Did the Chinese Overreact?

DaShi · November 15, 2003, 07:47

Or were these Japanese students just politically insensitive?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...075600,00.html

Quote:

Student prank that gave the Chinese a fit of the willies

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Saturday November 1, 2003
The Guardian

Chinese students demonstrate against Japanese students who had performed a jokey sketch involving fake genitals

In the history of comical flops, few pranks can have gone down quite so badly as the fake-genital skit performed by three Japanese students in China's Northwest University.
Camping it up in red bras and knickers bulging with paper cups, the performers must have been expecting guffaws or at least shy giggles from the freshmen and faculty they were entertaining at a welcoming party for new students.

Instead, they sparked an anti-Japanese demonstration by thousands of fellow students, internet death threats, and articles in the national media accusing them of attempting to humiliate China and its people.

The outcry sparked by the innocuous display of student humour this week is the latest and most bizarre in a series of public demonstrations against anything Japanese - one of the few issues on which the Chinese government appears ready to tolerate large-scale protests.

According to the state-run news service Xinhua, the performance at the party for foreign language students in Xian, western China, included three Japanese students and a teacher wearing brassieres and false genitals made from paper cups hanging from their waists. They danced "obscenely" and threw scraps of paper pulled from their underwear at the audience.

The audience of conservative students and professors called a stop to the high jinks. If the performers had been Chinese, Russian or European, that would probably have been the end of the matter. But the fact that they were Japanese turned a cultural misunderstanding into an international incident.

Several thousand Chinese students gathered in front of the university's foreign students' dormitory on Thursday to demand that the Japanese offenders apologise. Yesterday hundreds continued to protest, shouting anti-Japanese slogans and waving banners, according to witnesses.

After the performance was given prominent coverage in the media, internet chatrooms filled with calls for the culprits to be deported.

Anti-Japanese feeling has lingered since the second world war, when Japanese troops used Chinese civilians as sex slaves and guinea pigs for biological experiments. But its expression has undergone a change recently, with calls for financial compensation.

In recent months the fury has grown in the wake of the death of a labourer who was killed by a Japanese chemical weapon uncovered at a construction site.

Hundreds of thousands signed an online petition against a Japanese bid to build a rail link between Shanghai and Beijing; a Japanese band was pelted with bottles when it played in Beijing; and newspapers published front-page stories about a sex tour by 400 Japanese men who allegedly hired 500 Chinese prostitutes.

Az · November 15, 2003, 08:06

I don't understand what has happened.

David Floyd · November 15, 2003, 08:09

Apparently, some Japanese college kids were being, well, college kids, and a bunch of Chinese students and faculties have sticks up their asses.

So yes, they overreacted, unless I'm missing something major here.

Zylka · November 15, 2003, 08:10

Did the Americans ever turn that little chain of islands back into something beautiful..

Japan

Urban Ranger · November 15, 2003, 08:15

Quote:

Originally posted by David Floyd
So yes, they overreacted, unless I'm missing something major here.

Yes.

Modern history of East Asia.

David Floyd · November 15, 2003, 08:16

I'm sorry, but what do war crimes 60 years ago have to do with silly, non-destructive pranks pulled by students today?

Urban Ranger · November 15, 2003, 08:19

Lots and lots of things, including the Japanese's inability to recognise these atrocities.

DaShi · November 15, 2003, 08:19

Well, my complaint would be that they were guests of China. A little acumen by the Japanese students should have told them that it was a bad idea. But the Chinese just seemed like they were looking for an excuse. Any excuse.

David Floyd · November 15, 2003, 08:22

UR,

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Lots and lots of things, including the Japanese's inability to recognise these atrocities.

Again, that has nothing to do with the situation at hand.

Dashi,

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But the Chinese just seemed like they were looking for an excuse. Any excuse.

That's what I think. I mean come on. The prank wasn't even political in nature or intent.

And now, I'm off to work. YAY!

Zero · November 15, 2003, 12:25

No one likes the japanese.

Strip anime, video games and kinky sex and you have nothing going for them.

DanS · November 15, 2003, 12:53

No, that's what the Chinese luuuuv about the Japanese.

I'm sort of baffled about what the uproar was about. Perhaps somebody could fill us in? The article is awful vague. Is it just a bawdy skit to the wrong audience?

Ned · November 15, 2003, 13:48

DanS, I think the Chinese were offended by the crassness and the sexuality of the act. If you have seen any recent Chinese movies, you will be struck at just how puritanical the Chinese are.

Lord Merciless · November 15, 2003, 13:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned
DanS, I think the Chinese were offended by the crassness and the sexuality of the act. If you have seen any recent Chinese movies, you will be struck at just how puritanical the Chinese are.

No, Chinese hate Japanese with a passion. If the movie were American, nothing would have happened.

The days that Chinese were puritanical are long over.

Nubclear · November 15, 2003, 14:34

Regardless of whether these students hated this really bad prank or hated the Japanese students.....Go China!!!

