Chinese identity and wall-top grass

It also got picked up last week by a few mainland blogs and forums - Danwei came across it on the ChinaWeek aggregator.

Around the end of 1941, there was a patient at the "temporary university hospital" in Hong Kong with bed sores above his coccyx who had a smile on his face as he perpetually shouted: "Oh, girl! Girl!" Everyone in the hospital, from top to bottom, hated that guy. Because he was about to die, they hated his dramatic way of making the pain he felt in his bones into an absurd comedy, as if he was foretelling circumstances that everyone in the world would face, like the the great Jewish prophet Jeremiah.

Eileen Chang writes in "From the Ashes": "On the day that man died we all rejoiced..." Afterward, that group of college students turned temporary nurses gathered together and used palm oil to make toasted rolls that tasted like fermented rice cakes - apart from smiles, apart from death, what else is there that can liberate us from misery?

In China's long history there has been practically no beauty. Nearly everyone spent their days working to take care of food needs, working to make sure that they'd be able to breathe tomorrow, working at the struggle between life and death. Things were bitter and degrading - unbearably bitter and degrading - so Chinese literati were rather unwilling to record such situations. When their bellies were empty they wrote beautiful lines of poetry, recording the various arrangements of beautiful feather fans and long sleeves.

This is another means of dispelling misery using smiles, using the wealth and rank of others as encouragement amid one's own poverty.

Chinese people are perfect examples of wall-top grass, blown in the direction of the wind. It matters nothing to me who is in power, since I'll get grain or starve to death all the same. When a dynasty falls another comes to take its place; after the burglars run off, government troops come to steal; after the foreigners run off, the Han come to kill; today we wear our hair long, tomorrow we cut it off, the next day we wear it long again....none of this is as important as a bowl of rice. No one wants to be Chinese, not even real Chinese themselves. The majority of Chinese who worship their ancestors do it out of utilitarian reasons; they hope that their ancestors can protect their descendants and ensure that they have food to eat. After they conclude their worship, people immediately "rejoice" as all of the things they used to bribe their ancestors finds its way into their stomachs.

Except, just like in the iciness on the eve of the French Revolution, when even the very lowest members of the fundamentalist groups did not dare raise their voice, I timidly, quietly say: from the depths of my soul on out, I am a perfectly normal Chinese person.

The China I speak of is unrelated to government; it is a 100% abstract concept, an irrational feeling. It may be a period of history; it might be dusty old things from past times pulled across the blue sky; it is a patch of yellow soil, a grain of golden rice, a fish with glittering scales, a drop of sour sweat. But it is absolutely not a country. The word "China" and the word "country" have nothing to do with each other....like I said above, "Chinese people are perfect examples of walltop grass; it matters nothing to me who is in power..."

I was once confused - why was I Chinese?

Basically, I do not like things like the self-importance that the majority of Chinese people feel. Apart from the huqin I do not like any Chinese instruments, and the huqin is unfortunately capped with a "hu" character [meaning 'foreign']. I have no feeling for traditional Chinese painting - painting after painting are all monotonous things like landscapes. Peking Opera I don't understand, and other local operas I understand even less, nor can I understand why people are so captivated by the deafening gong and drum. Chinese clothing....don't tell me that ancient Chinese people dressed like they do in TV shows. And Chinese literature? Under the command of the Confucians, did China have any literature to speak of? There's only Dream of the Red Mansions, Journey to the West, and Tales from Liaozhai! Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kindgoms are basically book that spin myths. Particularly Three Kingdoms, a sorry book among sorry books that performed a political service - it specialized in making white black.

Then is it because I seek the beauty of the Chinese land? I'm sorry, I have never set foot on that soil; whether or not it is beautiful I have absolutely no idea and no way to judge. I even feel that the beauty of that soil means nothing to me. I care more about whether my home in Taiwan is made up beautiful or ugly, and whether the carpentry boss who helps me decorate is gouging me on the price or not.

I still remember when I was young my father would often tell me things that seemed like myths, like how tasty a certain kind of fish was in the river in his hometown of Wuhu, or how a certain kind of fruit like sapodilla would melt in your mouth. The first time he returned to Taiwan after going home, he said wonderingly, "Why aren't things now as good as they used to be? Is it because the soil quality or water quality has changed, or because I've gotten old?"

I believe that nothing has changed, only the things that Taiwan has now are ten or one hundred times better than they were before. The good things of the past are good in memories, a remembered perfection. Once you connect, those fantasies come tumbling down.

So I am entirely aware of the various illusions that are there when people go on about how good China is. Then why am I still Chinese? If I set my mind to it, who could force me to be Chinese? Which group a person belongs to is his own choice - you can slap a nationality on him from the outside, you can force him to wear his hair long today, cut it off tomorrow, and grow it out again the next day, but you cannot take away the longing in the depths of his heart.

What sort of longing is that? When I read the lines, "Raising my head, I look at the moon; lowering my head, I think of my hometown," I have an inexplicable stirring in my heart. I feel as if I've glimpsed something, as if someone is calling me. Yes, I admit I am Chinese because I cannot resist that ancient call, because of that selfishness, that hollowness, that shameless foolishness and loneliness in my very bones.

I have never willingly become a Chinese person; being Chinese brings no fanciful honor or beauty, and no one will grant me an award for my confession or come up with some sort of Chinese Renewal Fund to give me a regular national pension. Instead, there is a possibility that some people may curse me and spit at me for my ingratitude. If I had a choice, I would willingly become a native Hawaiian.

So I would rather that my wife, my children, and my friends were no longer Chinese, or that they were some nationality other than Chinese from birth, aliens being the most ideal. I hope that they can take that inherited selfishness to an extreme, so that they can switch faces as easy as turning over their hands, and change their bones as casually as sipping tea. For myself, I have spent decades immersed in western literature and religion, but in my old age discovered that I'm still a 100% damn Chinese.

China is the birthplace of my soul, the place of rest my heart yearns for. When someone merely mentions it in passing, I cannot help but *** up my ears and pay attention, listening for whether others are like me and detest it, hate it, yet cannot help loving it.

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