I got a grip full of Confucius

Today is Christmas in Beijing. That makes me unhappy.

Everywhere I go in town there are big stupid looking Santas and flashy lights mixed together with red lanterns heralding a Chinese festival. While I understand, in China, Christmas is little more than a commercial holiday akin to Valentine’s Day, seeing imagery traditionally associated with Western religion displayed so prominently throughout the city bugs me a lot.

This may be partly fueled by my war on Western religion, but something about this infiltration into China is just deeply troubling. Christmas in Los Estados Unidos is already a mockery of a holiday, and a yearly reminder that people are so incapable of being nice to one another that they must reserve one special day every year to not treat each other like shit.

I suppose if we were nice to each other all the time, American retail interests wouldn’t be able to rape the public from November – December and the economy would crash even harder than it already has.

And so, enter the strange affair of Christmas in China, a distinctly not Christian nation. Our paper, Beijing Today, December 15, ran a photograph of a Chinese baby in a Santa suit photo-opted into a nativity scene in a Chinese mall. I lovingly headlined the photo “Hark the herald shopping spree” (p. 10). However, my jocular tagline is far more on target than the Democratic Party agenda.

Remember the scene in Ghostbusters when Mr. Stay-Puff romps about town smashing over buildings? Well on December 25, Mr. Stay-Puff is capitalism in Beijing.

Following this analogy, I guess the Ghostbusters would be Wang Dasan, 32, a philosophy Ph.D, independant scholar, webmaster of the China Confucianism Web and a guoxue (国学) hardliner who should have been born in the 1800s for China’s “self-strengthening” movement.

Wang, from what I can tell, when not moderating the China Confucianism Web form, spends his days scowling at cowboy pants (牛仔裤) (blue jeans) and trying to think of foreign things that should chap his ass. Then he busts out a huge classical Chinese criticism that a handful of people can understand to condemn the masses for allowing foreign ideas into China.

How sad that I end up with an ally like this.

Though I doubt Wang would be thrilled to have his works read an advocated by a foreign devil either.

This post was originally found at this forum. Danwei.org has a new 2006 diatribe written by Wang in the vernacular partially translated in their Confucians vs. Christians article this week.

As I’ve recently learned China’s copyright laws say, essentially, “Copyright doesn’t exist when a topic is newsworthly; the writer has no right to translation or reproduction; plagiarize to your heart’s content!” (Article 22) I’ve provided a translation of Wang’s article last year, which is considerably more hardcore and uncompromising than this year’s.

While China is not a Christian nation, within its borders “Jesusism” is flourishing. This vexes me.

Adherents of “Jesusism” celebrate a day that is called “Christmas,” but we cannot blame them for this. Although most of our countrymen do not follow the doctrines of “Jesusism,” many blindly participate in a holiday called “Christmas” (lit: Day of the Sacred Birth). Our countrymen have unconsciously been aiding in the rapid infiltration of “Jesusism” into China. I would like to propose to my countrymen that we adopt the following actions:

1. Persons who do not believe in “Jesusism” must not in any way observe the holiday called “Christmas,” no matter if it’s by expressing good wishes, sending greeting cards, presents, having a party or dance.

2. Persons who do not believe in “Jesusism” must not utter “Christmas” (sheng dan). Instead, say Jesus’s Birthday” (ye dan).

3. Persons who do not believe in “Jesusism” must not utter “The Holy Bible” (sheng jing). Instead, say “The Jesus Book” (ye jing).

4. Our nation’s sage is Confucius. Therefore, for the Chinese people, our “Christmas” should be Confucius’s birthday. If we must celebrate a “Christmas” let it be his.

5. Read China’s sage texts: they are deep and profound. Adore and study Chinese culture so you may identify yourself as an inheritor of Chinese culture and as a Han Chinese. That is how you may be a truly impressive citizen.

6. Say no to being a “banana.” Celebrate China.

Wang Dasan (王达三)

Please note, Wang does specifically write “Jesusism.” This is not my attempt to take a witty rib at the religion Europe has for 2000 years found to taste great, and be less filling. In Chinese, there is jiduo jiao (基督教) (Christianity), tianzhu jiao (天主教) (Catholicisim) and dongzheng jiao (东正教) (Eastern Orthodox). Wang writes ye jiao (耶教), ye (耶) coming from yesu (耶稣), the Chinese rendering of “Jesus.”

Truly, politics makes for strange bedfellows. I never imagined I would be translating and endorsing this kind of material, but c’est la vie.

Random note: did you notice that in the post I have attempted to resurrect the “en” dash?