We Need Your Help

I was thinking about young Chinese this morning. Last night i was chillin with Li Du, Zachary Mexico and Liang Kegang in a KTV establishment. It was a young PSB dude's birthday and he wanted me to come out and drink with him cuz we have been chillin together during this Holland Heineken House gig.

We showed up and he brought beer and girls. These girls were some busted looking young semi-professional call girls. They sang pretty, poured beer and lit smokes. The PSB guy really wanted us to take some of the girls home, because his buddy owned the KTV joint and could make a little cheddar, and i suppose just to get all of us in one big dirty group. Anyway, my man Li Du sang some awesome Cui Jian songs about Chinese society and politics.

The PSB kid and the girls listened blankly as we told them that Cui Jian was a homie -- Li Du still kicks it with him -- and that he is the Godfather of Chinese Rock.

Got me thinking.

Today there are a few stories out there: this blog post about the ChiComm Troll and why it is important to combat him/her. All of us in China know this troll; I like to call him Captain China. Basically its the kid that mindlessly spits the Party Line, because, according to this story:

...many Chinese editors are steering clear of negative stories during the games either because they think their readers are disinterested in anything that might dull the positive spirit or to do their bit for a successful Olympics.

"Every Chinese journalist is a Chinese citizen. For the Olympics, there is a common consensus, often on a subconscious level, that they should make sure everything goes smoothly," Mr. Shi said. "They must defend their own country."

So i thought about why?

Why exactly do we care or need to say anything to Chinese about themselves?

And after a bit of thought, I realized it is because we need their/your help. This is an age of awakening across the board and China is rising up and "awake," but only in certain aspects.

We cannot afford to have this nation of 1.3 billion people rise to power as ultranationalist, brainwashed slaves to the CCP version of "The Man."

We spend enough time trying to stay awake in our own country, fighting off The Man and trying to spread the truth. If we have to fight off the Chinese as well, it will go bad for us. In the end, Western tycoons are smiling wide and lending the Chinese tycoons a hand in keeping their people down and censored; obedient and enthralled.

Why do you think China is the world's factory?

Its all about cheap, obedient labor.

Rage against the dying of the light

or just post some love on yer blog and send it through the underground.

i remember telling some young Chinese friends about the Tank Man in Tiananmen and they all laughed at me and said it was a piece of CIA propaganda. I think for everybody who does not live in China, the image of the lone bespectacled middle manager forcing the tanks to swerve around him was probably one of the most moving images of our lives. I will never forget it. It is sad and horrible that his sacrifice is meaningless in the land he loves.

And it is one of the largest jumps across the chasm of mis-communication between us. How can young Chinese understand us if they lack the essential info that we take for granted? How can we understand them if we speak to them in a language of images that they have never seen?

everyone of these links are blocked in China.

this one some how made it through.

如果有中国朋友在看这个blog，我希望你们也有办法看到这个中国英雄。这样，也可以明白为什么外国人必需说哪么多。对我们来说,“他们”的目标是让我们变傻，不了解自己，无法勾通。

And in parting, i would like to say i am proud to be a broke ass member of the "Right but Poor" club.

It aint funny

I can't comment back because blogger is blocked in China ...

it isn't funny, what happened to Falun Gong followers in China. The brainwashing campaign in China, which i posted on before, is extremely successful. The kids here know nothing of the torture and persecution. When falun gong is mentioned in China, people invariably laugh, as if the local village idiot had just been mentioned. They are considered here to be crazy and deluded and has entered the language now as a byword for foolishness.

i found the government reliance upon the falun gong to maintain order as ridiculous and funny, but it aint.

Thanks for reminding me about what is really going down, andromeda.

Addendum

This is my house -- the farm. About 10km southeast of Chengdu in Three Gods Flower Village, where farmers grow roses and tulips and offer up their homes as teahouses for the semi-affluent of the city. There are some quiet nooks here off the teahouse path where one can chill.



