When it comes to “resisting Japan,” my blood has been running hot since I was a kid.
Those of us who grew up on the film Tunnel Warfare (Didao zhan, 《地道战》) can still sing it by muscle memory: “Tunnel war, tunnel war, a million hidden troops deploy; / village to village, door to door, we scare the devils half to death with joy.”
In Xinjiang the soil stands firm, so every household had its own vegetable cellar. One day the Hami Military Sub-Command ordered that all the cellars be dug through and linked into an underground tunnel network: if the invaders dared to come, we would wipe them out. What an exhilarating time that was. Every day I followed the adults down into those cellars, smelling that special Xinjiang earth, hoping we would soon break through and form a real tunnel web, so that when the “Japs” came I could suddenly pop up out of a tunnel mouth and blow them to pieces.
The tunnels were still not connected when China and Japan suddenly established diplomatic relations. That was awkward.
People looked at their cellars, half-linked or not linked at all, and then heard that Chairman Mao had received the Japanese prime minister in Zhongnanhai, that Premier Zhou had drunk Moutai with him, that Beijing’s streets were plastered with posters reading “Separated by a strip of water, friendly for generations.” They thought it over, dropped their shovels, ran to the train-station square, and, hand in hand with pretty Uyghur girls, sang and danced to “Sino-Japanese normalization, yakexi!”
Later Sino-Japanese relations grew tense again, and we started digging tunnels again. Then they warmed up, and we filled them back in again… and so on, over and over, like the old fool Yugong and his family. Those cellars never did become a tunnel network; they mostly gave the neighbor’s thief convenient access to our cabbages. Only when Hami began large-scale new-city construction at the end of the last century did those tunnels finally rest underground for good.
The state’s position is my position. It’s just that, from childhood, Sino-Japanese relations have made my head spin. One moment it’s “separated by a strip of water, friendly for generations,” the next it’s “blood feud of nation and family, cannot live under the same sky.” One moment we’re commemorating Marshal Nie’s adoption of Japanese war orphans; the next a U-lock swing leaves a compatriot half paralyzed. The state’s footwork outdoes Ronaldinho’s feints; aside from our plate-carrying divine guard Hu Xijin (胡锡进), how is any ordinary human supposed to keep up? A few days ago ties with Japan eased a bit, but because the Japanese prime minister made anti-China remarks, the Japanese singer Ohtsuki Maki (大槻真希), in mid-performance of the One Piece theme, had her power cut live on stage. It really was a classic moment in the history of pop music: she was singing, and suddenly the screen went black, the mic went dead, the singer was carried off; that stunned face of hers floated across the darkness like a bullet-comment bubble, repeating “Nani? Nani?”
The last time a stage on the Shanghai Bund had its power cut like that was in the TV drama Ma Yongzhen: Struggle for the Shanghai Bund (Ma Yongzhen zhi zhengba Shanghai tan, 《马永贞之争霸上海滩》): in the 1920s, a mob boss named Bai Laili climbs the utility pole behind a theater and severs the line just to fight over a famous Peking-opera courtesan, Liu Juqi.
Patriotism is starting to look more and more like gangland business. For a while I comforted myself: at least they don’t realize that our proud Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant got its core components from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries… Later I realized I was being naïve. They won’t smash their Xiaomi phones full of Japanese parts, won’t dare wreck the Coaster minibuses used as official cars, and don’t have the guts to sabotage our navy’s submarines fitted with Mitsubishi air-conditioning. In their heads they carry a very selective U-lock. A few years back, in order to “boycott Japanese products,” CCTV announced three full days without Japanese commercials. I asked Bai Yansong (白岩松) how they manage to forget that the studio cameras, editing consoles, and signal transmitters are all made by Sony, and that even the CCTV logo was designed by the Japanese designer Tanigawa Akira (谷川章)… He silently downed a glass of erguotou; the tight furrow in his brows recorded five thousand years of Chinese suffering—and a set of ministerial-level secrets not fit for outsiders’ ears.
I think CCTV announcing three days without Japanese commercials is about as meaningful as Pan Jinlian (潘金莲) announcing three days of not standing at her window. Sorry—Pan was at least acting on real feelings.
When it comes to suddenly canceling Ayumi Hamasaki’s (滨崎步) Shanghai concert, things get even stranger. Ayumi once appeared at a “Night of Sino-Japanese Friendship” event marking thirty years of normalization and even expressed the wish to serve as a goodwill ambassador between the two countries. You’re protesting anti-China forces but punishing friendly ones; you’re retaliating for Japan’s invasion but hurting your own citizens who bought tickets, booked flights, and finally wrangled leave from their work units; you’re “countering Taiwan separatism,” but it’s your own patriotic companies—who are trying to invest and boost domestic demand in a downturn—who are bleeding money. This logic class must have been a free gift from a gas station. It’s a pity that this kind of brain got put on someone’s face.
