{"id":4063,"date":"2017-02-16T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T00:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=4063"},"modified":"2021-11-25T18:09:18","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T10:09:18","slug":"170-from-aging-wine-to-preserving-human-dignity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=4063","title":{"rendered":"170. From Aging Wine to Preserving Human Dignity"},"content":{"rendered":"

39 <\/sup>And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, \u2018The old is good<\/strong>.<\/span>\u2019 [Luke 5:3<\/span>9<\/span>, NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke\u2019s Gospel in chapter five suggests that \u201cold wine\u201d is valued so much more over \u201cnew wine\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wine aging is commonly practised upon the expectation that as wine ages, it potentially improves its quality. That result, of course, is neither automatic nor guaranteed. Wine, after all, is perishable and is well capable of deteriorating like all consumable goods. The truth of the matter is, fruits degrade over time. The ability of a wine to age well then, depends on many factors, including the grape variety, the winemaking technique, the condition of the bottle and the cork, and the condition in which the wine is stored after bottling, and so on. Only from the 16th<\/sup> and 17th<\/sup> centuries onwards, as sweeter and more alcoholic wines were produced, coupled with corking and bottling, the adding of alcohol as preservative and improved storage, did the industry considerably overcome the simple reality of wine turning into vinegar after just a few months. In a word, conscious effort is needed to preserve and even improve wine quality over time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The point for our reflection is: if that is true of wine, it is certainly true of human dignity.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are reminded of the conversation between Jiang Weiqing (\u6c5f\u6e2d\u6e05) and Zhu De (\u6731\u5fb7) during the decade-long (1966-1976) \u201ccultural revolution\u201d in China, formally known as the\u00a0\u201cGreat Proletarian Cultural Revolution\u201d. A sociopolitical\u00a0movement<\/a>,\u00a0it was a \u201cRevolution\u201d within the Chinese communist revolution set into motion by\u00a0the then Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong<\/a>. The blame was laid squarely at the doors of all wildly alleged \u201cremnants\u201d of\u00a0capitalist<\/a> and\u00a0traditional<\/a> elements who must be purged from the Chinese society. While the official goal of this Revolution was to preserve \u2018true\u2019 Communist ideology<\/a> in the country, the real goal was to impose\u00a0Maoist<\/a> thought as the\u00a0dominant ideology<\/a> within the Party, regardless of pervasive signs of his failed economic policies that were causing perishing hunger and wrenching hardship across the recently liberated nation. As the Revolution marked the consolidation of Mao\u2019s position of unshakable supreme command, it also paralyzed China politically and adversely degraded the spirit of the people as well as the country’s economy. The nation as a whole was extremely poor and, across the immense territory, her common people lived in abject poverty. Denied university education, urban youth were \u201csent down\u201d to rural regions<\/a> to learn rural living. Resonant with its fierce disdain for all things intellectual, the movement destroyed historical relics and artifacts, and ransacked cultural and religious sites. It was a time of sheer madness. People lived in fear. Not until after the death of Mao and the arrest of the infamous \u201cGang of Four\u201d in 1976, was the widespread factional struggles in all walks of life finally put to a stop. Reformers led by\u00a0Deng Xiaoping<\/a> gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1981, the Party declared that the Cultural Revolution was “responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People’s Republic<\/em>“.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the Revolution was raging, senior officials, most notably\u00a0Liu Shaoqi<\/a> and\u00a0Deng Xiaoping<\/a>, were purged and packed off to isolated regions for hard labour, while Mao\u2019s personality cult<\/a> peaked at dizzy height. Caught in all that, was one Jiang Weiqing\u00a0 (1910 \u2013 2000). He was the Communist Party Committee Secretary and CPPCC Committee Chairman of\u00a0Jiangsu<\/a> Province and Communist Party of China Committee Secretary of\u00a0Jiangxi<\/a> Province. Loosely branded a \u201ccapitalist\u201d, Jiang was summoned to Beijing for questioning and \u201ccleansing\u201d. At this lowest point of his life, Jiang was shunned by all who feared \u201ccontamination\u201d by association. In precisely such hard circumstances, Zhu De, the retired Commander General of the army, saw the need to preserve human dignity. He reached out to Jiang and invited him\u00a0to his home for dinner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zhu was the man who first founded the Red Army and was deeply revered across the country for the \u201cZhu-Mao\u201d recognition at the early inception of the Communist revolution. After the Communist Party has driven out Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuo Ming Tang and assumed the governance of the country, Zhu took charge of the development of the missile launching weaponry and then the nuclear bomb capabilities of China. But now, in old age, even he was loosely branded \u201ca capitalist\u201d and sporadically targeted for image-degradation and character-assassination in this mad Revolution. Just as crisis times reveal people\u2019s true characters, the incredible dignity of Zhu shone through precisely at this time. Zhu, a man known not only for his military brilliance, but even more so for his moral uprightness and fortitude, brushed aside the obvious personal dangers and openly had Jiang invited to dinner in his home.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Beijing, one must know, nobody dared to even meet Jiang, let alone be hospitable to him, for fear of reprisal from those in power who were bent on purging all senior officials whom they had bookmarked for branding as \u201ccapitalist-leaning\u201d. So Jiang would not even be able to find a place to eat, Zhu told his wife. Zhu sent his secretary to fetch Jiang by car. For fear of causing trouble to Zhu, Jiang at first declined the offer, saying, \u201cWhen one reaches a point like this, his heart is chilled right through.\u201d But Jiang relented upon the secretary conveying Zhu\u2019s insistence.<\/span><\/p>\n

At dinner, Zhu brought out the best jar of wine. This was wine brought back by his children from his home village in Sichuan which he had kept for a few decades now. Calling that aged wine a \u201cnational treasure\u201d, Jiang begged Zhu to please save it for a more appropriate occasion. Zhu, however, declared that Jiang was the right person for him to drink it with. What Zhu said to Jiang were words good for the soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

Listen to those powerful words (our translation):<\/span><\/p>\n