Here’s A Red Song Primer, complete with videos and lyrics, of the classic Chinese communist songs that everyone is supposed to be singing for the 90th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.

And if it all those thousands upon thousands of people singing those crazy red lyrics is a little too Cultural Revolution for you, you can read this about why it’s not as scary as it appears: Red Songs, Red Banners, Red Olympics…But where is the heart?

July 1st is CanadaChinese Communist Party Day! And what could be more appropriate than a little translated propaganda? It just so happens that the most galling bit of propaganda I’ve ever seen in our few years in China coincides with the CCP’s 90th birthday. After reading it, you’ll lose control of your adjectives, too.

Below is my abridged version of this English translation of this Chinese article from the official CCC/TSPM website.

I so wish I was making this up. As if helping the police bully detained worshipers wasn’t enough…

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Beijing Municipal Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee and China Christian Council Hold a Praise Concert to Celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party
北京市基督教两会举办庆祝建党90周年音乐赞美会

On June 11, the Beijing Municipal Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee and the China Christian Council held a praise concert at the Century Theatre called “One Heart, One Direction” in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the [Chinese Communist] Party.
[...]
Before the performance started, Cai Kui, chairman of the Beijing Municipal Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee, made these remarks on behalf of the many pastors and lay leaders in the capital. He said: “In the past 90 years, the Chinese Communist Party, while closely uniting people of various nationalities and various walks of life in China, has never stopped caring about and helping Chinese Christianity. Especially since the beginning of the new period [i.e. period of Communist Party rule], with the generous help of the Party and the government, churches have been built everywhere across China and great efforts have been made in training clergymen who actively engage in social work and walk a path compatible with socialism. At the same time that the living and working conditions of the vast number of clergymen have greatly improved, their social status and political treatment have also risen without interruption. Facts have proven that the Chinese Communist Party is sincere in its treatment of and support for the development of Chinese Christianity. And Chinese Christianity has already formed a constant and changeless relationship of co-dependency and mutual aid with the Chinese Communist Party and the Central People’s Government and will always be of one heart and on the same path with the Party and the government. As long as we adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party as we always have, adhere to serving the overall interests of the Party and the government, adhere to the policy of independence and autonomy in religion, adhere to being of one heart with and on the same path as the Party and the government and firmly abide by the Three-Self policy in the road ahead, then we will certainly create a more brilliant tomorrow for China.”
[...]
“Picking a Camellia Flower to Give to the Party” movingly expressed the gratitude of Christians toward the Party and the government for the many years of care and help they have given to Christianity…

The entire performance included both Christian hymns and revolutionary songs praising the Party … all the believers responded with round after round of enthusiastic applause. When the famous singer Liu Bingyi sang, “I Produce Petroleum for the Motherland,” his passionate song not only brought the whole concert to its climax, it also greatly inspired the audience’s love for the Party and the country.
[...]
The theme that was unfurled in this praise concert was that when everything is well with the Communist Party and the state, then everything will be well with the church. [The concert] once again demonstrated the Christians’ true feelings of support for the Party, love for the country and love of their religion, and expressed the eternal theme that Chinese Christianity has always been of one heart with and on the same path as the Chinese Communist Party and the Central People’s Government. In particular, the inscription by Pastor Yu Xinli on the title page of the program all the more expressed the deep gratitude of the many Christians on this 90th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party: “The Chinese Communist Party and the people of China have been of one heart and on the same path for 90 years, and the Party has led us from victory to victory, has brought about the revival of the Chinese nation and our lives are becoming better and better. May God bless our motherland and its people!”
[...]
[The concert] is a profound embodiment of the support of Beijing Christians for the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and their firm adherence to the path of loving their country and loving their religion. It is also a vivid portrayal of the support for and allegiance to the Party and the government on the part of the many Beijing Christians. … This will surely inspire all the Christian clergy of Beijing in their enthusiastic and indefatigable efforts in the construction of a “harmonious society!”

