Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds

by Ping Fu, MeiMei Fox

“Bamboo is flexible, bending with the wind but never breaking, capable of adapting to any circumstance. It suggests resilience, meaning that we have the ability to bounce back even from the most difficult times. . . . Your ability to thrive depends, in the end, on your attitude to your life circumstances. Take everything in stride with grace, putting forth energy when it is needed, yet always staying calm inwardly.” —Ping Fu’s “Shanghai Papa”



Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student.



Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year. To be a friend and mentor to some of the best-known names in tech­nology. To build some of the coolest new products in the world. To give speeches that inspire huge crowds. To meet and advise the president of the United States.



It sounds too unbelievable for fiction, but this is the true story of a life in two worlds.



Born on the eve of China’s Cultural Revolution, Ping was separated from her family at the age of eight. She grew up fighting hunger and humiliation and shielding her younger sister from the teenagers in Mao’s Red Guard. At twenty-five, she found her way to the United States; her only resources were $80 in traveler’s checks and three phrases of thank you, hello, and help.



Yet Ping persevered, and the hard-won lessons of her childhood guided her to success in her new home­land. Aided by her well-honed survival instincts, a few good friends, and the kindness of strangers, she grew into someone she never thought she’d be—a strong, independent, entrepreneurial leader. A love of problem solving led her to computer science, and Ping became part of the team that created NCSA Mosaic, which became Netscape, the Web browser that forever changed how we access information. She then started a company, Geomagic, that has literally reshaped the world, from personalizing prosthetic limbs to repair­ing NASA spaceships.



Bend, Not Break depicts a journey from imprisonment to freedom, and from the dogmatic anticapitalism of Mao’s China to the high-stakes, take-no-prisoners world of technology start-ups in the United States. It is a tribute to one woman’s courage in the face of cruelty and a valuable lesson on the enduring power of resilience.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, China, Book Club, History, Business

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Jade · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a law-abiding US citizen and a conscientious reader (just like other Chinese Americans on Amazon), I have the obligation to inform the general public of the falsehood in Ping Fu's memoir Bend, Not Break as well as her interviews with different media.

1. She had family ties to Sun Yat-sen, the “Father of China” although an expert on Sun's life had no knowledge of such a relationship.

2. She described that the Rape of Nanjing Memorial Day falls on May 30, "making my birthday both a cause of celebration and an opportunity for grave reflection on humankind's potential for cruelty." However, the Rape of Nanjing Memorial Day has always been December 13; the city of Nanjing fell to the Japanese army on December 13, 1937.

3. She enjoyed four appetizers, one soup, and eight main dishes with her Shanghai Papa and Shanghai Mama for every dinner in the early 1960s although more than thirty million people in China died of starvation during the Chinese Great Famine (1958—1961).

4. She was sentimentally attached to her fancy childhood living with her upper class family in Shanghai although her childhood acquaintance remembered that she was in Nanjing throughout her childhood.

5. She was taken away from her family by the Red Guards at the age of eight as a child of “black element,” endured ten year internment in the labor camp, and at the same time had to care for her four-year-old sister. However, no one else, including historians, could find any kid in any labor camp in China in the 1960s and 1970s; her childhood neighbor can attest that both Ping and her sister were brought up on a university campus in Nanjing.

6. She was tragically gang-raped by a dozen teenage Red Guards in the middle of a soccer field in broad daylight at the age of ten yet managed to hide this incident from the police, school, classmates and community until she was embraced by the land of freedom. However, even an attempted rape would get death penalty in China in the 1960s.

7. She miraculously survived a broken tailbone, internal injuries, and a wound that required more than forty stitches, yet the wounds were successfully kept invisible to anybody around her.

8. She then beat the odds of 4.8% university admission rate without setting foot in classroom during her ten year internment. However, the record from Suzhou University shows that she joined the Communist Youth League in April, 1973, graduated from Nanjing Guanghuamen High School in 1976, and served as class president at high school.

9. She claimed to get into the college in the year of 1977, on her first attempt in China's first college entrance exam after the Cultural Revolution although the school records show that she failed in the year of 1977 and got accepted in the year of 1978.

10. She tolerated routine vaginal finger-checks (if she had menstrual period regularly, then she was proven to be non-pregnant) by school authorities on college campus due to China’s one child policy. However, no other female students recalled this ever happened anywhere in China; she never had a child while in college; she later changed her story: it was students’ own fingers, not officials’ fingers, did the checking and that co-author Meimei Fox still got it wrong although she tried to correct it three times; she eventually "clarified" that this kind of checking took place in some local regions, and that "given the ambiguities of the Chinese language, what I wrote could be read as general information or something happened in Suzhou." (although BNB is written in the English language)

11. She was forced to witness a school teacher being quartered alive by four horses by the Red Guards although she was later forced to “clarify” that it was probably her emotional memory.

12. She formed a group called Red Maple Society and published a literary magazine in 1979, which became so famous that the group representative received a chance to meet Deng Xiaoping, the leader of China, in Beijing in the same year. However, an expert on modern Chinese literature does not believe for a moment that Deng Xiaoping ever came near the group of student magazine representatives.

13. She devoted half a year to do a research on female infanticide in the rural China in the year of 1981 and witnessed hundreds of baby girls tossed into the river. However, China’s one child policy just started in the year of 1981; none of her classmate remembers she was once out of the campus.

14. She submitted a research paper on female infanticide to her professor in the spring of 1982. However, Suzhou University recently stated that no student majored in Chinese Literature was ever asked to write a thesis on social issues, and that she withdrew from the university in March, 1982 without graduation or submission of any research paper; she eventually admitted to the media this June that she never wrote the thesis.

15. She published the article on female infanticides in People's Daily in the spring of 1982, which not only made a Chinese official newspaper acknowledge female infanticide the very first time, but also made the international press aware of this great atrocity. However, no one else in China could get an anti-communist article published in China’s national newspaper in the 1980s; she eventually admitted she never wrote the article.

16. She set off cries from the UN for economic sanctions against China in the year of 1982 although the UN was not able to implement such sanctions.

17. She was arrested in a Hollywood-like, secret way that only 007 could experience in the movie. However, the police could simply take you to the police station without even questioning you in China in the 1980s; Suzhou University recently stated in an open letter that she was never arrested during her time at the university.

18. She was released from jail thanks to China’s leader Deng Xiaoping and also obtained the visa with Deng’s help. However, nobody knows how she learned that it was Deng who made a phone call asking about her whereabouts which led to her release.

19. She was then exiled to the U.S. under Deng Xiaoping’s protection although even the most famous political dissidents had to wait for decades in prison before the U.S. Government's intervention made their deportation happen.

20. She traveled forward in time by taking a direct, nonstop flight from Shanghai to San Francisco on January 14, 1984 although it wasn’t until the year 2000 that a US airline (United Airlines) first began offering direct, nonstop flights from Shanghai to San Francisco.

21. She was immediately kidnapped by a Vietnamese Chinese on her arrival in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 14, 1984 and was rescued by the police on the third day. However, she managed to leave no records at the Albuquerque Police Department's Records Office; she went out on a date with her boyfriend on the same day she was rescued, according to her another memoir Drifting Bottle (Piao Liu Ping) published in Chinese in 1996.

22. She claimed she had never studied English back in China and therefore could only speak three phrases of English: “thank you,” “hello,” and “help” when she landed in the U.S. However, in her another memoir Piao Liu Ping, she mentioned that she studied English hard before coming to the US; the records of Suzhou University show that she scored above the average in English, a required subject for undergraduate students.

23. She claimed she enrolled in the Master’s Program in Computer Science at the University of New Mexico although the university confirmed that she studied as an undergraduate student of Computer Science major from September 1984 to July 1986.

