This Generation

by Han Han

  Now we’re going into the winter months, the time to donate warm clothes and bedding. I have a number of things—many given to me by others—that I have never used or just used once, so I was thinking I could just donate them. But suddenly we hear that used items will not be accepted—everything must be brand-new.

  I find this very strange. I know, of course, that the government is keen to make a publicity coup out of everyone’s eagerness to make donations, one that will exhibit our people’s high moral qualities, high enlightenment, high solidarity, and high income. But when I arrive with a carload of clothes and bedding that are ninety-nine percent new, and you tell me you won’t accept it, that I must buy new clothes to donate to the earthquake victims—well, to be quite honest, I just haven’t reached that particular level of enlightenment.

  For a start, these items are all good quality—definitely better than things bought for the express purpose of making a donation. On this point, I am selfish—for the price of five hundred yuan, say, I might buy a single pair of shoes for myself, but if it were to make a donation to a humanitarian cause, I would try to buy five pairs, so as to maximize the number of beneficiaries. When buying one pair for five hundred yuan, I would take into account the shoes’ sportiness, weight, style, warmth, and brand, whereas if it’s just to relieve an emergency I would only think about the shoes’ warmth. Rather than donating a Louis Vuitton satchel to the disaster victims, it would be better to donate two hundred ordinary satchels—that is something everyone understands. And I’m confident that nobody’s going to be so cheap as to donate rags to the relief effort—they may hand in items that have gone out of style, but not ones that are defective in quality. As long as things don’t have patches, it seems to me, they should be eligible for donation.

  Secondly, some places insist that items still carry the manufacturer’s tags. But I don’t understand what they need the tags for. Can it be they just want to sell the stuff off?

  Thirdly, and most importantly, say I spend one thousand yuan on clothes and bedding to donate to the disaster victims, but because I don’t know how to bargain I pay twice what they’re really worth, so that the merchant makes at least a five hundred yuan profit from the sale—does it really make sense to have people spend their money like this? Surely this is not how we should be promoting domestic demand.

  Finally, this is very demoralizing. If I put together a pile of almost brand-new clothes to donate, only to have them all rejected, what I’m not going to do is to turn around, meekly purchase new items, and drop them off instead. Of course, some people online may say, “On behalf of the disaster victims in Sichuan, I refuse these lousy clothes of yours,” just as when making cash donations a while ago, some businesses or individuals contributed less than it was imagined they would, and some people online said, “On behalf of the people of Sichuan, I refuse your lousy money.” I can tell you, the people’s instinctive generosity is being steadily extinguished by these idiots. To start with, there may be a thousand people who stretch out a helping hand, but when they see how those who make somewhat smaller donations are humiliated by you so-called representatives, the numbers gradually are whittled down to eight hundred, five hundred, and then one hundred. You set a threshold figure for those last hundred people, and after further eliminations all that’s left are fifty donors who have contributed the requisite amount—only then are you satisfied.

  Of course, some may argue that the insistence on new clothes is out of fear that old clothes may carry germs. But that doesn’t make much sense. Bank notes have passed through many more hands—when you accepted money before, why weren’t you worried about hygiene? And even if old clothes have a few germs, couldn’t you just disinfect them? Germs aren’t so bad, anyway—if you think about the level of chemicals found these days in basic household supplies, you’ve got to suspect that new clothes and new bedding are injurious to your health.

  If it’s really so much trouble to donate clothes, then we might as well just donate money, but this takes us back to the question of where donations end up—of course the organizations sponsoring donations welcome cash most of all. Unfortunately, I still don’t have a clue just how the hundreds of millions in cash donated last time were spent. No doubt everyone has good intentions, but in the face of the largest charitable donations ever in our history, we need to see a basic account sheet month by month.

