"More than one in three smokers worldwide is Chinese, and a million Chinese people die each year from cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and other smoking-related causes. (Secondhand smoke gets credit for another hundred thousand deaths, give or take, every year in China.) But tobacco companies knew they could be doing even better, so, according to internal documents that were disclosed in the course of litigation in recent years, transnational tobacco companies took matters into their own hands. Combing through internal company documents, a team of researchers, led by the Mayo Clinic and published in 2008 by the Public Library of Science Medicine, concluded that cigarette makers launched “a multifaceted strategy for undermining the adoption of restrictions.” How exactly?" [emphasis added]
Bizarre. "Little Rabbit, Be Good," a Chinese New Year satire horror tale that was quickly banned from the Chinese interwebs.
Translation below the video, with h/t to ChinaGeeks. (Click that link for an interesting analysis, with translated Chinese netizen reactions to the vid.)
Translation
It’s a little tough to translate a video, so we’ll go by time code here. 0:00: Disclaimer: 1) This film may make people uncomfortable, and children are forbidden to watch it. 2) This film is meant as an adult fairy tale, and has no connection to real life. 3) This film is only meant to be shared during the 2011 New Years’ (Spring Festival) Greetings period, so please don’t pass it around after that. 0:00-0:06: Opening titles: A 2011 Spring Festival Greetings Card 0:14: Kuang Kuang: Wishing you a happy Spring Festival, from Xiao Hong. 0:17: Book cover: “Little Rabbit Kuang Kuang” 0:21: Text in book: Far far in the future, there was a beautiful forest… 0:21-0:26: Singing: “Little white rabbit, white as snow, two ears standing upright” 0:27-0:29: Side of truck reads: “Three Tiger Milk1. Good tiger milk so rabbit moms can relax.” 0:27-0:36: Singing: “They jump and bounce around, so cute, they like eating carrots and vegetables, they like eating vegetables.” 0:42-0:50: Singing: “Little rabbit, be good, open your mouth, open it up quickly, and drink up your happy future.” 0:52: Text on cave wall: Big Tiger Cave. Serve the rabbits. Build a harmonious forest. 0:55: Text on red banner: Build a Harmonious Forest2. 1:00-1:03: “No one move. Let the leaders go first!”3 1:05-1:13: Singing: “Little rabbits, be good, get out of the road, quickly get out of the way, the leaders will exit first.” 1:10: Speech bubble text: “Help!” 1:15: Text on buildings: “Demolish.” 1:17: Text on slot machine: “Demolish.” 1:19: Text on TV screen: Tiger leader: “Condolences” Rabbit: “Thanks” 1:20: Text on house: “Demolish.”4 1:25: Text on old rabbit’s face: “Protest” 1:27-1:35: Singing: “Little rabbit, be good, quickly demolish the house, demolish it faster, we must put the new one up.” 1:47: Speech: “My Dad is Tiger Gang! 1:49: Text on rabbit in car’s face: “Son, drive!” 1:49-1:55: Singing: “Little rabbit, be good, get out of the way, get off the road, Gang’s son wants to drive over here.” 2:02-2:10: Singing: “Little rabbit. Be good. Listen! Be good. Don’t just say whatever you want.”5 2:15: Growling: “Be careful or accidents will happen.” 2:30: Text on rabbit’s face: “Kill” 2:30-2:54: “Little white rabbit, white as snow, two fangs standing upright. Don’t make me angry, when I’m pushed6 I can bite hard, too. When I’m pushed I can bite hard too.” 3:00: Speech: Kuang Kuang, Kuang Kuang! 3:07-3:14: Singing: “Little white rabbit, white as snow, two ears standing upright” 3:15: Kuang Kuang: This is a really meaningful year! 3:18: Kuang Kuang, come help your mom make dumplings! 3:22-3:25: The song is ending: “…like eating carrots and vegetables. They like eating vegetables7.” 3:28: Text: “The year of the rabbit has come. Even rabbits bite when they’re pushed.”
Interesting forum entry from the History of China graduate course I'm taking right now:
When I teach religion in my World History I class, we organize each of the five major religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) into what Emile Durkheim called "the Five Functions of Religion." These functions are that it
1) Provides psychological support,
2) Provides social cohesion,
3) Gives meaning to the mundane,
4) Serves a prophetic function and
5) Provides social order.
Normally my fellow teachers and I treat Confucianism as part of our section on Chinese philosophy rather than as a religion in and of itself and haven't in the past put it into this framework. However, in looking at these readings I didn't realize how easily I could structure my teaching of Confucianism, Daoism and Legalism in the same way I do religions. The reading on "The Nature of Chinese Religions" was especially helpful in helping me see a different way of teaching.
1) Psychological support comes from the worship of ancestors and using their wisdom to better your own and your society's life
2) Social cohesion is inherent in Confucius' "Five Key Relationships"
3) Giving meaning to the mundane can be found in how Chinese religions connect everyday activities with the supernatural
4) The prophetic function is a bit trickier, since Confucius isn't really seen as a religious figure, however, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi were also not deities, but leaders who used religious teachings to bring about social change.
5) Providing social order exists not only in the five key relationships, but also is inherent in pretty much everything Hanfeizi wrote about!
The Scholar-Official class in China is particularly interesting to me when good government breaks down beyond repair. Without a benevolent government to serve, what's a good Confucian to do with all of that culture and learning?
What else, but get creative?
