On July 25th, on Bilibili, a video went viral. Overnight, everyone was talking about it. For a few days, it almost overshadowed the Pelosi visit. But, abruptly, it was gone. Erjiu, the name of the main character in the story stays as a social media slang, referring to anyone with a miserable life.
First, let me to quickly retell the key points in the story. You can actually see it with English subtitle here, it lasts around 11 minutes.
The title of the video is: “Returning to my village for three days, Erjiu cured my spiritual crisis”. Erjiu, is what a nephew calls his uncle, who is the second son in the family of his mother. Er means number two. Jiu means uncle from the mother side.
The video opens with photos of his uncle Erjiu and grandmother. They live in a very old house in the countryside.
Erjiu used to be a prodigy in school. How good was he? In a city wide examination, only three exam results from the country side was admitted to the city, and one of them belonged to Erjiu.
(Here, let’s recall the Chinese registration system, Hukou, and the caste system between city dwellers (non-agricultural) and country people (agricultural) we introduced in our newsletter 3. Country people always had much less educational resources. In the story, this was in the time when 20% of Chinese lived in the city and 80% lived in the country side. You can imagine immense inequality in educational results when only 3 students were good enough to be sent to the city. But the narrator did not mention this at all.)
But one day, Erjiu got sick and the doctor from a neighbouring village injected him with four doses of medicine. He became a cripple afterwards.
(This is during Mao’s era where Chinese people enjoys “free” public healthcare, with the infamous barefoot doctors serving exclusively in the country side, because the real doctors were reserved for the city people. It seems Erjiu suffered from a severe medical malpractice.)
Afterwards, Erjiu refused to go back to school, and he tried to cure himself by reading “Medical manual for barefoot doctors”, a book available everywhere for everyone, and thinking his way out of it. Two years passed, he saw a carpenter working and learned through observation the carpenter trade. He became a wage earner by making benches for the production team, an organization Mao invented to control production in the country side.
Until one day, production team no longer existed, as he was informed by the leader of the team, due to the “reforming and opening-up” .
(Here, the way the government controlled and dictated people’s livelihood is accepted as gravity. Erjiu seemed to be extremely isolated and unaware of what was happening around him. He accepted this change of his livelihood without thinking.)
So Erjiu started travelling from village to village to do carpenter work. He even bumped into the doctor who made him a cripple, but he had totally forgiven him. When Erjiu tried to obtain a certificate for his disability, he could not get one. So, he decided to go to Beijing, and see him (Mao). Erjiu said that “reforming and opening-up” is good, and Mao was good too, because Mao was fair.
(Erjiu clearly was not aware of how unfair he is being treated by the very system Mao set up. )
Erjiu managed to move into a military base in Beijing where he had a cousin serving there. He made furniture for the soldiers and made friends with high ranking officers.
(This is very dubious, as soldiers in Chinese military base have no homes and no need for furniture.)
In Chinese country side, when you marry off your daughter, you have to provide furniture to make sure that the husband’s family thinks you are wealthy and so they will not mistreat your daughter. Erjiu made entire sets of furniture for his two sisters when they got married, and put famous brand names on them.
Erjiu also adopted a little girl, named Ningning, who was abandoned twice. His big sister brought her up for him, while Erjiu continued to travel to do carpenter work. When Ningning grew up to marry her boyfriend in the city, instead of furniture, they needed to buy a home. Erjiu took all of his saving, paid for the majority share of the cost of the house.
(Ningning was probably one of the victims of the one child policy implemented in China from 1980s, but the narrator did not mention that either.)
When Erjiu was in his 30s, he was a popular target for matchmaking, but he refused to participate because he thought he could not take care of anyone else. In fact, he seemed to be in a relation with a married woman. As years passed, Erjiu’s daughter and siblings were all against the woman because they thought she was only in it for his money. Eventually, the woman and her husband died in a factory far away.
(This romantic story is meant to make Erjiu looks super cool in the eyes of middle aged Chinese middle class men. It makes many Chinese men, who harbour some sort of lost romance long ago, relate to Erjiu. )
Nowadays, Erjiu’s skill is in high demand in the countryside, but he had to give up the opportunity to take care of his mother, who is 88 years old and often thinks of killing herself. So Erjiu decided to take his mother with him when he goes out to work outside of the village. “Isn’t it super cool that a 66 years old is taking an 88 years old on the road?” The narrator asks.
