The Burdens of History: Race Relations, Tensions, and Superiority in Asia
My parents love to watch Chinese war dramas. The dramas all invariably depict poor Chinese farmer-turned-militiamen fighting relentlessly against the immoral, arrogant Japanese invaders. Shouting patriotic messages of the freeing the country from foreign domination, the Chinese militiamen use various sabotage tactics and mind games to win struggles of attrition against the otherwise dimwitted-looking Japanese. Sometimes a few heroes die of dramatic deaths, but at the end, the established formula always fate the Japanese aggressors with devastating, unrecoverable blows.
And my parents are not alone in their hobby. Such war dramas still constitute a large portion of domestic productions in China every year, even more than six decades after the end of the events they portray. And the continued production, above their propagandist value of showcase for patriotism and devotion to the Communist Party, actually makes economic sense. When asked about the reason for continued production, the studios reply that the set model still finds a steady stream of China's massive middle-age TV viewing population.
In other words, it does not really matter if the youth population in China, much like myself, is confused and annoyed by the endless repetition of these highly falsified and superficial symbols of nationalism. The middle-aged are the ones with the money and will be the ones responding to the TV ads in droves. Young people barely watches TV anyways (they are stuck in their street-corner Internet cafes playing Starcraft) so there is absolutely no point in catering to them with more "youth-friendly" TV programming.
But the economic rationale aside, being bombarded day and night with anti-Japanese TV programming must have some sort of psychological effect on the general Chinese populace. While harboring a secret love for many things Japanese, from fashion to electronic products, the Chinese of today, like practically every other Asian nationality, are still somehow socially obligated to "hate on" the Japanese for whatever atrocities they committed to their grandparents.
The economic benefits to the private studios of creating such brainwashing TV programs are influencing popular attitudes and national relations across Asia. It is no wonder that many Japanese refuse to recognize themselves as part of Asia; it is often simply because they would never be accepted by other Asians as equals even if they throw off their often racist pride as Asia's wealthiest country and seek to become the equals of other Asians.
All this harks back to the conversation I had with a former student of mine regarding race relations in Asia. We argued whether it would have been better for all Asians if the Japanese indeed won World War II and every other Asian race become forcefully assimilated into Japanese culture. We, a Chinese and Korean chatting over a beer in Seoul, somehow came to an affirmative conclusion. Much of the racial tensions that we see today are precisely due to that endlessly emphasized war history, and perhaps, if all Asians were to be unified under one race, there would be no discussion of pointless patriotism everyday.
Of course, all such talks are of pure fantasy. The Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and many others are just too racially proud (I cannot avoid it completely myself) to simply submit to Japanese dominance even if their wars of independence are lost. But hypothetically, if all Asians were to be citizens of the wealthiest and in many ways, the most respected Asian nation, there would be much fewer, sometimes aggressive and highly debilitating, arguments about which Asian is better.
And just as the Japanese become the most pacifist (at least on the surface) people in the world, all Asians, if completely conquered, may become more docile and disgusted by violence. There would be less interest for these mindless patriotic war dramas and less economic reasons for studios to continue making them. Maybe then, we would not need the whole generation of people experienced in war-ravaged childhood to drop dead before we Asians can all walk out of the shadows of endlessly glorifying the "achievements" of our forefathers.
And my parents are not alone in their hobby. Such war dramas still constitute a large portion of domestic productions in China every year, even more than six decades after the end of the events they portray. And the continued production, above their propagandist value of showcase for patriotism and devotion to the Communist Party, actually makes economic sense. When asked about the reason for continued production, the studios reply that the set model still finds a steady stream of China's massive middle-age TV viewing population.
In other words, it does not really matter if the youth population in China, much like myself, is confused and annoyed by the endless repetition of these highly falsified and superficial symbols of nationalism. The middle-aged are the ones with the money and will be the ones responding to the TV ads in droves. Young people barely watches TV anyways (they are stuck in their street-corner Internet cafes playing Starcraft) so there is absolutely no point in catering to them with more "youth-friendly" TV programming.
But the economic rationale aside, being bombarded day and night with anti-Japanese TV programming must have some sort of psychological effect on the general Chinese populace. While harboring a secret love for many things Japanese, from fashion to electronic products, the Chinese of today, like practically every other Asian nationality, are still somehow socially obligated to "hate on" the Japanese for whatever atrocities they committed to their grandparents.
The economic benefits to the private studios of creating such brainwashing TV programs are influencing popular attitudes and national relations across Asia. It is no wonder that many Japanese refuse to recognize themselves as part of Asia; it is often simply because they would never be accepted by other Asians as equals even if they throw off their often racist pride as Asia's wealthiest country and seek to become the equals of other Asians.
All this harks back to the conversation I had with a former student of mine regarding race relations in Asia. We argued whether it would have been better for all Asians if the Japanese indeed won World War II and every other Asian race become forcefully assimilated into Japanese culture. We, a Chinese and Korean chatting over a beer in Seoul, somehow came to an affirmative conclusion. Much of the racial tensions that we see today are precisely due to that endlessly emphasized war history, and perhaps, if all Asians were to be unified under one race, there would be no discussion of pointless patriotism everyday.
Of course, all such talks are of pure fantasy. The Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and many others are just too racially proud (I cannot avoid it completely myself) to simply submit to Japanese dominance even if their wars of independence are lost. But hypothetically, if all Asians were to be citizens of the wealthiest and in many ways, the most respected Asian nation, there would be much fewer, sometimes aggressive and highly debilitating, arguments about which Asian is better.
And just as the Japanese become the most pacifist (at least on the surface) people in the world, all Asians, if completely conquered, may become more docile and disgusted by violence. There would be less interest for these mindless patriotic war dramas and less economic reasons for studios to continue making them. Maybe then, we would not need the whole generation of people experienced in war-ravaged childhood to drop dead before we Asians can all walk out of the shadows of endlessly glorifying the "achievements" of our forefathers.
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