Hands off Snakey — Teacher Grey’s Chinese Lessons

The Other China

 

In February 2023, Teacher Grey 格雷老師 Géléi lǎoshī, an American musician with fluent Chinese and a winsome manner, released ‘Chinese Boys, Don’t Masturbate Anymore’, a humorous song with a political punch. He might as well have called it ‘Stop Jerking Off and Save the Nation!’

Teacher Grey’s country of origin, boyish looks and fluent Chinese would, even in these strained times, make him the kind of Friend of China that a Party Secretary might want to introduce to their family. (For a model ‘good caucasian’, see Kumbaya China, 1 September 2020.) However, as the Chinese expression puts it: 人不可貌相 rén bù kě mào xiàng — looks can be deceptive. And so, created with a knowing smile, an affable comedic style and topical lyrics, Teacher Grey’s growing œuvre has seen him banned in the Official China of the People’s Republic even as he has been embraced by The Other China, be it in the PRC, Taiwan or globally.

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One of the commonplace truisms about Chinese culture is that it is vast and profound 博大精深 bó dà jīng shēn. Such is its breadth and complexity that it has for millennia embraced and been enriched by people, ideas, practices and cultures that have originated beyond the Central Plains 中原 zhōng yuán, or ‘China Proper’. In the present age of Chinese wealth and power, it is inevitable that hybrids of all kinds will flourish. They do so for cultural, commercial, political and complex human reasons.

In a speech addressed to Australian high school teachers in 2008, I observed that:

China is a global presence. Through its history, its peoples, its trade, languages, ways of thinking and, now, as a result of its further economic and diplomatic reach, China (including the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan) features in powerful and complex new ways. …

We understand other language-realms (with all that that entails) to enrich ourselves. It is this self-enrichment that we seek to impart to our students and our fellow-citizens. More importantly, in this process, we will also cultivate empathy for truly different ways of being in the world today an enterprise that does, in turn, broaden the possibilities of our own humanity.

The first decade of Xi Jinping’s rule has seen a new era of ‘Chinese escapism’, colloquially referred to as ‘The Art of Running’ 潤學 rùn xué. Many people of means, along with countless others with few means, have decided that of all the ways to cope with troubled times ‘flight is the best strategy’ 走為上策 zǒu wéi shàng cè. ‘To rùn 潤’ is to get out while the going is good, to establish a safe haven and create a life that is not subject to the vicissitudes of China’s mercurial and harsh party-state. In an earlier age, it was known as ‘fleeing the Qin’ 避秦 bì Qín, an expression that dates back to the fourth century CE. The multitudes who ‘fled from the Qin’ — that is escaped from Mao Zedong’s China — created the cultural and commercial miracle of Hong Kong.

[Note: See The Double Ninth in 2019 — Settling Scores, Fleeing The Qin and Eating Crabs, 7 October 2019.]

As was the case in earlier moments of stress in modern Chinese history — during the late-Qing period, the 1930s of the Republic of China, during the Japanese War, in the early 1950s, in the early as well as the late 1980s — yet again China is ‘incarnating out’. That is, individuals and families relocate. The reasons for doing so are multifarious — to safeguard wealth, ensure peace of mind, ‘future-proof’ one’s family, pursue individual goals, and so on — and in the process the world is further enriched.

Some people who went to China to study, work and make a future are also practitioners of ‘The Art of Running’ 潤學. After all, as we noted in You Should Look Back, the introduction to Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium:

No matter how grandiloquent the claims or bombastic the pronouncements issuing out of Beijing, a dolorous reality is undeniable: as the country enjoys levels of wealth and achievement unique in the history of the People’s Republic, a cabal of Party leaders and their intellectual courtiers assert that it is their prerogative to determine and define what China is, what being Chinese means (and can mean), as well as what the legitimate aspirations, languages, thoughts and the state of being of all Chinese peoples should be.

