandfather was a businessman. His father was an air force officer in the Nationalist’s Army (Kuomintang). After the CCP seized power in 1949, his family was unable to escape to Taiwan with the Kuomintang. Jia grew up in Tianjin where he described his childhood as “miserable”. It was in Tianjin that Jia first witnessed the brutality and evil nature of the CCP.
Jia: “When I was able to understand the situation, I realized that my father was being persecuted by the CCP. He was continually denounced and subjected to criticism. When I was a child, our home was often used as an interrogation site. Many people came to our house to question my father. A table was placed in the middle of the room. One person sat at the table while several others stood at each side. They all questioned my father. There was constant yelling and screaming. If my father answered a question correctly, all was OK. If my father did not answer the question correctly he would be beaten. Our family was forced to stand in a row and watch. Everyone was terrified. At that time, I was only 7-8 years old.
“My understanding has always been that my father’s friends from the military were executed. It is my belief that the CCP intended to use my father for their benefit and that this was the only reason why he was not executed”.
Besides Horror, There was Hunger
Jia: “Today people of Mainland China know that CCP harvests human organs for profit from living Falun Gong practitioners. This news has shocked people around the world. How could such cruelty exist? For anyone who has witnessed the brutality of the CCP this is not surprising at all.
“For people like my father, once the persecution began, it never stopped. The CCP’s victims are not allowed to sleep; beatings occurred everyday. Family members were scrutinized as having an undesirable political background. There is no escape from the persecution. The CCP even used starvation as a form of persecution.
“When I was growing up, our family was very poor. All of my family members are like my father, very tall and with big appetites. But the CCP only allocated our family 12.5 kg of food each month.
“In the countryside it was even worse. There was little food and many people were starving to death. Even after the Cultural Revolution, some places in the countryside would be allocated 30-35 kg of rice per family per year. After processing, only 25-30 kg was left. How could a family survive on such little food? When I was growing up, I never had a full meal. Only after I turned 40 years old did the people in China begin to have enough food to eat”.
Sending Father to the Execution Ground
A sorrowful Jia recounts his memory about his father being taken to the execution ground by Chinese authorities.
Jia: “I remember it all very clearly. When he was sent to the execution ground, my mother grabbed…a handful of cornmeal, put it into a very small aluminum pot and cooked him boiled porridge. My father was not being sent to the execution ground to be executed. He was sent to be denounced and beaten. He hadn’t eaten for several days. It was very difficult to watch him go this time. We thought he would never come back. I remember very clearly that there was no food at home and my father was very hungry. I don’t know where my mother found that handful of cornmeal to cook porridge. After eating the porridge, my father realized that I had been standing beside him watching him eat. Normally he would clean his plate before leaving the table. My father realized that there was no other food at home for the family. He left the plate and the few remaining morsels of porridge on it for me to lick clean…
“I wanted to lick the plate when I got it. I was extremely hungry. I didn’t have the heart to eat because my father left for the execution grounds. That was the only time in my life that I didn’t eat when I was in Mainland China. I put the plate down and the remaining porridge was left to dry out. Without anything to eat, I got so hungry that I couldn’t stand it anymore. I searched and found an old pillow that was filled with buckwheat skins. I cut the pillow open and grabbed a handful of the buckwheat skins. I put the buckwheat skins into a small cup and forced myself to eat them with cold water. After eating them, I threw up and had constipation.
“My father wasn’t beaten to death by the CCP. My father was able to return home”.
The KMT Officials were Beaten up, Many Begged for Death
Jia also witnessed Kuomintang officials being beaten to the point of begging for a merciful death.
Jia: “I have witnessed the CCP killing former Kuomintang officials. I had a neighbor who was a Kuomintang official. He was beaten to such a state that he could not bear it anymore. He went home and attempted suicide by jumping from the roof. However, at that time, very few buildings were more than two or three stories high. He jumped from the roof but he didn’t die from the fall. His neighbors just walked in and out of the building as if nothing had happened. No one dared to show any concern for the injuries of a former Kuomintang official. Most people believed that because of his former association with the Kuomintang that he was anti-revolutionary and deserved this pain. He was lucky that the CCP had pity on him and didn’t shoot him. Who would even dare to show compassion toward him? When he didn’t die he went back into his home and cut his artery with a blunt shaving knife. He died from the loss of blood. No one tried to stop the bleeding, he just died.”
The Child was Beaten to Death
In Jia’s school, a child was beaten to death because he broke Chairman Mao’s statue.
Jia: “The teacher had a little table on which sat a plaster statue of Chairman Mao. One of our fellow classmates who was a member of the Red Guard accidentally broke the plaster statue. The whole class (they were all kids at the time) was terrified. All the students knew that in the morning they had to ask the statue for instructions and bow to it. At lunchtime they had to hold their lunch boxes and sing a song to it called ”The East is Red, the Sun has Risen“ (a song which pays tribute to Chairman Mao). If there were any new instructions the teacher would read us ”The Three Old Works” (Mao’s article). Now that he had broken Mao’s statue the student was so terrified that his hands were shaking. Later a large group of Red Guard members from another class came into our classroom. They beat the student to death. This is what I saw with my own eyes. The student was beaten to death for breaking a plaster statue of Chairman Mao.
“From childhood on, as soon as we heard that the CCP or the police were coming, our family would be very frightened. Our family still feels these emotions; the entire Mainland is frightened by the CCP”.
Experience of Mainland People
Jia: “My experience is the experience of the Mainland Chinese people. Our generation has experienced the brutal persecution of the CCP.
“I never wanted to talk about these things. This is the first time I have ever told anyone about these events. The people of Hong Kong helped me so I could share these unimaginable experiences with others. I don’t like to talk about these old memories to anyone. Today I have decided to share these memories because the CCP’s cruelty is unprecedented. The people of Hong Kong and Taiwan do not yet fully understand the brutal nature of the CCP, so for the first time I will speak out”.
Jia said that his family’s story of suffering is only one out of millions of Chinese families who have unjustly suffered under the communist regime’s rule. The CCP has been in power for 57 years. During those 57 years, the CCP has persecuted and killed millions of innocent people throughout China.
Jia: “When I was a young boy, I remember there were public meetings everywhere where people criticize and beat people. Children would criticize their parents. Brothers and sisters would criticize each other. Every family had a similar experience. The CCP would record each criticism and take appropriate action against individual family members. Why are the Mainland Chinese people so afraid of the CCP? The CCP has killed too many innocent people.
“I believe that every Chinese person, including CCP officials, has been affected by 57 years of persecution by the CCP. All have tears and blood in their family history”.
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