If you ever took a literature in high school, you might remember being forced to read a little book called 1984. One of the aspects of George Orwell’s nightmarish totalitarian state is what’s called “Two Minutes Hate.” That’s when members of the Party are required to watch a two-minute video showing atrocities committed by the enemies of the Party. They are monsters after all. Turns out they have something like that in China.
In case you couldn’t tell, China doesn’t have the best relationship with Japan. A lot of it has to do with Japan’s brutal occupation of the country that resulted in deaths of 20 million Chinese. In one particularly awful incident, the Rape of Nanking, somewhere between 40,000 to 300,000 civilians were killed, and 20,000 women were raped. On top of that, Japan hasn’t ever really done the soul searching and repentance that Germany did following World War II. There are even those who even deny any atrocities were committed.
There is a lot of anti-Japanese resentment in all of Asia because of World War II. But the difference between is the Chinese regime wants to keep that hate alive, because well, if everyone hates the Japanese, maybe they won’t think too much about the fact that their own government that has killed and tortured way more Chinese people than the Japanese ever did.
And that’s led to some pretty…“unique” interpretations of the events of World War II in Chinese media. According to Quartz, 30% of Chinese primetime TV consists of Japanese soldiers being, as Quartz says, “implausibly slaughtered.” In 2012 alone, there were 200 anti-Japanese movies made.
The Hengdian World Studios is the largest movie studio in China. Of the 300,000 extras who work there, 60% play Japanese soldiers. The Yangcheng Evening News estimated that in 2012, “a billion fictional Japanese soldiers were slain.”
Shi Zhongpeng, is an extra who says he died over 200 times in 2012, once, 31 times in a single battle. How does he keep getting the gig? His secret, he says, is to “ Act as lewd and abominable as possible,” when playing a Japanese character. I guess he’s “dying” to make a living.”
in these movies, strange things happen. A Chinese soldier hurls a grenade into the sky to blow up a Japanese plane. A kung fu master quite literally rips a Japanese soldier in half with his bare hands. A woman is able to wipe out an entire platoon of well-armed Japanese with only her bow and (apparently unlimited) arrows.
And who could forget the delightful “Little Soldier Zhang,” which the director Sun Lijun said was inspired by Disney movies. It’s about a young boy, left all alone after his grandmother dies… from being shot in the back by the Japanese. Her death spurs Little Zhang on to join the Red Army, where he helps them blow up a trainload of Japanese soldiers, earning him the magical wish of every child--a pistol to kill more Japanese. That’s, basically what happened in Finding Nemo, right?
But you have to draw a line somewhere with these movies. They can’t be too ridiculous. Like the movie, “Devils at the Doorstep.” That movie was banned for going way beyond the bounds of good taste. One of the Japanese soldiers in it, was actually nice to Chinese villagers. Totally historically inaccurate! The Japanese are 100% evil.
It’s more than political reasons that spur on the anti-Japanese entertainment industry. Because of tight censorship restrictions by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, basically, the only thing that’s safe to make, is anti-Japanese patriotic war movies.
Of course, you can only spend so much of your time watching TV and movies. That’s why anti-Japanese propaganda is everywhere! Recently a department store used war reenactment to sell more clothes. Obviously.
Then there’s the Eighth Route Army Culture Park, where you can role-play the war, shoot at Japanese targets, watch performances, or just enjoy some good old Japanese killing action. Did I mention the Japanese are evil?
But it’s important to teach the Chinese people from an early age that they should hate the Japanese. So when elementary school kids aren’t being forced to do wartime reenactments, they’re learning reading, writing, and the “Education in National Humiliation.” That’s where they learn about all the terrible things Japan did to China in the 30’s that they'd still be doing today if they had half a chance! It’s got to be a fun day for the kiddies when the field trip to the Anti-Japanese War Museum in Beijing rolls around. That’s when young children, get to look at grainy photos of--women getting raped and disemboweled. And course, stacks and stacks of the corpses of children.
So, I know, when I was in elementary school, they had us go to the Museum of Tolerance, where we learned about the Holocaust. Few differences. One, the more graphic images, they didn’t let us go into that part of the museum. Also, you didn’t walk away from it with the lesson that Germans are all evil. It was, slightly more nuanced, more about the need to tolerate the differences in others and the capacity for horror that human beings are capable of when they don’t.
Oh, you know another difference. They don’t sell pornography at the Museum of Tolerance. Guess what they have at the Nanking Massacre Memorial museum. Pornography. Rape themed pornography, at a place that condemns the rape of 20,000 women.
I'll leave you with that thought for the day.
For more China Uncensored, please visit youtube.com/ntdchinauncensored.
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