18 FRIDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2010 LIFE CHINA DAILY

Shut up, potty-mouths

X-RAY
RAYMOND ZHOU
Verbal violence
permeates
China’s Internet
and beyond. It is
fuelled by rampant
frustrations and a
lack of tradition for
rational discourse.
O
ur skyline may be growing
more spectacular by the
day, but a dirty mouth
characterizes China’s face.
Most Chinese people are polite
and restrained in their personal
interactions, but when the situation
is impersonal, the attacks are really
personal.
Let’s start at the bottom rung of
the social echelon: The anonymous
netizens who leave comments on
online forums. Whenever a report
comes out about, say, a serial killer
or rapist in a certain province, they
curse everyone in that province as
if they are all responsible for the
criminal’s heinous crimes. They don’t
seem to realize that perverts like this
exist everywhere. For a while, places
like Henan were so stigmatized
people from the province dared
not reveal their hometowns when
seeking jobs elsewhere.
Then come bloggers and
columnists, a group to which I belong.
If we write something positive, we’ll
be suspected of shilling. If we give a
nuanced analysis, editors won’t give
it a snappy and attention-grabbing
headline; and few readers will have
the patience to read it through. The
most popular articles are invariably
negative, denouncing in the strongest
possible terms everything from
social phenomena to a movie. A
Simple Noodle Story or Confucius
may not be good movies, but they do
not deserve the kind of viciousness
poured on them by self-claimed
critics. The Treasure Hunt and The
Storm Warriors are far worse in terms
of quality, yet they were spared the
blitzkrieg of poison.
The reason is simple: People reserve
their venom for the powers-that-
be. They get vicarious gratification
by virtually toppling powerful
figureheads and empowering
themselves in the process.
But they are selective. They can-
not target political power, which
they know will get them into trouble.
The super-wealthy have a way of
hiding from public scrutiny. They
have meticulously cultivated a clean
image, and only a few, such as Ren
Zhiqiang of the real estate industry,
dare to position themselves as an una-
shamed symbol of business interests
and thus turn themselves into online
cannon fodder.
The ideal targets are cultural
celebrities and minor officials. They
become fair game by virtue of their
ubiquity, or inability to defend them-
selves. To make matters worse, they
often act like despots of independent
dominions, not accountable to either
the higher-ups or the hoi polloi. Some
of them may indeed come under the
official umbrella of protection, but
most are chagrined to find their
connections are not strong enough,
leaving them exposed when it comes
to dodging bullets.
China is gripped by hatred, which
is almost like an out-of-control
machine-gun, firing indiscriminately
at any moving target. We hate
Western imperialists who blithely
engage in activities that make us
unhappy. We hate officials, big or
small, who are corrupt to the bone
and get all the perks and yet never
hide their contempt or condescension
for us. We hate celebrities who deign
to care for us but instead care only
about whether we buy their products.
We hate our elders because they have
taken our jobs and driven up housing
prices, depriving us of a decent
future. We hate the young because
they are so preoccupied with trivial
pursuits such as games, virtual
friends and movie stars. We hate
those richer than us and those poorer
than us. We hate our peers because
they always seem to get ahead of us.
And we hate ourselves because our
relentless drive for a better life seems
to go nowhere.
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake,
calamitous and heartrending as it
was, brought out something good
— compassion. It served as the per-
fect antidote to an age of apathy and
cynicism. But wasn’t that too high a
price? Isn’t compassion a natural hu-
man quality?
Granted, there are a lot of things that
deserve our revulsion. We spat upon
the official who sexually harassed
Deng Yujiao, the young woman who
thwarted his advances and killed
him in self-defense. We detested
the official who flaunted his ill-
gotten fortune by wearing an
expensive watch and smoking
expensive cigarettes. There are
so many injustices in our society
that any sensible person can flare
up. Yet, our action should not be
driven simply by indignation. It
should be the pursuit of justice
that goads us.
Most of all, we should refrain from
the dirty language that surrounds
these “public campaigns”. I don’t see
much social benefit in swearing like
a sailor. It only debases a public dis-
course. Those who resort to virulent
criticisms may think that’s the best
way to incite action or an official re-
sponse. As a matter of fact, language
has a way of losing its bite. If you im-
moderately use high-sounding words,
pretty soon people will become numb
to them.
The anonymous Internet serves as
a sewer where people on pedestals
become punch-bags and are cast
down. If the system changes to real-
name registration, the platform will
be cleaner but its function for letting
off steam will be limited. It’ll be some-
time before the online public learns
how to conduct a rational debate with-
out recourse to defamation.
Another reason for this profanity-
ridden convention is the influence of
the authorities. The criticism sessions
of a bygone era may be a receding
memory, but they still haunt us
like an apparition. Traces of verbal
violence pop up everywhere, such as
the slogans on rural roadsides. One
that promotes family planning goes
like this: “Rather we have a pool of
blood than exceed the birth quota by
one!” Sadistic, isn’t it?
The irony of family planning
slogans is the ingenuity. It seems the
government has not set a parameter
for the language used. Local cadres
have to come up with their own
lines. And you can gauge the
seriousness of the policy
by the harshness of
the wording.
Most
official slogans are so replete
with clichés they will not get this
kind of close examination. Yet
the presentation still retains the
exaggerated form of the past era.
Not long ago, some public buildings
in Shanghai were draped in such
old-time garishness. They were like
a wild man transported in time from
40 years ago — wielding a machete in
a house of glass. It totally spoiled the
forward-looking image the city had
been trying to cultivate for itself.
Like urbanites elsewhere, ordi-
nary Shanghainese are also guilty of
insulting rural visitors and migrant
workers. However, people of this
metropolis do not fall prey to the
same overused vulgarities. A recent
incident is a perfect illustration: A
local radio-show host received a text
message from a listener who com-
plained about the Shanghai dialect.
In response, the host said: “Please
bundle yourself into a ball and roll
out of the city you despise.”
He got a lot of negative feedback.
The reasoning is, he is a public figure
so he should be held to a higher
standard. For me, this euphemism
for “Get the hell out of my city!” is the
smartest slur I have heard in public.
To quote a line from a movie, it at least
has the “input of intelligence”.

