Astronaut Yang Liwei, the icon, is everywhere in China, lionized in the state-run press not only as the country’s first man in space, but also as an elite pilot, a star student and Communist Party member, a devoted family man a “national treasure,” as one colleage is quoted saying. But Yang himself is nowhere to be seen. The center of Beijing’s biggest “role model” campaign in years hasn’t appeared in public in the more than five days since he returned from orbit.
