Truth is in the Telling

"Doctor Jekyll"

This summer, a little-known and unaccredited Pacific Western University in the U.S. shot to the league of prominent foreign universities and became eponymous with the "Kelaideng University" in "Wei-Cheng" (a famous Chinese novel written by Qian Zhongshu). A series of true-life "Dr. Jekyll" stories in China's business circles has emerged from the shadows.

A graduate of Pacific Western University, Tang Jun was regarded "King of Employees," by his former employer. According to his resume, he graduated summa cum laude from Pacific Western University. While the controversy on this issue sizzled, Yu Jinyong, one of Tang's classmates from the same university, stole the thunder by releasing a statement through his attorney to request an apology from media agencies which had published reports of his forged resume. Yu demanded 50 million yuan in compensation and threatened to "sue those concerned in accordance with the criminal law."

Both Tang Jun was also suspected of faking his Ph.D. in Computer Science at California Institute of Technology in the U.S. Yu's post doctorate degree at Peking University was also questioned although the resume has since been removed from his personal blog. Tang is a financial services manager with an annual salary of one billion yuan. Liu Zhigang was released after serving the full term of a sentence for three and a half years. His charge was fraud and his case was titled by the media as "the first phony resume lawsuit in China." One can only presume it is with ambivalence that Liu watches both Tang and Yu so vigorously counter their detractors.

A high-school graduate, Liu introduced himself to others as a doctoral candidate at the School of Economics at Peking University. He was employed by an institute in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan Province. Ushered into the academic elite, he enjoyed every comfort the position had to offer. He was rewarded with a relocation reimbursement of 40,000 yuan and luxurious apartment. He was quickly offered a job and was even presented at recruitment fairs to attract other doctorate holders to work for the institute.

Liu started to embroider upon his white lies in 1994 when he failed in the national college admission test. He sent himself a falsified admission notice from Peking University and traveled to Beijing not to the campus but to work. Liu frequently visited the economics classes at the university. And he sent letters back home using stationary embossed with Peking University letterhead, complete with the address: Room 117, Building No. 47.

After years at the institute, Liu felt he was ready for a pay raise. When his employer finally checked his background, they discovered that Liu lied about his experience at the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Information Industry. Peking University said Liu had never been enrolled as a student. In all, it had been ten years of deception.

If Liu had more patience at the institute, it's likely that he could have reached further heights in the academic world. Tang Jun and Yu Jinyong dared to stare down the gunpoint because they were too familiar with the unspoken rule of success in China – a tainted past is nothing once you have success.

Imperial Envoys

Academic circles are the natural environs of Dr. Jekyll types. Soon after his employment, Liu Zhigang was sent to instruct 12 undergraduate students on their thesis papers. From his brief exposure to courses at Peking University, Liu took care of the assignment. The excessive amount of bachelor, post graduate and doctoral degrees holders are a consequence of education's overgrowth. In earlier years, there were only a handful of doctors in China, which made the act of faking it near-impossible. Dr. Jekyll began to enjoy a prosperous market for the most recent decade. In contrast, the path to being an Imperial Envoys was once the time-honored ladder to establishing a reputation in Chinese society.

The term comes from a masterpiece of the grand Russian novelist, Gogol. In the information era, senior government officials must now conduct their affairs under the public's eye. Nowadays, imperial envoys prefer the disguise of officials in the central government ministries or secretaries of ministers, as well as the Party's Central Organization Department, the department which determines official promotions, and the Central Discipline Committee, which has judicial authority over official misconduct. In the past, imperial envoys traveled to small cities and towns to carry out investigations on other officials. Now, imperial envoys choose to stay in the capital to wait for the willing victims to come.

True or False

When the word "villain" appears in the news, "chaotic" is the first reaction of the readers. But when it appears in novels, readers readily enter the author's moral world. It is true that people have little sympathy towards cheaters. However, when liars become story-tellers, their future is only as bounded as their imagination. In the 1980s, fake "poets" also ranked themselves among the imperial envoys. The difference is these phony poets could travel the country freely while seducing young female admirers along the way. In literature, telling a good story involves the creation of convincing lies.

Liu's story ended because he changed from an author a mere pretender. Story-tellers create their stories while pretenders act into their stories. When they act into the stories they fabricated, they forget they are lying. Instead, they are convinced by their own lies that the fake story is their true life. It's the fatal moment for them to show their true colors. However, few mortal eyes can tell the false mixed with the truth.

One last story is about Wang Yali, former deputy secretary of the Communist Youth League at Shijiazhuang, capital city of Hebei Province. Wang falsified her name, age and past. She was born Ding Zengxin in 1969, which was later changed to 1978. In her fake resume, she joined the army in 1990 (at the age of 12) and then became a pharmacist in a military hospital. She pretended to be the daughter of a local businessman and accused the late man's own daughter of being an imposter to claim her inheritance. The family of the businessman visited various government departments to submit their complaints but all were turned away. The change of the family's luck came in a surprising episode. 

While the daughter of the entrepreneur was praying at a temple, she recalled events of the past year and started crying. Her sobs were heard by a passing pilgrim, who happened to be a central government official.

He took a file of her claims and left. The CPC's Central Organization Department and Central Discipline Committee sent a joint investigation team to Shijiazhuang. Days later, the party's Central Organization Department discovered that Wang was a pretender.

Dr. Wang Xiaoyu is an Associate Professor at Institute of Cultural Criticism at Tongji University