China: “Just the aftershocks from the earthquake would destroy France!”kids yell

Thunder(雷 lei), verb, a natural phenomena. Now widely used by Chinese netizens to describe the effect of something which shocks or startles people with its hilarious, unbelievable and unconventional quality.

The latest stuff that has thundered thousands of netizens is a clip of video.

In the video, these kids, cute and pristine with red face, innocent smile, were reciting a poem nevertheless with the utmost fury and passion. The lyric, named “2009, Go China!” presents a roll call of Chinese achievements in 2008 under the siege of western enmity, and is most notable for its naked, uncovered antagonism against Sarkozy, Europe and anti-China persons, and a yell for nationalism.


The following lyric is translated into English by the China Digital Times

2009, GO CHINA!

Lead: Snowstorm, freely falling down to earth, like western values
Lead: Despair fills the sky, ice covers the earth

Lead: Did China retreat?
All: No. The Olympics were a success! We are victorious!
Lead: Hot blood and iron will of Chinese people, lighten up the dark world like burning the holy flame
All: The rivers and mountains, ever more colorful and beautiful

Lead: Earthquakes, shifting back and forth like the positions of Sarkozy, with his dirty tricks, trying to shake the great China
Lead: Did China retreat?
All: No. The Shenzhou-7 launched. We are victorious!
Lead: Pathetic Europe will never stop the insurmountable force of the Celestial Empire
All: Just the aftershocks from the earthquake would destroy France!

Lead: The happy flowers flourish in the oil fields on Tarim Basin
Lead: The suona [musical instrument] sings aloud in the Tawang district of the Himalayas
Lead: Historically accumulated resentment fill the Ryukyu Trench
All: Smiles in Sun Moon Lake became a miraculous flower in the Pacific Ocean

Lead: “Do not sway, Do not slacken off and Do not flip flop”*
Lead: “Do not change the flag, Do not change the label, Do not turn back”**
All: Step ruthlessly over all anti-China forces

Lead: The giant ship full of patches, raise up the brand new sail
All: Spirits are high, crash through the waves, the wind is at our back
Lead: 2009
All: Go China
Lead: 2009
All: China the Greatest!

(Translator:Ryukyu Trench is an ocean area Japan and China dispute on its ownership; Dawang district is where China and India dispute on and used to battle on; Sun-moon Lake is in Taiwan)

On 26, Dec, as soon as the video was put on video-share websites, floods of comments poured in. Most of them, at their first glimpse, were astonished by the sharp contrast between the naive kids and the forceful hatred exuded from their recitation.

On the side of the video, the introduction writes:

内容包括:反西方自由主义,反萨科奇,反藏独,反台独,反日,反疆独,主张藏南和琉球是我国领土!诗歌普普通通,但从一群小学生嘴里出来,够震撼的!西方看来要失掉下一代的中国人心了…..

The content includes: anti-western-liberalism, anti-Sarkozy, anti-Taiwan-independence, anti-Xinjiang-separation, and claim of South Tibet and Liuqiu as our territory! The poem is not quite uncommon, but since it is spat out of mouths of a group of grade shcoolers, it is astonishing! It seems that the western is going to lose the favor of our next generation….

CoffeeTime, after posting the lyric along with video, says:

想起了巴勒斯坦小学数学课本:抓到七个以色列战俘,干掉五个,还剩几个?

It reminds me of the math book in Palestine: 7 Israelites were captured, 5 of them killed, how many remained?

The classroom is the most commonly seen in China. It's believed that it won't be the children that write the poem, but the teacher, who's the No.1 suspect that planned everything. Worry is not absent among netizens, who views it as an official indoctrination of hatred that has gone beyond simple nationalism. Words such as “aftershock”, “destroy” are not just bloody.

Dowei says;

又开始文革了么?

The Cultural Revolution has come back?

嘿嘿 then speaks:

靠,准备培养军国主义的下一代啊。有人想当希特勒?

Damn, is it going to raise a generation of fascism/jingoism followers? Someone is trying to be another Hitler?

On bullog.cn, FreeChina rails straight against the ruling communist party, which is thought to be the most blame-worthy for the hatred-education in his view:

中共这么无耻,是要遭天谴的!

