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posts related to Chinese language

Soft resistance

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Source: NYT (8/20/25)
Hong Kong Officials Harden Their Stance on ‘Soft Resistance’
With pro-democracy movements long squashed, the government is targeting any hint of subtler expressions of discontent. Even establishment figures say it may be too much.
By Joy Dong, Reporting from Hong Kong

A room crowded with people and stalls selling books.

An independent book fair in Hong Kong last month. A pro-Beijing newspaper said the fair was “full of soft-resistance intentions.”Credit…Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Hong Kong authorities have a new favorite buzzword: “soft resistance.”

The phrase, which is used to describe anything seen as covertly subversive or insidiously defiant against the government, is showing up in news reports, speeches by top officials, and warnings from government departments. Officials and propaganda organs have warned of the threat of possible “soft resistance” in a book fair, music lyrics, a U.S. holiday celebration and environmental groups.

The term and its widespread official use reflect the political climate of a city that has been transformed since Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020, after quashing mass pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019.

Protests disappeared, and the political opposition was largely dismantled by the yearslong crackdown that followed. Now, with such “hard resistance” held at bay, the authorities appear to be targeting what they see as the next threat: subtler, inconspicuous expressions of discontent.

Officials have warned that Hong Kong continues to be threatened by foreign forces, led by the United States, that seek to destabilize Hong Kong in order to block China’s rise. To the authorities, “soft resistance” is nothing short of a national security threat, and at least a dozen senior officials have used the term in recent weeks. Warning signs include messaging that is deemed to be critical of the government or sympathetic to the opposition or to protesters, whom the authorities have described as rioters or terrorists. Continue reading Soft resistance →

China through the Camera Lens

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NEW PUBLICATION: China through the Camera Lens: A Multimedia Reader for Advanced Chinese
镜头中的中国: 多媒体高年级中文读本
By Shuqin Cui, Ying Gao, Hsin-hsin Liang, and Julian Wheatley.
Routledge, 2024. ISBN 9781032487045. 302 Pages 84 Color Illustrations

Description

China through the Camera Lens combines Chinese language learning with film analysis, offering a unique and comprehensive learning experience beyond traditional methods.

The book consists of twelve chapters, each based on a carefully selected short film or video. Each chapter is divided into a presentation section and a practice section. The presentation includes short narratives illustrated with color screen shots, with vocabulary glossed alongside for easy reference. It also introduces relevant film terms to help students focus on filmmaking techniques as well as the content of the films. The practice sections cover word collocations, near synonyms, word meanings, idiomatic phrases, paragraph structure, topics for class discussion, composition practice, and extended reading. By integrating short films, cultural insights, and film analysis, learners not only enhance their language skills but also gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between film and content.

This book is an innovative and engaging advanced Chinese language textbook that immerses advanced Chinese learners in language and culture through short films and videos.

Nepo babies with connections and resources

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Source: China Digital Times (5/15/25)
Words of the Week: “Nepo Babies With Connections and Resources” (关系咖 guānxi kā, 资源咖 zīyuán kā)
By Cindy Carter

The recent “4+4” scandal, which started with the public exposure of one doctor’s extramarital affairs and medical malpractice, has morphed into a broader societal discussion about medical and personal ethics, research fraud, “returnee” students, intergenerational privilege, nepotism, and more. The themes of privilege and nepotism seem to have resonated most deeply with Chinese netizens, particularly given China’s cutthroat job market and stubbornly high unemployment rates for young workers and recent graduates. Most galling to many was the revelation of an exclusive “4+4” medical doctoral program at prestigious Peking Union Medical College: a fast-track program that would allow certain students with four-year bachelor’s degrees (even those unrelated to medicine) from certain elite universities to obtain a Ph.D. in medicine in only four additional years, compared to a much longer timeline for most aspiring Chinese doctors.