This is Tenz, my half-Tibetan rapper-hustla fat-fingered technician homie with whom I spar on the chess board.

I wrote a column for antiwar.com today about the need for us foreigners to take it easy on China, cuz rufflin their feathers just makes them hysterical. But the truth is it infuriates me that i cannot discuss things here. I get off on talking about whats right and wrong and what we can do to fix it. but here as a foreigner there is a wall between you and the community that is almost unbreakable.

but it has gaps. so no matter how much it pisses me off that i have to treat some of my friends like children, i have slipped through the rents in the fence a few times and found the experience to be all there is needed in life.

Test Runs for the Big Show

Wass happenin ya'll? Its been an easy few days recently. My cats are in heat again so the dirty toms are serenading us all from the backyard. Big Tenz had a rough day of chess yesterday hehehehe ... he brought his projector to the Farm and we have been enjoying wide-screen Planet Earth sessions. The neighbor girls are really curious and want to know how much such an entertainment system costs.

I just finished the book Generation Kill, which is probably the best Iraq War book I have read so far. What amazes me every time is the nonchalant listing of casualties and destroyed military vehicles and aircraft. Does anyone remember hearing of 20 Black Hawks going down outside of Nasiriyah during the first week of the war? Or the 100-odd Marines killed and wounded in those first days?

Today, it became slightly apparent what the Chinese government has been up to with these weekly warnings of massive aftershocks coming to bury us all under cement and brick. Yesterday, SMS buzzed through the stratosphere telling everyone that the government officials of Guangyuan and Dayi counties predict a 7.5 earthquake to hit between 3 and 4pm. The other day, when a 5.8 aftershock hit the area, the government released information about the 400,000 buildings which were destroyed by that aftershock, just an hour or so after the fact. No quake hit yesterday.

The Mass Panic of last week, when the entire city of Chengdu emptied out into the fields around Third Ring Road, was followed by a series of aftershocks which reportedly destroyed 75,000+ buildings. Now we all figured that this was your typical government bullshit. Numbers spat out to create a semblance of order.

The whole scaremongering seemed to be the familiar crude tactics of a government that completely disrespects its people and considers them to be morons. Alas ... how wrong can they be?

I hold out hope that these weekly fire drills are not just to keep the minds of the people off of the Mandate of Heaven and dead school children, but a sneaky and effective training session for a possible massive flood. This NYT story bolsters my optimism.

Tonight i will write a story entitled: Will Autumn Ever Come?

Xenophobia

China is really making it hard for the foreigners these days. All visas are a big pain in the ass -- my main man in Beijing, a guy that for years was able to get us visas, had his office ransacked and all foreign passports confiscated.

People who have been here for years and have good relations with the government -- businessmen and women with big money and influence -- are getting hassled by the cops left and right. Random racist attacks on foreigners are worse than they have ever been.

At the same time, one must realize that this is basically still a small group of cops and fools behind a lot of this. The vast majority of the people are cool and curious and friendly and hospitable. But the minority -- as in Burma/Myanmar -- is reverting back to the Old Days when foreigners were devils and dogs and Asians were heroes of culture and wisdom fighting against the barbarian tide.

Is this only an Asian thing? I have been to a few other countries and anti-foreigner rhetoric is always there, but in my experience the anti-foreigner racism of Asia is one of the more rock-solid in the world.

In the States we have racism along color lines, but not necessarily ethnic lines ... it is a blurred edge no doubt, as different colors usually mean different ethnicities. In Europe, anti-foreigner sentiment seems confined to the Old and New Right ... but its starting to seep into the mainstream. I suppose Outsiders have always been hated, its always there.

The bullshit reason-less hatred I am subjected to at times in China has made me more of a nationalist than I would have ever become on my own. I am still not a Fortress America proponent ... but the world is filled with regular people with their heads down trying to make ends meet and dominated by loud-mouthed demagogues who see nothing but differences between us all. It makes me want to retreat and blow things up at the same time.

"We need to run these crazy baldheads out of the town ..."

