Today (June 3rd) is a traditional Chinese holiday. Outside China, it is called the Dragon Boat Festival, which is commemorated on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Lunar calendar. But in China, it is never called the Dragon Boat festival. Its Chinese name is Duanwu festival. The universal activity of the day across China is to eat Zongzi, which is sticky rice ball steamed in Bamboo package.
The western name comes from a Dragon Boat race normally held in the south, but it is not widely carried out in the rest of the country.
The division arises from the origin of the festival. Most of China believe it is to remember the death of a very loyal government official named Qu Yuan, who lived 2000 years ago in the Kingdom of Chu. It was during the Warring States period and his kingdom’s capital, Ying, fell to invaders from another kingdom. Refusing to live under the rules of the invaders, he committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo River (a branch of the mighty Changjiang river). To save his body from being eaten by fish in the river, locals came out in boat making loud noise to scare all fishes, and threw rice balls to feed the bravest ones so that they can leave his body alone.
During the WW2, Qu Yuan became a symbol of patriotism, and his story has been widely told in textbooks and cultural events from then. And since 2014, Duanwu festival is even listed as one of the national public holidays.
However, in some region of China, it is about another person’s death, his name is Wu Zixu, who lived about 200 years earlier than Quyuan but belonged to the same kingdom of Chu. His father was a high level official in the kingdom of Chu that was framed and murdered. Wu Zixu fled to a neighbouring kingdom,Wu, and vowed revenge, which he enacted with a successful invasion 16 years later, helped by King Helü of Wu. The key strategist of the invasion is a figure very well known outside China, Sun Tzu. He successfully revenged his father by digging up the dead body of the king who killed his father and giving the dead body 300 lashes.
However, Wu Zixu is rarely mentioned in modern China. Only in the region that was then kingdom Wu, people consider him the origin of the Dragon Boat festival. He also died of suicide, ordered by the new King Fuchai, the son of King Helü. Wu Zixu’s body was thrown into the Suzhou river, on the same day in Lunar calendar.
Perhaps you can see why Wu Zixu is not welcome in China — he is the opposite of patriotism. Worse yet, he put his personal vendetta above national interests and even lead foreign troops to conquer invade it. This, if you put it in the current political context, is very very bad. Thank about it, it is like an Iraqi who fled to the US and then led the US troop to invade his own country to get at Saddam Hussein.
Apart from the division over the origin, the flavour of sticky rice also divides the country. In the north, people eat plain sticky rice ball, dipped in sugar. That was the flavour I grew up with. Believe it or not, it is very delicious. In the south, there are cooked pork and duck egg yolk inside the rice ball. I have tried it, it is also delicious.
In China, we divide people by the decade they were born in. If you were born in the 1980s, you are called the 80 generation. And this generation grew up with the opening up of China. In the 80’s, China was still very poor, food was rationed. No one had TV or even fridge. But people started to learn that such things were very common in the developed countries. So people grew up to like everything imported. I tried my first sip of Coca Cola in the 80s. I did not like it, and still don’t like it, maybe because it was too late to change my palate. But younger people, born in the 80s, love all the American and Japanese flavour.
One Twitter user summed it up very well, so I am translating his thread here:
My high school teacher was a student from the Square (this refers to the 1989 student movement which ended with a massacre around Tiananmen Square on June 4th), he appeared in a footage of tanks on TV. He never told us his experience on the Square. But he always emphasized the importance of learning English, so that we can get out of China to see the world. In addition to our English textbook, he would collect BBC news reports as reading material. My generation was born to admire the West. There is nothing to hide.
During the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, there was a child rescued after days of digging. People asked him what he wanted, he said: Coca Cola, cold. That was so usual of kids of that generation. If it happened today, he would be bullied on the internet. A group of idiots would ask him why he does not like Wang Laoji (popular Chinese ice tea). We did not change, but the fucking country has changed.
Let me add one more point: the TV commentary video River Elegy was broadcast in the 80s. The main thesis is to reject yellow civilization (earth-centered), and embrace blue civilization (ocean centered). That China is no good, is backwards and poor, was the consensus of both the people and CCP. Meanwhile, the US, Japan, Europe, are the symbols of prosperity and civilization. Our generation grew up with the ideology to reject China.
As you can see from this thread, things have changed. Here is one story about the conflict between today’s parents (80 generation) and their children, 00 generation.
Rough Translation:
My child has shown signs of pink (young ultra-patriotic Chinese are called Pink in Chinese internet slang), for example, he hates America. He thinks that homosexual is not normal, he said luckily our country does not allow same sex marriage. For Japan, he hated it but he has been to Japan and he wants to go again. He likes Ultraman the most, and recently he starts to like Conan.
I used to think to correct his thought, but I worry that if he believes me and thinks different from his classmates, he might be isolated and even bullied in the school. So I chose to be quiet. I have to think that every generation has its own fate and task, I could not change it. So, let it be, I only wish him happiness. After all, someone famous (I forgot his name) once said, to be happy, there are two ways: have a healthy body, or stay stupid.
What the parent said is not rare. I have seen similar comments on social media many times.
In the video they shouted out lots of slogans, and repeatedly claiming that “Success is our religion”. They call themselves military brigade.
In the video, students were shouting out slogans to keep their spirit high to study for the college entrance exams. This again, is not rare. Some twitter users said they still suffer PTSD from it. This year with COVID, job prospect for college graduates is bleak. But they can get jobs from the residential committees now.