In a WeChat essay about what the “4+4” scandal reveals about the “second-generation privilege” enjoyed by those whose well-connected parents are able to smooth their way into desirable internships, academic programs, and sought-after jobs, essayist and commentator Xipo (“Western Slope”) wrote: “Amid deteriorating [socioeconomic] circumstances, second-generation scions may happily ‘settle’ for enjoying their second-generation privilege, but today’s bona-fide ‘first generation,’ those with no parental legacy to lean on, suffer a dual blow. There are fewer opportunities available to them, and increasingly unfair competition for the few opportunities that do remain.”

The dialogue surrounding the “4+4” scandal also reveals a wealth of slang words and phrases used to describe nepotism, connections, social capital, and intergenerational privilege. Two words in particular are worth a closer examination: 关系咖 (guānxi kā) and 资源咖 (zīyuán kā) are used to refer to “well-connected” and “well-resourced” nepo babies, respectively. Another possible translation for these terms might be “well-connected scions” and “well-resourced scions.” Both feature the character 咖 (kā), employed as a suffix in Hokkien-dialect words such as 大咖 (dà kā), meaning a “big shot” or powerful high-flying type. (RealTime Mandarin’s Andrew Methven provides some fascinating background on the etymology and use of 咖 in contemporary Chinese slang.) Continue reading Nepo babies with connections and resources →

Fundamental Structures of the Chinese Language

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New Publication
Fundamental Structures of the Chinese Language: Topic-Comment and Other Key Structures (Routledge, 2024)
By Taciana Fisac, Riccardo Moratto

Fundamental Structures of the Chinese Language is an exceptional resource for understanding how Chinese grammar functions in natural discourse.

This book departs from the conventional approach of superimposing grammatical constructs from English onto Chinese and focuses on the topic–comment structure inherent in the Chinese language. Constructions that are usually considered complex or challenging for students whose mother tongues are subject–verb–object languages will be more easily understandable with this analysis. Simple and complex verbal structures are discussed in depth with the incorporation of the aspect category, which provides an enormous richness of nuances in the internal development of the action, and word order is considered one of the key features of the Chinese language. All the explanations are applied to numerous examples of real Chinese texts.

This textbook is a valuable resource for students, teachers, and researchers in Chinese language courses including Chinese translation, Chinese linguistics, and comparison linguistics in general.

Posted by: Regina Llamas <regina.llamas@ie.edu>

‘Rat people’

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Source: South China Morning Post (4/14/25)
China slang term ‘rat people’ for those who shun success, attracts 2 billion views
New low-energy lifestyle choice sees young people slouch in bed, live on takeaway food, avoid socialising, embrace being a recluse
By Zoey Zhang

A new slang term, “rat people”, is being embraced by millions of young people in China who shun success and lead a sluggish lifestyle. Photo: SCMP composite/Shutterstock

Young people in China who shy away from success and embrace low-energy lifestyles are calling themselves “rat people”, a slang term that has gained widespread attention online.

Unlike the hyper-disciplined crowd that usually gets up at 5am, goes to the gym, and powers through packed schedules, so-called rat people live in the slow lane.

They spend their days in bed, live on takeaway food, avoid socialising, and have no clear goals in life. The term took off after a video appeared online in late February, in which a young woman from Zhejiang province in eastern China, known as @jiawensishi, shared her day of extreme lethargy.

She stayed in bed for three hours after waking, washing up, then sleeping for another five hours. Continue reading ‘Rat people’ →

Global China Pulse 3.2

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Global China Pulse
Volume 3, Issue 2, 2024
China’s Linguistic Frontiers (download pdf here)

Table of Contents

Mandarin Hegemony: The Past and Future of Linguistic Hierarchies in China
Gina Anne Tam

Navigating Linguistic Hierarchies in Tibet
Dak Lhagyal

‘Two Chinas’ and Two Chinese Languages in Northern Thailand
Po-Yi Hung

Confucius Institutes and the Spread of Mandarin Chinese in Africa
Simbarashe Gukurume

A Chinese Conversation Nādi in Cairo: The Grassroots Popularity of Mandarin Chinese in the Middle East
Jie Wang

Learning Mandarin, Interpreting Chinese Characters: An African Christian Exegesis
Justin Lee Haruyama