  Donating cash is nothing new, but the economic situation is not what it was. Although the economic crisis has passed me by, many friends and relatives have been adversely affected, and with responses to this appeal and responses to that, cash flow really becomes a problem. When the government organized the Beijing Olympics, it was very concerned about its image and loved all the pomp and ostentation, and now in demanding that people make donations it is equally committed to appearances and equally intent on extravagance. If I contribute a few thousand yuan, I may well be seen as making the country lose face and end up becoming the object of a lot of criticism, so I’m not going to take part in this autumn donation drive. I’d like to, of course, but I’ve been persuaded not to. I’ve encouraged my friends to participate, but many of them tell me they learned their lesson last time. They’ll be scolded if they give too little, but if they give too much they’ll run short at the end of the year, so they’d do better to just wait and see. Originally they were doing charitable works happily and in a relaxed way, but now they feel weighed down with such a heavy burden. Those people who peddled that message of “On behalf of the people of Sichuan, we reject your lousy money” have a lot to answer for.

  To conclude, it’s not that I refuse to spend money on new clothes, simply that I find this demand unreasonable. To demonstrate my sincerity, I’m not going to buy any more new clothes for myself, either, in the months ahead. Recently I’ve been watching the CCTV happy news, and I am happy to learn that our country has not been affected in the least by this year’s turmoil in the financial markets. The people are happily going about their business, the nation is richer and stronger than ever—even to the point that it’s about to come to America’s rescue. So I feel I can confidently pass on to the government the task of seeing the earthquake victims through the winter. When it comes round to spring, in the name of the people of Sichuan I will present our all-powerful administration with a glass of milk and a couple of boiled eggs—put them together and it comes to a maximum score, 100 points.

  We must boycott French products

  December 10, 2008

  Now it’s our government that has called on people to boycott French products,10 so as to demonstrate our anger and emulate members of the animal kingdom when they make themselves look bigger to overawe their adversary. But this time the incitement hasn’t done the trick and popular response has been sluggish. As far as fashionably patriotic youth are concerned, they’ve already boycotted France once, and now to do it all over again just seems like old hat—it’s not sufficiently cutting-edge, it fails to break new ground. Fashionably patriotic youth were waiting for their bosses’ ideological apparatus to come out with a brand-new collection of songs, and now they find—damn it!—that all they’re getting is just a greatest-hits anthology. Everyone’s a bit tired of it all. So the government has no choice: like with the tax on fuel a while ago, it once again concocts public opinion, fabricating claims that eighty percent of Internet users support a boycott and ninety percent express indignation. What’s different is that this time round I support a boycott of French products, for the following reasons:

  1. We need a change in focus, one that will give us some fun. Our party newspaper tells us, “In terms of French politics, Sarkozy is really going through a rough period. The economy is in a slump, the unemployment rate is rising, popular support is falling, and so Sarkozy is making a play in terms of human rights and Tibet in the hope that this will distract attention.”

  It takes one to know one. The Chinese authorities likewise feel that they are really going through a rough period. The economy is in a slump, the
unemployment rate is rising, popular support is falling, and so the authorities are making a play in terms of human rights and Tibet in the hope that this will distract attention.

  The current economic situation certainly doesn’t look good, and we’re coming up to the Chinese New Year as well, so everyone needs a big hoopla like we had that time when we boycotted Carrefour, so that we can temporarily forget the pressure we’re all under.

  2. We can’t afford French products. Because everyone’s stocks are losing value, the economy is in retreat, energy is more heavily taxed, and so on and so forth. French products—which have never been cheap—now seem all the more to be purely luxury items. Seeing as we can’t afford to buy them right now, we might as well earmark them for boycotting. That way, we can earn some brownie points for being patriotic, and bask in the glory of this exploit when the economy revives.

  3. This way, we can serve our government’s best interests. A vital issue: Our government was chosen long ago by our fathers and grandfathers, so it naturally represents us, too, and if it is correct, that means we are correct, and if it has face, then we have face. In an economic and political clash, if we win a victory then the government wins a victory, and that means we’ve won, but if by any chance things get out of hand, then we are to blame: It means that people who don’t understand the true situation have been whipped up by a small bunch of agitators, provoking a narrow nationalist backlash, and our failing to understand the big picture will deal a setback to our diplomacy and cause damage to our economy. If we give the government an out, that beats the merit accrued by the construction of a seven-story pagoda.