24. She had the great ability to submit a fake degree while studying her Master Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the late 1980s-- her application form indicated she obtained a B.A. in Literature from Suzhou University, China, in the year of 1982. However, Suzhou University already confirmed she never graduated.

25. She bravely slapped Sylvester Stallone on the cheek, hard, to stop his sexual harassment when working illegally off campus in the 1980s.

26. She was capable of lying to the American government at the age of 28—she got her green card through a sham marriage that lasted three years. However, no such marriage was ever mentioned in her two memoirs; she complained about her state of loneliness as a single woman five years after she came to the U.S. in Bend, Not Break.

27. She could see the future and has been proactively protecting her first secret husband from the “internet bullying,” which happened decades later followed after the publication of her “Lies in Two Worlds.”

28. She claimed full credit of a company founded and supported by her former second husband, computational geometry professor, Herbert Edelsbrunner, who also had to recede into the background for his privacy.

29. She was a brilliant strategist, saw the potential of the company early on, and made her name into the patents, inventions of Herbert Edelsbrunner that she hardly understood.

30. She claimed to have helped create the Internet, which came into the existence before she even came to the U.S, and to have nurtured the inventor of the web browser, Marc Andreessen, who still believes the invention was his own idea.

31. She has already started promoting 3D printed meat at home and is going to save the U.S. by utilizing 3D printed products, which used to be made in China, although scientists have not been able to create a living cell in the lab.

32. She survived with multiple fake degrees （M.A. in Literature, Ph.D. in Literature, Ph.D. in Computer Science, etc.）although Yahoo's ex-chief executive Scott Thompson stepped down for just one fake degree in his resume.

33. She was able to tell different versions of the same stories on different media in different time without even blinking her eyes.

34. She delightfully turned other peoples’ stories into hers and included them in Bend, Not Break; she took others' credit and even impersonate other people by linking her resume to the resume of a person who happened to share the same name with her (for example, her professor title at Duke University).

35. She has succeeded in promoting her second “memoir” Bend, Not Break due to the vigorous support of the mainstream media in the US although Misha Defonseca’s fake Holocaust memoir got debunked ten years later; the author admitted that the worldwide bestseller was a hoax.

36. She attributed broken parts in Bend, Not Break to "editorial errors," "translation errors," "misinterpretations," "random internet search by co-author Meimei Fox," "typos," etc.—faults of anyone else but herself.

37. She was bold enough to publish two memoirs so contradictory that the two books would get into a good fight when being put together.

38. She dared to submit a fake resume for her NSF Grant Application in the early 1990s: 1) Fabrication of her educational background—she did not receive a Bachelor’s degree from Suzhou University; 2) Fabrication of her work experience—she did not work as a Lecturer at Nanjing Aeronautical Institute, China, from 1982 to 1983; 3) Misrepresenting her publications—she was not the author of several publications listed in the proposal; 4) Plagiarism—one of the publications，Two Minutes Story, listed in the proposal is plagiarized, in violation of U.S. Copyrights law.

39. She dared to submit a fake resume for a job at University of Illinois’s NCSA in 1991, in which she stated 1) She was a Research Assistant at the University of California, San Diego, in 1988; 2) She was a Teaching Assistant at the University of San Diego in 1987; 3) She was a Teaching Assistant at the University of New Mexico from 1985 to 1986; 4) She worked as a Lecturer at Nanjing Aeronautical Institute, China, from 1982 to 1983; 5) She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chinese Literature from Suzhou University, in China, in 1982.

40. She had the guts to use her own words to discredit herself: 1) According to her memoir BNB/statement, from 1982 to 1983, she was persecuted by the Chinese government and was under house arrest, yet according to her resume, she was working as a lecturer at NUAA, a semi-military university in China; 2) According to her memoir BNB, she studied at University of New Mexico from Jan. 1984 to June 1986, yet according to her resume, she was working for Lane Sharman in San Diego, California, from May 1984 to June 1988; 3) According to her memoir BNB, there was no mention of her ever attending University of San Diego, yet according to her resume, she worked as a teaching assistant at USD in 1987. 4) According to her memoir BNB/statement, she never graduated from Suzhou University, yet according to her resumes, she had a BA degree and MA degree in Chinese literature from Suzhou University; 5) According to her own letter to the NSF, she was in Hong Kong from August 1994 to August 1995, yet according to her resume, she worked for HKUST from 1995 to 1996.

41. She has continued to be successful to this day and has even gone so far as to get the award of Outstanding American by Choice in 2012 and become President Obama’s advisor thanks to all the lies, distortions, exaggerations, and fabrications.

42. She, along with her team, is still heavily promoting Bend, Not Break even though there are mountains of reliable evidence and facts facing them.

43. She invented the golden principle of lying: bend, not break—bend the facts as much as you can as long as you do not break them.

The list goes on and on.

Ping Fu has been wanting the whole world to admire her—her unspeakable suffering, her unusual courage, her incredible strength, her super-high intelligence, her great wisdom, her charming beauty, and her super-strong sexual power.

However, a lie is as much a lie, when it is whispered or when it is proclaimed at the market cross. Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.

Please read the most helpful reviews on Amazon, the discussion forum on Amazon, "Debunking Bend, Not Break" website, and some media articles if you are interested in this Ping Fu saga. Thank you.

http://www.amazon.com/Bend-Not-Break-...

http://www.debunkingbendnotbreak.com/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/russellfl...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoud...

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06...

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/articl...

http://www.suda.edu.cn/html/article/1...

http://www.infzm.com/content/95329 (this one is in Chinese--in case you can read Chinese)

[S. · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give 0 star to this book, I would.

This memoir is full of contradictory fabrications mixed with high-minded talking. A lot of the stories in this book have been proven fake beyond doubt. Ms. Ping Fu herself had to retract quite a few major claims and correct quite a few "errors." Ping Fu has become so notorious in Chinese American communities that her name is synonymous with liar. Plug "Ping Fu" and "liar" into Google these days and the combo yields more than 6,300 hits.

​I have read Ping Fu's 2012 English memoir, her 1996 Chinese memoir, her resumes, and her student record at Suzhou (Soochow) University. There are many contradictions among them. ​The major problem is: a Red Guard made up stories to portray herself as a victim during the Cultural Revolution.

​In this book Ms. Ping Fu depicted herself as a victim of the Cultural Revolution, but her registration form at Suzhou University which Ping Fu filled out with her own hand-writing says that she joined the Communist Youth League (CYP) in April, 1973. At that time members of CYP in schools were selected from active Red Guards. Indeed I saw a photo on the Internet that teenager Ping Fu was smiling with other Red Guards under the flag of "Red Guard Brigade". Yes, Ping Fu was a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution.

In this book Ping Fu never went to school between 8 to 18 years old, she was a child labor for 10 years. But her student registration form at Suzhou University with Ping Fu's own hand-writing says that she was a class monitor in her high school, and she joined the Communist Youth League in her middle school.

In this book Ms. Ping Fu suffered a lot in China, as she is telling her suffering stories in China to American readers. Back in 1996 she was telling her suffering stories in America to her readers in China. In her 1996 Chinese memoir Ping Fu wrote that she never suffered any hardship in China but suffered a lot in America. In the Abstract of her 1996 Chinese memoir, Ms. Ping Fu wrote: "Once stepping on the land of America, all the dreams that I had back in China were shattered in the face of this nakedly, cruelly, realistic society, ..... There is no boat to the shore of freedom."

In this book Ms. Ping Fu never graduated from Suzhou University, and Suzhou University confirmed that she withdrew before graduation. But in her resumes which she submitted to apply government job and grants, she put a BA degree and MA degree in Chinese literature from Suzhou University, which means Ms. Ping Fu provided false information to apply government job and grants.