(The lack of welfare system for old people in the country side as a result of the caste system is a social crisis that is often ignored by the society, because old people in the country side have no voice in the fast paced country of 1.4 billion people. The suicide rate in this demographic group is very high. Soon, Erjiu himself will join them. The narrator argues that old age should be full of sickness and pains, it makes it easier for people to die, he said. )
The story then listed all the things Erjiu fixed for the aging population in the village. Erjiu is now the most beloved figure in the village, serving the hundreds of old people who are left behind by their children who left the village to work and live in the cities.
Meanwhile, the narrator speculated, had it not been the four injections that made Erjiu a cripple, he would probably be a retired engineer who had a super good life. But Erjiu never thought about it this way. He is the second happiest person in the village. The most happy person is the village idiot.
Then the narrator summarized that the key of a happy life is not to regret. He saw all the ordinariness, beauty and strength of the whole nation in his Erjiu. He said, the most important thing in life is not to get a hand of good cards (using gambling as a metaphor), but to play a hand of bad cards successfully. He considers Erjiu’s life a success. He quoted some slogan from Mao that Erjiu kept in a notebook: “Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.”
(If you want to know the original style and sentiment of the video, it is worth watching it on YouTube. My summary does not reflect the masterful “chicken soup for the soul”-iness of it.)
The video went viral overnight. White collar workers in the city posted it on their Wechat moments to share with their friends. People were moved by the attitude of Erjiu in the face of misery of his life. They felt that they got an education on human nature, and they learned not to be trapped by their own daily struggle, but to be happy like Erjiu.
Many young people loved it because they consider it a story about how great a nation China is, coming from a past that was humiliating and full of hardship. And the video did not shy away from making the connection.
However, many people, especially those on Twitter, found the video repelling. They say it is singing the praise of suffering. It reminds them of the propaganda during cultural revolution. Sacrifice is praised and put above personal pursuit of happiness. The brainwashing is back again, they warned.
Some noted that every misfortune of Erjiu can be traced back to the system that was set up in disregard of the lives of small people like Erjiu. Had Erjiu taken up the road to fight for justice, he would be disappeared like Wuyi, the woman who fought to see the chained woman in Fengxian, her story was told in Newsletter 45. If he dared to fight for more social justice for the public, he will be put in jail like Doctor Xu Zhiyong, his story was told in Newsletter 35. But Erjiu accepted everything as fair, and especially Mao as being fair. The video is telling people to accept the current system and never complain.
Other twitter user pointed out that the video fabricated a lot. But of course it was a made-up story to paint the miserable life in the country side with romantic and nationalistic colours.
After the video went viral, Erjiu became an internet celebrity. The word “Erjiu” (二舅) became a symbol of resilience in face of adversaries, or a stupid acceptance of suffering without ever asking why, depending on your take of the video. In an interview with State media, the narrator/author of the video claimed that every word in the video is truthfully based on the life of his own uncle. But he does not want anyone to know where his uncle lives. He does not want people to contact his uncle or make a documentary about his uncle. He think the video he made is enough.
Still some people managed to find the actual village where Erjiu lives, but they found Erjiu and the grandma have been moved out of the village. Some journalist managed to find the supervisor of the doctor who made Erjiu a cripple, as the doctor already passed away a few years ago. It turned out that Erjiu was not made a cripple because of medical malpractice but rather because of a infectious disease that later was eradicated by vaccines. Also Erjiu is not the author’s uncle but his wife’s uncle.
So what else he is making up in the story, people wonder.
Since Erjiu is now famous, not only some people want to make a documentary of his life, others suggest Erjiu taking advantage of his fame to sell things on the streaming platforms. The author also rejected the second proposal. He thinks the current ending of the story is beautiful, and he does not want to spoil the beauty.
An overseas Chinese who likes to analyze how China social media works made a YouTube video on why this video went viral (in Chinese). He made some excellent points :
Most of the incidents described in the story of Erjiu is normally criticized as the dark side of Chinese society. If other people wrote the negative stories in the video (for example, the suffering of old people in country side), they will be criticized as making the country looking bad. (See our newsletter 69 as an example.) But somehow this story went viral. Even Chinese official media was promoting it right away, they even uploaded an interview with the author on YouTube.
