Lady and the torch

On April 26, 2007, each mobile phone subscriber of Guanghan, a city in Southwest China's Sichuan province, received a short message from the local government, reading: "Guanghan, hometown of Sanxingdui Ruins and birthplace of Yangtz River culture, will be one of the torch relay cities for the 2008 Olympics."

Within minutes, Jiang Jianjun was bombarded with telephone inquiries, including one from her 14-year-old son who stays at a boarding school. "Is that true, the torch relay is going to go through our city?"

"Yes," answered the mother, calm and assertive.

At 40, Jiang remains a beauty for her amiable smile, graceful manners and elegant shape. Yet this is not the only reason why Jiang is among the most revered by the city's 590,000 residents. As mayor of the city, Jiang is also respected for her intelligence, diligence and love for the city.

Ever since 2003, Jiang had been striving to enlist the city in the torch relay itinerary. She was among the first to get the news. She insisted that the message should be shared with all the city's residents.

Jiang was voted online as the first torch bearer for the city. "We love her as a fair lady and respect her as our mayor," says Huang Dejun, a local restaurant owner.

However, on March 23, while working overtime over weekend, Jiang fainted at work. She broke one of her collar bones, which would take at least two months to heal.

While the whole city is wishing her an early recovery, Jiang still keeps a tight working schedule at her ward in the hospital to ensure a successful torch replay.

"It would be a pity for me to miss the torch relay personally," says the mayor, lying in bed surrounded by flowers sent by known and unknown visitors. "But it would be a crime if we spoil the relay."

Jiang recalls that when Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of BOCOG, visited Guanghan in 2003, Jiang said the Olympic Torch didn't have any excuse to turn Sanxingdui away.

In 1929, the Sanxingdui Ruins caught national attention when a local farmer in Guanghan accidentally dug up jade artifacts in his backyard. Since then more than 10,000 relics, dating back to between 5,000 BC and 3,000 BC, have been unearthed. The excavations yielded what were considered some of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the past century in China.

One of the most astonishing archaeological finds at Sanxingdui is a bronze human figure more than 2-m tall. With uplifted arms, the figure seems to be holding something massive.

Jiang recalls that an official from IOC came to visit Sanxingdui and was intrigued by the enigmatic statue, wondering what the statue originally held in his hands.

"The torch!" answered Jiang half jokingly.

Over the past decade, Sanxingdui has become one of the most visited tourist destinations in China.

However, due to its proximity to Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan, most people associate Sanxingdui with Chengdu rather than Guanghan.

A great opportunity for exposure, many cities competed to be part of the torch relay. "While Guanghan has Sanxingdui as its ace in the sleeve, the chance remained unsure considering the fact that Guanghan, to most Chinese, is an obscure, small (county-level) city in the nation's hinterland," Jiang says.

"Competition was fierce."

As vice-mayor and then, mayor of Guanghan for more than eight years, the Sichuan native says Guanghan deserves such an opportunity.

"Guanghan is a prototype of China's 30 years of reform and opening up", says the mayor.

To people with a strong sense of history, Guanghan is one of the two birthplaces of rural reform in the late 1970s. Together with Fengyang county in Anhui province, Guanghan also pioneered the development of privately owned and collectively owned businesses in the 1990s.

Guanghan is home to around 3,000 collectively owned businesses, according to official figures.

"Sport is very popular in Guanghan," Jiang says. "This has a lot to do with its pioneering economic development. Guanghan people are richer compared to the country's average. The awareness to keep fit and healthy has been strong and traditional."

That explains why Guanghan is home to a number of China's contemporary elite sportsmen, Jiang says. Top on the list is Li Xuemei, a sprinter known as the fastest Asian woman in history with a personal best of 10.79 seconds over 100 m, achieved on Oct 18, 1997 in Shanghai. Four days later she set another Asian record: 22.01 seconds over 200 m. Others include Chen Zhaoxia, leader of China's national women's cricket team and Wu Fengbo, member of China's national archery team.

"We feel honored to be a torch relay city," Jiang says. "We hope that after the torch relay is over, people would still remember Guanghan as a city full of culture, energy and enthusiasm."

So far more than 90 percent of Guanghan's residents, including its rural population, have applied to be a cheer squad member for the torch relay in the city scheduled on June 16.

Jiang is taking active rehabilitation exercises besides her work. The interview was interrupted several times as acquaintances or strangers dropped by with flowers or greetings.

"She is my idol," says a woman visitor who declined to give her name. "She is so adorable and at the same time, so admirable."

Hearing these complements, Jiang responded with her usual graceful smile.

"I am not a feminist. But it is a fact that we are living in a 'man's world,'" she says. "Most people look a man-like figure in a mayor, which is in fact unfair.

"I am above all a woman, then a mayor. This is how I place myself in life and work. I've never changed my dressing style, even my hairstyle, since I became a mayor. I remain who I am."

(China Daily 05/08/2008 page20)