Erwin (Sid) Engst (1918–2003; ) was an American advisor to the People's Republic of China.

Education

Engst attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

from 1939 to 1941 majoring in agropastoral studies.

Career

He moved to China in 1946 to assist in developments in agriculture and later to participate in the construction of that country's socialist economy. He married Joan Hinton in 1949 in

Yan'an Yan'an; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternatively spelled as Yenan is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanbei region of Shaanxi Province of China, province, China, bordering Shanxi to the east and Gansu to the west. It administers several c ...

. They worked at a farm near

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

and moved to

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

to work as translators and editors at the beginning of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

in 1966. On August 29, 1966, Hinton, Engst and two other Americans living in China signed a

big-character poster Big-character posters () are handwritten posters displaying large Chinese characters, usually mounted on walls in public spaces such as universities, factories, government departments, and sometimes directly on the streets. They are used as a me ...

with the following text:

"Which monsters and freaks are pulling the strings so foreigners get this kind of treatment? Foreigners working in China, no matter what class background they have, no matter what their attitude is toward the revolution, they all get the 'five nots and two haves': the five nots - first: no physical labour, second: no thought reform, third: no chances of contacts with workers and peasants, fourth: no participation in class struggle, fifth: no participation in production struggle; the two haves - first: they have an exceptionally high living standard, second: they have all kinds of specialisation. What kind of concept is that? This is Khrushchevism, this is revisionist thinking, this is class exploitation! ..We demand: ..Seventh: the same living standard and the same level of Chinese staff; eighth: no specialisation any more. Long live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!"

News of the poster made its way to

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

, who approved of its contents, remarking in a September 8, 1966 letter to

Lin Biao Lin Biao ( zh, 林彪; 5 December 1907 – 13 September 1971) was a Chinese politician and Marshal of the People's Republic of China who was pivotal in the Chinese Communist Party, Communist Chinese Communist Revolution, victory during the Chines ...

and other leaders that the Americans should indeed be treated equally. In 1972, Hinton and Engst started working in agriculture again at the

Red Star Commune. In a 1996 interview with Andrea Koppel of

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

, after nearly 50 years in China, Hinton stated " enever intended to stay in China so long, but were too caught up to leave." Hinton describes the changes she and Engst had witnessed in China since the beginning of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. They state they "have watched their socialist dream fall apart" as much of China embraced capitalism. Koppel noted that "Once considered radical leftists by their native countrymen, Hinton and Engst are now too radical for most of China's countrymen."

Personal

In 1949, Engst married Joan Hinton (1921 – 2010), a nuclear physicist, in

, Shaanxi Province, China. Engst had two sons, Bill and Fred Engst and a daughter, Karen Engst.Grimes, William. June 11, 2010. Following Engst's death in 2003, Hinton lived alone on a farm near

until her death on June 8, 2010. Their three children have moved to the United States, though Hinton notes "They probably would have stayed if China were still socialist." Their eldest son, Yang Heping (Fred Engst), moved back to Beijing in 2007 as a professor at the University of International Business and Economics."Yang, Heping's page in the faculty pages"
. Retrieved: 14 October 2014.

Literature

Dao-yuan Chou: ''Silage Choppers & Snake Spirits. The Lives & Struggles of Two Americans in Modern China''. Ibon Books, Quezon 2009, .

References

External links

Leftist Americans in China grieve shift to capitalism
Andrea Koppel (''CNN'', October 1, 1996)—with photo of Sid Ernst and Hinton

(''China Daily'', October 23, 2003) {{DEFAULTSORT:Engst, Erwin 1918 births 2003 deaths American emigrants to China Cornell University alumni