If anyone has anything to say, holler.

The Illusion of Coincidence...

A great many strange things have happened in the past few days ... perhaps not as many as may be transmitted by the feeling that accompanies one or two strange happenings, but nonetheless ... something is happening.

I was sitting with my friend Himmler one evening. His woman Jodie and roommate Wu Tong were in attendance and we were focusing hard upon the twin challenges of the Primary and Starcraft. My phone was dead. Wu Tong comes into the living room, smells our sweat and says:

"sascha, call for you ..."

Its my girl, Yu Shi, on the other end, crying and very upset. Her dog had been confiscated by some cracker-ass peasants in my neighborhood. For those not in the know, i live in the sticks outside of Chengdu and for me cracker denotes anyone with buck-teeth, tendency to yee-haw, funny hair, smothered in innocent moral failings aka ignorance etc....

So i call up these peasants and ask them how they want to solve the problem.

They say: "Gei Qian Saa!" which means, gotta pay me fool!

Two or three dudes take turns on the phone. I can tell its an assembly of quarter-intellects. Discussing anything with crackers is tedious at best, infuriating at worst. I lose my temper after the fourth or fifth unanticipated yee-haw burped into the receiver and slam the phone down.

I call Yu Shi and be like: chill. call up your media people and have them meet you tomorrow at 11:30. I'll call the police and have them roll through my house right now (i was in the city, she was at my home) and we'll have the crackers meet us at noon. We'll tell them we got the money and they should bring the dog.

So I boogie home and meet the cops. They are pretty much useless. I should go into "China style cops and robbers" shit here but basically imagine a corrupt and lazy force that is only motivated by fear from reprimands emanating from the murky heights of the Party. And they love paperwork. Anyway they take her down to the station -- its midnight by now -- and after all sorts of bullshit, including asking her what she's doing with a foreigner (typical) they tell her alright, you can walk home now.

But these men are cowards. So i get on the phone and say: you dumb son of a bitch bring her home. So they do. (I know I sound like a badass, but its my blog suckas).

The next day the media show up and they are all geared up Spies like Us style. Its great. They have a camera in a bag and they pretend to be Yu Shi's buddies. I disappear, because my work is done. If a foreigner presses to hard here in China, xenophobia rears its ugly head.

The crackers show up with their wives and old mothers. A whole Yee-Haw gang. They say point blank: if you don't give us 1800RMB (250USD), we'll keep the dog. The cops show up. The media reveal themselves. Now begins the bullshit session.

Now a bullshit session in China is really something to behold. Logic and reason have no place in the session. Its ad hoc improv style arguing with the combatants bringing up Chairman Mao, the Three Represents, The role of the Peasant vis a vis the role of the Young Girl in building a New China, word play (by crackers no less ...). Anyway in the end, the cops say give the crackers 100RMB and take the dog. The crackers point to their mom and say: she spent so much time taking care of this dog. They point to the wives, they made special dog food for him. They demand a gratitude fee for not slaying and eating the dog. They haggle. All this is on camera, by the way.

The dog's name is Lei Feng, who was a Communist Hero: the model man in the socialist society. The cracker served in the Lei Feng Regiment of the 8th Route Army. He brings this up, gets emotional and decries the decadent path of the New China.

I am currently trying to get a copy of the report that aired two nights ago to put it up here. You won't need to understand anything.

On the way back to our house, dog in tow, a call comes in from another hysterical girl who lost her dog in the neighborhood as well. She says maybe Yu Shi found her dog, switched his collar, then lost him again. For real.

Yu Shi decides yesterday that she can't take care of Lei Feng anymore, because she has no time or place for him and so she calls this woman up. She happens to be a translator of English and German and I need a translator. We bond over doggie biscuits and tea. The translator might take Lei Feng home in a day or two.

Last night, another girlfriend of mine calls up hysterically and says her home was broken into. She lost her computer, camera and wallet.

