Interviews with Chinese Tourists 02 | China's Base Little Pinks, Who Talk and Fart the Same

"The Communist Party Is Their Master"

Giles: You used to love arguing with people online. Why did you stop?

Chen: Because later I realized I still remembered what he'd said last time, and he'd already stopped owning it. What's left to argue about? When I was a bit younger I really liked that American kind of freedom. I figured if everyone just laid it out, and you put whatever you disagreed about on the table, you could always talk it through. The more I talked, the more I saw that some people aren't there to reason with you at all. They're there to tell you which side they're standing on today.

Giles: When you say they won't own it, you mean they change their view and then won't admit they changed?

Chen: Right. While the official is still up there, he tells you the man is capable, he's got guts, the country needs exactly someone like that. You say a couple of unpleasant things and he gets worked up at you. Then the man gets arrested, and right away he tells you he knew all along the guy was no good. You remind him he didn't used to talk like that, and he isn't even embarrassed. He thinks you're the strange one for still hanging on to the past. Funny, isn't it?

Giles: Huang Qifan getting investigated lately made you think of this too?

Chen: Yeah. Think about how people online used to praise Huang Qifan. Someone would repost his speeches, someone would praise his take on the economy, like they'd finally found an official who understood economics and could explain things clearly. I'm telling you, watch moments like that. That's when you see what some people are actually good at. Yesterday they were still using his speeches to lecture you. Today they can say they never believed him. Before you've even had time to ask, they've already peeled the old version of themselves clean off.

Giles: But once you learn something new, changing your mind is normal, isn't it?

Chen: Of course it's normal. You say you had it wrong before and you know better now. What's shameful about that? What gets to me is he talked so absolute yesterday, and today he talks just as absolute the other way, and both times he thinks everyone else is stupid and he's the clearest one in the room. If you were really that clear all along, then yesterday, when you were arguing with me until your face was red and the veins stood out on your neck, who were you arguing for?

Giles: Some people will say the official fooled them at the time.

Chen: Then you still have to say clearly what he actually fooled you about, and why you were so willing to believe it. It can't be that when you were praising him you had an eye for things, and after he falls it was just that he was too good at lying, and in the end there's never anything wrong with you. Especially when other people warned you and you cursed them for it, and later it turned out they were right, and you don't even manage a "sorry." Next time it's a different person, and you start lecturing everybody again.

Giles: Do you think the worship back then was real?

Chen: Some of it was real, sure. The question is what about the man they were worshipping. Was it the principles he worked by, or was it that he had power in his hands, people listened when he spoke, and everywhere he went people praised him? If you really think someone is capable, you can still say he's capable after something happens to him, and at the same time spell out what he did wrong. But some people aren't like that. The moment the man goes down, they won't even admit why they liked him before. As if admitting it means they lose too.

Giles: There's another reaction, though. After an official is arrested, some people still say he made contributions and you can't wipe the whole record out.

Chen: You can talk about what he did. But I've heard some people talk and talk until it turns into, so he skimmed a little, so what, if it were you up there you wouldn't be corrupt? That's when I feel it. Are you actually talking about his achievements, or are you putting yourself in his seat, thinking after all these hard years it's finally my turn to take a little, and who are you to stop me from taking it? Watch how aggrieved he gets on the corrupt official's behalf. If you didn't know better, you'd think the money was being taken back out of his own pocket.

Giles: So you think they want the same chance?

Chen: I think some of them do think that way. Otherwise how does "you'd do the same" come out so smoothly? I say I don't want that, and he laughs and calls you a poser. He figures anyone with power has to skim, and not skimming is being a fool. He can think he'd be corrupt himself. But he has to say everyone is the same as him. It's like as long as there's still one person in the world who doesn't want to, he can't stand it in his own skin.

Giles: Cursing the fallen official along with everyone else, and also speaking up for corrupt officials. Isn't that a contradiction?

Chen: You have to look at what he's protecting. The official has already fallen. Protecting him is useless, so hurry up and say you were against him all along. But whether you get to skim once you're an official, that he still wants to protect, because later maybe he or his kid still has a chance. Any particular person can be thrown away. That idea, that once you have power you're supposed to take a cut, that he can't bear to throw away.