GePap · November 15, 2003, 14:49

The scale of the counter-action is disproportionate to the act..loud boos and getting hackled off the stage would have been enough a show of disapproval towards the stunt. Death threats are simply absurd.

PLATO · November 15, 2003, 16:59

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the fact that they were Japanese turned a cultural misunderstanding into an international incident.

Very telling statement. Obviously the outrage is poltically motivated and not motivated by the deed itself.

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its expression has undergone a change recently, with calls for financial compensation.

Here's the reason for the political outrage.

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In recent months the fury has grown in the wake of the death of a labourer who was killed by a Japanese chemical weapon uncovered at a construction site.

WTF??

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Anti-Japanese feeling has lingered since the second world war, when Japanese troops used Chinese civilians as sex slaves and guinea pigs for biological experiments.

Time to move on China.

Lonestar · November 15, 2003, 17:06

After reading the article, all I really have to say is this:

The Hell?

Nubclear · November 15, 2003, 17:13

Japan used to have this habit of invading China.
Some chinese people don't like Japan because of that

st_swithin · November 15, 2003, 17:36

Yeah, after the rape of Nanjing, the Chinese seem to have a big chip on their collective shoulder. According to you people, they should just say "It's ok, Japan - we forgive you for those 400,000 Chinese civilians you raped and slaughtered."

And of course, empathy shouldn't be expected - they all look alike anyway, naked and tortured and murdered in a pile like that. They have nothing to be sensitive about, right?

David Floyd · November 15, 2003, 18:07

No, they just need to realize that a few Japanese students playing a prank is not in any way related to the Rape of Nanjing. Frankly, I don't see how it's any different than Jews hating today's Germans for the Holocaust. It's just silly.

chequita guevara · November 15, 2003, 18:08

And college students today have what to do with the Rape of Najing? Might as well expect us to slug Japanese folks for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Nubclear · November 15, 2003, 18:24

This is pretty simple to understand.

Japan invaded China. Repeated as many times as needed.
(Irrelevant, but...) China has risen to a very powerful position in the world.
Chinese people remember the history. And they get indoctrination from the Chinese government.
Therefore Chinese people dont really like Japanese people.

Stupid? Yes. Understandable? Of course.

Nubclear · November 15, 2003, 18:24

This is pretty simple to understand.

Japan invaded China. Repeated as many times as needed.
(Irrelevant, but...) China has risen to a very powerful position in the world.
Chinese people remember the history. And they get indoctrination from the Chinese government.
Therefore Chinese people dont really like Japanese people.

Stupid? Yes. Understandable? Of course.

Imran Siddiqui · November 15, 2003, 19:12

Quote:

The scale of the counter-action is disproportionate to the act..loud boos and getting hackled off the stage would have been enough a show of disapproval towards the stunt. Death threats are simply absurd.

Totally agree. This is just ridiculous. Yes, you don't like Japanese people because they were *******s. Fine, but what does any of that have to do with a skit by some Japanese students which has nothing to do with history in any way?

It'd be like German students doing a bawdy play in Israel and the Israelis holding massive anti-German protests (which they'd never do).

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Might as well expect us to slug Japanese folks for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Oh, yeah... I forgot... time to get me some of those bastards

Nubclear · November 15, 2003, 19:41

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Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
(which they'd never do).

True.
Instead, they would blame it on Arafat and have anti-Palestine protests.

Jack_www · November 15, 2003, 20:21

This does not sound very good to me. In the past this is how wars were started. . .

st_swithin · November 15, 2003, 22:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Jack_www
This does not sound very good to me. In the past this is how wars were started. . .

Well, it's not like we were doing anything else anyway. I mean, we sort of ran with that Afghanistan thing as far as it could go.

Urban Ranger · November 15, 2003, 22:44

Quote:

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
And college students today have what to do with the Rape of Najing? Might as well expect us to slug Japanese folks for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

You don't understand the situation comrade.

I am sure some German students making fun of Jews is going to go over well, particularly in Israel.

DaShi · November 15, 2003, 23:32

The thing was that they weren't targetting China specifically.

DaShi · November 15, 2003, 23:35

Quote:

Originally posted by st_swithin
Yeah, after the rape of Nanjing, the Chinese seem to have a big chip on their collective shoulder. According to you people, they should just say "It's ok, Japan - we forgive you for those 400,000 Chinese civilians you raped and slaughtered."

And of course, empathy shouldn't be expected - they all look alike anyway, naked and tortured and murdered in a pile like that. They have nothing to be sensitive about, right?

So rioting and threatening Japanese students who weren't even born at the time is the proper response. Or is China just waiting for the chance to commit its own atrocities on the Japanese. I agree wholeheartedly that Japan needs to apologize and generally be more contrite for its actions during WWII, but bad behavior is still bad behavior. And the reasons for these riots are tenuous.