Word of the Day: Bei Luyou

A dissident hanging out at the beach... with minders makes for a bei luyou trip

I just finished reading an article in The New Yorker by Zha Jianying who wrote about her brother, Zha Jianguo, a political dissident in China.

He has gotten into trouble with the government for helping to found a small opposition group called the Democracy Party of China. For this he has been in and out of jail a few times but nowadays, his sister writes that he gets 被旅游 bei luyou, or "to be touristed", with bei meaning something that is involuntarily passive.

There are other uses of bei -- bei loushui (to be tax-evaded), bei zisha (to be suicided), bei shenjingbing (to be mentally-illed).

For Zha's brother, bei luyou is ironic and sad at the same time. During sensitive periods, like the June 4 anniversary, or National Day on October 1 or a foreign leader visiting Beijing, he and other dissidents are taken "to be touristed" by his minders.

They completely arrange his travel schedule, where he will be going, where he will be staying, how he will be getting there -- and these minders get to accompany him too -- which is why they like these free trips that are work-related.

She describes them fussing over him, making sure Zha Jianguo is OK by giving him extra food and soup, and when they are on bus tours, fellow tour participants wonder if he's a big boss, or their father, as there's always three young men looking after a man in his 60s.

Her brother doesn't get a moment of privacy -- he even has to share his hotel room with one of his minders.

So while Zha Jianguo gets to travel around China at taxpayers' expense, his minders get a 美差meichai, or "beautiful duty". 

Despite such forced trips that Zha is forced to go along with, he continues to criticize the one-party state and refuses to stop writing and then post them online on social media.

His minders try to suggest that he didn't mean to write these incendiary pieces, perhaps he copied them from somewhere else, but Zha insists that he did, resulting in his minders having to scold him politely for causing more trouble for them.

Zha is prepared to go to jail again if his minders have received the signal from above; he believes his cause is too important not to give up on.

But in the meantime with this year having a number of sensitive anniversaries, he will continues to bei luyou, a burgeoning cottage industry that so far can only be found in China...