This Generation

by Han Han

  Q & A with Chinese nationalists

  April 23, 2008

  Here I want to respond to comments left by many young nationalists. I don’t know why this is, but patriots have a pronounced tendency toward foul language and crude behavior. I have had to do a good deal of filtering to ensure that this Q & A session comes across simply as a dialogue between two points of view. If the questions seem brief, that’s because I have trimmed them substantially, eliminating a lot of emotional coloring.

  Q. When a foreigner comes over and gives you a slap in the face, you just take it lying down and don’t fight back. Are you just trying to show how cool you are?

  A. No foreigner has come over and given me a slap.

  Q. Han Han, a foreigner rapes your mom, and you still won’t put up a protest?

  A. No foreigner has raped my mom.

  Q. The motherland—that’s your mother.

  A. The motherland is the motherland, my mother is my mother.

  Q. How can you possibly think you’re doing the right thing for this land of yours?

  A. I own no land, and neither do you.

  Q. You’re no Chinese. A real Chinese would boycott Carrefour.

  A. I don’t see anything in the constitution that says that. This is simply your strong-arm, low-grade patriotism at work.

  Q. Patriotism is a virtue, a fine tradition; it comes with us when we are born.

  A. If, given the chance to be born a second time, you chose to be born once more in this country, I agree that this would show true patriotism and excellent moral fiber.

  Q. You don’t even love your own mother—can you be considered human?

  A. My mom’s name is Zhou Qiaorong, and I love her very much. Through my own efforts I make sure that my family has all its basic needs covered. If you want to make sure that your country has its needs met, isn’t your family a good place to start?

  Q. You say that the owner of Carrefour may not actually have given money to the Dalai Lama, and we have not been able to prove that he has. But that doesn’t stop us from boycotting French goods. Carrefour is just a rallying point—what we really need to do is to boycott everything connected with France, like Louis Vuitton, like Peugeot, like Citroën. . . . Support the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and let the strength and solidarity of the Chinese people make the world shudder!

  A. The modern Olympic Games were the brainchild of a Frenchman—Pierre de Coubertin. So you can boycott them while you’re at it.

  Q. We must resolutely boycott Carrefour. Shockingly, you are prepared to let foreign powers humiliate our great nation. If everyone was as cowardly as you are, our country would have been swallowed up long ago.

  A. Oh yes, you’re strong and brave, you’re not afraid to die, you’re a martyr—because you’re so daring as to refrain from shopping at a supermarket, because you’re so bold as to put Carrefour ice cream on a shopping cart and let it lie there melting while you go off without paying, because you’re so fearless as to stand by the exit to the supermarket and curse the emerging shoppers as traitors, because you have the gumption to burn the Dutch flag as a warning to France.

  Q. The Carrefour in Hefei flew the Chinese flag at half-mast—why aren’t you angry about that?

  A. I’m sure Carrefour wasn’t responsible for that—they wouldn’t dare. The flagpole stands in the square outside the supermarket there. This action is typical of some ruffian patriots—they were the ones who lowered the flag and then blamed the supermarket and spread the rumor so as to provoke people and make as much uproar as possible. How unscrupulous can you get? So many things like that have happened in other such campaigns.

  Q. At this moment where the population is united as one, you pretend to be clear-headed, make sarcastic remarks, and pour cold water over the righteous determination of patriotic citizens—this runs exactly counter to the popular will. The fact that you still manage to publish your views goes to show there’s just too much freedom of expression in China—they should close down your webpage.

  A. Half the time you’re urging the government to relax its controls on free expression, but now when you find that some people oppose your views you hope the government will clamp down on your critics. The country’s trying to move forward, but you’re pressing it to move backwards. You should be careful when you engage in this kind of backtracking—what’s bad for others is going to be bad for you.

  Loving our country, saving our face

  April 23, 2008

  I want to start by saying that, having received my education in China, I have no particular faith, and I’m sure that’s basically true of all of us. The good thing is, I do have some humanitarian ideals, and I have never felt that love of one’s country has anything to do with one’s ethical principles as a human being, nor do I think that just because you were born in a particular place it is incumbent on you to love it unconditionally—or otherwise you’re totally depraved.

  Nonetheless, I must say I am very fond of this country of ours, even to the point that I am never keen on foreign travel. Apart from competitions where I am obliged to show up, each year I regularly turn down a dozen or more opportunities to attend events in other countries. Nor have I ever had the idea of going for a holiday abroad, much less the notion of moving abroad permanently. I prefer to stay here. Naturally, my interest in Chinese girls has a lot to do with this—I can’t imagine leaving them.

  What I tell them is: Don’t do any of that street-protesting stuff. If you really feel compelled to join a boycott, then just take a break from shopping. I say the same thing to my readers: Just tell yourselves you’ve been boycotting Louis Vuitton and Peugeot for decades now, so you’ve already done your duty.

