Cognitive dissident
When I heard in November that Wei Jingsheng, China’s most prominent dissident, was released from prison and on his way to Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital—which is part of the institution where I work—I had two thoughts. First, like millions of others throughout the world, I was happy that Wei would finally have a chance to realise his most-cherished dream: the ability to speak freely. “I have waited decades for this chance to exercise my right to free speech”, said Wei, after having arrived in the United States. Considered the father of China’s modern pro-democracy movement, Wei had been imprisoned for all but six months since 1979.
From his bed at Henry Ford Hospital, Wei Jingsheng meets with his sister, Wei Shanshan, and her six-month-old son, Sebastian, whom Mr Wei saw for the first time. Ms Wei came to visit her brother from her home in Hamburg, Germany. Photo by Ray Manning, Associated Press.
My second thought—okay, maybe it was my first—was a curiosity about his smoking status, and how he would deal with our no-smoking policies. I assumed that Wei, like 60% of men in China, was a smoker. Given the suffering he had to endure, and the harsh prison environment to which he had been exposed, I figured the odds of him smoking were even greater than 60%. If I …