Li Min

Comedian Zhou Libo in a class of his own

S
tand-up comedian Zhou Libo’s Beijing
debut was a success, although many
people had previously questioned
whether his Shanghai-style humor
would suit northerners.
At this performance, with the China Phil-
harmonic Orchestra, Zhou gave light-hearted
MU QIAN introductions to the various instruments and
sections of the orchestra, mingled with his
witty observations about social phenomena
and a benign joke about Beijing’s most popular
cross-talk comedian, Guo Degang.
Language was not a barrier as Zhou used
standard Chinese throughout the show, forsak-
ing the Shanghai dialect that is used in most of
his Shanghai performances.
That city’s newspapers reported the Beijing
audience laughed 450 times during the show.
That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is
true to say that what tickles Shanghai’s funny
bone, also tickles the capital city.
What differentiates Zhou from Guo, or from
northeastern China’s greatest comedian, Zhao
Benshan, is not only regional culture, but more
importantly, the groups of people they represent.
If Zhao’s humor belongs to farmers and Guo’s to
the urban poor, Zhou’s humor speaks to China’s
emerging middle class.
Former chairman Mao Zedong said “there
is no human nature above classes”. Perhaps,
we can also say that there is no humor above
classes.
Zhou refused an earlier invitation to do a show
with Guo for the reason that, “It is impossible for
a coffee drinker to mingle with a garlic eater”.
There are probably more garlic eaters in
Beijing than in Shanghai, but coffee is as
popular with Beijing’s Westernized middle
class as Shanghai’s. Zhou’s remark basically
demonstrates a division of classes.
No doubt the audience that showed up at the
recent Beijing performance were mostly coffee
drinkers. Deeming Zhao’s jokes to be too shallow
and Guo’s too vulgar, they responded enthusi-
astically to Zhou’s jokes about Tiger Woods, the
stock market and mortgages, in much the same
way as Zhou’s audiences in Shanghai.
The theme of the performance — symphony
music — is itself a topic of the middle class. Zhou
said he has been a lover of Western classical
music for a long time. If not for the invitation of
the China Philharmonic Orchestra, he probably
wouldn’t have so easily broken his promise to
never cross the Yangtze River and perform in
North China.
Zhou knows what his audience wants.
China’s middle class sees classical music as
a status symbol, though it may not really un-
derstand it.
Zhou’s comparison of a violin to a woman, the
viola to a middle-aged person, and the woodwind
section to white-collar workers, made it easy for
the audience to grasp their roles.
But Zhou is at his best when satirizing current
affairs. Thus, his joke about people swarming to
old-age homes to show their sympathy, during Zhou Libo cooperates with the China Philharmonic Orchestra for his Beijing debut. Jiang Dong
festivals, received the most applause.
What else do China’s middle class talk about and facial expressions of Chinese Premier Wen It is foreseeable that more comedians like
besides classical music, housing and the stock Jiabao. Even so he is careful, and at the Beijing Zhou will appear, as the growing middle class
market? performance he did not tell a mildly political needs more humor that speaks to them — as
The Southern Weekend ran a story titled, joke that he had rehearsed. everybody else does. Gone is the time when
“Zhao Benshan does not have to talk about poli- One of the most impressive parts of the show all humor must serve the proletariat. If you
tics, but Zhou Libo does”, indicating that Zhou is was Zhou’s interpretation of a harmonious soci- don’t believe me, listen to some cross-talk
better than Zhao because he can do more. ety based on his explaining of “he” and “xie”, the works from the “cultural revolution” (1966-
Zhou, however, said that he has no interest in two characters that make up the Chinese word 76), and you’ll fi nd they really are not funny,
politics, except when it becomes current affairs, for “harmonious”. He consists of the radicals for any more.
which he does care about. “crop” and for “mouth”; while xie has one part for
On stage, Zhou has ridiculed French President “speech” and the other for “all” — put together, To comment or alert us to a story,
Nicolas Sarkozy, mocked the former leader of a harmonious society is when “all people have e-mail features@chinadaily.com.cn
Taiwan Chen Shui-bian, and mimicked the tones food to eat and speeches to make”, Zhou said.