20 LIFE | People Friday, July 8, 2016 CHINA DAILY

TRAVELERS OF A HARD ROADNearly eightdecades since theLong March ended,only a handfulof the survivors arestill alive. SatarupaBhattacharjyainterviews twoveterans in Tongren.

HISTORY

Top: Long March veteran Meng Shaojin, 95, during the interview in Yinjiang county, Guizhou province. Above right: March veteran Huang Jianjun, 93, and his wife, ZhangChunyun, in a hospital in Tongren, Guizhou. Above left: The former house of Zhou Yiqun, a Communist patron, is turned into a museum dedicated to the campaign in thesame city. PHOTOS BY YANG JUN AND SATARUPA BHATTACHARJYA / CHINA DAILY

H uang Jianjun hasbeen staying atTongren City Peo­ple’s Hospital for

the past four years owing tohigh blood pressure and ail­ments related to his heart andlungs.

He was in his early teens in1934, when a column of Com­munist troops was passingthrough his hometown inNorth China’s Shanxi provinceas part of the Long March,which was a strategic retreatover 24 months undertaken bythe Red Army since that yearto avoid being captured bythen­ruling nationalist Kuo­mintang forces.

The Red Army, the forerun­ner of the People’s LiberationArmy, lost thousands of itsmen and women during themarch from the country’ssouth to the north and west. Alarge number of civilians whofollowed the soldiers were alsokilled by the KMT and war­lords, according to historians.

Tongren is a prefecture­lev­el city in Guizhou province, inthe country’s southwest,where Huang has lived sinceretiring as a PLA surgeon in1957.

Less than 15 such veteransare alive in Guizhou, local gov­ernment officials say. Theyestimate that nationwide, onlya few dozen — mostly in their90s — remain.

Huang, 93, largely ranerrands for the Red Army dur­ing the march. He carried mes­sages for the Communisttroops hiding in rural Shanxiand served in their makeshiftkitchens, he says in a very softvoice when asked about hisearliest memories of the cam­paign.

His second wife, ZhangChunyun, 80, relays hisanswers to make them audi­ble during a recent interview.The former employee of a tex­tile company has shifted toher husband’s hospital roomthat has a TV, cooking stoveand two beds, among otheritems of daily use. They liveon government pension.

Huang used to work at thesame hospital earlier.

“He (Huang) once wrotediaries about his days in theRed Army but doesn’t remem­ber where they are,” Zhangsays.

She helps him wear hismoss­green military jacket,on which are pinned medalsfrom the several battles he

participated in, includingPingxingguan during the Jap­anese invasion in 1937 andLiaoshen from the civil war of1948. Huang treated soldiersinjured on the front lines.

“A simple way to stop infec­tions from spreading was tocut off their (soldiers’) limbs,”Huang says of war scenes atthe time.

He learned surgery in thebattlefields from the lateCanadian physician NormanBethune, who was assistingCommunist troops in the1930s in China’s northern vil­lages.

At a distance of some 120kilometers from Tongren isYinjiang,acountywhereMengShaojin, another veteran of the

march, lives. He too was in histeenswhenafactionof theRedArmy that was being led byarea commander He Long,visited his village in 1934 tomobilize local support.

Meng, now 95, betrayssigns of aging like Huang.Both have heavily pigmentedwrinkled skin on their handsand are hard of hearing. But

sitting at a restaurant that isby the side of a small river, ina blue shirt and dark trousers,Meng appears more collectedin his thoughts while talkingabout the march.

Along with an older broth­er, Meng had joined the vil­lage militia to helpCommunist troops. Theywalked long distances for

weeks, with spears in hand todefend against attacks by theKMT or local warlords, occa­sionally functioning as por­ters for the troops carryingcrops and goods from villageto village, his son, Meng Shao­ping, says.

In October that year, whenthe troops were in Lan Bagou,a neighboring village sur­rounded by hills, they cameunder fire, Meng Shaojin says.

“The fighting startedaround noon. We were sud­denly attacked by KMT forcesfrom up in the hills,” MengShaojin says.

Most Communist fightershad swords or spears. A fewhad the Tao Tong handmadeguns, he adds. He was in thevicinity when the bulletsstarted to rain from the otherside and was asked by a seniortrumpet player of the RedArmy to seek cover behind abig rock.

“It was fierce,” Meng Shao­ping, 65, quotes his father astelling him later.

Many Communist troopswere killed and after thefighting was over, the remain­ing soldiers had dispersed.Meng Shaojin stayed under­ground for months fearing hewould be executed by KMTbackers if found. Slowly here­emerged in his village andtook up farming. He workedin the county’s forest depart­ment until 1957.

Among the 300 peoplefrom the county who hadbecome guerrilla fighters, 20were women, he says.