Playing with the Rules at Duck Express: Workplace Banter at a Chinese Restaurant in Nairobi
Amanda Kaminsky

‘Chinese English’ Interactions, Jokes, and Frictions on Chinese Construction Sites in Ghana
Costanza Franceschini

-Ache, Cow Pussy, and Dick Hair: Vulgarity in Chinese Internet Language
Gabriele de Seta

Making Global Citizens: Framing China’s Encounter with English
Eric S. Henry

Character Amnesia in China
David Moser

How China is erasing Tibetan culture

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Here’s snippet of a long, multimedia-based article on the Chinese government’s efforts to erase Tibetan culture.–Kirk Denton

Source: NYT (1/9/25)
How China is Erasing Tibetan Culture, One Child at a Time
By Chris Buckley

China Central Television

Across China’s west, the party is placing children in boarding schools in a drive to assimilate a generation of Tibetans into the national mainstream and mold them into citizens loyal to the Communist Party.

Tibetan rights activists, as well as experts working for the United Nations, have said that the party is systematically separating Tibetan children from their families to erase Tibetan identity and to deepen China’s control of a people who historically resisted Beijing’s rule. They have estimated that around three-quarters of Tibetan students age 6 and older — and others even younger — are in residential schools that teach largely in Mandarin, replacing the Tibetan language, culture and Buddhist beliefs that the children once absorbed at home and in village schools.

When China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, visited one such school in the summer, he inspected a dormitory that appeared freshly painted and as neat as an army barracks. He walked into a classroom where Tibetan students, listening to a lecture on Communist Party thought, stood and applauded to welcome him.

Mr. Xi’s visit to the school in Qinghai Province in June amounted to a firm endorsement of the program, despite international criticism. Education, he said, must “implant a shared consciousness of Chinese nationhood in the souls of children from an early age.”

Chinese officials say the schools help Tibetan children to quickly become fluent in the Chinese language and learn skills that will prepare them for the modern economy. They say that families voluntarily send their children to the schools, which are free, and that the students have classes in Tibetan culture and language. . . [READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE (paywall)]

‘Aim the rifle an inch higher’

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Source: China Digital Times (12/12/24)
Words of the Week: “Aim the Rifle an Inch Higher” (枪口抬高一厘米, qiāngkǒu táigāo yī límǐ)
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What to do when the law and basic humanity are in opposition? The Chinese internet has an answer: “Aim the rifle an inch higher” (枪口抬高一厘米, qiāngkǒu táigāo yī límǐ). The phrase is shorthand for subverting orders that violate one’s conscience.

“Aim the rifle an inch higher” has its origin in historical fact. In 1992, two former East German border guards were convicted of fatally shooting Chris Gueffroy as he fled across the no man’s land that divided East and West Berlin. While rendering the guilty verdict, the presiding judge of the trial stated: “At the end of the 20th century, no one has the right to ignore his conscience when it comes to killing people on behalf of the power structure.” After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, an apocryphal version of the German judge’s closing statement began to circulate on the Chinese internet: “You had the power to aim your rifle one inch higher.” The phrase’s true origin stretches back even further, to the 1954 film “Reconnaissance Across the Yangtze.” In that film, a veteran Nationalist soldier advises a new recruit not to shoot to kill at advancing Communist troops so as to accrue potential amnesty in case they are defeated and taken prisoner: “When we’re in battle, aim your rifle an inch higher; that’s how you accumulate hidden merit.”

The phrase is now ubiquitous. As rapt Chinese netizens watched South Korean civilians block the military from occupying the National Assembly in Seoul last week—scenes that brought to mind the “Tank Man” of 1989—some commentators mocked the military’s restraint. In a now-censored essay, one author hailed the South Korean military’s decision not to use force, noting it as a real-life example of “aiming the rifle an inch higher.” Some have also used the phrase metaphorically to encourage China’s domestic security forces or online censors to shirk their duties so as to allow citizens greater freedom of expression. In a note addressed to China’s internet police after authorities shut down a 2016 in-person symposium of former Tsinghua University Red Guards, organizer Sun Nutao wrote: Continue reading ‘Aim the rifle an inch higher’ →

Newly-digitized issues of the National Language Monthly

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Dear colleagues,

I’m pleased to announce that the Bibliothèque des études chinoises at Collège de France has finished digitizing its fourteen issues of the National Language Monthly 國語月刊 (including the famous 1922 special issue on script reform) which are now available in high resolution and open access for everyone to enjoy.