Giles: Like Yang Wei, the J-20's chief designer. After his name and biography were taken down, some people still brought up his contributions. How do you see that?

Chen: If you say he made contributions, then talk about the contributions. I never said that once something happens to a person, everything he did before is gone. But some people are really something. Before, they held him up as a point of pride. The country having a talent like that was truly impressive. Then the moment they hear something's happened, they wait to see what the top says, so they can decide what they'll say next. Then I want to ask: when you praised him before, was it because you understood what he'd done, or because everyone was praising him at the time?

Giles: Did you used to argue with these military fans too?

Chen: I did. Even then I thought the J-20 was no good. What year is this, and they're still hyping the canard layout, like they're afraid people won't notice the engine isn't up to it. And the engine is only one problem in a whole pile. But you say one slightly bad thing about the J-20 anywhere on the simplified-Chinese internet, and someone is right there cursing you, saying America uses a canard layout too, as if the moment America uses it too, every problem I named just stops existing.

Giles: What do they use to prove America uses it too?

Chen: Concept drawings. Sometimes concept drawings Americans drew themselves, sometimes nobody even knows who drew them. Someone puts up a picture and says this is America's future plane. They see canards on it and they get off on it, and they bring it over to tell you, see, America does it this way too. I say first figure out whether the thing was ever actually built. They don't care at all. A picture is enough for them to have won.

Giles: And later, when the plane that actually got built wasn't that layout?

Chen: He tells you the next generation is. You say this one isn't, and he says he's talking about the next generation. There's always another generation waiting to prove him right. You go back and ask what it was supposed to mean, back when he used that picture to curse people. He won't pick up that point at all. He finds you a new picture. So later I figured, what's the point of arguing with these fucking little pinks. He can switch his story whenever he wants, but the things he cursed you with, he doesn't intend to own a single sentence of them.

Giles: Is this the same thing you were talking about earlier, people changing their line after an official falls?

Chen: Yeah. The official can be swapped, the plane can be swapped, the reason can be swapped. Anyway he's always standing on the right side, and you never understand. If you actually want to discuss the plane, you say what's good and what's bad and put the thing on the table. What they want is for you to shut up and admit they're impressive. Once the old lines don't match anymore, they switch to a new set and keep cursing you. These days I really can't be bothered to mess around with these people.

Giles: Does this make you think of doublethink in 1984?

Chen: That's the feeling. Today the enemy has changed, and he doesn't just curse along. He can tell you, the person we've always been cursing is this one. What I can't stand isn't that today is different from yesterday. It's that you clearly went through yesterday with him, and now he looks you in the eye and insists there was no such yesterday. You remind him, and he turns around and decides you're the one with the problem.

Giles: Some people will say the environment is just like that. To get by, a person can only change along with it.

Chen: You're afraid to speak at your workplace, and in public you have to make a statement. I can understand that. But the two of us are talking in private, and you still have to paint yourself as someone who was never confused. Is that someone forcing you too? You can say you got scared, you have a family to feed, you don't dare stick to it. At least then I know what you're saying. What you can't do is say yesterday that sticking to this was having a conscience, and today turn around and say the opposite is what having a conscience means, and then still feel like you're a person of real principle.

Giles: So what do you think the loyalty they talk about is actually loyal to?

Chen: Watch how fast he switches and you'll know. With his mouth he can be unbelievably loyal to a person. The moment that person has no power, he can go praise the one who replaced him, and he doesn't even need to explain. You ask about the beliefs he used to have, and he says a person has to look forward and see reality clearly. So it turns out a so-called belief is just this: whoever is winning now, he says that person has always been right.

Giles: How do you tell now whether someone actually believes in anything?

Chen: I look at whether he still owns what he said, once saying it stops flattering anyone. Even if he says, I've changed now, but I really did say that before, I still feel this is someone I can talk to. What I'm afraid of is the one who's always correct, always loyal, always standing on the winning side, and whoever loses, he looked down on them long ago. Spend time with someone like that, and the day you run into trouble, you may suddenly find he stopped treating you as a friend a long time ago.