(Photos: Jessie Tan, unless otherwise stated)
One morning, when I asked her which dress she would like to wear to school, my four-year-old daughter pointed to each of her dresses and started chanting “点兵点将，点到谁谁就上”, which roughly translates to “Pick a soldier, pick a general, whoever‘s chosen will have to go”. I was amused to learn that in China, instead of the “eeny meeny miny mo” we’re used to in Singapore, kids in China use this rhyme when choosing something from a number of objects. My daughter picked up the practice from her teachers and peers in the local childcare centre that she has been attending since the start of the year.
A few months later, I was not so amused when she aimed her thumb and index finger at me, spouting another local folk rhyme: “枪对枪，杆对杆，老张的媳妇会打枪.” Loosely translated, this is: “Guns to guns and swords to swords, Old Zhang’s wife can fire a shot.”
At every playground and park we go to, there are boys and girls playing with guns and rifles.
My husband and I have long agreed that we would delay exposing our children to guns and violence for as long as possible. I was so adamant about it that I once threw away a picture card with the word "gun" on it.
Playground or war games?
Not long after moving to China a year ago, however, I realised that it was impossible to shield my children from scenes of war and violence because these themes permeate our lives here. At every playground and park we go to, there are boys and girls playing with guns and rifles. The children in my neighbourhood would gather at the playground and split into two teams. They would hide behind the slides and bushes one moment and spring up with their realistic-looking toy guns to “shoot” at the enemy the next.
Once, a two-year-old boy came right up to my son, looked at him and then proceeded to point a toy rifle right into his face. I could see that the boy did not mean any harm and just wanted to play with my son, so I kept quiet and observed, though I was annoyed with the boy’s nanny, who just looked on without correcting the boy’s behaviour. When the boy pointed the rifle at my son again, I asked him gently, “Why did you point the rifle at little brother?” Only then did the nanny half-heartedly stop him.
“I guess, also, playing with guns is a display of masculinity, you know. The Chinese always say that boys and men should be manly.” - Chinese mother
Another time when we went over to a friend’s place for a play date, the first toy that the hospitable mother gave my daughter was a toy gun. When I politely declined it on my daughter’s behalf, the friend’s mother said, “Oh yes, of course. Guns are not for little girls.” I explained that I am uncomfortable with exposing my children to violence at such a young age, regardless of their gender. To my surprise, she agreed with me. “Frankly, I don’t like my son playing with guns too, but I have no choice because every other kid has one and he begged me to buy one for him. I couldn’t bear to see the look he had on his face when he saw other kids playing with guns at the playground,” she admitted, “I guess, also, playing with guns is a display of masculinity, you know. The Chinese always say that boys and men should be manly.”
This reminded me of the recent crackdown on niangpao (娘炮, a derogatory term referring to men displaying effeminate behaviour) on TV, where the Chinese authorities told broadcasters to “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal aesthetics”.
Even the free red packets given out by Watsons during the Chinese New Year period had motifs of women bearing machine guns.
Themes of war pervade daily life
However, the pervasiveness of themes and symbols related to war in daily life already existed before the Chinese authorities started to clamp down on media portrayals of effeminate men.
During our home quarantine last year, it was impossible to surf the local TV channels without chancing upon a war drama. During commercial breaks on various channels, and not just those airing war-themed dramas, there were tributes to Chinese soldiers who had made sacrifices in one way or another and advertisements enlisting new recruits. At one of the bookshops of a popular bookstore chain, a pictorial encyclopedia of guns was displayed right in the middle of the children’s books section where kids would inevitably pass by when looking for books. A step-by-step children’s drawing book even dedicated several pages to weapons. That’s not all. At a newspaper stand outside a children’s hospital, all manner of toy weapons, including machine guns, sniper rifles and grenades, were on display. Even the free red packets given out by Watsons during the Chinese New Year period had motifs of women bearing machine guns. This was a far cry from the usual flowery patterns or cute animal cartoons with auspicious words that I’m used to seeing on red packets in Singapore.
This obsession with the war theme cannot be coincidental. The Battle of Lake Changjin, a film on the Korean War which opened on 30 September this year, grossed a staggering 5.3 billion RMB (S$1.13 billion) within a month of release, according to Chinese entertainment platform Maoyan. This is also just one of the many war-related movies released last year and this year, some of which were to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, and others to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
War stories provide analogies for the present
I have never been a fan of war movies, especially those with obvious propaganda objectives, but since The Battle of Lake Changjin looks primed to be the highest grossing film globally this year, I decided to check it out. After sitting through the three-hour long film, I am starting to understand the importance of such shows to Chinese leaders. They serve as a platform for viewers to draw parallels to the present.
In The Battle of Lake Changjin, Mao Zedong did not want to be drawn into the war as the communists had just taken power in the newly founded People’s Republic of China and they had plans to develop the nation. But ultimately, he still sent troops to Korea after the American troops crossed the 38th parallel. He would not tolerate the possibility of them crossing the Yalu River into China.
“We have to throw one punch now to prevent a hundred punches in future,” Mao said.
Tsui Hark, one of the directors of the film, said in an interview that the quote “really touched” him and he made it his task to “depict the truth of the quote for everyone to grasp”, “that spirit of ‘I don’t want to fight, but still, I must fight’.”
This echoed what Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his speech on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the CCP.
“We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will. By the same token, we will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us,” he said, “Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”
As China’s relations with Washington and her neighbours have worsened in recent years, increasing the risk of conflict, perhaps these omnipresent symbols of war in the citizens’ day-to-day lives are a way to prepare the people psychologically and mentally for such a day where conflict becomes inevitable and they too must think “I don’t want to fight, but still, I must fight”.
A dose of reality
Last year, a border dispute with India culminated in a deadly clash in June 2020. After Chinese state media revealed that four Chinese soldiers died after fighting "foreign troops" who "crossed into the Chinese border", tributes poured in on social media site Weibo, hailing them as heroes. There was even a shop which took down posters of artistes and replaced them with posters of the four soldiers to commemorate their sacrifice for the country.
As China’s relations with Washington and her neighbours have worsened in recent years, increasing the risk of conflict, perhaps these omnipresent symbols of war in the citizens’ day-to-day lives are a way to prepare the people psychologically and mentally for such a day where conflict becomes inevitable and they too must think “I don’t want to fight, but still, I must fight”.
The children at the playground have split into two teams for their games again. They’re gathered in a circle with their hands stretched out. They flip their hands over and over like buttering up a slice of bread. They chant: “手心手背，狼心狗肺，日本投降，中国万岁.” Loosely translated, this is: “Palms up, palms down, ungrateful, unscrupulous, Japan surrenders, China forever.” When the chorus is over, the ones with palms facing up run towards their base while those with palms facing down go in the opposite direction. Soon, I hear the recorded gunshots ringing from their weapons and shouts of “You’re dead” and “No! You are dead!”.
I hope that this is the only kind of war they will ever need to engage in, that is, friendly battles that they know will end when the sun sets and they can go back home for dinner with their mothers.
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