This Generation (13 page)

7. Judging from the asking price of six thousand yuan, Yibin's income levels are on the low side.

8. Men with a taste for this kind of thing will have picked up some hints on how to go about it.

August 8, 2009

Today I saw a list
of prominent Chinese actors and performers (some of whom star in the movie
The Founding of a Republic
),
¹⁷
along with their current nationalities:

Chen Kaige: USA

Joan Chen: USA

Jiang Wenli: USA

Lang Lang: Hong Kong

Zhang Ziyi: Hong Kong

Liu Xuan: Hong Kong

Chen Ming: Canada

Wei Wei: Germany

Jet Li: Singapore

Chen Hong: USA

Wu Junmei: USA

Hu Jing: USA

Li Yundi: France

Hu Jun: Hong Kong

Tong Ange: Canada

Zhang Tielin: UK

Shen Xiaoqin: Australia

Siqin Gaowa: Switzerland

Liu Yifei: USA

Gu Changwei: USA

Wang Ji: USA

Jiang Wen: France

Tang Wei: Hong Kong

Xu Fan: Canada

Xu Qing: Japan

Su Jin: New Zealand

Hu Bing: Thailand.

That so many stars have acquired foreign passports will doubtless provoke a good deal of negative comment. “Hey, why is this?” people are bound to ask. “It was the Chinese film industry and Chinese audiences that made you famous—how can you turn out in the end to be a foreign national?”

I don't see it that way myself. Never mind the obvious benefits of having a foreign passport, like crossing borders more conveniently, enjoying greater freedom, and avoiding taxes, it seems to me that when so many artists change their nationality, their native country itself has to bear some responsibility. We hear a lot of talk about an individual's obligations, but a nation has obligations, too. It is only under exceptional circumstances that the state's legitimate interests are more important than anything else.

When so many people choose to live elsewhere, it shows that after the founding of our republic many important tasks have yet to be accomplished—otherwise, by now there would be plenty of foreigners with Chinese nationality eager to work as crew members or play the role of villainous characters in our historical dramas. For performers of Chinese origin to swap one passport for another is a choice they have made, and this choice is just like a decision to divorce—maybe it's because of irreconcilable differences or maybe because they've found a more suitable partner. Perhaps they can be reproached on moral grounds, but there is no reason to impugn their character. You can't really guarantee that you wouldn't make the same choice, can you? You there at your monitor—if offered U.S. citizenship, what would you do?

As for myself, I'm happy enough with Chinese nationality. It's true that it entails paying a great deal of tax without much to show for it and having a lot of hoops to jump through when you want to travel abroad, but that's about it.

As for the population at large, holding Chinese nationality may well mean that you can hardly afford to eat, or pay rent, or have fun, or marry, or have children, or get sick, or die, but what it means most crucially is that you can't afford to emigrate, so when
people see how you lot have all flown the coop, they're bound to be pissed off.

I don't expect to change my nationality in the foreseeable future. But as you read this, don't forget that just as the nation imposes conditions on you, you can also set your own conditions on it. My condition is: It doesn't matter to me that the country I love does hardly anything at all to protect the rights of people like me in the writing profession, nor do I care that this nation turns a blind eye when the profit on the sale of any real estate property matches the income of China's biggest publishing house, but I'm very fond of children and may well not be able to restrict myself to having a single child—and certainly won't take kindly to someone from the planned-births association putting a finger on my wife—so if I'm so careless as to have one child too many, I will have to stop being a citizen of this country—or at least the mainland part of it.

“Hah, who cares what you think?” you may well say.

That's true, but I care even less what other people think. If we're so indifferent to each other's views, maybe we should just divorce. Just look at the names on the list—they all come across as decent people, no?

September 3, 2009

Several days ago I traveled
from the heavenly dynasty to the island nation of Australia to monitor the preparations for the World Rally Championship. As I got off the plane, my first impression was poor: To my dismay, no reception party of primary schoolchildren pounding on waist-drums was there to greet us. And I had hardly walked a few yards before I realized that Australia is not just an island nation but a bird nation: A number of different species were roaming around as they pleased—a most unseemly spectacle.

The World Rally Championship is the world's highest-level rally competition, but in the last couple of years the Chinese Rally Championship has been advancing by leaps and bounds and promises soon to overtake it. When I arrived on the Gold Coast, the site of the rally championship, I discovered that the economy there is extremely backward. The price of a large villa with swimming pool is no more than that of a hundred-square-meter apartment in Shanghai. The local inhabitants live in wretched conditions: On
the way from the airport to the hotel, I did not see a single Mercedes, BMW, or Audi, and the local government is so poor it cannot afford to erect a single toll plaza on the freeway.

