by Maite cannon by Grégoire Badevant EMIMA S 2:2 AMBERIGCIAN COM MENIIT Se aire OEREN THES SOME ( ERISRICA. NOM, SHE KEEPS GHRONB Sth I» OW DENS TINE 1H MODERH ERIN. SwNDLEs8 “Joan Hinton Is 66 years old. She has fine white hair and a pair of clear bive eyes that tll you plainly then she's tstening, Hinton wears. practical, comfortable cotton clothing and athletic shoes that cover noticesbly large fet Every morning Hinton getsup, takes her medicine and goes for 3 walk for about an nour. Then, she checks upon the 300 cows atthe ‘sfate-ovined dairy in northern Baling where she ves, returns nome, tats breaklast, ond waits for her sonsin the US. to Skype her. Intne alternoon, her daughter in France eats. They al every 6a, ‘The native of Putney, Vermont, has been in China since 1968. Her brother, Bil, wastiret to arrive Hi friend from Cornell Irvin Engat—known a5 Sie—followed, The three were part ofa small roup of Westerners who jeinas the Chinese Communit revolution. In 1943, Joan and Sid married in Yanan, the base of Chairman Mao Zedong's ‘movement, The couple's three children were all born in Mao's China itwas “millet and rifles"—the only weapons said tobe needed by the (Chinese t ight off ta Japanese Invasion from the 1990s until the mid 1940e—that nssired Hinton to come to China, But befare th, Hinton Was part of thecrestion ofa weapon deadlier than any other imagined ‘po that point: Hinton helped to ul the iret atom bomb, SShowas a stedont of physies a ho Univorsity of Chicago, Under the instruction of Enrico Fermi, a key physcistin the bom®'s design, Hinton became one of the few women to participate in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. Sha was prasent forthe Tnty Test, the ist ever test fa nuclear weapon end described itasliks “being atthe Bottom of Sn ocean of light." Three weeks ater, the US. bombed Japan, and nat long ater that, Hinton Left Les Alamos to lobby the government fr civil contra ofthe nuclear technelogyshe hae helped te develop. Her elarts ‘wore futile and eventually, she found herself ona ship to Shanghai ‘Though consistently dedicated tothe Chinese Communist cause she maintains that she was never "the ator spy that got amy” she ‘was once portrayed tobe, and only applied her skills ta mecharizing griculturein rural China, True tothe socialist values she embraced uring the Chinese Communit evolution, Hinton lives simpy ane ‘modestly on her dairy (save forthe fact she has Internet and satelite TV}. She sil olds 2 profound devotion tothe long dead and incest least partially—denaunced, Mao Zedong. Portraits and figurines and ther memorabilia ofthe chaieman are graminent inher ing room. ‘Sid passed away in 2003. Curious journalists and writers often call for interviews and Hinton keape fat notebook filed with their names and business cards. Though hardly a househald name in the country of her birth, she stil pops up in tne American media every few years. Here is, Jean Hinton’ story, n her on words, My life? t's all been written about already. Everything I've fergote you can ind an the Internet, Take al the pictures you want, Nothing is secret here Test that made me come t Chin, peel ea etter beautiful Iwas lovely! twas the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hat made me come China Ofcourse, we knew what we were making, wae possible We thought we The American gove contr of everything, bt we did Japan because they said it would save lives, That wes alot of crap It dit save lives at all, The reason they did it as they didnt want the Soviet Union coming into Japan and profiting from the spoils. They wanted Japan to surrender, so they could alt. Alt of us lft Los Alamos after the Bombing. Washington to try to get civil contra over the nucle‘Wetook bits ofthe sand that had melted under the heat ofthe bomb “rom the test site and then [satin plastic] sent one ofthese to every fy and asked, ‘Do you want your city to Lack ike this?” The Chinese Gefeated the Joponese with “ills and millet” This interested me, 50 fame to Chinato see what alo this was about ‘My brotner came ta Chinafirt, He was originally a paciist. He was at ‘Cornell with Sia and the two of them were always arguing about the ‘world Butt was my sister wine was the one that was behind everything 'She said, "You have to fight the fascists. You have to. you don't theyll Get us andwe'lbe under thelr contrat" ill was sent to China under the ‘GW [Office of War information|. By the time he came back othe States 1 1945, the war nas over, Mybrother go to meet Mao. He was very excited because he thought Mao would telt him some interesting things. But Maoist Uke that He just asked questions. He asked my brather about