With the show shut down, Ayumi Hamasaki went ahead and sang to 14,000 empty seats, later saying, “Even with 14,000 empty chairs, I deeply felt love from all over the world. I am sincerely grateful to the 200 Chinese and Japanese staff members who made this unforgettable stage possible.” Look at that: in less than twenty-four hours, the Shanghai cultural inspectors had created yet another classic scene in the global history of pop.
They meant to “cancel” her, and instead got reverse-cancelled. The swaggering demise of Kunshan’s “Brother Long” (昆山龙哥) under the knife of an electric-bike delivery guy was hardly more satisfying. When someone spends his life putting on a show, the first thing to go is the brain. So they sent people out to insist that Ayumi never sang to an empty house, that the photos were just staffers secretly shooting a rehearsal. The thought process is so smooth it doesn’t even have a “U”-shaped bend left. Everyone on earth knows that a Japanese diva sang her full set list to 14,000 empty seats, then sent the video to all the fans who had been barred from entering: “We cannot decide what others will do, but we can decide what we ourselves will do.” A lot of people switched sides on the spot.
Are you here to resist Japan—or to help Japan build its fan base? They even dispatched people to tear down Ayumi’s photos from the walls of a themed café, lest anyone “make associations.” What on earth are you doing? Faced with a blank wall, we’re even more likely to make associations. We’ll move right on to second-order creation: after The Empty House and The Empty Mirror, we now have The Empty Stage.
The Party sent you to fight Japanese devils, and you went and played the devil yourself.
You’d almost think you were a deep-cover agent sent by “anti-China forces.” When they tore down the photos and signage they even scolded the shop: “Do you even know what great principle (dajie) is?” Where I come from, taking things out on ordinary people is a long tradition. When Huang Chao (黄巢) seized Chang’an, he carried off large numbers of women… After the rebellion was crushed, Emperor Xizong (僖宗) railed at them: “How could you submit your bodies to a rebel? Do you even know what great principle is?” One hard-headed woman shot back: “Your Majesty, commanding a million troops, could not stop the rebels. And now you blame a single woman—where does that leave your ministers and generals?”
At this point in the writing, I realize again how shallow I’ve been.
They probably don’t care about any of this. What they want is precisely the rough, violent process. During the mask era and city lockdowns, who needed “scientific principles” or “international image”? Weld steel bars across doors, trap you at home till you’re howling with hunger—that process of taming you is the sole purpose. When Shang Yang (商鞅) planted a wooden pole at the south gate, it wasn’t really to win people’s admiration; it was simply to train bodies into the habit of obeying orders. You may not criticize, and you may not praise. You are a carbon-based robot.
Don’t be surprised when a singer gets dragged off stage. In a place where a former head of state can be dragged away, what is dragging off a singer?
Remember this? A few years back, when the “wolf warrior” craze was at its peak, a popular online slogan went, “Seeing how thuggish the motherland is really puts my mind at ease.” You haven’t realized that one element of this careful design is to change the standards of taste. The Party long ago grasped that aesthetics may look nebulous, but they are the deep structure of society, sunk in the bone. They must be seized. They must be rough-handled. Yesterday you pull a film, today you cut the power, tomorrow… One netizen asked: “If we get a checkup with a Japanese endoscope someday, will they cut the power halfway through?” Well, yes. Whatever happens here, do not be surprised. Over time, your body will adapt. Your stomach will evolve to a higher level, learn to sense, in an instant, that the endoscope is… “Damn, a Japanese product!”—and automatically cut off the power.
The state’s position is my position. Naturally the state’s position is also my stomach’s position. The state’s position is: collect more taxes, build more aircraft carriers, please pay on time and in full. The state’s position is: retired senior cadres should stay in luxury hospital suites, and may they enjoy long life and good health. The state’s position is: reclaim the Ryukyu Islands, reclaim the Diaoyu Islands, “liberate” Taiwan by force, so we can send our children to the front lines and let the people of Taiwan enjoy the same happiness as the people of the mainland. Mainland people are so happy: free health care, free college education, plant a few potatoes in the countryside and earn thirty million a year, ride around delivering takeout orders purely for the scenery along the way.
As a patriot, I was just comforted to see CCTV report that Takaichi Sanae (高市早苗) “backed down and admitted Taiwan belongs to China.” Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hands in pockets, then declared toughly: this is not over; don’t think you can muddle through. Donald Trump passed the ill-intentioned “Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act.” Teacher Hu Xijin has pointed out: resisting Japan is a long-term, enduring cause. Out of support for this long cause, I have a dream: to give ideological training to our pandas who are leased overseas, so that the state’s position is also the pandas’ position. If they encounter anti-China forces or separatists among the visitors, their political consciousness will surge at once, they’ll snap up a middle finger and roar: “If you offend mighty Han, f*** your damn mother!”
With the state at your back, who needs manners? In troubled times, the first order of business is to kill the “saintly soft-hearted.”
Original source: China Thought Express
