My secretary stole from my art collection:
Scholar Ji Xianlin confirms rumors

Information Times
December 9, 2008

Rumors have been circulating since October that art works stolen from famous scholar and author Ji Xianlin (季羡林) have been appearing for sale in Beijing.

A man named Zhang Heng said he had bid for several calligraphy pieces and drawings which he suspected of being stolen from Ji.

Ji is frequently referred to by the media as a “national treasure” due to his lifetime of work in the field of linguistics. Now 98 years old, he has almost lost his sight and his hearing is severely impaired. Ji has been living in a military hospital in Beijing for about five years.

Fingers are being pointed at Ji’s secretary Yang Rui, who is also the wife of the Vice Party Secretary of Peking University, China’s most prestigious learning institution, along with Tsinghua University.

Yang has been the housekeeper of Ji’s two houses. Besides the accusation of theft, she is also accused of abusing the old scholar, including feeding him chicken bones. These allegations immediately aroused concerns about Ji’s safety.

Peking University responded with a statement on November 7, saying that the alleged theft did not happen and that the pieces possessed by Zhang are fake. But Qian Wenzhong, a student of Ji’s, challenged the authenticity of the statement, insisting that some of the art works in question are real.

The art collector Zhang also questioned the investigation which was launched by the university itself, not the police.

Ji Xianlin and his secretary Yang Rui

Curiously, in the whole process, Ji’s own voice is missing. According to Qian, when he visited Ji in the hospital, the old scholar told him that he was aware of a theft of some art works two or three years ago, but he didn’t tell the police because that “the country has so many issues to be solved, and my personal stuff shouldn’t be a big concern.”

Today, various newspapers brought up the allegations again, quoting a conversation between Ji and his son, the 73-years-old Ji Cheng that was apparently recorded on video.

The video has not been posted to the Internet yet but a transcript of the conversation has. Translated excerpt:

This may sound like a fairy tale, but it is possible. Also, there are bad people, we have to admit that… It is true… I had the feeling… call you grandpa Ji to your face, and steal your drawings behind your back, I know that.

No one can cover it up. It is only that I don’t know how many items they have stolen…