Please find all available issues at this the link.

Best wishes,

Dr. Coraline Jortay <coraline.jortay@cnrs.fr>
Chargée de recherche / Research Fellow
CNRS / French National Centre for Scientific Research

Soundless saturation / quietly nourishing

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Source: China Media Project (9/18/24)
Soundless Saturation / Quietly Nourishing 润物无声
By Alex Colville

An idiom inspired by a classic Tang Dynasty poem is now a modifier commonly used in the official political speech of the CCP to refer to the need to innovate the party’s communication of its political and social agendas — ultimately making them more palatable, and more easily accepted.

As major state-run media, online influencers and propaganda pundits gathered in Shanghai in August 2024 for a conference on how to best innovate international communication, the event’s theme drew on a Chinese idiom, or chengyu (成语), with its origins in classical Chinese poetry. “Soundless Saturation” (润物无声), the four characters splashed across the conference’s promotional poster, a map of the globe faintly visible behind.

This evocative phrase, which could also be translated “quietly nourishing,” references an early spring drizzle falling gently over the world. It is a colorful phrase that now describes the drive by the Chinese Communist Party leadership for more innovative and evocative deployment of state propaganda themes both domestically and internationally. The phrase expresses a trend in CCP thinking about the need for more subtle and effective means to disseminate and inculcate the party’s thoughts and agendas. Continue reading Soundless saturation / quietly nourishing →

Beyond Citizenship review

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Frederik H. Green’s review of Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945, by Di Luo. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/green3/. My thanks to Nicholas Kaldis, our literary studies book review editor, for ushering the review to publication.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and
Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945

By Di Luo

Reviewed by Frederik H. Green

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright August, 2024)

Di Luo, Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945 Leiden: Brill, 2022. Xviii + 282 pp. ISBN 9789004524736 (Hardback) | ISBN 9789004524743 (eBook).

Di Luo’s highly engaging monograph Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945, explores the intricate relationship between literacy and the rise of the nation state in Republican-period China. Luo does not focus on the means through which gains in literacy were achieved or the tangible and intangible benefits improved literacy rates presented to the newly educated citizens or the nation state. Rather, Luo’s interest lies in the question of how the practice of literacy training in itself shaped the relationship between the state and the various actors involved in literacy training, including administrators, policy makers, local cadres, teachers, and students. Literacy training remained high on the agenda of both the GMD (KMT) and the CCP throughout the first part of the twentieth century, yet there existed distinct differences in each party’s respective discourse regarding the form and purpose of literacy training as well as in the ways each party named and presented illiteracy. Luo’s intention is not to demonstrate whether the GMD’s or the CCP’s strategies for literacy training were more successful. Instead, she illustrates through a number of fascinating case studies how the various actors involved perceived the role and value of those efforts and what differences existed in the way success was recorded, measured, and presented differently by the GMD and CCP. By putting the training process at the center of her analysis, as the reader is informed in the introduction, Luo highlights the “agentive role of historical actors and their participatory experience in meaning-making, rather than literacy per se” (18). To Luo, literacy training is a social process the importance of which to the making of modern China does not rest on the practice of learning alone, but equally “on the practices of sponsoring, managing, teaching, and representing” (20). In order to document this social process and the multi-dimensional practices the GMD and CCP engaged in, Luo carefully studied government and other official records in over a dozen major libraries and archives in China and the US. The result is an eye-opening study that captivates its reader through both its depths and breath and that spans from the late Qing until the first years of the People’s Republic. Continue reading Beyond Citizenship review →

‘Garbage time of history’