In this book Ms. Ping Fu was persecuted by the Chinese government and virtually under house arrest from 1982 to 1983, but in her resume she was working as a lecturer at NUAA, a semi-military university in China​ during 1982 to 1983​.

In summary, Ping Fu did not suffer during the Cultural Revolution, actually she was privileged. In July, 2013, Suzhou University disclosed Ping Fu's student file. She was a Red Guard and a member of the Communist Youth League, she was a class monitor in high school. Her story of from 8 to 18 working in factories without school was completely made up.

Ping Fu's 1996 Chinese memoir tells different stories from her English memoir Bend Not Break. You can find English translations and observations of excerpts from Ping Fu's 1996 Chinese memoir at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/forum/cd/dis...

You can find Ping Fu's resumes and her student record at Suzhou University here:
http://www.debunkingbendnotbreak.com/...

​For the readers who don't know much about China, some of Ping Fu's America stories in this book are just as fake as her China stories, such as she was kidnapped the first day when she arrived in America although Albuquerque Police Department has no record even though 3 minors were alleged to be involved, or served John Wayne in 1984 while John Wayne died in 1979, or Sylvester Stallone grabbed her rear end with his "enormous right hand" while Stallone doesn't have an enormous right hand......

==================
For the following fabrication, to avoid lawsuit, Ping Fu was willing to apologise to her college female classmates:

Excerpts from Ms. Ping Fu's memoir Bend Not Break, page 254 :
[At our school, officials would confirm that all female students were menstruating each month by checking their sanitary napkins. When they discovered that some women were cheating by bringing in their friends' soiled pads, the officials began inserting their fingers directly into our vaginas to check for blood.]

When I read this part I felt disgusted. Beside Ping Fu, I have never read from anyone else who talked about college female students were finger checked, not in China, not in the whole world in the whole history. How could she make up a disgusting story like this? It takes a very ugly soul to make up a story like this.

In February, 2013, Ping Fu changed her story, she said they were not official's fingers, but they were female students' own fingers:
[Through a misunderstanding with Ms. Fox, Ms. Fu said this was portrayed as the use of other people's fingers - an invasion of the woman's body.
Ms. Fox "wrote it wrong," she said. "I corrected it three times but it didn't get corrected." Women used their own finger to show blood, she said, but the mistake went into print anyway.
In general, Ms. Fox may have "just made some searches on the Internet that maybe weren't correct," Ms. Fu said.]
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2...

In June, 2013, Ping Fu's college classmates at Suzhou Univ. expressed anger over such non-existing event and humiliating story, and threatened lawsuit.
In July, 2013, Ping Fu changed her story again, this time she said finger checking happened to some women who had already given birth to a child, but not to the students at Suzhou University:
[非法怀孕检查只针对已经生育过的妇女，并不是对所有女性。书中写的是对所有女性，但并不是苏州大学学生。]
http://dailynews.sina.com/gb/news/usa...

How can anyone recommend this book when its author made up disgusting stories, kept changing her stories or blaming her co-author's searching the Internet for her stories?

==================
​​Another example that Ms. Ping Fu fabricated her story: (You don't need to know anything about China for this story.)

Excerpts from Ms. Ping Fu's memoir Bend Not Break, pages 60-61 :
[Santa Fe was an artistic city, and many Hollywood stars had second homes there. Linda Evans, John Wayne, and Miles Davis all came to our restaurant. I didn't know who any of these people were, so my boss often assigned me to wait on them, knowing that I wouldn't get star struck or ask for autographs.
One night, a large, muscular man with dark hair and an asymmetrical face came into our restaurant. The boss told me to serve him.
I approached the table. "What would you like to drink?" I asked.
The man said nothing, but startled me by reaching around and grabbing my rear end with his enormous right hand. Without hesitating for a second, I slapped him on the cheek, hard. Then I gasped. What had I done? Surely the boss would fire me for such insolent behavior.
The man sat quietly for a heartbeat, staring me straight in the eyes. Then he laughed and said: "Do it again".
I raced back to the kitchen, still convinced, with my Chinese mentality, that I would lose my job. But everyone who had witnessed the event was cheering. "Ping, you slapped Rambo!" they squealed with delight. Even the boss, who had followed me to the back room, was chuckling. The customer, they told me, was Sylvester Stallone, a famous action hero.]

Do you agree this story was fabricated? As far as I know, John Wayne died in 1979, five years before Ping Fu arrived in America. Sylvester Stallone is not "a large, muscular man with dark hair and an asymmetrical face". He does not have "enormous right hand" either. Actually in real life Sylvester Stallone is thin and somewhat short. Many other Ping Fu's stories, such as being starved, being deported by China government, being finger checked for pregnancy, being kidnapped the first day upon arrival in America ... , are just as preposterous as this one.

Some classmates of Ms. Ping Fu at Suzhow University said she was a smart girl who writes novels well, but please don't claim a novel to be her real life memoir.

================
​​Another example of fabrication. Ping Fu did not see own face for 10 years, although she had photos from that period of time.

Except from pages 148 - 149, Bend Not Break:
[When my colleagues and I had finished making our first piece of metal mirror smooth, I caught sight in it of a perfect reflection of my face. We didn't have mirrors at home or around the dormitory -- Mao's Communism discouraged concern with one's physical appearance. This was the first reflection of myself that I had seen in a mirror in years. I was surprised that I looked all grown up. I recalled the well in the courtyard of my Shanghai family's home where I had gazed at myself before I was taken away. .... an unfinished child who had transformed into a proud and capable worker as an adult]

When I read this part, I had to stop, I could not stand it. She claimed she was taken away from Shanghai at 8 years old, now she is 18, for 10 years she did not take a look of her own face. Wow!
I don't want to argue that Nanjing is one of the top 10 most prosperous cities in China that it would not be hard to find a mirror outside of home. I don't want to argue that why she couldn't afford a mirror but she had a bike at the same time (back then in China owning a bike is like today in America owning a BMW car, but a small mirror only cost a few cents). I don't want to argue that why she did not take a look of herself when she visited her friend's home...... Just look at the photos in her book. There are three photos which were taken between her 8 to 18 years old. How could she not see her own face for 10 YEARS?!

Many people have already read or heard that Ms. Ping Fu did not go to school from 8 to 18 years old, which is a lie. Here she even did not see her own face for 10 years, but she kept teenager age photos. Do you believe that? I don't.

==================================

Some people may like this memoir as it contains a lot of high-minded inspirational talking, as Ping Fu portrayed herself as a victim of cruelty and adversity who showed enormous resilience and survived by sheer means of her humbleness and unbreakable spirit. But the truth is she fabricated these touching stories to gain fame and financial benefit. After reading both of her English and Chinese memoirs, her 4 resumes, and Suzhou (Soochow) University's disclosure of her student registration form (including her own handwritten statement that she joined the Communist Youth League in 1973), it is easy to see there are many contradictions and fabrications . Here is an incomplete list:

- Some stories in this book didn't happen, such as a teacher being quartered by 4 horses. Ping Fu said it was her emotional memory.
- Finger checking on college female students: in this book it was by Suzhou University officials' fingers. In February 2013 Ping Fu blamed her ghostwriter Meimei Fox for getting it wrong, and said what she meant was it was done by the students' own fingers. In July 2013 she admitted that the finger-checking practice didn't happen on college campus.
- In this book (page 255) she completed her college thesis, which embarrassed the Chinese government and she was arrested. In Feb, 2013, Ping Fu admitted she didn't write a college thesis.
- In this book Ping Fu was kidnapped in Albuquerque the first day she arrived in America and was locked up for 3 days. In her Chinese memoir she had a dinner with her first boyfriend Kelly on the third day of arrival to America. Albuquerque Police Department does not have any record related to this kidnapping incident even though it allegedly involved 3 little children.
- In this book she didn't graduate from Suzhou University, but in her resumes which were submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF, a government agency), she earned a BA or a Master's degree from Suzhou University. (Suzhou University confirmed that she did not graduate).
- In this book Ping Fu was arrested in 1982 and imprisoned for 3 days, after that she was under house arrest and was asked to leave China. But in her resumes, she graduated from Suzhou University, and then worked at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics as a lecturer from 1982 - 1983.
- In this book Ping Fu's marriage to Dr. Herbert Edelsbrunner was her only marriage, but in February 2013 she admitted to NYT reporter Didi Tatlow that she got green card from her first marriage with Richard Lynn Ewald from 1986 - 1989.
- In this book Ping Fu suffered a lot in China. In her Chinese memoir she had a happy childhood in China, but suffered a lot in America.
- In this book Ping Fu worked in a restaurant in Santa Fe where John Wayne also visited as a customer at that time, but in reality John Wayne died 5 years before Ping Fu came to America in 1984.
- In this book Ping Fu described Sylvester Stallone as "a large, muscular man with dark hair and an asymmetrical face,"who grabbed her rear end with his enormous right hand, but in reality Stallone is not large, he does not have enormous right hand either.
- In this book Ping Fu didn't see herself for 10 years from 8 to 18, but she included photos during that time in the book.
- In this book Ping Fu couldn't afford a mirror for 10 years, but she had a bike at the same time, which was a luxury item at that time.
- In this book Lane Sharman's company was acquired by AT&T, but Mr. Lane Sharman said his company was never acquired by AT&T.
- In this book Ping Fu said she did graduate studies at UNM, but UNM said she only did undergraduate studies there.
......

====================================

Below is what Suzhou University has disclosed:

In June 2013, Suzhou University released Ping Fu's student file, which revealed the the following:

(1) According to Ping Fu's student registration form which she filled in her own handwriting, Ping Fu had a complete middle/high school education. She graduated from Middle School in July, 1973. She graduated from High School in July, 1976. (Note: In this memoir Bend Not Break, Ms. Ping Fu wrote that she worked in factory from 8 to 18 years old, never went to school during those 10 years.)

(2) Also according to Ms. Ping Fu's student registration form, Ms. Ping Fu joined the Communist Youth League in April, 1973. (Note: the political ladder at that time in China was: Little Red Soldier, Red Guard, the Communist Youth League, the Communist Party. But in Ms. Ping Fu's Bend Not Break she wrote that she was regularly beaten by Red Guards because she was a "black element." This is like a Nazi soldier claimed she suffered more than Jewish people during Holocaust.)

(3) Still according to Ms. Ping Fu's student registration form, Ms. Ping Fu worked in Nanjing Radio Equipment Manufacture only for one year, but that was after she graduated from high school.

(4) Ms. Ping Fu took two years of college English and received good grades. (Note: In her book Bend Not Break she wrote she only knew 3 English words when she arrived in America in 1984.)

(5) Ms. Ping Fu was never arrested for any reason while she was at Suzhou University.

(6) Ms. Ping Fu withdrew from Suzhou University on Mar 16, 1982.

====================================

Four of Ping Fu's resumes were obtained by the critics of Ping Fu through FOIA. They were used to apply a job at National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) or taxpayer funded government NSF grants. Every version of her resumes includes her fabricated education credentials or working experience, and they conflict with each other in timing, and they are conflict with this memoir Bend Not Break. The four Ping Fu's resumes can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/forum/cd/dis...
Here is an incomplete list of the problems of her resumes.

- Ping Fu did not receive any degree from Suzhou University, but she listed BA and MA degrees from Suzhou University in her resumes.
- Her working as lecturer at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1982 - 1983 could not possibly be true, as NUAA is a semi-military college, and lecturer is a formal title in China which requires at least a Bachelor degree and formal approval process. Since Ping Fu did not graduate from college, it is impossible for her to be a lecturer at the prestigious college NUAA. (In Bend Not Break, she was under house arrest after being released from a jail during that time.)
- From April 1991 - August 1994, Ping Fu was a Visiting Research Programmer at NCSA, and she was not a Senior Research Programmer.
- Ping Fu's Technical Programming Manager position did not start from April, 1991. Actually this title was given to Ping Fu in 1996.
- It is impossible for Ping Fu to work as a Software Consultant at Resource Systems Group in San Diego starting in May 1984. (UNM stated Ping Fu enrolled as a full time student from Jan. 1984 - June 1986. Ping Fu arrived America in Jan. 1984 and enrolled in English as second language program at UNM. But in her resume she started to work in San Diego for Resource Systems Group in May 1984.)

With these four resumes, the timing of Ping Fu's working experience with Resource Systems Group changed as follows:
- In her 1992 resume: from July 1986 - June 1988
- In her 1997 resume: from May 1985 - June 1988
- In her 1999 resume: from May 1984 - June 1988
- In her 1991 resume: Ping Fu was doing TA at UNM, from 1985 - 1986

Ping Fu has 3 versions of her story regarding Suzhou University:
- In Bend Not Break, no degree from Suzhou University was obtained.
- In her 1991, 1992, 1997 resume, BA from Suzhou University, China in March, 1982.
- In her 1999 resume, MA from Suzhou University, China in March, 1982.

Suzhou University published her school record showing that she withdrew from that school on March 16, 1982 without any degree earned. But in each of her 4 resumes, she put either BA or MA degree. Using falsified resumes to apply for government jobs or grants is not just a lie, it is a crime. Because of the statute of limitation, we tax payers probably could not do anything about her criminal act, but this kind of behavior should be condemned.

====================================

In early 2013, Ping Fu said that none of her critics read her book, they ​all ​ were from China, they broke into the Amazon's computer system​ from outside of America​ to attack her. After her critics proved that ​most of us​ are American citizens, ​she ​claimed that her critics ​attacked her because she exposed ​the ​​Cultural Revolution​ to the Westerns​. This is her new lie to cover up her old lies.​ The truth is back in 1981, ​in ​a ​Resolution​, the Chinese government condemn​ed the Cultural Revolution ​and classified it as "Ten Years Holocaust"​​. ​If one Googles "​Cultural Revolution",​ you will find millions of pages on this subject. If one searches "​​​Cultural Revolution"​ on ​Amazon.com, you ​will ​find thousands ​of ​books​ on ​Cultural Revolution​ ​already published. Mr. Adam Minter​ from Bloomberg ​​​has written the following article to debunk Ping Fu's new lie:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles...​

​
In conclusion, this book should be classified as a fiction, not a memoir. If anyone still wants to read this book, read it as a fiction.

[Karolyn Sherwood · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't read a lot of memoirs. So, BEND, NOT BREAK is either a perfect example of why I don't, or it's simply a terrible book.

Ping Fu must be a brilliant person. She apparently overcame great odds as a young girl in China, was then "quietly expelled" from China, and eventually succeeded in America as the head of Geomagic, a software company that works to create 3D products.

This memoir, however, is poorly written (style-wise), full of inaccuracies (many since recounted by the author), and begs for, alternately, pity or admiration. It goes from "Poor, poor me," to "Aren't I amazing!" in 0 - 60 words. She generally takes all the credit for her successes, but none of the blame for her failures. For example, on page 260 of the paperback edition, she says, "Still, I don't know how my thesis research [on female infanticide in China] had gotten me in trouble." Really? Such a smart person, and yet she couldn't figure out why the Chinese government under Chairman Mao would object to that? Alternately ... on page 130, Ping Fu tells about the birth of her daughter: "The birth was easy. Nurses said that in all their years of midwifing, they had never seen a delivery like mine: I didn't push my baby out with cries of pain, but with hysterical laughter." Okay, people, I've had four children. The second one I delivered by myself at home (it happened that fast). Giving birth was easy for me, but NO ONE laughs their way through it. Trust me.