这个世界上,还有比利用孩子天真无邪的心灵来实现自己的政治目的更无耻的行为吗? 这么小的孩子,就要他们混淆反共与反华的区别,培养充满专制思维的意识形态,中共难道是要绑架整个中华民族为自己的陪葬品吗?

CCP should be condemned by the heaven for being so shameless!
Would there be anything more shameful than manipulating the innocent mind of kids to reach one's political goal? It seduces the kids to mix up anti-CCP with anti-China, and cultivates the autarchy ideology. Is CCP going to hijack the entire Chinese nation to be its company to hell?

And netizen moaned:

可怜的孩子,这么小的年龄,就成为政治的工具,被裹挟进肮脏的政治游戏中。

The poor kids, in so young an age have been taken as political tools and involved into the dirty game of politics.

Many netizens called upon people to save the kids, and flesh search was likely to be launched again.

wuyong says:

们有什么资格去笑话韩国人呢,我们比他们还自大,让人又不禁想起了连战在山西的时候的小学生的视频,让整个台湾人民都笑话我们

Look at this. Are we qualified to laugh at Koreans that we are now even more arrogant than they are? It reminds me of the poem students recited in Shangxi to welcome Lian-zhan, which came to be a laughing stock of all the Taiwan people.

However, not all people flown upon the intimidating recitation. Not a small portion of comments, actually, side with the unknown recitation organizer.

aaa commends:

我们的民族就是需要这种精神,汉奸们你们的讽刺,辱骂,代表你们内心的恐惧,无耻的卖国贼。

That's the spirit our nationa requires. You the traitors ridiculed and fulminated, but that only revealed your inner fear. Shameless traitors.

And in reply to 扫左's comment that “such an education raise only thugs and blockheads”, netizen fighter rebuked:

培养还没有打仗就投降,把国有资产都送给外国人,抱着美国人大腿幸福生活的下一代,这样楼上的就满意了吧

Then you should be satisfied, if we were to raise the next generation, who give in before fight, who hand over wealth to foreigners, and embrace the legs of Americans to live happily.

If you are to believe the two voices mentioned, in favor of and opposing, are all the story, you are wrong. With more in-depth analysis of the text, a third idea shows up: the teacher that planned the recitation is indeed an undercover!

The splendid work in praise of China and CCP, contains implicit points they dig out as evidence of its actual core as an artistic irony. As a blogger said, “after being so disgusted that I vomit, it occurred to me that it might have implicit meaning.

虎躯一颤 pondered:

打满补丁的大船,形象啊。

“The giant ship full of patches”, er…. very figurative

The figure here is more like alluding to the shattered, ill ruled country rather than a compliment.

Moreover, the word “Celestial Empire”, which is used to describe China in the poem, will have never appeared in any official text because it apparently and more usually means the feudalism China, which is synonymous to dark, authoritarian and backward. Therefore, thundered, shocked, disgusted, angered and finally nosing a grain of salt, is the series reactions of a lot of netizens. Some of them even burst into laughs at last.

But is that a correct speculation?

Right at the time that the internet is in search of the teacher/organizer and debating on the recitation, unexpectedly, the man showed up voluntarily, and not in anywhere else but right in Bullog.cn, a turf that is well known for its intimacy to liberalism and pro-democracy thoughts, and where the work is under the most relentless attack.

The organizer, named 左左右右 (left-left-right-right), explained how the story happened:

快期末了,我发现孩子们提前好几天都在忙着过圣诞,还有专人组织捐款买东西,国庆节也没这么上心啊,于是我问孩子们对圣诞节有何理解。他们摇摇头

It is approaching the final week of school year, and I found the kids busy with Christmas preparation, and someone organizing a donation for decoration. They were even more excited than in National Day. So I asked how much they knew aboutChristmas. They shook heads.

我问几个学习非常努力的孩子理想是什么,他说,好好学习,将来考上好的大学,最好能去留学,我问留学什么好,他说,外国的学校就是好。好在哪里呢,他说不上来。

I asked some very diligent kids what their dreams are, and they told that to study hard and go abroad for university in the future. I asked why. They told the foreign education is just better, but told no reason.