  4. This way, we can clamp down on corruption. We all know that the people who are now so happily boycotting French products are not in the habit of buying them. Some of them may well have their hands full just making ends meet, and others are no doubt unable to save any money from those fifty-cent rewards they get for posting comments online,11 and I personally don’t normally use any luxury goods from France, so boycotting French goods has no impact on our lives, but it has a huge effect on some officials and leaders who like to go abroad on “study tours.” In duty-free stores around the world, they—or, more particularly, their wives—are the main force behind the consumption of French products. If we boycott French products, these people will be too embarrassed to hump those French luxury goods back to China. At the same time, since they are quite clueless about luxury goods from other places, for a time, at least, this will limit their spending and nip their decadence in the bud.

  5. It can help my rally team. Although I’m changing teams next year, I’m still hoping that the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 team will win the 1600cc Class in the National Rally Championship, and its closest rival is Dongfeng Peugeot Citroën. If the boycott is a success and nobody buys Citroën cars, the Dongfeng Citroën team won’t be able to keep going and my old team can win without even having to break a sweat. Likewise if you’re a Ferrari fan, you can make Renault close up shop, and Renault, like Honda before, will have to withdraw from Formula 1 motor racing.

  6. It can discourage officials from defecting. France has recently become the place where officials from Chinese study tours most like to abscond, and if Sino-French relations deteriorate further, inspection trips abroad will have to take France off the itinerary, and the possibility of tours of the European Union will also be reduced. Chinese officials will have to select other shopping and entertainment meccas for their study tours abroad, and all the preparations they have made over the years to defect to Europe will have gone for nothing.

  7. This will reduce the financial cost of chasing skirt. Once the boycott really kicks in, you can say to girls who covet French luxury goods: “No, to uphold our country’s interests, I am not going to buy you that.”

  In short, a boycott of French goods is on balance a very good thing. Boycotting Japanese products would be a different matter, for that would have an impact on our own creature comforts and most likely we’d end up saying one thing but doing something completely different. Boycotting French goods is much more feasible. All those hundreds of millions of peasants, workers, and underpaid employees of all descriptions have in their everyday actions for years now been quietly and unobtrusively boycotting French goods. Although I think it would be better timing if we waited to do the boycott until that day when ordinary people can actually afford to buy French products, nonetheless, at this time when our government has been insulted, what are we waiting for? We’re already burning with indignation and our patriotic fervor will not abate. Now all we need is for those hotheads calling for a boycott of French products to be joined by the wives and mistresses of our officials and for them all to bring out the French products that line their homes and consign them to a public bonfire, and we’ll be sure to come and cheer.

  In praise of Feng Shunqiao

  December 20, 2008

  In the news this week:

  On December 6, the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court found Feng Shunqiao, the former secretary-general of Zhejiang Province, guilty of taking bribes and sentenced him to a twelve-year prison term. The court ordered the confiscation of Feng’s personal assets to the amount of one hundred thousand yuan and the recovery of illicit funds that he had accepted, totaling nearly eight hundred thousand yuan (US$116,827).

  The court ruled that during the period from 1993 to 2006, when Feng served as mayor of Shangyu, mayor of Shaoxing, and secretary of the Shaoxing Party Committee, he accepted three hundred fifty thousand yuan in bribes from a Mr. Wang, chairman of a Zhejiang company, in return for using his authority to seek advantages for the chairman and his company.

  In late 2002 there was a reshuffle of administrators in Shaoxing. A bureau chief in Shangyu named Zhang had his eye on a deputy mayor opening, even though he was a bit too close to retirement age and had a poor reputation. Feng, then Shaoxing’s Party secretary, recommended Zhang on three occasions to the local organization department, enabling him to be promoted to the rank of deputy mayor. Thereafter, between 2003 and early 2005, Feng Shunqiao accepted, or received through his wife, 446,500 yuan in cash or shopping cards from Zhang.