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Source: China Digital Times (8/1/24)
Word of the Week: Garbage Time of History (历史的垃圾时间, LÌSHǏ DE LĀJĪ SHÍJIĀN)
B y 

When the result of a sporting match becomes a foregone conclusion and lesser players are subbed in to run out the clock, announcers often term it “garbage time.” The latest term to sweep the Chinese internet holds that nations, too, experience a similar phenomenon: the “garbage time of history” (历史的垃圾时间, lìshǐ de lājī shíjiān). Coined by the essayist Hu Wenhui in a 2023 WeChat post, “the garbage time of history” refers to the period when a nation or system is no longer viable—when it has ceased to progress, but has not yet collapsed. Hu defined it as the point at which “the die is cast and defeat is inevitable. Any attempt to struggle against it is futile.” Hu’s sweeping essay led with Soviet stagnation under Brezhnev and then jumped nimbly between the historiography of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty and Lu Xun’s opinions on Tang Dynasty poetry. Unasserted but implied in the essay is that China today finds itself in similar straits. CDT has translated a small portion of the essay to illustrate its main points:

During Brezhnev’s nearly 20 years in power (1964-1982), the New Russian Empire lashed out in all directions, and even seemed capable of taking down mighty Uncle Sam. Today, with the advantage of hindsight, it is easy to recognize that [the Soviet] colossus had feet of clay, and was a hollow shell riven with internal difficulties. The 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, in particular, plunged the empire into a quagmire. It would be fair to say that the 1989 fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union both began in 1979.

I am willing to state unequivocally that the “garbage time” of the Soviet Union began in 1979. Gorbachev only hastened the end of that garbage era.

[…] In [Chinese-American historian] Ray Huang’s opinion, the history of the Ming Dynasty came to an end in 1587, during the fifteenth year of the Wanli Emperor’s reign. The subtext of Huang’s “macro-historical” viewpoint is that that was the year in which all of Chinese history came to an end, as well. The rest, including the remaining three hundred years of the Qing Dynasty, had lost any historical “significance” and were nothing more than a “garbage time” in history.

[…] In history, as in all competitive sports, there will always be some garbage time. When that time comes, the die is cast and defeat is inevitable. Any attempt to struggle against it is futile, and the best you can hope for is to reach the end with as much dignity as possible. [Chinese] Continue reading ‘Garbage time of history’ →

Lying down or impossible to get ahead

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Source: China Digital Times (6/10/24)
Quote of the Day: “Not So Much ‘Lying Down’ as Finding It Impossible to Get Ahead”
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Today’s quote of the day derives from netizen backlash to the Communist Youth League’s (CYL) recent video broadside against “lying down”—referring to the much-discussed phenomenon of people slacking off, quietly giving up, or dropping out of the rat race as a means of coping with a hyper-competitive society that treats workers as “huminerals” to be relentlessly exploited and ultimately discarded.

The video, widely circulated on the Chinese internet, was titled “CYL Central Committee: ‘Only a Tiny Minority Are Truly Lying Down, While the Vast Majority Are Working Tirelessly.’” This was followed by an online survey that asked viewers to choose whether they were among the “tiny majority who lie down” or “the vast majority who work tirelessly.” To the amusement of many online observers, and at odds with the propagandistic tone and intent of the video, fully 93 percent of respondents confessed to being among that “tiny majority” of slackers, while only seven percent identified themselves as card-carrying members of the “vast majority” of indefatigable workers.

Columnist, pop psychologist, and WeChat blogger Tang Yinghong (唐映红, Táng Yìnghóng) put an interesting spin on the survey, cautioning that while most of the respondents were probably jesting, the CYL was likely correct in declaring that only a tiny minority were inclined to “lie down” because slacking off is a luxury that only the privileged few can afford. The vast majority of Chinese young people, Tang wrote, are simply too busy struggling to make a living to even contemplate dropping out or slowing down: Continue reading Lying down or impossible to get ahead →

School of Cantonese Studies 2024

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School of Cantonese Studies 2024

School of Cantonese Studies 2024 will be jointly organized by Hong Kong Metropolitan University and the Education University of Hong Kong. The theme of School 2024 is Cantonese studies with a comparative approach. Speakers of the School will highlight the special features of Cantonese through comparisons with other major languages such as Standard Chinese and English. Topics in this 4-day School include phonology, grammar, language and society, historical development of Cantonese, IT in Cantonese learning and teaching.