……

但是,是谁教给他们不分来由的崇洋媚外呢呢,对外国不加思索的盲目崇拜,从物质到言论难道对西方没有一点质疑?

But, who teach them such an indiscriminate favor of all the foreign stuff, and the admiration without a deeper thought? Don't they even have a grain of doubt towards all the western world, from its material to ideas?

哪些事情让你最难忘?他们答:雪灾、地震,圣火传递,奥运成功,金融危机。在值得中国人骄傲的圣火传递和奥运举行期间,也充满了刁难,2008年何止一个郁闷可以形容的!然后就想开一个主题班会,做一个视频给即将离去的2008做纪念

(I asked) what impressed you the most in the past year? They said: “The snowstorm in January, Si-chuan Earthquake, torch relay, the success of Olympics and financial crisis. ” In the most pride-worthy torch relay and Olympics, turbulence and harassment against China has never stopped. How gloomy was 2008! So I came up with an idea to hold class meeting and make a video to memorize the past 2008.

Then, in an open letter, he apologized to all those being “thundered”, and all the French people angered.

He insists that it is for not a single bit of education of hatred.

写这首“诗”的初衷是回顾2008年的历史,并没有宣扬对西方的仇恨,也不是宣扬暴力,更没有针对普通群众,一切以作者本人解释为准。在大家认为仇视西方民众的地方是在警告外国:2009年,不要再以任何借口挑衅中国!历史问题我们也一直记在心里!

My initial will to write the “poem” is to review the 2008, instead of a propaganda of hatred against the western, without any call for violence, and not directed to any civilians. Only my explanation is the standard interpretation. In points that many people think that show hatred to the western is actually a warning to them: in 2009, don't provoke China by any excuse! We have always kept the historical issues in mind!

He then interprets the poem word for word, and in places mentioning Sarkozy, he writes:

像萨科奇的立场,用猥琐的伎俩,摇晃着巍巍中华。
萨科奇对中国立场摇摆不定,造成了两国关系的地震


Earthquakes, shifting back and forth like the positions of Sarkozy, with his dirty tricks, trying to shake the great China.
(The Sarkozy's position towards China which blows hot and cold creates an earthquake on the international relation.)

On the most disputable piece, that “Just the aftershocks from the earthquake would destroy France!”, he writes,

不是指真的地震,比喻萨科奇的立场,是说两国关系的地震,并不仅仅对中国有影响,反作用力也会影响法国。这里,联系上下文就能理解,中国古诗经常有这种写法。对不懂中文的法国朋友表示道歉

It is not meant for the real earthquake, but figurative for Sarkozy's position and the quake on our relations. It doesn't only affect China, but France as well. Here, you can tell the point from the context. It is common in Chinese poems. Sorry to French who knows no Chinese.

And he clarifies why he compares China to a patched ship:

这里指多灾多难的民族

Our nation has suffered so much.

Do you buy his interpretation? All I know is that, netizens in Bullog.cn, mostly, say no. And a new tide of debate is going on.

23 comments

  • In the West, in Europe at least, we try to teach our children that hatred is bad but it seems the old, worn out dogmatist Communist Chinese leaders have not only not grown out of their murderous inclinations, they have reinforced it in their children.

    The Chinese people should realise that their doggone leaders are leading them to destruction. They should put these old corrupt pigs out of their misery before all of China become another mass grave like it was during their infamous cultural revolution.

  • Howard

    To France Blog:

    Please kindly be noted that the poem was from an “Angry Youth”, a plain teacher, a excited chinese netizen, rather than from any official release of the China government, or state control media, or any speeches of Communist Chinese leaders.

    And please kindly be reminded that the author of the poem has the right to express his opinion freely, no matter the communist leader like it or not.

  • Jay

    To Howard,

    I’m not sure if one can qualify a teacher in a public school who is recorded on video as someone who only expresses his own private opinion and not an official one. As a teacher, we have to communicate not our own views but the views that are relevant in national education – which are official national values and views – tell me if I’m wrong. In this respect, his own opinion in a public school is not any longer his own but – because it is approved by his superiors – official. Otherwise the video wouldn’t exist.