  If, during the period from 1993 to 2006—thirteen years of economic reforms that offered very rich pickings to those in positions of authority—Feng Shunqiao, a provincial secretary-general, municipal party committee secretary and mayor in one of China’s wealthiest provinces, accepted only eight hundred thousand yuan in bribes (a mere sixty thousand yuan a year!), and if you view that against the backdrop nationwide, he has to count as having a very clean pair of hands. Compared to many corrupt officials who have amassed tens of millions in yuan through graft (hardly any of it ever recovered) and are sentenced to life imprisonment (which probably means release after twenty years), it looks like unlucky old Feng got a bad deal. I hereby welcome him to resume his official career after his release. If all our officials were as honest as he, if all of them could restrict themselves to eight hundred thousand yuan in bribes in a thirteen-year period, this would be a heaven-sent blessing for common working folk.

  Don’t think I’m always having fun at other people’s expense—I’m being serious here.

  Some points to note about whoring

  January 4, 2009

  What follows is excerpted from someone else’s blog. I have not verified all the facts in the case, but I have personally heard of many similar situations.

  Today, at last, I can relax: My friend is finally able to go home to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

  A while ago this friend attended a meeting in Beijing. While there he went out one evening to a foot-washing joint, where he succumbed to temptation and joined the provider in bed. As luck would have it, the police arrived and hauled him off to public security. At first we thought it was no big deal, he pays the fine and that’s it, but then he was sentenced to fifteen days’ administrative detention, and later we heard he would be packed off for six months’ re-education, and that alarmed us. If he got six months in the clink he
’d lose his wife, and his job to boot. I’m not from Beijing and have no connections there, so I had to ask a friend to make inquiries. He told me it would cost one hundred fifty thousand yuan to get my friend out of jail, and the man would still have to spend three months in the re-education center. The price seemed way too steep, and I wasn’t sure it was necessary to go this route: Currently it was only fifteen days’ detention, and maybe he’d be released after that. I visited him three times and learned about the awful living conditions (but that’s not surprising—if people were happy there, it wouldn’t have any deterrent effect). On my final visit I was told that my friend was certain to serve six months in the re-education center, and he begged me to get him out, whatever the cost.

  I consulted various people, and a friend recommended a lawyer near the detention center. So I paid the lawyer a retainer of thirty thousand yuan, which would be returned if nothing could be done. This being the end of the year, the lawyer learned, everything was tight and the police were under a lot of pressure: If they didn’t fulfill their quota this would affect their job evaluation, so nobody dared to approve releases. So he refunded me the thirty thousand yuan.

  We simply had to wait till things reached the next stage. Sure enough, my friend was transferred to Dongzhuang correctional facility for six months’ re-education. On the Wednesday—visitors’ day—I went to deliver some supplies and saw a whole crowd of people in the reception room—men, young and old, hauled in for the same reason as my friend. As I left, he begged me to get him out as soon as possible, and I promised to do my best.

  One day, when I was in Baotou on business, my friend called to say that a warden could get him out for fifty thousand yuan. I called the warden on my return to Beijing that Sunday. Let’s meet to talk about it, he said, and asked me to bring him twenty thousand—the remainder would be settled later. We met in a coffee shop and he told me the plan: Every month the Beijing reformatory sends inmates to facilities in Handan or Tangshan in Hebei Province, and he could arrange for my friend to be moved to Hebei and get him released from there. This sounded very promising, so I gave him the twenty thousand yuan. But two weeks later he called to say that the year-end squeeze made things very tricky. If it were vital to get the release, it would cost a total of one hundred thousand yuan: another thirty thousand for him and fifty thousand for the Hebei people. If I agreed, he could see that my friend was moved to Handan the following day. I consulted my friend and he agreed. The following day he was transferred to Handan, along with one hundred sixty others.