Selling Children in the Streets of Beijing [Excerpts

Abstract

Fifteen years ago I saw in the movie San Mao Roams the Streets an episode depicting an old man carrying two children on a shoulder pole for sale. It was the time when I had started going to school, and I received a class education that clearly differentiated between what to love and what to hate. From that time on, I have borne a boundless love for socialism and a deep hatred against capitalism. At that time I thought such inhumanity would never happen in China again. Should there be things like that, they would certainly happen in capitalist countries like America. Yet as in a dream, I saw such miseries again today. However, it was not a movie but an incident I saw with my own eyes. It was not in Shanghai but in Beijing. It was not on Nanjing Road but on Changan Street. It was not below the Park Hotel** where the foreigners used to stay but outside the walls enclosing the leaders' current residence.