In nearby Yanhe county,40­year­old Liu Yongpiao,says he is honoring the legacyof his late grandfather, LiuGuofu, a Communist guerrilladuring the march, by employ­ing more poor villagers in hishoneysuckle and plums busi­ness.

Yang Jun and Dong Xianwucontributed to this story.

Contact the writer atsatarupa@chinadaily.com.cn

TECHNOLOGY

Innovator surges on with his dreams of the futureBy DENG ZHANGYUdengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn

The media has dubbed LiuRuopeng China’s Elon Musk,the founder of Tesla Motors,because of their similar entre­preneurial streaks.

Liu, 32, has launched a daz­zling range of products oftenseen in sci­fi movies, such as ajetpack that propels a personinto space and body armorthat helps increase physicalstrength.

He called himself a “dream­er” during an interview withChina Daily after attending asectoral conference that wasaddressed by President Xi Jin­ping and Premier Li Keqiangin Beijing earlier.

“I’m an innovator whowants to change the worldwith the power of science andtechnology,” says Liu, who hasfour listed companies.

He returned to China fromtheUnitedStates in2009andayear later set up his Shenzhen­based Kuang­Chi Institute ofAdvanced Technology in thesouthern Guangdong prov­ince.

The institute now has about1,500 employees across theworld.

A fan of the fantasy genre,he says his high­tech productsare designed for the future justlike in Hollywood films. “Ourjetpack is similar to the oneseen in Iron Man and our‘cloud’ in Big Hero 6.”

The “cloud” he talks about isa high­attitude balloon capa­ble of sending Wi­Fi signals tomillions of people.

Liu attributes his success toa futuristic approach.

“At first I figure out what weneed in the future. Thereafter,I look for the technology sup­port that would be necessaryto make them and finally I tryto make the products,” hesays.

Liu and his fellow research­ers made a splash in the scien­tific community in 2009 afterthey published an article onthe invention of a Harry Pot­ter­like cloak of invisibility inthe Science journal.

He was then doing his PhDin electrical and computerengineering at Duke Universi­ty in the US.

The cloak is made of meta­material that is created todeflect light on its surface.

Liu says the technology ofthe invisibility cloak is used inthe military while metamate­rial is at the core of some of hishigh­tech creations.

His Shenzhen­based insti­tutewasauthorized inNovem­ber to build the first State labfor the development of meta­material electromagnetic

modulation technology.While Liu aspires to build a

global innovation business,some critics say he spendsmore time marketing his con­cepts than launching prod­ucts.

“I welcome open discus­sions on our technologies andscientific research.But I refuseto give in to rumors or hurtfulwords,” says Liu.

“I have unveiled so many

products in a short time thatthe media and public mayneed more time to understandthat.”

When he returned to Chinain 2009, metamaterial wasthought to be pseudoscience.Even in the West, it was still acomparatively new concept,says Liu.

He and four other DukePhDsbegantheirresearchwithonly 200,000 yuan ($30,000)

in their pockets at the time.Liu says his father sold a car

to support his institute inShenzhen.

Setting up his Asian innova­tion center in Singapore inJune, the man now has bran­ches in about 12 countries andregions.

“I try to finish the urgentwork at hand so that I can bewith my wife when she givesbirth to our baby later thisyear,” says a smiling Liu.

Liu’s wife used to be his doc­toral schoolmate at Duke andnow works in the Kuang­ChiInstitute of Advanced Tech­nology.

Yue Yutao, 34, director of theresearch and developmentdepartment of Liu’s Shenzheninstitute, says: “Liu is alwaysfull of strange yet innovativeideas.”

Yue started to work therein 2011. He says Liu is “giftedboth in scientific researchand business management”.The word “tired” is not partof Liu’s life and his ambi­tious plans can easily excitepeople around him.

Liu draws his inspiration

from Isaac Newton, who in hiswords changed the world inmany ways.

Liu hopes he can be aninnovator who will make sig­nificant changes. He knowsthat the road will be a lonelyone.

Liu was born in Xi’an inNorthwest China’s Shaanxiprovince and later moved toShenzhen with his parents.

He says his school years inShenzhenand later in theeast­ern Zhejiang Universityturned him into an innovativeman who wants to breakboundaries in science.

Liu says that later thismonth his aircraft Traveler,with people on it will have atest flight over the XinjiangUygur autonomous region.Last June, the aircraft had itsfirst flight over New Zea­land.

“Themostexcitingmomentsin my life come from successfullaunches of my high­tech prod­ucts,” says Liu, adding that theymake him feel the future ismuch closer to the present andthat’s why he calls himself a“future designer”.

Liu Ruopeng (right) describes himself as a “future designer”. The Martin Jetpack from his companylooks like the jetpack used in the Iron Man movies. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

A simple way tostop infectionsfrom spreadingwas to cut off their(soldiers’) limbs.”Huang Jianjun, veteran,says of war scenes in Chinaduring the 1930s and ’40s