now studying at the University of Oklahoma at Norman. As you can imagine, this is not a pleasant time for Mrs. Yu, but it is all the more unpleasant since the local police will not allow her to enter her own home. The house also served as the church for their small congregation, and as you can see, the congregation has come together to pray for their departed spiritual leader, the Reverend Yu Fa An.
“But it does not appear that the local government is going to allow them to do so in their accustomed place of worship. I’ve spoken personally with the senior police official here. He has orders, he says, not to admit anyone into the house, not even Mrs. Yu, and it appears that he intends to follow those orders.” Wise walked to where the widow was.
“Mrs. Yu, will you be taking your husband’s body back to Taiwan for burial?” It wasn’t often that Wise allowed his face to show emotion, but the answer to this question grabbed him in a tender place.
“There will be no body. My husband—they take his body and burn it, and scatter the ashes in river,” Chun told the reporter, and saying it cracked both her composure and her voice.
“What?” Wise blurted. He hadn’t expected that any more than she had, and it showed on his face. “They cremated his body without your permission?”
“Yes,” Chun gasped.
“And they’re not even giving you the ashes to take home with you?”
“No, they scatter ashes in river, they tell me.”
“Well” was all Wise could manage. He wanted to say something stronger, but as a reporter he was supposed to maintain some degree of objectivity, and so he couldn’t say what he might have preferred to say. Those barbarian cocksuckers. Even the differences in culture didn’t explain this one away.
It was then that the police lieutenant arrived on his bicycle. He walked at once to the sergeant, spoke to him briefly, then walked to where Yu Chun was.
“What is this?” he asked in Mandarin. He recoiled when the TV camera and microphone entered the conversation. What is THIS? his face demanded of the Americans.
“I wish to enter my house, but he won’t let me,” Yu Chun answered, pointing at the sergeant. “Why can’t I go in my house?”
“Excuse me,” Wise put in. “I am Barry Wise. I work for CNN. Do you speak English, sir?” he asked the cop.
“Yes, I do.”
“And you are?”
“I am Lieutenant Rong.”
He could hardly have picked a better name for the moment, Wise thought, not knowing that the literal meaning of this particular surname actually was weapon.
“Lieutenant Rong, I am Barry Wise of CNN. Do you know the reason for your orders?”
“This house is a place of political activity which is ordered closed by the city government.”
“Political activity? But it’s a private residence—a house, is it not?”
“It is a place of political activity,” Rong persisted. “Unauthorized political activity,” he added.
“I see. Thank you, Lieutenant.” Wise backed off and started talking directly to the camera while Mrs. Yu went to her fellow church members. The camera traced her to one particular member, a heavyset person whose face proclaimed resolve of some sort. This one turned to the other parishioners and said something loud. Immediately, they all opened their Bibles. The overweight one flipped his open as well and started reading a passage. He did so loudly, and the other members of the congregation looked intently into their testaments, allowing the first man to take the lead.
Wise counted thirty-four people, about evenly divided between men and women. All had their heads down into their own Bibles, or those next to them. That’s when he turned to see Lieutenant Rong’s face. It twisted into a sort of curiosity at first, then came comprehension and outrage. Clearly, the “political” activity for which the home had been declared off-limits was religious worship, and that the local government called it “political” activity was a further affront to Barry Wise’s sense of right and wrong. He reflected briefly that the news media had largely forgotten what communism really had been, but now it lay right here in front of him. The face of oppression had never been a pretty one. It would soon get uglier.
Wen Zhong, the restaurateur, was leading the ad-hoc service, going through the Bible but doing so in Mandarin, a language which the CNN crew barely comprehended. The thirty or so others flipped the pages in their Bibles when he did, following his scriptural readings very carefully, in