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I’m not the kind of person who takes a hardline black-and-white stance regarding Three-Self churches. And it’s possible this whole event isn’t meant to be taken literally; it could just be a big kowtow, a scripted sop that church leaders put up to please and appease their overlords, a big exercise in obligatory face-giving hierarchy-affirmation, similar to the relationship between illegal migrant street vendors and chéngguǎn (城管), that they are especially obligated to perform right now given the on-going weekly public standoff in Beijing between the authorities and a big TSPM-rejecting church. But with the prime criticism of China’s Three Self churches being that they are politically compromised tools of the explicitly and aggressively atheistic government, this kind of stuff isn’t helping.

Of course, we need to understand this outpouring of religious allegiance to the CCP in the context of what else happening in Beijing right now, i.e. the aforementioned unprecedented weekly showdown between the authorities and a large unregistered church that refuses to join the Three Self and refuses to stop meeting in public. You can catch up on that on-going story here:

• Happy Easter, China [Update #4] — Treatment of detainees deteriorates, shift in interrogation tactics
• Happy Easter, China [Update #3] — Formal petition calls Beijing out
• Happy Easter, China [Update #2]
• Happy Easter, China

You can see all our propaganda-themed stuff here. (Note: the word “propaganda” does not carry negative overtones in Chinese.) And if the original article link breaks, you can download the text and photos here: Chinese Communist Party Worship Service.doc.

China’s official Three-Self church is now helping interrogate Sunday morning detainees.

Nastiness, hacking & “education”
“We understand officers in the police stations tend to be a little nervous in this sensitive period, but we still don’t understand why officers from a few police stations showed signs that they are ignorant of the law and lack humanitarianism… May God have mercy on those people in this country who do such ignorant things as this.”

Why We Won’t Join the Three-Self Patriotic Association
“In reality, however, what we see is that, precisely because of this non-separation of church and state, a very ironic phenomenon has resulted: a Three-Self organization in name that claims to promote self-governance, self-support and self-propagation of churches but cannot achieve the same self-governance, self-support and self-propagation of itself.”

Interrogation Tactics Shift
“This clearly shows that the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee, which is ultimately controlled by the Communist Party, is directly involved…”

No Response to Pastors’ Joint-Petition

Shouwang Church Awaits Breakthrough Discussions with Authorities

Crammed onto Buses (The American Spectator)

Why Do Christian Groups in China Put Authorities on Red Alert? (Time)

Should the China Ambassador Worship at a House Church? (CT)

Church-state clash will tell China’s future (TNT)

Previous Updates:

• Happy Easter, China [Update #3] — Formal petition calls Beijing out
• Happy Easter, China [Update #2]
• Happy Easter, China

The carapace is tough but flexible. Biting down causes hot mush to burst out into your mouth. Two more chews and two squirts later it’s finally empty. You manage to down the bug guts in two or three swallows, but the outer shell is the challenging part. It takes a lot of chewing, and the thought of sliding it to the back of your mouth in order to swallow makes you wonder if you’ll gag. Your choice: try to swallow all of it quickly in one go and risk gagging, or chew and chew and chew, swallowing little shredded pieces of it at a time, prolonging the experience. You take the second option, feeling each piece of the exoskeleton slime across the back of your tongue and down your throat. Thankfully it doesn’t have much taste. And without legs and wings, it’s easier to eat than that giant cockroach in Thailand.

You can see more info and pictures of silk worm chrysalis (蚕蛹) here. I heard separately from friends and students that one of these things has the equivalent protein of three eggs.