When it came to tracing the rally route, there soon emerged even more compelling evidence of China's superiority. Reviewing the first stage, I found to my astonishment that members of the local animal rights association were holding up signs that read, “Go away, WRC.” There are actually people there opposed to holding the rally championship! This really defies understanding. What boggles the imagination even more is that the local government can be so weak and powerless as to tolerate the conspicuous display of these placards on houses by the side of the road. I can't help but think what would happen if such unharmonious signs were to appear at our own rally championship: Not only would everyone in positions of authority down to the mayor and village head lose their jobs, but the person who dreamed up this lark could say good-bye to their monthly pension as well.

This small bunch of troublemakers, I'm told, is opposed to the rally championship on the grounds that our rally cars might hit and kill kangaroos. Little do they know that in our country hitting and killing people is not a big deal. Of course, party and government organs won't let this happen during the duration of the rally—they will give the race priority and close off the route completely. Our country's motto is: Dogs and children must be leashed; chickens and women must be penned. In our country, one hundred percent of the people support this kind of major competitive event, because those who don't support it forfeit the right to count as people—they count only as reactionaries.

After observing the low level of awareness among the local residents, I went on to inspect the other stages of the rally route, and it became apparent that the economy here is truly on its last legs. With so many farms and vacant lots sporting for sale signs, people here are stone-broke. I even began to worry that a driver from China like myself might be kidnapped for ransom. All those days I was
there I never saw a single policeman, which goes to show how weak the forces of law and order are. The only way to protect myself was to announce at every opportunity that back in China I am neither a member of the Communist Party nor a real estate developer.

Speaking of police, when the Chinese Rally Championship is held, the government gives it enormous attention, assigning up to a thousand policemen to manage traffic in the vicinity and maybe sending in military police and infantry for good measure; even a hen that strays onto the race route will be summarily shot. But the Australian government has clearly failed to allocate adequate management resources. I didn't see a single policeman along the whole three-hundred-kilometer route, but I did spot a snake as thick as a man's thigh wriggling across the road, which gave the driver a great fright. Competitors with a fear of reptiles will be unable to perform at their top level or exhibit their best style.

The World Rally Championship referees are a shabby lot. On a route inspection in China, there's no need to consult the map—just look out for the police sentry stations and you'll be on the right road, and you'll find the referee station where there's a big clump of people. It's all very imposing. But at the WRC I couldn't see any referees at the spot marked on the map—I had to get out of the car and ask an elderly couple who were having a picnic where I could find them. It turned out
they
were the referees! Can't they do better than that?

On the second leg, it was a similar situation—a pair of lovers under an umbrella. I thought at first they were fishing! They offered me a piece of candy, but I remembered the education I received as a youngster—this had to be a capitalist sugar-coated bullet, so I refused it.

Preparations for the special stages were a complete bomb. The competitive stage that I visited was due to take place on a city thru-way. I got there at 6:30, but even by 7:30 the road had not been closed off. How can they be so sloppy in their urban management work? Don't they know that without some brisk beatings of drivers
who dare to encroach on the rally route (state-owned property, after all!), one will never be able to seal off a roadway promptly? If this kind of competition were held in our country, three days before the race the road would have been closed, and both sides of the road would be given a new coat of paint—and the grass would be given a new coat of paint, too. That'd be sure to give the drivers an excellent impression, and demonstrate our government's consistently strong posture—toward its own people, that is.

Although the competition has yet to begin, I can tell you right now that the international car league and the Chinese car league are not at all on the same level. Competitions abroad only make a fuss about inspections—because my driving shoes had a hole in them, for example, I almost failed the inspection. In China, on the other hand, you're completely free to compete in a race wearing dress shoes. Our car inspections just involve checking the manufacturer—if you apply to drive a Subaru, say, and turn up in a Subaru and not on a kangaroo, then you will pass the inspection just fine. There's plenty of wiggle room on stuff like engine displacement, upgrade, and model. The international standard of inspection is simply too rigid, too lacking in flexibility: It doesn't allow enough room for individual preferences and wreaks havoc with one's profits. Also, every time I go somewhere in China, the local leadership warmly greets me and expresses the hope that I'll help promote the development of the local economy. “Sure,” I tell them, “I'll be happy to take a picture of the city government offices and post it online to show how well you're doing.” I don't know why, but they always modestly decline this offer. But I spent a full three days in Australia, and never had the chance to meet the local leadership. I feel this is a shocking breach of etiquette. Most discourteous of all—I was never able to locate their local government offices, for I often mistook them for portable toilets. A country like this, so indifferent to the image of its government—how could it ever run a proper competition?

Australia's World Rally Championship is staring failure in the
face. On China's behalf, I invite the Australian rally stages to shift their location to China. I can guarantee you will find absolutely no “unharmonious” phenomena here. Instead, there will be cars to drive, meals to savor, cash to spend, and whores to bed. Of course, if you take a fancy to our country and get the idea of living there permanently, better forget that—there's no way you can afford to buy one of our homes.