Meanwhile, Yu Shi is back on the job, as a reporter for the Economic Daily. She has two jobs: to infiltrate the traffic police by pretending she is a small child trying to cross a busy street. The traffic police tell her that they have to first consult with the leaders before they can leave their offices and head to the street to control traffic. This is all caught on tape and reported the next day. Today there is a picture of those same pigs out on the street, attempting to do their job.

Her other job was to attend a meeting about the small protest in Pengzhou against a planned chemical factory that will affect the water supply. The meeting -- held by the leaders of the paper -- was to inform all reporters to stay away from Pengzhou, not to talk about it, send SMS about or do anything. Because the project is a pet of the Provincial Governor Zhang Zhong Wei.

International media and Cantonese media reported on it instead.

Sichuan is the epicenter of all that is cracker.

Meanwhile, my homie Boogie is back in town with his mom. He is looking ot me to aid him in a visa hunt. The guy we all used to go to for visas had his office in Beijing raided and all passports, including Boogie's, were confiscated. There has been no word as of yet.

A German photographer and an English writer asked me to help them with visas over the past few days as well.

Another Econ Daily reporter called me up and tried to get me to agree that CNN's "apology" for Jack Cafferty's statements wasn't actually an apology at all. I said: "Bitch we got the First Amendment!" Unfazed, she pressed on till I finally said: Yes, it is an apology, but I know it doesn't suit well with the nation's victim campaign, so write whatever the hell you want. She said thanks and offered to buy me dinner today. She didn't quote me in the paper and the headline said: CNN: "regret, does it mean apology or sorry?" In Chinese there is a slight distinction between some of these phrases. What they want is for Cafferty to kow tow. I just shake my head sometimes. there truly is no lack of bullshit in our world.

Meanwhile, my cats gave birth the other night, outside in the rain. I didn't realize until this morning when i walked downstairs and my neighbor said: hey, yer cats gave birth, pointing to a wriggling furball in the grass. I trip and take the three kittens and spend the rest of the morning trying to find them a safe place. They end up in my closet, wrapped up in my chupa -- a very useful fur-lined Tibetan cloak. I have two cats. The one that gave birth watched the kitties, while the other attacked male cats in the area with a ferocity I have never seen. She is also pregnant and gave birth to one giant kitten last night that died. The two cats are taking turns nursing the three kittens.

Last night as I took a break from all of this craziness with my pipe and some Buddha, a fourth kitten comes squirming out of the grass and mewls up at me. I trip some more and take this Lucky lil bastard up into the closet. He immediately went for the nipple. He is doing fine.

There is more going on. Really, I haven't even told half. But this is enough to let you know that this week has been very eventful -- and I feel the pattern coalescing around me, even if I am clueless as to its purpose, design or frame of mind.

On Brainwashing

In China, indoctrination of the youth begins very early. At age 6, young kids are given their first Chinese Reader to learn the vast collection of characters, poems and proverbs that make up the Chinese language. The book begins with a small rhyme about flowers and their need for the sunshine, then goes into the people and their need to deeply love the Communist Party as an analogous sentence. Important vocab includes:

Re Ai: literally Hot Love
Gong Chan Dang: Communist Party
Hua: Flower
Yang Guang: Sunshine

Later, most children read the story of San Mao, one of the hundreds of thousands of street urchins and orphans that crowded the streets of many a Chinese city right after Japan's surrender and before the final victory of the Communist Party over the Nationalist Party in 1949.

In the first chapter of this book, published in 1959, the trials and struggles of San Mao and his street brothers are listed: starvation, freezing, no shelter, no family, short-hard lives ahead of them.

The landlords scorned them. The Nationalists, described as Guo Ming Dang Fan Dong Pai -- which means "the Nationalist Reactionary Group" (students of Communism will recognize the belief in the inevitability of the Socialist Utopia) -- are primarily to blame for their plight, through mismanagement, corruption and callous disregard for the People in general.

And the American Devils "wu yuan wu gu da si tamen" which means beat them (the orphans) to death without rhyme or reason.