  Again I appeal to my readers: Don’t take to the streets, don’t march, don’t rally, don’t do anything dumb. Now is no time to risk your lives and spill your blood. Just let things settle down. Let’s just focus on doing a good job of hosting the Olympics. The last thing we need is more disorder. You young people dressed in the Chinese flag—please don’t let things get out of hand. Just follow the government’s advice: Marches and rallies will get you nowhere—certainly not out of the country.

  On the Internet, though, people are saying, “See! After this boycott of ours, the French have apologized to us. The French president has yielded to our pressure. This just shows how effective our patriotic protests have been. Once again, the Chinese people have proven their mettle.”

  All right, then—you’ve boosted your self-image, I can see. In fact, however, so much of the time our real sensation is that we don’t get the respect we think we deserve. Whether you look at things from your personal point of view or from the national point of view, whether it’s a matter of slanted news reports by foreign media, or interference with the passage of the Olympic torch, or support for Tibetan or Taiwanese independence, or insults to our people, when you really get down to it, what triggers our outrage is that we don’t get respect, that our pride has been hurt.

  We attach supreme importance to this bunch of torches, expecting them to receive the same VIP treatment here as they move along their route that they would get in the heavenly kingdom, but now suddenly we discover just how many critics we have, and realize that they are no more to be trusted than CCTV. Actually, of course, there have always been people critical of us; it’s just that normally we never get to find out about them, because CCTV and the New China News Agency keep telling us that the people of the world are our friends. This time, though, they can’t keep the facts hidden any longer, so we’re all very shocked. This, actually, is a good thing, for it prompts the government to improve its performance and gradually it is making some progress in terms of how it handles the news. Ten years ago, we would simply never have had a clue that there were problems in Tibet and that the Olympic torch had been extinguished on its passage through Europe. There are lots of things like this that can no longer be hushed up, so they realize they may as well be more open—after all, we are capable of coping with a certain amount o
f bad news. If people insist on boycotting this and boycotting that, to the point that in the future foreigners keep their mouths shut whatever happens within these borders, then the biggest loser is going to be the expression of opinion here in China.

  There have been occasions in the past—like the anti-Chinese movement in Indonesia or the bombing of our embassy in Belgrade—where actual human lives were lost, but our angry young patriots have never before unleashed so much energy as they have in reaction to the recent provocations, even though our only real grievance is that we have been the target of some unfair commentary. We have more money now, of course, and so we naturally think more highly of ourselves and are more unwilling to take criticism. Also, the embassy bombing was a matter for the government to handle and the deaths that ensued were a matter for the victims’ families, but this time round what the foreigners said and did was an attack on every Chinese person, and that’s going way too far. When you extinguished the torch, you trampled on my dignity! Way off there in France, you managed to bully me, so from way off here in China I’m going to have you know—you can’t get away with that!

  If a CNN anchor were to bring a hand grenade into China and quietly pull out the pin and blow up a few people, I’m sure that would provoke much less indignation and much less boycotting and much less strident demands for an apology than if he were to say something derogatory about the Chinese people. We can be completely indifferent to the sufferings of so many of our fellow citizens here in China, but we are hypersensitive to criticism by foreigners, and this is all because we are so self-conscious about our image. All those deaths and injuries, embezzlements and crooked deals here in China—they don’t affect our self-image one bit, but those jolts we get from abroad do terrible damage to our big-nation psyche, that mighty aura we like to imagine we project. In an age of peace, love for one’s country is nothing more than love for one’s own opinion of oneself.

  Patriots, please don’t try to equate this conflict with the incursion by Anglo-French forces in 1860 or the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900 or the occupation by Japan in the last century. If you really think this is an issue of the same magnitude, your reaction suggests you must really be intimidated by the enemy! If you’re so convinced that we’ve lost face, then go and win some face back for us, but just be careful you don’t end up losing even more face.

  I personally don’t feel we have lost face at all. I think that here in China, whether it’s a matter of our government or of private individuals, we are just as prone to criticize other countries, and to me it’s no big deal if they criticize us and we criticize them, for it’s not as though they’ve launched an armed invasion—all that’s happened is that one side suddenly can’t afford to get involved. It seems to me that if some other nation was in charge of the passing of the Olympic torch, then, with the exception of our country, where it would definitely pass off without incident, it would be bound to run into protests of one kind or another in other countries—perhaps even more. Along the torch relay course, whether or not the protests are based on the facts or not, whether they amount to insults or not, ultimately all they amount to is the expression of opinion, and we need to be capable of accepting different opinions, even those that distort the facts and are ill-intentioned. We can’t go on over-reacting as though we have never met someone who disagreed with us, for that is just too embarrassing.

  As our country gets stronger and continues to open up, we are bound to be exposed to many more things that we may find unpalatable, both domestic and foreign, and in the future when we look back we’ll only feel ashamed of the way we once behaved. If you’re so convinced that loving one’s country is the quintessence of being human, then okay, go ahead and be a patriot, but don’t be a Patriot missile. What we can’t do is keep appealing for a more pluralistic society here in China, but then, as soon as we hear something negative and hurtful to our self-image, suddenly jump backwards several decades. Otherwise, watch out, or in the end . . . uh-oh!