It is because the video has constructed a very smart framing.
Those who are active on social media are mostly middle-class living in the city. So they can not relate to the suffering of Erjiu, an old disabled country man living far away. The gap in their identities conditioned those urbanites to look down on Erjiu. (Imagine Erjiu as a programmer who lost his job due to overwork and diseases and had to do delivery to make a living. Urban middle class would relate and would see the injustice inflicted onto him.) Instead they can relate to the narrator, who, like them, consumed the story of Erjiu for his own spiritual crisis. In comparison, in the story, Erjiu’s mother lives with him and is still depressed and suicidal, and she is obviously not inspired by her son. The chicken soup for the soul is designed to only work with the middle-class living in the city.
To the government, even though there are many negative sides of the society disclosed, all of those misfortune is treated as fate, as how things are. Erjiu never questioned why bad things happened to him and how things should be. Instead, he accepted it and worked hard and was even very happy, almost as happy as the village idiot. What more can the government ask for of their subjects?
To the young generation, who are mostly brainwashed to be super patriotic pinkies, and who are very sensitive about any negative stories about China, they also view what happened to Erjiu as mere fate. They lack the knowledge of history and society to understand that many of the hardship is due to injustice designed by the system. The nationalistic rhetoric also pulls emotional strings very effectively.
The three groups together (urban middle-class, government and the younger generation) made the story viral. And it is not an accident that such a well crafted story was allowed to spread freely on Chinese internet. In fact, some people found out later that the video was co-produced with Xinhua News Agency, the state media.
Here is SCMP take on it ‘Ordinary but great’: short film about disabled man in China an inspiration to millions after enduring hardships and learning carpentry skills to help fellow villagers .
According to DW:
People holidaying in China’s Hainan island are now stuck, as authorities have placed a strict lockdown. Travel out of resort city Sanya is restricted, and those wanting to leave must take multiple COVID tests.
On Chinese social media, people complain about lack of food.
Hainan is a favourite summer vacation destination. Many of the stranded tourists came from Shanghai, who just suffered a non-existent lockdown a few months ago.
In our Newsletter 80, we described the real estate market crisis. Many aspiring home-owners bought off-plan apartments, only to be left with an unfinished building that is inhabitable, and crushing mortgage loans that they could no longer afford due to COVID. Some people moved into their “new home” because they had no where else to go to.
BBC had a detailed report on the Chinese off-plan real estate crisis. The reporters went to an unfinished building to report on the home buyers who have moved in. Of course, the police came and cut their interview short (and that was also captured on video).
China Minsheng Bank seems to have problems. A video of protesters in front of its Shenzhen office is circulating on social media. The protesters demand the bank to return their money. There is not much media report on what is going on.
Meanwhile, many Weibo users claimed that their bank accounts were frozen. Their accounts are not with small rural banks accounts, but with Bank of China, China Construction Bank, or Agricultural Bank of China, the most established banks in China. The banks told them they are being investigated for fraud. Many people can not even get their salary out of the bank in Shenzhen.
Overseas bank customers also reported that they could not withdraw money from ATM outside China any more.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, this happened: banks in Lebanon have put tight rules on how much money people can access, amid a deep economic crisis. A 42-year old entered the Federal Bank in Beirut’s bustling Hamra district with a shotgun and a canister of petrol or gasoline and threatened to set himself on fire unless he was allowed to take out his money. The stand-off eventually ended peacefully with no injuries, after negotiators struck an agreement allowing the suspect to receive 35,000 USD of his savings upfront. His actions captured public support - with cheering crowds gathering outside and chanting: “You are a hero.” The suspect’s brother told journalists: “My brother has 210,000 USD in the bank and wants to get just 5,500 USD to pay hospital bills.”
The story quickly spread on Wechat.
Ray Dalio is a staunch believer of the ability of CCP and our dear supreme leader. But, the current US-China tension got him worried. He is getting out of his investment in some big Chinese tech companies:
Dalio’s USD236 billion hedge fund sold all of its positions in Alibaba, JD.com, Bilibili, NetEase and Didi Global worth a total USD1.02 billion last quarter, 13F filing shows
The US firm, which runs a USD6.2 billion All-Weather China Fund, is a believer in Tesla challengers Nio, XPeng and Li Auto, while also bullish on Baidu