The book is actually a collection of comic-book style depictions of the orphans and the capitalist pigs, foreign devils and anti-Revolution traitors who torment them. The Communist Party and Mao Zi Dong are the saviors of the orphans ...

It goes on. In Middle school there is Si Xiang Ping De class, which translates into Philosophical Tenets or Moral and Philosophical Laws ... Students love this class because it does not count toward their final grade and there is no homework. Its only purpose is to indoctrinate the children in Communist Party Thought. There is little mention of the great Chinese philosophers, unless something they wrote blends well with the Communist Party Rhetoric.

In high school and university, there are the Deng Xiao Ping Theory and Mao Zi Dong Important Thought classes. Similar to Si Xiang Ping De except more focused on the individuals who exemplify the Communist Rhetoric.

At work, most Dan Wei (work units) are ruled over by the Party Secretary of that particular company, area or office. There are regular meetings that deal with what is and is not correct according to the Party and what Important Campaigns are currently underway.

In the Tibetan regions for example and in those regions that border them, like Chengdu, Party members were instructed to go into every monastery, every Tibetan area and begin wholesale, hardcore re-education. This involves having Tibetans break, spit on and denounce pictures of the Dalai Lama, mass arrests, beatings and criticism sessions and, most horrifying, a call for all of the People to keep their eyes open for suspicious characters and report them to the relevant authorities.

It is the Cultural Revolution of the New Millenium. The Party is so terrified of the future ... it truly is fitting that in China, the land with the most amazing and glaring contradictions I have ever witnessed, the Ruling Elite will be most terrified during their most dramatic moment of triumph.

who is the more foolish?

my people are busy lamenting, yet also enjoying, the brainwashing others have endured. it feels good to consider oneself free and to have a target to point at, proof of your powerful mind, resistant to the tendrils of subtle passivity.

it is the prisoner in D block laughing at the man in the hole.

brainwashing is not like in a movie, where aliens make you stupid and you are released by a kiss. brainwashing is the fog in your choices, the distortion of realities and the warping of emotions: all presented as doctrine, clean and precise.

when released from mental slavery, sorrow, pain, shame and rage are the emotions that dominate. not relief. Nothing is more miserable then the disciple of the God that failed.

relief is the feeling we have when we see the brainwashing of others and recognize it for what it is. we shy away from the brainwashed, where ever we may find them. its tiring to talk to them. spittle collects in the corners of their mouths and their eyes reflect the cult within. we laugh at them over coffee and praise Universalism that its not us.

how do we speak with the Christians in America who indoctrinate their children with fog, distortion and warp fields? How do we speak with the young Chinese, who stand as one in the spirit of the Red Guards -- attacking the enemy and purging the weak?

what do you tell a zealot about himself when he has already burned the one doctrine into his consciousness?

Consider:

The soft overcomes the hard;
The formless penetrates the impenetrable;
Therefore I value taking no action.

and

The sage controls without authority,
And teaches without words;
He lets all things rise and fall,
Nurtures, but does not interfere,
Gives without demanding,
And is content.

and

The loving do not act.
The kind act without self-interest;
The just act to serve self-interest;
The religious act to reproduce self-interest.
For when Tao is lost, there is love;
When love is lost, there is kindness;
When kindness is lost, there is justice;
And when justice is lost, there is religion.
Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily released;
So religion enthralls generation after generation.

Religion is the end of love and honesty,
The beginning of confusion;
Faith is a colourful hope or fear,
The origin of folly.
The sage goes by knowledge, not by hope;
He dwells in the fruit, not the flower;
He accepts the former, and rejects the latter.

and finally

Nothing in the World is as yielding as water;
Nor can anything better overcome the hardened.
Just as the yielding overcomes the hardened,
The weak may overcome the strong;
Yet they do not.
The sage says:
"Who accepts responsibility for his people rules the country;
Who accepts responsibility for the World rules the World",
But his words are not understood.