If those examples aren't enough, I could cite numerous passages of Ping Fu's false modesty. To summarize the temporary failure/setback of her company, Geomagic, Ping blames her lack of confidence to trust herself. In other words, I am so smart, I should have never hired another CEO. He was just a front, and I would have done better. And, including this comment from Stuart Frantz, one of her board members: "I always thought you were a visionary, Ping. You're also psychic." just enforces her gigantic ego.

I view this book as a failure and a bore. One Star.

[Camelia Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

0 star.

Anyone who knows about modern Chinese history can easily spot numerous fabrications, inconsistencies and misleadings. Even the photo she provided does not match the description in her book. I must agree with this review on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-r...

What a waste of time, at least I did not pay for this book!

On the other hand, why I am not surprised that such a book becomes a best seller? Sadly people will read it because it fits their "imagination" about China. Gang rape, child imprisonment, forced-abortion and a story of a rag-to-rich superwoman, what else you are looking for?

EDIT(7th April 2013): The main reason I dislike this book is when the author lied about her experiences in Cultural Revolution, she shamelessly took advantages of the very real suffering of Chinese people in the time period.

For the topic of Cultual Revolution, I recommend Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China's Cultural Revolution by Feng Jicai (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...)

[Normad · Rating 1 out of 5]

From reviewer H. Zhang:

Nobody is jealous of Ping’s success. I am a Chinese American woman myself. I saw this book in Costco and immediately decided to buy it. While most western books about Asian women tend to focus on the exotic sex appealing or obedient wife stereotype. I thought FINALLY we had a book that do us justice and show us as what we really are, the intelligent, hardworking professionals. I want to read it. I want my kids to read it so they can understand me more.

However, I have a complete different opinion now. Here I want to use another viewer’s comment to explain it, because She said it all:

— “Why do we speak up” by Xin Liu —

“I bought the book from Amazon for my kids. I was very excited to read her stories and hope to be inspired by this Chinese American role model. However, after reading the book, I was more than disgusted and will never let my kids read anything like this. Honesty and Integrity are the highest virtues by any standard, under any system. Ms. Fu’s made up personal stories sank our moral standard to an all-time low. Most people who commented here are Chinese American professionals. We came here 10, 20 or 30 years ago, just like Fu. This country offered us more than the first-rate education; more importantly, it reshaped or reinforced the moral standards that were once lost or distorted in the dark ages of China. Honesty, Integrity and Responsibility are the true assets of this society, this country. My solute to everyone who speaks up –we are fulfilling our citizen responsibilities to ensure zero tolerance to lies, to make sure our children growing up in a society where they have true role models to look up to.

P.S. Many people have pointed out the discrepancies in her stories and I am not going to repeat here. I want to point out another observation I have. In the book, she did not talk much about her husband — the key person in her personal and professional life, no loving or any affectionate words when they first developed the romance, no gratitude or remorse when they founded a successful company together and parted their way. I thought it was odd and interesting. Ms. Fu, I want to say this to you — you may have achieved your personal agenda, but you know it in your heart, you have lost even more! That is why you have to keep playing these dirty tricks to feed your greed and fantasy.

And here is a plea to the publisher (Portfolio Hardcover?): You are not here to sell stories, you are here to help uphold the right values of the society. Please stop being ignorant (intentionally or unintentionally). You owe it to your conscience. Please honor your job. (It is sad to see that the world is turning into a huge market with everything for sale.) And to those don’t understand why we make such a fuss over an “inspiring” memoir — this debate is never about Chinese history, it is about personal integrity of a role model currently highly promoted by all the major media. We have to put a stop to this, for our children.”

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story is a shocking misrepresentation of the recent Chinese history and a shameless fabrication of a heroic story that never happened and could never happen. I'd like to quote Fang Zhouzi, a freelance Chinese write who just recieved John Maddox Prize for been an ardent whistle blower for misdemeanors in scientific research, who recently provided a detailed rebuttal to some of the books claims.

"

I was a young child at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. My home and those of my close relatives were all ransacked by the Red Guards. They took away almost everything from us. For a brief period afterwards, my parents were away from home and I was taken care of by one of my cousins who was the middle school age. When she walked me to the kindergarden before going to school herself, the other kids in the neighborhood would spit on her. This period was so brief that I have no memory of it. My parents came back very soon and we had a basically "normal" life, considering the circumstances.

The reason I told my own experience during the Cultural Revolution is to provide the background for my criticism of Fu's book. I did not read her book itself, but read the story told in the book from the Chinese version of the Forbes article and other reports on the book, including the NPR story.

The first incredible detail in the book is the claim that Fu was taken to the labor camp at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution while she was eight years old. She stayed at the labor camp for ten years. She also said that she had to take care of her four year old sister. This means that the labor camp had children as young as four years old. Of all the people who went through the labor camps before, during, and after the Cultural Revolution, there had not been a single person who reported seeing young children in a labor camp.

A photography of her from that period provided by herself in fact contradicts her story. The photo shows her with a group of children posing in front of a flag. The Chinese characters on the flag read "Red Guard Brigade". All of the children in the photo wore armbands indicating that they were members of the Red Guard. I remember these armbands because many children were not allowed to wear them due to their "bad" family background. The photo shows that they were in a park. In fact, this was a park in the city of Nanjing. This was probably a photo taken when this group of Red Guard toured the park, perhaps on a weekend trip. It is clear that instead of being sent to a labor camp, Ms Fu was a member of the Red Guard herself.

The second incredible detail was how she got into college. She said that she entered Suzhou University in 1977. This was incredible in two ways. First, Suzhou University did not even exist until 1982. Although it was first built in 1900, it was split into several colleges in 1952 after communists took over China. The main part of it became Jiangsu Teacher's College. In 1982 it was merged with some other colleges to form Suzhou University again. Let us be charitable here and assume that she entered Jiangsu Teacher's College in 1977. But then there is a bigger problem. In 1977 entrance into a college was a privilege reserved for the political elite. It required going through a political evaluation. People who had questionable political backgrounds were not allowed into college. If as she said that she spent ten years in a labor camp, that would definitely disqualify her from any college. Conversely, if she indeed entered college in 1977, it would mean that she was a member of the politically privileged during the Cultural Revolution. This would also be consistent with the possibility that she was a member of the Red Guard.

But let us be charitable again and assume that she remembered wrong again. She would actually take the first national college entrance exam after the Cultural Revolution in 1977, and entered college in 1978. But even then it would not be consistent with her story. There was still the problem of political evaluation which was still used in 1977 but dropped in the subsequent years. There was also a problem of how she was able to study for the exam. In 1977 because it was the first exam in more than ten years, there were many times more people who took the exam than what would be on average. The competition was fierce, and the admission percentage was extremely low (about 4.8%). It would be highly unlikely that someone without any formal education would have been able to pass the exam. I had several cousins who took this exam, and none of them passed.

The biggest question was how she came to the US. She claimed that she wrote an article about infanticide in China while she was in college. This article was said to be published on the People's Daily in 1981. Its publication led to an UN sanction against China's one-child policy. As a result, Fu was jailed for a few months, then was exiled to the US. This was just not something that could happen in China in the early 1980's. First of all, People's Daily would never publish such an article. Indeed, no one has been able to find such an article during the time she claimed. Second, the UN never imposed any sanctions on China for its brutal birth control policies, as much as many people wished that it would. Third, exiling dissidents to the US was not a practice by the Chinese government in the early 1980's. A famous dissident of that period, Wei Jingsheng, was not exiled to the US until 1997, after spending 18 years in various Chinese prisons.

In the early 1980s, it was very hard for anyone in China to be able to get permission to leave China and study in the US. That Fu was able to do this would indicate again that she was from the privileged class, not persecuted as she claimed in her book.