  • Debi S.

    As an American mother with two daughters, one of whom was born in China, this video recitation saddens me.
    I am always praising China and defending her here in the U.S., because I see so many wonderful strengths and so many incredible possibilities in this great country. And I am always teaching my daughter Xiaoxiao to be proud of her birth country.
    At the same time, I am doing my best to study Mandarin because I want to take Xiaoxiao back to China for an extended visit at some point. My family has hosted Chinese exchange teachers and other Chinese citizens, and a large part of my heart feels very Chinese. Hence my sadness over this incident.
    I truly hope that this “poem” is not an indication of a return of Chinese people to hatred of anything non-Chinese. Rather, I hope it is merely one individual’s poor choice of expression (it’s one thing to voice your own opinion — it is quite another thing to voice it through the mouths of young children, as the world’s most notorious villains have been wont to do…)

  • […] 03.01.: Hier einige Reaktionen chinesischer Internetnutzer mit englischer […]

  • altest

    All the commentaries from the western countries and anti-PCC readers makes me laugh ! Go to youtube and read the commentaries from mainland chinese readers and you will know that most of the mainland Chinese readers feel incredible and ridiculous that the teacher who wrote this poem and taught these poor little kids to read this poem. And I am sure that this can still happen in the poor and far away countryside in China just like in countries like France, germany, UK or US, there are still Nazi, KKK or skinheads groupuscules who are far more dangerous than this ignorant teacher or even communist member in some poor countryside in China.
    Stop blaming the PCC for all the bad things happened in China and to the actual Chinese leaders! Chinese people had been living in much more worse situation and human right conditions for thousands of years while China was under those emperors and as well as under the occupation by the so called democratic western powers for more than hundred years just in the last two centuries !
    The cause of the sufferings of most of the poor people all over the world like in most countries of the Africa, Asia, middle east are mainly because of the western powers !
    All the conflits in the world today are mainly the intentional purposes left by the old colonialists, the today’s most powerful western countries !
    PCC are not the best political party in this world, but it is not the worst neither ! The most important for China and for the world today is to keep China in peace and to make 1.3 billion people’s life better and better ! That is what the PCC is trying to do for the last 30 years !

  • BobChen

    @Debi S:
    believe me, there will always be Chinese with open mind. The trend to more clearly understand the world is irreversible, though drawbacks appear occasionally. If we have already accepted all the indoctrination indifferently, we won’t be surprised by the video.

  • Howard

    To altest:

    Just kindly remind you the abbreviation for Chinese Communist Party is “CCP” instead of “PCC”, which make people confused.

    To Jay:

    Perhaps you are right about what a teacher should say or should not say in classroom. But I think things like this always happen everyday everywhere. To keep it simple, just imagine what the teachers in exiled tibetan city, or in US-occupied Iraq, or in after-terrorist-attack New York, are teaching their kids…
    And a maybe extreme scenario: In the 1930-40’s, what do you think teachers in Japan-occupied China should teach their children? If different things were taught in classrooms, maybe now all chinese are speaking Japanese and eating Suchi everyday, hehe…
    And do you think kids in Iraq are praising Sam Uncle for ending Sadam’s dictatorship and bringing democracy to them? Just think about it…

  • […] Global Voices Online has sum up some Chinese comments as well. […]

  • Debi S.

    To Howard:

    What you said to Jay may be true, but I believe it is up to people like us to say that no matter where it occurs, teaching hatred is wrong.
    And for the most part, it is the governments and their military accomplices that do the things that people hate so much…it is not the people of the countries themselves.
    I would say that mothers throughout the world would rather live in peace and treat each other repectfully than perpetuate hatred, ignorance, and cultural misunderstandings. It is our children that die in wars, terrorist attacks, and gang violence.
    Look at any place in the world where violence is occurring, and I’m sure you will agree that civilians suffer the brunt of violence (all of which is born of hatred…all of which is caused by ignorance, fear, and misunderstanding).
    Education and sharing of knowledge, through blogs such as this, does much more to help the world than teachers indoctrinating youngsters into hate.

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