Important lessons Chinese have missed

Important lessons Chinese have missed

Last Saturday afternoon, when protests in major cities in China against Japan's control of disputed islands in the East China Sea reached a climax, I had just finished shopping at Tesco Lotus and was waiting for the sudden downpour to stop.

As I read about the spontaneous boycott of Japanese-made goods on the Chinese Twitter-like site Sina Weibo on my phone, I turned to the bagful of Japanese ingredients I'd bought for dinner _ sushi is one of my favourites _ and a vague feeling of guilt arose: Am I not patriotic?

Such a question sounds ridiculous. Of course, I love my country. Since the day I arrived in Thailand on an exchange programme, I have missed my motherland. It's so large and diverse that no landscape on Earth seems so special to me; its melodious language is the most beautiful one in the world for me; it has the longest uninterrupted history and has now become the world's second-largest economy, which makes me so proud whenever I say its name.

And now, knowing that we risk losing the Diaoyu islands, which are clearly recorded in Chinese historical documents as part of our territory, I can't help feeling deeply offended and a sense of unease has crept in, too.

However, for me, this is ultimately the business between two governments; they have to find a way to solve the problem, either diplomatically or economically, or in the worst case, militarily.

What struck me most was the way people have shown their patriotism _ as we've seen in the news, in dozens of Chinese cities, the anti-Japanese rallies turned violent. Angry mobs chanted slogans, attacked Japanese citizens, ransacked Japanese stores and restaurants as well as smashed and burned Japanese-brand cars.

I felt a complex mix of emotions: disbelief, shame, outrage and sadness.

At that very moment, I was suddenly hit by a fact I have ignored my whole life: I was brought up to love my country, but was never taught how to love it in a proper way.

Please don't misunderstand, I am not criticising the demonstrations. We cherish the opportunity to express our concerns and vent our anger but find it unacceptable that it is being misused or messed up by stupid behaviour. We can't justify such actions when they become a stage for violence, when innocent people, shops, even compatriots' property become the targets in the name of "patriotism".

This past Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1931 Mukden Incident, which was used by Japan as a pretext to invade northern China _ an occupation that lasted 14 years. Sept 18 is widely known among Chinese people as "National Humiliation Day". But on Sina Weibo, some users tagged a photo showing a Toyota 4S shop torched by protesters on Sept 15 with the caption "new national humiliation".

In China, we've never lacked education in patriotism. In fact, for people like me who were born in 1970s and '80s, our memories are flooded with too much of it. Since the first day in elementary school, the only songs we were taught were patriotic ones with titles like Ode To The Motherland, Without The Communist Party There Would Be No New China, The Sun Is The Reddest and Chairman Mao Is The Dearest. The only movies we could watch in school were revolutionary films, in which the bad guys _ always Japanese or landlords _ were forever wretched, stupid and evil; while heroes _ Red Army soldiers, Communist party members, peasants and worker "brothers" _ were always glorious and strong, they had only one voice, and all the characters were formulaic.

From elementary to high school, our enthusiasm for politics was exhausted by such dogmatic indoctrination. I have to confess that I skipped all the compulsory politics courses at university, which took up a lot of time but taught almost the same things: the ideology of Marxist-Leninism, and the principles and policies of the ruling party and government, which is a product of the revolutionary era.

We were never taught how to request and use our rights as citizens, how to compete for values and powers with a positive attitude, in a rational, peaceful and lawful manner, how to compromise and negotiate with tolerance, or how to look after our own interests, but also to respect the interests of others. The only thing we were taught was that enemies must be destroyed.

So, unsurprisingly, when conflicts emerge we choose to boycott Japanese goods, which contributes nothing to the island dispute but only provokes in-fighting and damages our own economy. We choose emotional abuse, violent behaviour and spoiling for war to vent negative feelings, which hurt the rules of law and social justice but has nothing to do with "love of country."

"Patriotism" is a very emotional word. For Chinese people, for whom civic education is urgently needed, it can easily lead them in the wrong direction. When human dignity and rights are trampled in the name of "patriotism", tragedy begins.


Zhang Qi is a Chinese journalist based in Bangkok on the FK exchange programme.

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