"

[Truth Prevail · Rating 1 out of 5]

Guardian just had a report (link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/...)

It says: for Ping Fu's rags-to-riches memoir Bend Not Break, "Critics acknowledge the horrors of the cultural revolution, but question Fu's personal account. She has already conceded that a description of Red Guards killing a teacher by tying their victim to four horses was an "emotional memory" and probably wrong. Closer examination of her book and interviews reveal numerous conflicting claims and experts told the Guardian several parts of her story were implausible".

"One of her most striking claims is that Sun Yat-sen, revered as the father of modern China, 'raised my grandfather and granduncle as his own sons' – akin to a Briton being reared by Winston Churchill. Prof John Wong of the University of Sydney, an expert on Sun's life, said he had no knowledge of such wards". Please read this article and comments under this article. There are lots of evidences to show that this book is full of lies.

[Tibetan Monk · Rating 1 out of 5]

A review from Amazon questioning the truthfulness of Ms. Fu Ping's book "Bend not Break".

Fabricating suffering for personal gain is a true insult to those who did suffer.

[A promotion photo from the author that tells a different story from her book]

Search google image using the words "Ping, in the bottom row, second from the right along with the other children forced to live in government dormitories during China's Cultural Revolution. Image: Courtesy of Ping Fu.", you will get a black/white photo of the author (at company.com)

The author was among a group of kids posing happily under the banner "platoon of red guards". That means Ping was one of the red guards herself during the culture revolution. In the background stood an ancient style tower and incense burner, both were very rare during the culture revolution and usually found in parks or tourist sites, I cannot believe "government dormitories" looked like that. It turns out that the picture was taken in the city of Nanjing. The tower was Ling Gu Ta (memorial tower). Chiang Kai-shek's handwriting was carved on the incense burner in memory of fallen heroes for the Republic of China. Now I am certain that the photo was taken at a tourist site, not "government dormitories". (on 2/1/2013 at huffingtonpost, Ping Fu explained that the photo was taken at her school. The incense burner alone refutes her explanation.)

[A surge of negative ratings at amazon]

There is a reason for the sudden surge of the negative comments here at amazon. Her book promotion was translated into Chinese at Forbes' Chinese website a few days ago, and picked up on 1/28/2013 by Dr. Fang Zhouzi (Fang Shiming), a freelance writer who is famous for cracking down fraud in China. Before Dr. Fang's questioning Fu's story, not too many Chinese-speaking people actually knew who Ping Fu was. Dr. Fang just opened a floodgate. Fang is by no means any favor of the Chinese government. The claims Ping Fu made were just too outrageous.

[The author and publisher's backtracking]

One of Ping's claims turns out not to be reality. In the book, the author stated: "On one occasion,the Red Guards gathered us to watch a teacher be thrown head first into a deep well, and another quartered by four horsemen on the soccer field." At huffingtonpost on 2/1/13, Ping explained the four horsemen claim: "To this day, in my mind, I think I saw it. That is my emotional memory of it. After reading Fang's post, I think in this particular case that his analysis is more rational and accurate than my memory. Those first weeks after having been separated from both my birth parents and my adoptive parents were so traumatic, and I was only eight years old. There is a famous phrase in China for this killing; I had many nightmares about it."

In a guardian report on 2/13/2013, many experts in China Studies casted doubts over the truthfulness of the stories in this book. Publisher Adrian Zackheim responded: "Sometimes, despite everyone's best efforts, minor mistakes appear in nonfiction books. Whenever they are brought to an author's attention they are corrected in future printings. Ping has already acknowledged several of these, and if any additional corrections are required, of course those will be made as well." it is as close you can get for a publisher to admit "mistakes".

[The book's defenders]

Katie Baker from Daily Beast failed her job as a journalist. in her 2/4/2013 piece about this story, she picked and chose those emotional and non-informative sentences from the amazon negative reviews and hide the name of the single most important figure in the whole story from her readers: Fang Zhouzi. Once the name "Fang Zhouzi" enters google search, Ping Fu's house of cards will simply collapse.

Here comes the master! Harold Evans published an article at the daily beast on 2/11/2013, accusing the critical reviewers at amazon "hired by the Chinese government" basing on anecdotal evidences, internet rumors and speculations. He was not bothered by the photo showing Ping Fu posing as a red guard, nor did he take notice of Ping Fu's own admission that her "research" was not published anywhere in 1982. If you cannot argue with facts, accuse your opponents communists, have we seen that movie before? He even thought amazon's openness for book reviews "naiveté". What is the alternative? Media monopoly under Sir Harold Evans? The publishing campaign of Ping Fu's memoir is a typical case of publicity malpractice, yet Harold Evans decided to silence the critics by resorting to wild accusations and name callings. As a highly respected journalist, Sir Harold Evans managed to sink so low that he felt obliged to describe an amazon reviewer's gender as "Male, female, or hermaphrodite".

[Thoughts on the story]

Who is the winner of the whole story? Ping Fu's credibility has already been damaged, it is very unlikely we will hear from her after this. Chinese communist party emerges as the surprising winner here. On the one hand, Ping turned serious issues and historic events into cheap cartoons, muddled the water, tempered the history records, and transformed the ruling party of China's wrong doings in the past into easily disputable logic holes; On the other hand, frustrated Chinese witness some of the western media paying no attention to facts, they are just much more skillful in crafting and selling messages than the Chinese government propaganda. Negative ratings here are ferocious, they are the desperate cries in the dark when facts have no place in China under the name of "stability", while they get lost in the west in the jungle of "political correctness".

[Jean · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would have had no issue with this book if it is categorized as Fiction/Fantasy. But since Ping Fu has the audacity to categorize this as non-fiction/memoir/biography, then I have some issue with it.

Its target audience is definitely western readers who have no basic knowledge of China.

I was born and raised in China, i'm too young to experience Cultural revolution, but my dad and my grandpa were persecuted during those dark days, as well as both of my aunts. My parents went to college in NUAA, my husband grew up in the neighbor town of SuZHou, He went to college the same year as Ping Fu, and my sister in law attended Su Zhou University (it was called JiangSu Normal College then) in the same time as Ping Fu, except she was majored in English and half a year ahead of Ping Fu's class.

I've been living in the US for the past 20+ years (Since many in the US media are labeling any critics of Ping Fu's book hired by Chinese Communist Party at 50 cents per post, i feel obliged to clarify that up front).

I won't get into all the inconsistency in her book about her life in China.

Only two items:
---------
1. 1977 was the first time China opened its university to its people after 10 years shut down. the competition was ferocious. Only those with the best, most solid political background will be considered for admission, before they look at one's grades from the College Entrance exam. If Ping Fu was persecuted so severely during the 10 years prior, how did she get pass the political evaluation on the first round?

2. This sequence of events: Infanticide thesis Ping Fu wrote during her undergraduate senior year -> International crisis because her thesis got published in Chinese newspaper People's Daily, 1st documented admission from China government of "widespread killing of baby girls", embarrased China government, international outcry, UN sanction etc.-> Ping Fu was kidnapped on campus by police before her graduation -> imprisoned for 3 days -> deported to the USA.

Ping Fu started college in the fall of 1978, her class graduated in the summer of 1982.

The international crisis caused by her thesis should happen somewhere in early half of 1982, and probably shortly after her submission of her thesis, but before her graduation.

I've been googling Western Newspaper archive but couldn't find any information on this "documented China government first admission of widespread killing of baby girls" in 1982. How come?

Ping Fu claimed she never got her paper back, and there is no record to be found. Since China is not the best place for record keeping, it is understandable no one can find the article published in the State Propaganda machine People's daily.

But the Western Media? 1982 is not that long ago. Why can't I find any evidence of this international crisis that eventually caused Ping Fu's deportation?