Date: 12 – 15 August 2024 (Mon to Thu), am and pm
Venue: Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Homantin, Hong Kong

*Medium of instruction: Cantonese supplemented with English and Putonghua.

https://www.hkmu.edu.hk/fmo/campus-information/directions-to-campus/

About the SchoolSchool of Cantonese Studies was first organized in 2019 at the Education University of Hong Kong from 27 to 31 May 2019.The aims of the School are as follows:(a) to introduce recent developments and knowledge on different domains in Cantonese Studies to the participants;

(b) to introduce systematic and rigorous methodologies for conducting research on Cantonese;

(c) to provide a venue for scholarly exchange and interaction between scholars and participants of different backgrounds who are interested in Cantonese Studies.

The five-day event covered nine lectures delivered by twelve scholars specializing in Cantonese studies. There were 60 participants coming from different parts of the world. [See https://www.eduhk.hk/lml/scs2019/en/]

The School of 2021 (online mode) carried the theme “Cantonese Studies in the Digital Age”. In the two-day event, speakers of the School introduced some up-to-date Cantonese studies involving digital technologies, such as corpus-based research, online tools and resources for Cantonese studies, and digital processing of Cantonese corpus data. [see https://www.eduhk.hk/lml/scs2021/en/]

Continue reading School of Cantonese Studies 2024 →

Chengyu for Xi Jinping’s New Era

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Scroll down for Part 2.–Kirk Denton

Source: China Digital Times (5/14/24)
Chengyu for Xi Jinping’s New Era (Part 1)
By 

Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of the law. Without further ado, here are the five entries that make up Part 1 of CDT’s “New Era chengyu” compilation:

Yunhao Blocks the Plow (云浩止耕, Yúnhào zhǐ gēng)

Ji Doesn’t Know the Law (纪不懂法, Jì bù dǒng fǎ)

Repaying Debt With Prison Time (以刑化债, yǐ xíng huà zhài)

Calculating Damages by Lantern-Light (提灯定损, tídēng dìng sǔn)

Fishing the High Seas (远洋捕捞, yuǎnyáng bǔlāo) [Chinese]

Yunhao Blocks the Plow (云浩止耕, Yúnhào zhǐ gēng)

In April of this year, an undercover reporting team captured a shocking incident in Inner Mongolia’s Kailu County: village cadres blocking villagers from plowing fields on the eve of the make-or-break planting season. The reporters were with the state-run outlet Reports on China’s Three Rural Issues (中国三农发布, Zhōngguó sānnóng fābù) and they had traveled to Kailu after receiving a mass of complaints from villagers that officials were prohibiting them from planting—unless the villagers agreed to pay extortionate fees. The provenance of the dispute dates back two decades, when a nearly 1,000 acre (5600 mu) parcel of land was contracted out to villagers on a thirty-year lease. Since then, through diligent irrigation and stewardship, the land has been transformed from a palace where “even rabbits wouldn’t shit” to a viable corn field. But this year, local cadres were demanding that villagers pay an extra 200 yuan per mu tax before being allowed to plant—a fee that villagers insisted was illegal. The undercover state-media reporters captured footage of cadres blocking plows, accusing villagers of illegally occupying public land, and chiding them that calling the police was useless. One official, the village deputy Party secretary Ji Yunhao, was particularly egregious in his conduct, threatening villagers, “So what if 110 [China’s 911 emergency hot-line number] officers arrive? The higher-ups ordered me to collect money, so that’s what I’m going to do.” Ji was relieved of his position after the video attracted public criticism. However, there has been no official statement on Ji’s seemingly falsified resume, which came to light after his bullying behavior went viral. Continue reading Chengyu for Xi Jinping’s New Era →