'Taikonaut' still on Cloud 9 as nation heaps praise on 'space hero'
October 16, 2003 Edition -1
Jonathan Ansfield
Beijing - Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was a carpenter's son. American astronaut Alan Shepard, who followed just weeks later, was weaned on the family farm.
More than four decades later, China's first "taikonaut" Yang Liwei likewise boasted humble credentials to blaze his country's trail into space.
The pilot of the Shenzhou V, promptly anointed "space hero" upon his safe return to Earth today, hails from a small-town working-class family in the northeastern "rust belt".
Once Chairman Mao Zedong's utopia of smokestacks and oil refineries, the region is now a graveyard for derelict state enterprises where millions of idle workers bemoan - and some protest - the shattering of their "iron rice bowls".
The choice of a taikonaut who came across as prototypically northeastern - straight-shooting demeanour, sturdy build, chiselled jowls and a gravity-resistant shock of hair - had the makings of Communist "model worker" myth.
Just a day after party leaders rubber-stamped a heavily hyped plan to revitalise the northeast, a 38-year-old native son was probing the frontiers of one of China's most exciting new enterprises.
Closer to Earth, fireworks painted the sky above Yang's hometown of Suizhong County, a coastal strip of Liaoning province known for its crop of white pears. Folks there partied late into the night.
A statue of their glory boy was already in the works in the nearby city of Huludao.
At a primary school in the capital, Yang's 8-year-old son Kangkang was the idol of his classmates.
Gagarin beat the Americans into space by nearly four weeks at the height of the Cold War in 1961, but his mission was veiled in secrecy. Shepard's flight and splashdown at sea were beamed to the world on live television. He was showered with tickertape at parades in Washington, New York and Los Angeles.
Yang's name only surfaced via the Hong Kong press the day before he went in orbit. State TV scrapped live coverage of the launch.
But by the time his capsule settled on the Inner Mongolian steppe 21 hours later, a choreographed state media blitz had made a legend of this son of a teacher and an administrator at an agricultural firm, whose school grades were nothing special.
Just minutes before lift-off, Yang's brother-in-law said from Suizhong: "We are proud of him. We don't worry about his safety because we trust the nation's advanced technology."
State television ran shots of Yang cartwheeling in mid-air, spinning in a centrifuge and slipping down chutes during his five years as one of China's first generation of taikonauts.
In a pre-taped interview, an affable Yang reminisced about zero-gravity drills in Russia and building campfires in desert survival training. He said he liked listening to smooth ballads under pressure but also enjoyed more energetic tunes. He played basketball and ping-pong.
Before launch yesterday, he smiled and looked relaxed, waving to a crowd of "Young Pioneers" and ethnic minority girls and thanking the people.
In mid-flight, Kangkang asked his dad if he had eaten rice. He told junior he ate space-food. "Tastes great."
Even looking pale and drained after climbing out of his capsule, he conveyed
pride for the motherland and repeated once more the first published utterance by a Chinese from space.
"I feel good." - Reuters