I call them "Confucians without a Cause" when teaching them, which I find very clever, even if my students don't. (A poet I recently met told me it should be a name for a band. I told her she should tell my students that.)
A more accurate, but less catchy, title would include the Daoist layer that Confucianism gained during the Han Synthesis, and the whole "back to nature" and "just chill out and enjoy the moon and stars" options it provides the lucky Chinese -- lucky because it has the equivalent of a "straight and uptight" religion, and of a "loose and relaxed" alternative one.
Anyway, a few periods and examples, in particular:
The Period of Disunity after the Han:
The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove create escapist literature that's for all the world a mix of '60s hippie counterculture (Xi Kang writes a 6-page verse essay on the power of his guqin, which Jimi Hendrix would have enjoyed) and British Aestheticism. They refuse to work for the corrupt Jin Dynasty like Vietnam era college students dropped out of their own mainstream culture.
Ruan Ji reportedly launched into an epic sixty-day drunk to avoid pressures to marry into the Jin family.
Tao Qian "sold out" to 13 years in corrupt government, then "dropped out" to retire early into a life of reclusive farming, gardening, music, and writing. He wore flowers in his hair. (So much more attractive than tie-dye.)
These guys liked their wine and song -- but instead of sex, they celebrated friendship and poetry. "Wine, friendship, and song"?
And calligraphy became an art during this 400 years of bad government too. See Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion" -- for its content and calligraphy (he's the Michelangelo of calligraphy). Tang Emperor Taizong had someone steal this scroll from a Buddhist monk, then had himself buried with this scroll, he found the calligraphy so beautiful. (My kind of politician.)
The Chinese Garden: Sculpted Homes
Even when government was good, they were creative innovators. The Chinese gardens of the scholar-officials in Suzhou, particularly, during the Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties are masterpieces of landscaping and architecture. Scholars usually designed these homes and gardens themselves, tapping into their Daoist and painterly sides.
Dropping Out from the Mongol Scene During the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty, when the Chinese were discriminated against, many Scholars again took their abilities from the political to the cultural sphere -- giving birth to Chinese drama.
Dropping Out from the Ming Scene Too
During the Ming, which had a few periods of anti-Confucian purges under this most totalitarian of dynasties, the scholars developed the golden age of the Chinese novel and opera.
So there's innovation and individuality galore in this tradition.
The Master said, “From the vantage point of the Zhou, one’s gaze can encompass the two dynasties that preceded it. How brilliant in culture it was! I follow the Zhou.”
--Analects 3.14
The "Four Treasures" of the Confucian Scholar: Brushes, Paper,
Inkstone, Ink Stick.
The Han and Roman Empires both excelled by creating bureaucracies to keep the machine of state stable and well-oiled.
In China, Qin Shi Huangdi started the ball rolling by abolishing feudalism and implementing centralized bureaucratic officialdom instead; the Han improved on this by hiring officials of a Confucian bent instead of a Legalist one. All credit to Emperors Wen and Wudi for that.
Caesar Augustus also created 200 years of peace by replacing a corrupt republican administration with a centralized bureaucracy. It caused the famous Pax Romana.
But here's where China and Rome parted ways: the Han sought only Confucians for their bureaucracy, and honored them at the top of their social pyramid. Remarkably, these men made it to the top because they earned that right by showing their intelligences and their selflessness. Family name and family wealth couldn't buy this status: it was earned through study and merit. Call it China's version of equality and democracy.
The Romans? Augustus put commoners and slaves in his bureaucracy -- the wealthy elite were so corrupt as to be worthless to good government -- but these commoners and slaves were just functionaries, cogs in the machine. They only required good work skills -- discipline, attention to detail, efficiency, and other worker-drone qualities -- to do the job. And it was just a job. Socially, these bureaucrats stayed at the bottom of the pyramid.
Is this one reason China survived until 1911, while Europe broke irreparably into pieces in the 400s? Because China elevated philosophers, while Rome just employed underlings, to work their governments?
I assigned a couple dozen passages from the Analects to my students, inviting them to choose nine of them to respond to "in whatever creative way you choose." I’ve enjoyed reading those responses, overall. So many interesting connections: Confucius and Freud, Confucius and Obama, Confucius and Rabinadrath Tagore, on and on.
Maybe it’s them – and student Kelsey particularly, because she mentioned liking the Beatles in her Analects webcam discussion – that led me to my own new connection today. It’s this: John Lennon’s classic song, “Imagine,” pretty much describes ancient Confucian and Taoist wisdom:
Verse 1:
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
This is ancient Chinese through and through: nature is nothing to fear, and neither is death. But since death seems like it might be final (in a natural, “that’s the way the Yang Yins” sort of way), today certainly is something to cherish. The ancestors wish they were still here, after all – that’s why we offer them the earthly things we love – food, flowers, incense, family love and respect. To me it’s obvious: in China, earth is heaven. And it doesn’t last forever, which only adds beauty in a bittersweet way.
The Analects and Zhuangzi are, like the Jewish and Christian Bibles and their cousin, Islam’s Qur’an, ancient religious texts still read today. But something important separates the Chinese texts from their monotheistic counterparts: there is no threat of angering a god and burning forever in Hell if you don’t read the Chinese texts. Fear plays no part in winning readers for them. The Chinese texts seem to have lived so long because they’re worth reading in themselves, with no strings attached. They’re all carrot and no stick.
China is passing anti-smoking laws in many public places. British and American Tobacco companies are doing all they can to keep China addicted.
