China's selfless saint a has-been?zt

A woman examines memorabilia honouring Chinese soldier Lei Feng at an exhibit in Beijing this week.
BILL SCHILLER/TORONTO STAR

BEIJING–Chinese soldier Lei Feng was so devoted to the Communist Party that he once proclaimed he wanted to be "a screw" in the party's machinery.

"I shall be a screw that never rusts and I will glitter wherever I am placed," historians quote Lei as saying in the 1960s.

As it turns out, fate – and Mao Zedong – would grant his wish.

China marks Lei Feng Day Friday, as it does every year, nearly 48 years after Lei died ingloriously in a vehicle accident when he collided with a telephone pole. He was just 22.

But when Mao proclaimed that Lei's devotion to the party and his good deeds should be emulated by everyone, his memory and spirit lived on.

"Learn from Lei Feng," Mao said.

And generations of Chinese have ever since.

But there is grudging acknowledgement that Lei Feng's so-called "screw spirit" – his devotion to the party and his selflessness in the service of others – no longer resonates among China's youth.

"The market economy and its values have had their impact," admits Dong Xingxi, China's largest private collector of Lei Feng memorabilia with 8,000 pieces. "Comparatively speaking, the younger generations' knowledge of Lei Feng is less now.

"But," he hastens to add, "the common people still hold a place for Lei Feng in their hearts."

That may be so. But spectators are sparse on a weekday afternoon at the Fengtai Cultural Centre where some 5,000 of Dong's pieces are on display. Still, the show gives a glimpse of just how immense Lei's reputation was, particularly in the 1960s and '70s. There are postage stamps, books, records, postcards, feature films, calligraphy, dishes, t-shirts, needlepoint, hat-racks and an endless array of knick-knacks.

Over the exhibition hall's sound system come the strain of martial music that almost every Chinese person knows: "Follow the good example of Lei Feng!"

Dong began assembling his memorabilia in the 1990s, at a time when Lei's selfless devotion to the party was giving way to then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's pronouncement that, "to get rich is glorious." Selflessness – and Lei Feng – were slipping from style.

And so it continues to this day.

Last year at the Communist Party's annual consultative conference – an advisory body to the party – member Liu Jianlong offered a proposal to stop the slippage. Liu wanted the government to apply for UNESCO status to preserve the "Lei Feng Spirit."

"As society and culture rapidly develop, Lei Feng is being increasingly ignored," Liu said. "Many young people don't even know who he is."

Surveys in recent years support his view. A poll of more than 3,700 people conducted in 2007 by China Youth Daily found that just four out of 10 Chinese people still regarded Lei Feng as a "spiritual model."

Another poll about the same time by a government-run newspaper in Yunnan province found more than half of the 100 youths questioned didn't know who Lei was.

"Many Chinese are unaware of Lei Feng or dubious about his significance in contemporary society," state-run news agency Xinhua observed.

Some intellectuals during the 1960s and '70s criticized Mao for posthumously elevating Lei to the level of national role model, saying the party didn't need more blind obedience. It needed truth and tolerance for constructive criticism, they said.

"(Lei) only knows how to follow orders," said one critic, Chen Shizhong, calling Mao's promotion of Lei both wrong-headed and dangerous.

Chen was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Western historians have taken a dim view of the Lei Feng myth, too.

Jonathan Spence, in his book, The Search for Modern China, notes the diaries famously attributed to Lei Feng, which were widely published and distributed in China following his death, were fabricated by a team of Peoples' Liberation Army propagandists.

But none of that would sway 42-year-old He Chunming. She still vividly remembers learning about Lei Feng when she was a child in distant Fujian province.

"He was a young man with a reputation for being selfless and helping others," she says. "He was devoted wholeheartedly to serving the people."

Crouched before one of the exhibition's glass display cabinets, she's studiously taking notes on a small piece of paper. They're for her 8-year-old daughter, Zuo Sihe, she explains. Sihe's teacher has a lesson on Lei Feng planned Friday and she wants to make sure her daughter does well. The teacher wants every student to perform a good deed and then write a story about it.

Is it true that Lei Feng is out of date, she's asked?

"Lei Feng will never be out of date," she scoffs.