“Of course I think it is very important for young people to know about history,” said Wang Laoshi. The four of us from the English Department were clustered together again at the lunch bench in the teacher’s canteen, and after somehow getting on the subject of family trees (”Family tree is jiapu! Say ‘jiapu,’ Andrew! Very good!”) and moving on to Iris Chang (”That huayi who killed herself…what was her name?”) and the Nanking Massacre, Wang Laoshi was describing to me how shamefully many children even in China did not know about “the most important time period in China’s history, from 1920 to 1950. No, actually, 1850 to 1950.” One of the older teachers in our department, in some ways Wang Laoshi’s elegant chic and spunky demeanor remind me of Chris Targus, a longtime family friend. Energetically (like another Wang I know) she continued to chirp, “This is because this time period is widely thought of as China’s time of shame. Every Chinese knows what this feels like, as if you are a DOG” – here her eyes widened and she lowered her chopsticks emphatically – “who can not go back to his home.”
Gently serene Guan Laoshi nodded. Tiantian, one of our office’s younger teachers and the subject of congratulatory office teasing for her upcoming marriage, stirred at her food quietly.
We probably started talking about TV after that.
This underlying sense of shame and redemption is something that no American pundit I have ever listened to understands, but every Chinese person with any amount of cultural self-respect (I’m looking at you, Arcadia – just having a lot of boba cafes isn’t good enough) feels deeply. It’s why everyone is looking forward so much to watching the celebrations for the 60th Anniversary of China’s founding tomorrow. It feels a little like how it felt when the Beijing Olympics were being broadcast. What! Celebrating 60 years of Communist rule! the rabid right would accuse…except nobody here really thinks at all about that. In fact, I’m dead certain that most Chinese remember quite well how bitter life was during most of those sixty years. It’s probably because of that hardship that everyone anticipates the ceremony and significance of tomorrow. The past was terrible, but at least we are here now today. And today we are strong.
A strength in no small part defined by military might, of course. I remember in 1999 when my parents watched China’s 50th anniversary celebrations from satellite television. They made me watch it too – I was 12 and quickly bored by all the tanks, planes and regiments that seemed to endlessly parade past Jiang Zemin’s dorky hand-wave. I had no idea that this thing I was having to sit through would be debated endlessly by American talking heads in the years to come as a demonstration of aggressive Chinese militancy, but I would certainly feel it in the 7th grade when Cory Greene asked “hey Chinaman, why’d you down our plane?” after the Hainan Island Incident and when my ears would burn upon hearing freshman Poli Sci majors try to sound important by speculating when the inevitable Chinese-American war would erupt in college dining halls. “What! Why would they think that!” flustered Nana when I mentioned this American paranoia to her. “Well…I guess, maybe, they did it on purpose too, to show the world they are strong,” she amended after a few moments of thought. “But still! It is also just a celebration! They are all being silly.”
In fact, I swear I once heard one of those talking heads on TV comment on how the Chinese seemed to be holding true to their promise of a 21st century “peaceful rise” based solely on how they had not “attempted any demonstrations of military antics like those parades before in the past.” The guy thought the Chinese were deliberately avoiding prancing around with guns in hand for these last ten years just to keep a low profile. I wonder what he’ll think when they do it again tomorrow, haha!
Interesting perspective from the Chinese: “But still! It is also just a celebration! They are all being silly.”
It would be nice if this is just being silly.
In regard to the overwhelming positive sentiment of the Chinese towards the National Parade, the BBC has the following news article. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8283299.stm
I wonder who to believe!
“This underlying sense of shame and redemption is something that no American pundit I have ever listened to understands, but every Chinese person with any amount of cultural self-respect feels deeply. It’s why everyone is looking forward so much to watching the celebrations for the 60th Anniversary of China’s founding tomorrow.”
You nailed it! China had suffered too much and most Westerner have no clues. So, we should take most western-reporting of China with a grain of salt!
Well, at the same time, I’m no apologist for the CCP. The obvious over-emphasis on ethnic unity and particularly the Uyghur performances and exhibits in this evening’s fireworks celebration is kind of disingenuous. If anything, it just made me think more about the reasons why the Party would want to stress ethnic unity so much right now.
The world is not ideal or perfect. Governing a country as big and as diverse as China is extremely difficult. Try to create another scenario: Roll back history 60 years and KMT won the power and where would China be under Chiang Kai-shek?
What is most telling is to get a survey of older Chinese people, the ones who have suffered under both the old society and under the CCP since 1949, and this way you get a better feel of the complexity of their feeling toward the past and the future. You are amongst them which should give you a much better feel.
I’ve read quite a lot from that older generation…and dare to say that I understand the complexity of the feeling, as well as someone of my generation could, I think. Now, to clarify my own positions: I am not a CCP supporter so I will call things like I subjectively see them. But I am also not a CCP critic either; I understand how the Chinese have benefited from their helmsmanship, and how the population views their sufferings as intrinsically interwoven with the history of the nation and the Party. Metonymically, I am myself not Chinese, but then again, I am Chinese. Like you are saying, these things are part of a complicated world. Attempting to clarify them at all is almost another exercise in reductionism. You can only demonstrate them.
(You see now why I would never make it as a research scientist and why I am planning on limiting my future medical career to clinical or public work!)
By the by, a Western article that I read commenting on the 60th Anniversary celebration described Chiang Kai-Shek as “such a terrible general that he lost China one and a half times: half to the Japanese and then the whole country to the Communists!” The author’s tone was amused. To answer your other question about where China would be without the CCP, then: probably part of a Japanese Empire. There are video games and Tom Clancy books to indulge these scenarios if you are interested…
Right on, Andrew!