  Let’s not get in a rage so easily

  June 4, 2008

  This year is a year with many disputes, and our people have accordingly got angry on numerous occasions. Of course, often we can’t show anger about things that happen in China, so we never let the chance slip to get angry about things that happen abroad—for that costs us nothing.

  When I heard what Sharon Stone said,8 I too felt it was very callous, and I also felt that she had no understanding of the Buddhist concept of karma, because all I saw in the Chinese media were her lines, “I guess that’s karma” and “it was very interesting.” I also saw a widely circulated video clip.

  Only later did I read the full text of her remarks in the Hong Kong press and discover that if you look at her actual words we have no reason to be so angry. It’s a bit like if the media asked you, “What do you think about the tsunami in Indonesia?” and you answer, “The Indonesians have been very mean to us, and so at the beginning I was very pleased, I thought this was karma. But later I saw the tragic effects of the tsunami, and my friends told me we need to do something, and that made me cry. I realized that my first reaction was completely inappropriate, and this has been a big lesson for me.” And then the next day you find the media quote only your first two lines, that “I was very pleased” and “I thought this was karma.” How would you like that, then?

  This way of doing things is, in its own way, quite inhumane. Many media outlets in China quoted only those first two remarks, going out of their way to provoke the indignation of viewers and readers, including myself. We shouldn’t attach so much importance to what she said, but we do, because among all the unhappy news reports we have heard recently this is the only one that allows us to vent openly and experience some release. Her exact words no longer seem to matter very much. After the earthquake we cared so much about human lives, saving everyone we could, never giving up even when all possibility of survival would seem to have passed, so why can’t we go the extra mile for this foreigner who at least is capable of some self-reflection, instead of treating her as our enemy?

  Humanitarianism shouldn’t be directed solely at one’s own countrymen. Naturally, if disaster strikes here, we should first rescue our own citizens, but a true humanitarian is concerned about all lives, even a dog’s life. To be honest, when Japan and Indonesia suffered natural calamities in the past, the thought of karma also occurred to me, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that—when Hurricane Katrina hit the United States, for example, relish and satisfaction were obvious in the headlines covering the story in Chinese mainstream media. But I very quickly felt that I was wrong, that I shouldn’t think that way. Apart from making a donation to the tsunami victims, however, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t do anything else. Fortunately, these two countries didn’t come out with any “Donor Rankings” and didn’t take people to task for not contributing aid. But nonetheless I felt bad about not doing more. So when the earthquake struck Sichuan, I personally visited the disaster zone and did what I could to help. Of course, if I stay at home, people may think I am doing nothing, and if I go to the disaster zone, people may think I am simply making a nuisance of myself, but the fact is that during our eight days in Sichuan we did not make a nuisance of ourselves but helped out a little bit, and we never put on a show for the cameras. When I got back and at last had time to go online, I discovered that people who have time to go online every day directed a great deal of unwarranted abuse at volunteer aid workers like me. Even though this won’t change what I do in the future, I have to say I find this disheartening.

  In the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, the worst performance has been by those commentators who keep pointing fingers at others. One minute they want to blacklist so-and-so, the next minute they are cursing someone else’s entire family, or exerting moral blackmail on some celebrity or other, or begging for money from some company, and they pretend this is all for a good cause, to benefit the people of the disaster zone. Most telling of all, they themselves are conv
inced of this.

  The proposal to blacklist Sharon Stone, like the Carrefour incident awhile ago, makes me feel that we can’t blame Chairman Mao for the Cultural Revolution—our people are just naturally drawn to mindless uproar. The good thing now is that there are some legal restraints on disturbing the peace, now there’s a price to pay—even if it’s just a hundred yuan, that’s enough to scare away more than half these protestors.

  As for Sharon Stone, if she’d made only the first half of her remarks, then clearly her head’s not screwed on properly and she fully deserves the roasting she’s been given. But the fact is that she made the other remarks too, although you’ll find virtually no trace of them in our domestic media. Of course, that’s the way people like it: The entertainment news is all about celebrities putting on charity performances for our benefit, after all, and as soon as something like this happens, everybody can enjoy tearing someone to shreds in the name of some lofty principle. If Sharon Stone is a friend of the Dalai Lama, some people say, then that should automatically put her on the blacklist. But then, Jet Li is a friend of the Dalai Lama too. The Dalai Lama has a lot of friends, and some of them are friends of ours, and the most ideal thing—and what would be best for our country—is that the Dalai Lama becomes our friend, so that Tibet could be stable and at peace. But we get furious at the slightest provocation, wanting to blacklist this person, to boycott that business, to rail against such-and-such country’s image—do we really think this shows how strong we are?