And why would Chinese government deport a nobody to the most prosperous country in the world instead of exile her to the remote area of China or simply locking her up like so many other dissidents inside China to this day?
--------------

These are just the two major ones. There are so many many more. It seemed Ping Fu felt obliged to lie about everything, from major event to minor.

A few News Report on this controversy that's worth reading:
Forbes: "'Bend, Not Break' Author Ping Fu Responds To Backlash" http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoud...

Telegraph: "Doubts over Chinese author lauded by Michelle Obama" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...

Guardian: "Ping Fu's childhood tales of China's cultural revolution spark controversy" http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/...

Last but not the least, for those who feel very inspired by Ping Fu's story and would like to purchase some DDD stock, you might want to read this first: Citron Research Report published on Feb. 14, 2013.
http://www.citronresearch.com/citron-...

"For over 12 years Citron has been focusing on stocks that are frauds, intentionally overvalued, and those that are perched high atop a bubble. When it comes to calling out a “bubble stock”, we are yet to be wrong. Citron bubble picks stretch all the way back to the original dot-com bubble, to the online Real Estate bubble, and in more recent times, to our coverage of selected equities in the alternative energy bubble, such as a lithium battery maker honored with a mention in last year’s State of the Union address … in fact, the week before it filed for bankruptcy.

In this article, Citron will detail the bubble that has enveloped 3D Systems."

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is a struggle to finish the book. I have to give it one star because the system does not allow any lower number.

I came to the book with knowledge and personal experience of Cultural Revolution (CR) in China and 3D printing. If you think that helped me, NO, it almost killed me.

This is a beautifully written book thanks to the ghost writer. I wanted to move on to finish the book.

The content is so out of this world, it is against so many things that I knew and experienced. I wanted to stop reading it.

I finished it anyway.

1. If you have no personal experience of CR and won't take the words of negative reviewers, go ahead be inspired. That is something positive to get from this book. IF you care about the facts or simply curious about it, try to find your Chinese friends who you trust, who had CR experience, present the book to them and see what they say about it, fair?

2. If you have personal experience of CR, you can feel my pain, I have to constantly fight what I knew and experienced against what is told on the book. There are too many to list here. Even if it is fiction I would not be able to enjoy it, it is like once you know the earth is not flat, any fiction telling a flat earth will make you headache.

3. If you know China, you can feel my pain, who dared to assign a student to investigate something not glorifying the party in those days? Let along publishing it in top propaganda machine The People's Daily. I won't even imagine it happened in a parallel universe.

4. If you are American, you can feel my pain. Here in the US we are very serious about kidnapping and child endangerment. If you believe police won't keep any record of any investigation in this regard I won't believe you are American. The kidnapping described in the book, not as fiction but as real experience, left no record, the police station in that New Mexico city found nothing about it. Is police not doing the job or it never happened?

... I don't want to go lengthy.

Here is my final word about the book:

It is incredible, that is, not believable at all;

It is terrific, that is, the story told is terrible, terribly wrong; If you want to learn about atrocities during CR, there are plenty on Amazon.com;

It is inspirational, that is, if you do not know and do not care about real history and facts at all.

[C Bonston · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ping Fu may have done a good job to publish her inspiring personal memoir, which gained major media attention and reached the New York Times bestseller lists. Unfortunately, a liar is a liar. Perhaps there is no other thing in the world that is more difficult than covering a lie with another. Just a moment ago, the famous Chinese Scientific & Academic Integrity Watchdog, Dr. Fang Zhouzi found another "inspiring" personal memoir published by the same author in 1996 in China. Completely different stories were told by the same author. A myth is to be bust.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read a lot of memoirs...really did not like this one at all. The style of writing was sophomoric and something about this story didn't ring true. My feeling is that there was a basic truth there but it was highly embellished to make it more interesting.

[Sylvia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shameless lies through out the book. Anyone with reasonable knowledge of modern China knows her stories are total fabrication. Please read some amazon reviews of the book. http://www.amazon.com/Bend-Not-Break-...

[Charlie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I heard this book and thought it was a good one for life and career. To have a role model in life.

Then I learned the fierce controversy about the author. Indeed, many of the author's stories don't ring true. I can't image so many tragedies happened to one person. I have read lots of debunks about the author. I have to agree that I am on the critic’s side.

This book has a little truth but the author and ghostwriter have highly embellished to a ridicule degree. Now it is clear that the book is fabricated. For new readers, you can Google "Ping Fu New York Times", or Guardian, or Forbes", you should be able to learn what people are concerning about.

I feel sad that we have to deal with this kind of activity in our society. What kind of legacy do we want to leave to our next generation? To tell lies to achieve our goal?

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed this read, but found that it stretched my credulity more than once. Not that I don't believe that China's Cultural Revolution would leave an 8 year old living on her own, but that she single handed-ly opened the floodgates revealing China's infantacide, that she happily met with her tormentors as an adult....Some of it seemed just a mite too fantastic for belief.

I of course liked to see that she rose from poverty and abuse to success, but Im seeing now several reviews questioning her honesty in telling her story. There was something in the tone of the book that leaves me unsurprised at these accusations...

[Beth Withers · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading some of the comments below and doing a bit of research of my own, I have to retract what I'd written initially. I leave the reader to do his or her own research before deciding the veracity of this book. A lesson learned for me.

[Beilin Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is becoming the next A Little Million Pieces.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I wrote the`review in February, I discovered that there may be some mis-truths in this book, which I am sorry to say I did not know originally. I didn't question anything because I just assumed that if someone is writing a memoir, everything it is will be the truth as the person remembered it. I felt I should add this to thhe review.

This is a memoir about a woman who lived through the Cultural Revolution in China, was taken away from her parents at age eight where she lived with other children who were to be re-educated because they came from affluent families. She raised her little sister (four years old) in this environment for ten years. When she was 10 she was working in a factory. The ten years she spent here were abusive and sad. It’s an amazing story because somehow she survived and became CEO of a 3D software company and was named Inc. Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year. She was exiled from China and came to the United States with nothing. It’s a story of the American dream come true. But it was her resilience and her ability to blend the two cultures that helped her succeed. I’ve read many stories like this and clearly this one is unique. It draws you in and pretty much keeps you there until the end.

[Caroline]

This book has a unique status in my "did not finish shelf", for I never even started it!

I saw it on the shelf at the library, saw that it was a New York Times bestseller, and the blurb sounded fascinating. A book about life in China during the Cultural Revolution, followed by a rags to riches, happy-ever-after life in America. What was there not to like?

Then I got home and looked at the GR reviews.

I am not even opening the book. Tomorrow it goes back to the library. It sounds like lies and cods wallop from start to finish. Thank you GR folk for waving the warning flag and steering me away from the rocks.

[Reem Ghabbany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was incredibly inspiring and beautifully written.
This is a memoir of a Chinese Amercian who had to leave her home country after being kicked out.
at 25 she had to leave all her family members and leave. upon arriving in America, she struggled a lot, she didn't know but 3 words in English, she worked really hard and now she's one of the best entrepreneurs.
her story is motivating although, she struggled a lot during her childhood as a black element during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and forced to be a mother at age 8 and live alone with her sister who at the time was 3, she turned her life around.
I read on the internet that some of the things she had written were, in fact, untrue which made me reluctant to pick up the book and sat on my shelves for over 3 years XD.

[Lilisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Began the book without having read the storm of reviews this book has generated, so didn’t have any preconceived notions. I’ve read several books with the Cultural Revolution years as the backdrop, so was interested to see how this one compared. Overall, it wasn’t as rich and engaging as others; I found, what I thought, were a few inconsistencies, although Ping Fu might have had a slightly different experience, only she knows. I found I had more questions than answers to several parts in the book – for example, Uncle W suddenly shows up in Nanjing to visit her, stays a few weeks, and then heads back to Tianjin. She didn’t know who Uncle W was, had never met him before, but he decides to spend his annual leave visiting her in Nanjing? The most significant question is why she is able to leave China to go to the U.S. to study. The Chinese government wasn’t happy with her, and her punishment was being able to leave China for the U.S. – really? That would actually be a reward! And then there’s more questions about her trip to the U.S. and how she ended up getting to where she needed to be – not to spoil it for others – other than to say that that process is a bit questionable. The book isn’t knitted very well together, there were typos and incorrect use of words – “site” as opposed to “sight” and one glaring attribution of Jack Welch being CEO at GM rather than GE! It’s not that difficult to get these right. Apart from all that, it was interesting to get Fu’s perspective, memoir vs. fiction aside, on her life and how she navigated the challenges she faced as a child and as an adult.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's two sides to this book. On one hand this is story of a woman who spent part of her childhood in luxury, another part of childhood in prison, and eventually came to America where she found success.

On the other hand a lot of people believe that Ping Fu made this story up. I don't know enough about China's history to agree or disagree with any of these claims.

The accusations ruined the book for me. I couldn't get into the story without the thought that it was made up pulling at me.


Note: I won this book on Librarything.

[Steve]

Good story, but is it really true? There was a lot of controversy about this book that may have come from within China. It really damaged the book and it turns out some of Fu's claims needed to be revised.

[Ting Lei · Rating 1 out of 5]

full of lies. A insult to those real victims. If labelled
as a fiction, I may give more stars

[Elaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm in no position to evaluate the various claims that Fu has made about her experiences or the challenges that others have made about her recounting. Nonetheless, I found this book very disappointing.

The beginning of the book was impressive. Fu painted a really intimate portrait of her early childhood -- for me, she really captured a Chinese lyricism. Clearly for her, that period of her life was almost idyllic and that comes through very beautifully.

However, as the story proceeds, it becomes a very terse recounting of events. Although Fu recounts her emotions, the reader does not *feel* them. It would be no surprise that Fu's emotions aren't well developed given her childhood, but there is no exploration of the impact on her life in the book. She marries, has a child, dissolves in a sobbing mess during a business workshop on relationships as she relives her rape -- but it's all very clipped and factual. She acknowledges her weaknesses as a business leader but it feels like just another check box that needs to be addressed by taking Communication 101.

Many of the events in Fu's early life are horrific . . . and hard for the reader to believe as they pile up. Forcible abduction and detainment in a labor camp at age 8. Forced to take care of 4 year old sister. No food except what they are able to scrounge. Rape. A friendly police woman who meets her by a bridge on a bicycle and gives her papers from her file to hold while her file is evaluated for her forced exile. (This one felt like the Sound of Music.) Forcible abduction and imprisonment as soon as she is picked from the airport in New Mexico. Maybe it all happened.

The end of the book reads more like a poorly written business case -- not the story of a woman who has overcome so much.

Memoirs are tough to write; it's tough to strike the right note. Fu has told a story (how truthfully is for others to determine), but it is emotionally hollow and ultimately, very unfulfilling for this reader.

[Peter Long · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's amazing such a big liar like Ping Fu could have a market in U.S. which supposes to value honesty! However, it's also understandable because China-bashing has become a polital correctness in U.S.. What Fu says is what many brain-washed people love to hear here. These brain-washed (by their biasede and anti-China media) don't care about seeking truth; some people with their own political agenda such Ping Fu know this. That's why these liars have been telling lies about China and insulting American public's intelligence but easily get away with their lies for decades! Simply put this ugly phenomena this way: A lot of Americans just love to hear Ping Fu's lies. This rediculous phenomena has even spread into some academic and professional fields such as the American Library Association. Ping Fu has been invited to give a speech (actually to repeat her lies) at the 2013 American Library Association's annual conference in Chicago on June 29th?

People should send good comments on Amazon.com and other evidences to ALA; a shameless liar like Ping Fu should not have market in U.S.!

[fried.rambutans · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really want to like this book, and now I know why there's just something amiss I can't really place while reading this thanks to GR reviews. So this is another Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time moment, only that I think Greg Mortensen's had a better ghostwriter and he did visit the villages he mentioned about initially to help the community.

The story started with Ping Fu just landed in New Mexico from China, without knowing any bit of English spoken, and got kidnapped by a Vietnamese who picked her up in the airport. She was forced to take care of her kidnapper's children, crammed in a crowded and bolted apartment, before escaping and taken to police station. Thus her amazing adventure in the US began, intermittently taking readers back to her childhood years in Shanghai, and Nanjing (after being picked up by the Chinese Red Guards.)



I have to admit I enjoyed reading her 'tale' about her Chinese upbringing, both before and during the Cultural Revolution, as I didn't get to read much about the era. Her description of being gang-raped and stamped as a 'black element' by the government sounded harrowing enough, you couldn't help rooting for her. Yet throughout the narratives she kept reminiscing her Shanghai childhood, which compared to other kids in that era, would be a luxury.

When she started recounting her US experience, I started to feel suspicious, or maybe a tad envious? This is someone claiming to have only a background in Literature, and ended up taking Master-level Comp. Sci course. How genius had she been, when forced to take Calculus for graduate requirement, she had to refresh high school-level of Math and finally managed to pass her grad-level Calculus with flying colors?

I also looked at the photographs of the authors attached on the middle of the book. Before learning about the half-truths from GR reviews, I was blown away by these pictures - her humble beginnings during the Cultural Rev. to her work at NCSA and recognition by President Obama. Truly this lady had to work hard to get into where she is now. Unfortunately, on her attempt in writing her biography, she probably had herself convinced that without drama, her life story would be just like any other immigrant's story who has come to America. Before learning about her case, I'd have easily given this book a 3-star rating, overlooking the jumble narratives and ESL diction, but upon reading about the half-truths from other reviewers, I gladly put this in the DNF (Did-Not-Finish) shelf.

[Katrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this memoir completely unaware of the controversy surrounding it. I found the author's account of her life moving and inspirational. I wasn't aware of the many falsehoods presented in her story until I googled her after reading her story. Now, I feel let down and bamboozled. So how do I properly rate this story? It was well-written, moving and kept me interested until the very end. I THOUGHT I was getting a glimpse into China during the Cultural Revolution. But now, it appears, key components were fantastic fabrications. How can I give a story, not matter how entertaining or inspirational, a good rating if I end up feeling gullible? My ignorance to the Cultural Revolution is understandable, but why didn't I find her story of her journey to the US a bit too unbelievable. Ping is sitting on the airport curb, penniless and alone and a Mandarin speaking Vietnamese man just happens to spot her and kidnap her. Really? In New Mexico?
So what positives will I take from this story:
1) Inspirational Chinese thoughts/sayings such as the three friends of winter: pine tree, plum blossom and bamboo representing strength, courage and resilience. Another saying I will keep is "Indigo comes from blue, but it is a deeper shade of blue" meaning children are a better version of their parents.
2)I liked her philosophy based on the Chinese proverb "The number one strategy is retreat" and how there is great value in stepping back, assessing the situation and making compromises. Ultimately, this can lead to an alternative solution.
3)This book stimulated a curiosity in me about the Cultural Revolution and that time in Chinese history and the subsequent years and the modern Chinese culture in general.

[Debs · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read some pages of this book from nook online book store, I liked it and I thought I'd buy the book in the future.
When I read the rate on goodread with 'a star' only and long long details, I decided not to read this book anymore.

If you are wondering why? Please read the reviews on good read and you will know why. Not wasting my time.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was looking at the ALA speaker schedule and saw that the author would be in Chicago so I was intrigued and checked out her book. I read it in two days. It tells her story of her journey from China and the cultural revolution to becoming a top American innovator. She has so much courage.
I would recommend this book highly.