A Seminar on Qi Jianzhens New Book Held in Hong Kong
(ICPC, 21 March 2010) A Seminar on the book Red Dog by Ms. Qi Jiazhen, Vice-president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) was held in Hong Kong in the evening before yesterday. Over 60 guests attended the seminar and some of them came from Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guangdong in China mainland, and also from Australia, USA, France, Russia and Taiwan. Nearly 20 members of ICPC, including ICPC First Vice-president Patrick Poon were also invited to be present.
At 19:00 in the Friday evening, the seminar with a theme of ” Abnormally Living People in China”, planned and hosted by the Five Seven Society Publishing House in Hong Kong, started at its venue in eTech Centre, Hong Kong. Mr. Jiao Guobiao, a professor of Beijing University and ICPC member chaired the seminar and made the main speech. Other ICPC members attending the similar included the Freedom to Write Committee coordinator Meng Lang, Internet Working Committee coordinator Wu Wei, three members of Writers in Prison Committee Five Seven Society Publishing Houses coordinator Wu Yishan, Open magazine executive editor Cai Yongmei and but Russian PEN member Sun Yue, and four members from China Mainland Liu Jingsheng, Zhang Guihua, Sheng Hui and Feng Chi. Among the guests there were also Mr. Larry Siems-Director of Freedom to Write and International Projects of New York-based PEN America Center, French Sinologist Jean-Philippe Béja, the members of Hong Kong Chinese PEN Center, including its Secretary-General Mr. Liu Bo-Quan, Board member Mr. Li Da-Li, and the members Ms. Liao Shu-lan, Mr. Jimmy So; writers Zhang Chengjue and Gao Shan, reciting artist Ren Yongnian, former commander “64 oriole operation” Chen Dazheng and other celebrities, journalists of local and international media, as well as Qis relatives and friends.
“Red Dog” is Qi Jiazhens second autobiography. At the seminar, Ms. Qi briefed its content outline and the course of her writing after the publication of her first autobiography, Tears of the Goddess of Liberty”.
The Red Dog was me, said her. I was the Red Dog who had been skinned alive and covered with blood, utterly painful. Because of being not dead, I could not help but to live, a fully-fledged “abnormal living person”.
Enthusiastic audience responded by actively participating in the discussion, getting the seminar extended repeatedly and last for two and a half hours. Ms. Qi signed on the books purchased by the readers and was photographed with them.