This is China! BLOG

The De-flowering of a Chinese Patriot

I recently had a Chinese virgin to my home. A patriot, Sally hadn’t yet had much exposure to the world beyond what the Chinese media fed her. Though a University graduate, whenever we discussed some geopolitical issue or some Chinese historical notion her argument always came down to: China is the best; the foreigners raped us when we were weak; Communism (with Chinese characteristics) isn’t so bad after all; kill all the Japanese.

Recently, though, I thought I’d expose her to a medium with which she had very little experience; one that I hoped would start her down the path of simply thinking about things instead of regurgitating half-eaten Party solipsism.

Sally had never before seen war films that questioned who the good guy was, and who was the bad guy. What is Right; and what is Wrong? Indeed, Who is right and Who is wrong? The evening we watched two films that posed just such questions left her uncomfortable, confused, even. For her, born and raised in Nanjing, all Japanese are evil, because of the terrible events of the Rape of Nanjing in 1937 (which in no measure am I condoning or condemning; nor any of the other atrocities wrought by Japanese soldiers during the War). But of course Shiseido cosmetics are top of the line for her. And all Americans – the British, to boot, in her book – are all war-mongering colonialists. But if she learns to speak English well, American companies in China have amongst the best work environments; after all, her sister works in one, and feels very comfortable. For her, the Communists are the good guys, and anyone who fought against them the bad guys.

I introduced her to two foreign war films. “Letters from Iwo Jima” – which I’d never seen before – and the South Korean “Tae Guk Gai,” which I’d seen three times before. Having been raised in an Air Force family - the head of which was a walking encyclopedia of war films from “All Quiet on the Eastern Front” through “Full Metal Jacket” and the ingenious “Apocalypse Now” - I’d gained some appreciation for the genre. Even blatantly propagandistic films like “Flying Leathernecks” (the American fighter pilots fighting the Japanese in China) and “The Green Berets” (cowboys in Vietnam) have their value as historical set pieces that help sketch out the psyche of the periods in which they were made.

With some distance from the historical conflicts, though, war films in the West tend to become critical of the societies in which they were made (excluding the current batch of Iraq-wasn’t-such-a-good-idea-after-all films), films like the ones I introduced Sally to. “Letters from Iwo Jima” is about the American invasion of the island of Iwo Jima, from the point of view of several Japanese soldiers whose life stories preceding the invasion are sketched out. “Tae Guk Gi” is a South Korean film about two Korean brothers drafted into the Korean War to at first defend against the North Korean onslaught, and then – with the support of the Americans – to defend against the combined forces of the North Koreans and the Chinese.

Key moments in both films involve the humanization of the characters. The Japanese General in “Letters” is more compassionate than his subordinates because of his time spent State-side; and the cosmopolitan Olympic Gold Medalist Japanese Colonel is more compassionate to captured enemy soldiers than the Americans are. But more powerful than that are the simple stories of the simple Japanese soldiers that are themselves brainwashed by greedy, powerful leaders who in the end lend no support to the defense of the island. Even the most rabid of the Japanese soldiers – those who you know could have been bayoneting Chinese infants in Nanjing just six or so years back – are simply more understandable, even pitiable for their naive view of their ethnic and cultural superiority.

“Tae Guk Gi” is a more focused film: the Korean War told exclusively through the shrapneled lives of two brothers who love each other dearly at the outset of the war, and then who come to eat hatred in the vacuum of civilization the War leaves behind. The older brother is completely devoted to the safety of his younger brother, who is the only educated member of the family. The younger brother is the treasure of the family. The older brother then volunteers to do the most dangerous assignments with the understanding that after he is decorated the Army will send the younger brother home to help his mute mother whose husband had died long ago.

But the devastation, mutilations and cruelty on both sides drive the brothers to madness; the elder, especially, who switches to the Communist side when he believes the Nationalists have actually killed his family members.

Both films throw in the viewers face the relativity of good and evil. Sally cheers when the Chinese Communist army rushes over the ridge at the South Korean army. She cringes when North Koreans are hanging Korean civilians and booby-trapping the dead bodies of peasants; she shrieks when the South Korean soldiers gun down un-armed North Korean POWs; she cries when South Korean government thugs accuses the brothers’ family of being Communist sympathizers and set off to kill the innocents.

In “Iwo Jima” she shouts when the Americans kill unarmed Japanese POWs; sighs when a young Japanese soldier who clearly doesn’t want to be in the war is spared beheading by his own officer; and cries when the compassionate Japanese General kills himself rather than be taken in shame by the enemy.

At the end of the two films, Sally sat mute, stunned. Only a couple times during the films did she pipe in with patriotic pap like, “Chinese never fought each other like the Koreans” (I had to remind her of the Communists and the KMT, not to mention most of Chinese history.) Otherwise, she had been as engrossed in the storylines and characters as anyone who wanted to gain some sense of what war is really like, and what motivates individuals and societies to commit suicide and murder - and to justify it.

After we finished the last film, the South Korean “Tae Guk Gi,” she wiped her eyes dry and sat quietly for what seemed to me a long time, though it was likely only ten minutes. Eventually, she said in a hushed voice, “It didn’t matter who was Communist and who was Nationalist. The most important thing was that the two brothers really loved each other, no matter what side they were on.” I nodded wordlessly. “No good guys; no bad guys,” she added, spent.

She said, sounding a little frustrated, “Why doesn’t China make these kind of films? They only make films where the Communist Party is always good and right and everyone else is bad. Everyone in the Party is a hero.”

I told her that we in America have the same tradition in our movies; though, after some time, Hollywood dares to make films that question motivations, intentions and actions of our country, its leaders and the soldiers themselves. “The only point I want to make is that what any citizen in any country reads and hears and sees from its government and through its media is not always as simplistic as the government makes circumstances out to be.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Not simple after all.”