Communism

It's an image rarely seen in Little Saigon: the red flag of Vietnam. The last time the communist flag was displayed prominently in Orange County's Vietnamese enclave -- when a merchant displayed the banner -- it ignited 53 days of angry street protests. Today, an exhibit commissioned by a Vietnamese American arts group will open in Santa Ana, a display that purposely includes communist symbols, the flag of the fallen country of South Vietnam and artwork that has been banned in Vietnam.

It isn't easy being a kosher food inspector in the land of moo shu pork. No matter how hard you try. "Once, they got me into a restaurant and they ordered a whole plate of food and put it in front of me," recalls Rabbi Martin Grunberg, who has the unusual task of ensuring that Chinese factories that make food for export comply with ancient Jewish dietary laws. "They were putting me to the test because they really don't understand why I can't eat Chinese cuisine."

I remember it being unusually warm for a winter's night, but in my mind's eye now, I wonder if I'm recalling the heat from the crowd more than the temperature. What remains indelible, however, is the memory of that crowd, numbering in the low hundreds and filling the available walking and standing space at a strip mall along a stretch of Bolsa Avenue in Little Saigon.

I was born in a Beijing that has vanished. The way my mother tells it, I forced my way into the world a month early so my birthday would forever be associated with the biggest political festival of the year. It was the early autumn of 1968, and as revelers shouted "Long live Chairman Mao," my parents raced to a hospital during a massive parade commemorating the birth of communist China. As my mother screamed in pain, fireworks lighted the sky over Tiananmen Square.

The new archbishop of Warsaw admitted Friday that he had worked with communist-era secret police and appeared to open the door for the pope to remove him from his post. In a statement issued Friday, Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI on Dec. 6, appeared to back down from earlier denials about his activities. Critics have called on him to resign. "By the fact of this entanglement I have damaged the church.... I will respect any decision the pope makes," Wielgus said.

A national drama that has embarrassed the Roman Catholic Church and roused Cold War memories ended in spectacle Sunday when the new archbishop of Warsaw resigned before his inauguration Mass after admitting that he had collaborated with communist secret police decades ago. The Vatican quickly accepted the resignation of Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, who waited until hours before a ceremony in St. John's Cathedral before capitulating to public pressure for him to step down.

The priest is gray-haired but still strong, black vestments tight across his chest. He walks briskly in the cold morning light, remembering when the communist secret police slipped in amid the faithful and tried to turn him into a spy. "The secret police were always in our lives," said Father Jerzy Szlezak. "They promised me a job if I wouldn't go into the seminary. Then when I was a priest, they told me not to read the bishop's letters to my congregation.... I didn't relent."

Chinese lawmakers opened formal debate Thursday on a controversial bill aimed at protecting private property, a milestone in a communist country that a generation ago condemned the accumulation of individual wealth as evil, exploitative and inhumane. The measure is almost certain to pass during the 12-day session of China's parliament, which ends March 16, although implementation will be far more protracted and difficult in a society struggling to define the line between state and individual.

The photograph says it all. A frail-looking brick house clings to a small mound of earth surrounded by a giant pit dug by menacing bulldozers. They call it the "nail house." The name refers to the owners' uncanny ability to defy developers' plans to demolish it to make way for a luxury apartment and shopping mecca. The standoff in central China's Chongqing municipality is nothing new.

Guo Ping was just 9 when she started training as a marathon runner. By the time she was 16, she had gone pro, getting up at 4 in the morning and sometimes running 40 miles a day on feet so swollen she could barely squeeze them into her shoes. Although she harbored Olympic-sized dreams, the coal miner's daughter thought she also had a good backup plan. If she couldn't become the best of the best, she could always retire from sports and get a government job as a police officer.