what ne did in ‘the States and Bil told him about now he spant a wintar an Sid's farm ‘trying to unionize the workers, All winter, he dnt get one person to “snp, He tld this to Mao ang he said he just elt iter and ittler! “The UNARA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Adminstration) sentSid to China after the war because he knew about cows. This, “os in 1946, nd he went 2s part of 2 famine rele! trp. Bill went back fo China in 1947, and then I came in 1948. came by ship. took 18 days. Each day onthe ship, learned 10 Chinese characters so when Farrives ene 180 fist came to Shanghal. alsa worked with the China Welfare Institute. worked at school that taught very talented, but poor kids from the countryside. About a year later, |gotto goto Beijing. Iwas to meet with Sid Shapiro [anather American) and his wife atthe Peking Hotel, and then we would go “ino the undarground." It tras allvery exciting because Beling wasnt liberated [by the Chinese [Cemmunist Party during the Chinese cul war with the Guamingdana] then, Everyone atthe time wae saving Bejing, but! was a foreigner frying to get in! But Bejing was coon (berated and then | went by truck to Taiuen, I remember there were two PLA soldiersin the ruck We crossed the Yalow River and made ito Yerian. Sid came, we got ‘married, then we worked inan iron factory. Then we went to farm te look after horses, cattle and sheep in northern Shaanxl. This was September of 145 Inwas wonderful ving in China under Mao. You didnt have to worry about anything, you just worked. There was:na unemployment, children went to school medical vas free, Andit worked, was a barefoot ‘ector [doctors sant cut to the rural areas to provid basic health care under Mac) that frst iacovered that Sia nada heart problem. He sent Uusto the local hospital, and then tothe provincial hospital. and thon {a Beijng, ad finally we went othe States because he could not gota Theartl val din China, tit was that ist doctor wha caught ‘the problem beloreit was to0 serious. ‘The Chinese trestecus like anyone els, We never had any troubles a5 foreigners, They said shui tu guan x” which means basically, they got lsd tous, They said overtime that our noses got smaller and smaller [chinese describe foreigners as having “long noses! Sid and were avon different ministry tiles, anditkept changing. They kept giving us mare and more hats, My last ministry tle was Viee Miister af Machine Buliding. They ot rid of the ministry, but mil the Vice Minster, so now, mthe Vie Minister of Nothing! Last right, I went to Tianenmen Square, tothe People's Hall for an event hosted by [Premier] Wen Jiabao to celebrate the founding af the People's Republic of China, Iwas seated at table number 50, but you know, thats a prety ow= ranking number I never applied my science expertise to my work in China. The mast | id was build a windmil for one of cur dairies, to pump water But hat Aidrtwork In my desig, neglected to puta brake onthe windmill land the area ve were in was very windy. We had the windmill up, then ‘ona very windy day we couldnt stop it and boom! It as destroyed, ‘Sur. lke being @ dairy farmer. Everybody has fo have something to do, You have to have the general, but then you must have the specific tonave s conse of realty ‘There are 17 oF 18 people working onthe farm, and about 1010 15 onthe sry. [have to stay here. fdr, we'l lose it.The district government re-zoned this area for university development. But speculaters want to come and bull houses 1 sell 2 private homes. Tey ust want to make ‘money, But as long as Im here, they can't do anything. HINTON WES PRESENT FUR THE FIRST EVER TEST OF W NUCLERIR Meno’. “WE THOUGHT WE HAD CONTROL OF EVERYTHING, BUT WE DIDN'T.” | stand with the people ofthe world. 'm not American, not Chinese just a human being. |thinkwhat's happening in America now is terrible, Just awful, You saw my shet [a blue T-shirt hung in her living ‘oom with Fuck Bush’ written in Chinese characters across the front [thinkt's terrible what's happening in China now. Jiang [Zemin] was 2 sellout, But Wen [Jiabao] and Hu Jintao are beter don't ke what's happening now. bul you know, the wold goes on. Isay that fe, a ‘erzon has to have three things: sense af humor, a sense of history anda sense of strug, | dort tke reading books, that's why | studied physics! watch BBC and ‘Animal Planet, Sometimes CNN, but dont really ie it. ike what's happening in South America lke Chavez tke what he's doing ‘f course things are diferent now than when Mao was leading. Things ‘ere much better under Nao. know people say alt of bad things ved happened during Mao's time, but say what know Alter al ‘through ital. 4 SSNINOLE 5?