The Private Life of Deng Xiaoping

By XI WEN

Title: Eternal Xiaoping - A Collection of Interviews with Zhuo Lin and Others

Compiled by the Deng Xiaoping Research Group of the Party Literature Research Center of the CPC Central Committee

Published by the Sichuan People's Publishing House

Pages: 181

Price: 39 yuan

AUGUST 22 marked the centenary of Deng Xiaoping's birth. During his lifetime, Deng Xiaoping was punctilious about keeping his political and family lives separate. Seven years after his death, one hundred books extolling his many virtues have been published across China. In contrast to previous works that concentrate on the late leader's political and military achievements, those recently in print look at the ordinary life of this extraordinary person. Best of the batch is Eternal Xiaoping - A Collection of Interviews with Zhuo Lin and Others. It is based on interviews with Deng Xiaoping's wife Zhuo Lin, his immediate family, relatives, and people who worked with him. The book is full of previously untold stories about Deng Xiaoping the son, husband, father and grandfather.

Few 20th-century statesmen had a political career as long and eventful as Deng Xiaoping's. During periods of political turmoil Deng sank and bobbed three times. He became known as the "short man who would not be knocked down." Eternal Xiaoping looks past the political aspect to present a fresh, endearing and intimate portrait of Deng's everyday life.

Deng's stepmother, wife Zhuo Lin, two younger sisters, five children, and grandchildren constitute his immediate family. As in every traditional Chinese household, Deng was its epicenter and his word was law. He was not given to overt demonstrations of affection, preferring to express his familial love in quiet, unobtrusive ways. During the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) Xiaoping was sent to labor in a factory in Jiangxi Province. At that time Zhuo Lin was in poor health, so Xiaoping, then in his late 60s, took on all manual and household chores. He tended the field, fetched water, chopped firewood, and washed clothes, all of which caused painful frostbitten on his hands every winter. In order to provide his children with enough to live on and traveling expenses so that they could come back home, he put himself on extreme austerity, eating little, buying no clothes and even cutting down by half on his lifelong tobacco habit. He gave therapeutic baths to his handicapped son Pufang, and concerned himself with his children's marriages. Upon the arrival of his grandchildren, however, Deng's taciturnity disappeared. He would talk with and tease them, and extract every ounce of joy in being grandpa.

Deng loved swimming, particularly in the sea, but in his later years when poor health prevented him he would often sit on the beach, quietly contemplating the ocean waves. A lifelong bridge enthusiast, Deng also loved soccer and would leave instructions for any game that clashed with his work schedule to be recorded.

Eternal Xiaoping talks for the first time about the 58-year love and marriage of Deng and Zhuo Lin, and how, initially, she was not overly impressed with her husband.

Deng Lin, eldest daughter of Deng Xiaoping, says: "My family and I like this book very much. It took us, his children, some time to get to know and understand our father. This book is an impression of our father's life based on a re-examination of our memories of him by his children, relatives and close colleagues. We each have different memories and impressions, and having pooled them in order to publish this book have reached a deeper understanding of him. I have always held that Deng Xiaoping was a human being, not a deity. He had personality and strong and weak points. I would not want to promote any myths about him. I want him to be presented as an ordinary person - a good son, husband, father and grandfather. This book has a fresh approach to portraying Deng Xiaoping's life in that it makes clear he was just like you and me, other than holding a higher public position, shouldering heavier responsibilities and hence drawing greater attention. I very much appreciate the compilers' efforts in obtaining the relevant materials."

Says Long Pingping, an editor at the Party Literature Research Center of the CPC Central Committee, "This book is characterized by authoritative first-hand information and first-time disclosures. Having been revised several times, it is dominated by the theme of love. As one of its editors I'm deeply touched by comrade Deng Xiaoping's simple life."