For those who live in a global Chinese world long nurtured by the riches of Taiwan and Hong Kong, a Mainland revived during the decades of economic reform and the creativity of a plethora of Chinese diasporic communities, it is a tragedy of immense proportions that a clutch of rigid, nay-saying bureaucrats thus holds sway, that it arrogates to itself the power to legislate and police the borders of what by all rights should be a cacophonous multiverse of Chinese possibility. By imposing an educational regime that, to quote Xi Jinping, ‘grabs them in the cradle’, by creating a censorious media monolith that spews forth a carefully curated ‘China Story’ and by pursuing a ‘chilly war’ internationally with the encouragement of battalions of online vigilantes, the Party continues to terraform China and create a monotone landscape. All of this is aided and abetted by a sharp-edged new phase in a century-long contestation with the United States and the Western world. Although Xi Jinping’s enterprise builds on the twisted legacy of the Mao era and the darkest aspirations of the Deng-Jiang-Hu reform decades, it is obvious that his Empire of Tedium is also the handiwork of willing multitudes who travail at the behest of one man and the party-state-army that he dominates.

We suggest that readers pay attention to independent-minded young people who live in the Chinese-language world and are not bound by ‘The China Story’ of Official China.

In the preface to Simon Leys’s Chinese Shadows (1978), the philosopher Jean-François Revel wrote:

Let’s keep reading these works, so that we may see that in the age of the lie, the truth sometimes throws its head back and bursts out laughing. (See also It’s Time for Another Serving of Peking Duck Soup.)

In his music, Teacher Grey teaches this old lesson anew and with an endearingly light touch.

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This chapter of The Other China features another episode of ‘Who Gets It?’不明白播客, a podcast series created by Li Yuan 袁莉, a noted New York Times columnist whose reporting work focuses on the intersection of technology, business and politics in China and across Asia. Her podcast, the full title of which is Who Gets It — Searching for the Truth and Answers Together 不明白播客:一起探尋真理與答案, presents conversations with a diverse range of people both in- and outside of China.

In the episode A Long Arm — China attempts to be a global censor長臂審查:中國如何影響在海外的藝術家, released on 12 March 2023, Li Yuan spoke with He Huang 黃鶴, a stand up comic, Badiucao 巴丟草, a noted political cartoonist, both of whom are based in Australia, and Teacher Grey 格雷老師, an American musician who is on the road in Taiwan.

We are grateful to Li Yuan for permission to translate this material, to Teacher Grey for going over the draft translation and to our tireless Reader #1 for their close reading and timely corrections. The title ‘Hands off Snakey’ comes from the saying ‘Wakey wakey hands off snakey’, an order that often appears in military-themed films in which the drill sergeant screams the line to wake up his cadets.

In keeping with the typographical style of China Heritage, the ‘Crippled Characters’ 殘體字 (aka Simplified Chinese Characters 簡體字) of the transcription of Li Yuan’s interview have been converted to Traditional or Full-form Chinese Characters 正體字.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
16 March 2023

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Listening to Teacher Grey, Remembering Wu Zuguang

 

In 1977, not long after I met the playwright Wu Zuguang (吳祖光, 1917-2003) in Beijing, he told me that, apart from the crime of hosting his own literary salon, he had been condemned as an ‘Anti-Party Rightist’ for comments he had made during the Hundred Flowers movement two decades earlier. After lambasting the Communists for  their increasingly stifling control over culture and the arts in an article published in a 1957 issue of the professional journal Theatre 《戲劇》 titled ‘On the Theatre and Party Leadership’ 談戲劇工作的領導問題, Zuguang asked:

‘Why do people in the arts need your “leadership” anyway? Who among you can tell me the Party Secretary who provided leadership to Qu Yuan? Or, for that matter, Li Bo, Du Fu, Guan Hanqing, Cao Xueqin or Lu Xun? And what about Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Beethoven and Molière?…

對於文藝工作者的‘領導’又有什麼必要呢?誰能告訴我,過去是誰領導屈原的?誰領導李白、杜甫、關漢卿、曹雪芹、魯迅?誰領導莎士比亞、托爾斯泰、貝多芬和莫里哀的?……’

(Among those who denounced these comments the cruelest barbs were launched by Zuguang’s old friend Lao She 老舍, a man now regarded as some kind of martyred cultural saint. Lao She had only just denounced the need for ‘so-called creative freedom’ so now, in an article titled ‘Why is Wu Zuguang’s Fury so Dramatic?’ published in People’s Daily — 老舍,《吴祖光为什么怨气冲天》, 1957年8月20日 — he declared that ‘I feel even to have known someone like Wu Zuguang is like a stain on my character’.)

