Between the lines, the book expresses the thoughts and feelings that are unfavorable to China. In this era, people pay attention to evidence, and of course, people also have photos as evidence. Both men and women in China wear traditional clothes and are seriously top-heavy. Their expressions are Mu Na and stupefied. You can draw without photos. A cabin that is being smuggled into the United States is crowded with people from China, all of whom are skinny, sallow and emaciated, with sunken eyes, prominent faces and dull expressions. Two men in big braid picked up a plate of mice and chewed them with relish. At that time, I didn't understand where the American theory that China people grew up eating mice came from.
However, I remember another book that the poor people in the southern United States survived by eating dirt during the famine. Hunger is human nature. What we see from this is not the bad habit of China people to eat mice, but the reason why they are forced to eat mice. However, rumors have always been plasticine, and how to shape stereotypes will be recognized as facts by default, which is good entertainment for both communication and listeners. The more bizarre and clumsy, the more comfortable the listener will be. People like to sit at home or in the car on rainy days and feel very happy when they see pedestrians running around with their heads in their hands in the rainstorm.
The author of this book is good at saying,' China is a big civilized country, and the arrival of China people has brought many oriental cultures to the United States, which is also a richer and more diversified immigrant country in the United States …' and so on. But the most important thing to emphasize is how poor China people are. The adjective poverty not only appears many times in this book. It seems that only when others are poor, and they are rich, will they be proud and at ease.
The Indian kid next to me asked me, do people in China eat snakes? When I heard that, I suddenly wanted to strangle him, as easily as choking a monkey. It is said that Indians eat with their hands instead of tableware. Which is more disgusting? But later I learned that he saw it in a movie. Ignorance is innocent, so let it go. It is said that Jackie Chan's Rush Hour 3 was banned in China because it contained lines that were unfavorable to China. I used to think that China was too protectionist, but now I understand that this is right. People have always heard it through hearsay, and people admire it, and three people become tigers.
There are many books about China in the school library, including dozens. I searched everywhere, but unfortunately, I didn't find Zhang Chunru's "Nanjing Atrocities". It seems that this history has really been forgotten. That is a book about the Nanjing Massacre. Due to long-term exposure to information about the Holocaust, the author suffered from schizophrenia and committed suicide. I remember The Reader's short story Zhang Chunru was published in Miscellaneous Notes magazine at that time, illuminating history with life. It is such a book that illuminates history that it was banned from publication in China for a long time, because it expressed support for the student movement and dissatisfaction with the state repression. I have always felt that her death was unfair, really unfair, and the works written so hard were deliberately buried, that kind of atrocities. Maybe she's not strong enough. If I had written this book, it wouldn't have caused schizophrenia. My classmates and I talked about the Nanjing Massacre, and they either looked blank or were indifferent. Maybe they think China people are poor and stingy!
All her efforts were in vain, and it only lit up for a moment. Xiao M always said that it was our ancestors' business. Don't cling to old enemies. It is better to remember a person's bad than to remember a person's good. This sounds familiar. I remember saying the same thing when I was in Sweden three years ago. Indeed, little M didn't care about the China, Japanese and Nanking massacres at all. What she cares about is Japanese anime and sushi. Our generation is still like this. What about our next generation? What about our next generation? How much will they remember? It will only leave a faint light and shadow in the long river of history, and even if it is known by future generations, it will not be so unforgettable.
I remember when I was in China, the school always gave us patriotic education regularly and sang the national anthem every Monday. I always think that the most ugly words and songs in the national anthem are not very good. At the flag-raising ceremony at that time, every time the students behind me sang' Forward, Forward, Forward', they deliberately sang' Back, Back, Back' and fell down with laughter. This is our entertainment.
Also, since the first grade, it has been children's group gatherings and wearing green scarves. When we took the oath, we were full of Marxism-Leninism, but we didn't know what it meant. We only know that wearing a green scarf is a sign of progress and Excellence. Everyone is eager to have a green scarf to show off in front of classmates. Of course, our city was the first to enter.
In the second grade, I began to return the green scarf and put on the red scarf. Some people cry because they were not elected. I was elected because the teacher brushed me off when I took the oath. I regretted it for a long time. Because I was in a bad mood that day, I found fault and tore up my deskmate's exercise book. I think I was really melodramatic. But then I joined the Young Pioneers. In fact, the whole class joined the Young Pioneers, even the worst students. On the first day of wearing a red scarf, my nose went up to the sky, which is a kind of pride. The teacher said it was a corner of the red flag, dyed with the blood of martyrs. In fact, anyone who knows a little about geometry knows that one corner of the red flag should be a right triangle rather than an obtuse triangle. Anyone with a little common sense will know that the red scarf can't dye blood, it is an industrial dye, and it will fade when washed. This pride, this expectation and this beauty have disappeared from my bloody childhood. I often ask myself, when I decided to join this team, was I crazy or something? In fact, because I satisfied my vanity, I accepted an idea that I didn't understand at all and only believed the teacher's hype.
By the sixth grade, my rebellious thoughts were strengthened and I often didn't wear a red scarf. In summer, I want to be cool. The teacher deducted the points from our group for this, and said angrily, if anyone wants to quit the team, talk to her and she will give up. I was excited to find the teacher, but I was embarrassed to say it directly at that time, and I stuffed a note saying that I would quit the team. The teacher came to me kindly, thinking that my primary school had been abroad and I didn't understand Chinese. I didn't recognize the angry words, so I went to show mercy and ignored me. On the contrary, he said that he would not wear a red scarf in middle school, but he would wear a team emblem. Soon, wait a few months.
In the first grade of junior high school, we still wear red scarves, because most people are still twelve years old and not old. During this period, the school's Young Pioneers organized activities one after another, or watched movies that moved China, or watched the Long March across the grassland, and there were documentaries about the return of Hong Kong. Most people don't think so. I am particularly active, taking the lead in pouting and turning serious topics into jokes.
Before going abroad, I finally took off the red scarf I had worn for many years and wrote three big characters "vulgar things" on it with a black charcoal pen. That's called a carefree! Others admire my courage, and I secretly sigh when I can be liberated. They will never be liberated because they left the team, the league, the party and so on.
But now, everything is different. I don't want to say how stupid I am, how sorry I am, or what I did wrong. In fact, everything I did at that time was purely psychological venting, just to get rid of it and escape the patriotic education at school. Wearing a red scarf does not mean patriotism. Joining the league and joining the team cannot represent patriotism. I am neither a Young Pioneer nor a Communist Youth League member, and I am not party member. I don't know what Marxism is, what Lenin thought is, what Deng Xiaoping Theory is and what Mao Zedong's quotations are. I don't have a red scarf, a badge or an empty slogan on my chest. I will not give a long patriotic speech like the headmaster, nor will I write a magnificent application for joining the League like other students in my class. But today, I really feel so patriotic for the first time in my life. It is not forced to speak against one's will, nor is it empty talk without feelings. Patriotism is not a show-off capital, a show-off tool, or a luxurious display. It doesn't need to be hung on your lips, worn on your skirt or written on paper, but left in your heart.
Always remember that I am from China, and I am very proud.