We love this sidewalk BBQ place because of the 热闹 atmosphere. The wide sidewalks are usually filled with folding tables and stools and diners. This night we had to walk through the kitchen and eat in the back alley because three chéngguǎn were charged with doing nothing but standing on the opposite sidewalk from the afternoon until 12:30am to make sure none of these restaurants put out their tables! I went and complained to them. They were friendly, and said they had to manage that particular road (the restaurant is on the corner of a T-intersection). The other road, literally around the corner in plain view, had tables and stools and the usual illegal street vendors, but these three guys were only watching these particular restaurants on this particular road. All they did was stand there, for hours, looking at the opposite sidewalk. That’s how things work here. They’re the ones that said, Don’t worry, you can eat outside in the back alley.

The blurry, non-flash-or-tripod photo above on the right shows the true colours and lighting and warmth.

To put things in perspective, this place also offers giant (giant!) white snails, bullfrogs, the usual assorted animal organs, and… wait for it… sheep penis on a stick. So all things considered, silk worm larvae are not so far out of one’s comfort zone.

Related stuff:

• The Tianjin Chengguan Street Market Game
• Curiosity + China = way more than I bargained for
• Know your edible northern Chinese insects
• Dead puppies (don’t look, Grandma!) – menu included
• Snake soup
• Sheep brains (photo)
• An Irresistible Opportunity

Want something to get royally P.O.’d about? This oughtta do it.

UPDATE: Here’s an interesting piece of analysis regarding China’s Doctrine of Indifference, by which they do deals with the worst of the world’s governments.

In the interests of at least attempting to enter the 21st century, ChinaHopeLive.net is now Facebookified and Twitterized… I think. You can follow, subscribe, like, or do whatever it is called that people do by clicking the pretty boxes below or in the right sidebar. Let me know if something doesn’t work!

Thanks for reading!

In my (riveting) “Movie Class” this afternoon, I ask the students to tell me the kind of content that affects a movie’s rating. They start throwing out answers.

“Violence.”
“Nudity.”
“Sexuality.”
“Bad words.”
“Religion.”

“What?”

“Religion.”

“Why do you put religion in the same category as violence, nudity, profanity and sexuality?”

“Because it is harmful to the children.”

“Who told you religion is harmful to children?”

“My primary school teacher. She said we must believe in the science…”

“Well, who told her?”

Awkward giggles, but not too awkward. The students (all adults) know where I’m going with this. “You know a lot of scientists are also ‘religious’, right?”

My university age student isn’t trying to argue a point; he’s just repeating the answer he’s been told. He actually doesn’t know that religion doesn’t factor into movie ratings. Neither does a lot of the class,

“No, wait,” say some of the girls in the front, “They go to church at the end…”. The movie we’re discussing is Lassie, and they’ve just realized that the church scene apparently isn’t enough to tarnish its G rating.

“Right. Outside China religious content doesn’t affect a movie’s rating. Now, who remembers the proper word for ‘blood and guts’…?”

When I hear someone use “religion” and “harmful to children” in the same sentence, I immediately think of the “New Atheists”, not China’s education system. It’s funny — and telling — that I was reminded of them in this way. Apparently Chinese Communist Party education and New Atheist propaganda share certain similarities — who knew? ;)

史丹利杯

Pronounced: Shǐdānlì Bēi
Means: The Stanley Cup

加人

Pronounced: Jiārén
Means: Canucks

(Found this vocab here.)

爆炸

Pronounced: bàozhà
Means:
1. explosion; to explode.
2. What happened at a government building in Tianjin this week by a guy who wanted revenge on “society” (according to China’s state media). Example:
“An explosion happened at the front door of the Tianjin government.”
天津政府门前发生了爆炸。

报复社会

Pronounced: bàofù shèhuì
Means:
1. Get revenge on society.
2. The alleged motivation of the guy who set off a bomb at a government building in Tianjin this week.

Pronounced: tòng zǎi / cǎn
Means: “painfully slaughter” / “wretched; miserable; badly“.

Words used to describe a sports team getting its butt kicked. For example:
“Boston just totally slaughtered Vancouver.”
波士頓痛宰了温哥华！
“Vancouver lost miserably.”
温哥华输得很惨！