In August 2018, I dedicated my translation of Xu Zhangrun’s essay ‘Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes’ 我們當下的恐懼與期待 to the memory of Wu Zuguang. He was an outspoken man of principle who, even in the darkling years after 4 June 1989, never abandoned his independent critical stance.

Despite China’s relative openness over the past four decades, many other writers, thinkers, public activists and common citizens have been silenced. We will never know what China could have been, or might still become, if this countless multitude was able to speak out, debate and fearlessly participate in that country’s hamstrung public life.

G.R. Barmé, Poetic Justice — a protest in verse, 5 April 2019

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Teacher Grey’s ‘Socials’:

More on Teacher Grey:

Also from Li Yuan’s Podcast series:

Related Material:


Teacher Grey in Taipei. Photography courtesy of 格雷老師

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The Long Reach of China’s Cultural Censors 

Li Yuan in conversation with Teacher Grey

長臂審查:中國如何影響在海外的藝術家

袁莉對話格雷老師

Translated by Geremie R. Barmé

 

Li Yuan’s Introduction

Chinese censorship has become increasingly intrusive over the past decade. Books go unpublished, films are denied distribution rights and some artists are refused opportunities to exhibit their work. Established writers and artists feel constrained, unable to express themselves freely, while younger aspiring creators are forced into an accommodation with the upbeat demands of official ‘Keynote Culture’.

Powerful artistic voices are individualistic and unique. In a country that doesn’t tolerate any form of criticism, let alone satire or lampooning, artists who want to express themselves unhindered have limited options: be quiet, be persecuted, or go into exile. Many often have no say as to which of these fates will be theirs. Some cultural creators have chosen to ‘rùn 潤’, or decamp, overseas. Even then, although they are in a freer environment, they often realise that they’re living in the shadow of the censoring state. Some choose to hide, but others decided to confront their oppressors head-on.

In this episode of ‘Who Gets It?’不明白播客 we speak to three artists about their experiences:

  • He Huang is a stand-up comic who performs in English. She has been attacked by ‘Little Pinks’ [online pro-Party zealots] for pandering to foreign audiences and ‘hurting the feelings of the Chinese people’;
  • Badiucao is a political cartoonist who has been harassed and forced to cancel exhibitions. Galleries that want to show his work have even come under pressure from the Chinese authorities; and,
  • Teacher Grey, an American musician who, after having released a number of Chinese songs, was forced to take down two works that mentioned Xi Jinping because his family was concerned by the blowback.

Those interested in learning more about Chinese cultural censorship are strongly encouraged to listen to ‘End of the Beginning’, three episodes in the podcast series ‘Film Criticism Gone Rogue’.

[Note: The three episodes in ‘Film Criticism Gone Rogue’ 反派影評 to which Li Yuan refers are:

近10年來中國的內容審查愈來愈嚴格,很多書無法出版,很多電影拍出來後無法放映,有些藝術作品也不再有公開展覽的機會。有點名氣的中老年作者和藝術家不再能誠實地表達,年輕一代能出名的大多是和主旋律和諧共處,甚至是有貢獻的。

有力量的藝術和表達是要有態度的,在一個不允許批判、諷刺、戲謔的國家,想自由表達的藝術家或者沈默,或者被迫害,或者只有離開,無論是主動還是被迫。一些希望能繼續自由創作的中國藝術家「潤」到了國外,但即便肉身生活在自由社會,他們發現自己依然要生活在不自由的陰影之下,需要繼續躲避或者直面那來自萬里之外的大手。

這期節目我們採訪了三位藝術家,分別讓他們談一談自己的遭遇:黃鶴因為用英文講剩女的脫口秀,被小粉紅攻擊說是在洋人面前跪著表演,傷害了中國人民的感情;畫政治漫畫的巴丟草被跟蹤,被迫取消畫展,給他辦畫展的西方藝術機構也會受到來自中國官方的壓力;最後是音樂人格雷老師,即便是土生土長的美國人,他在寫了幾首中文政治歌曲之後也因為家庭原因而不得不刪除兩首關於習近平的歌。

關於藝術審查,強烈推薦大家去聽「反派影評」去年10月到11月做的三期播客,題目叫《開局的終局》。

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Li Yuan: My third guest in this episode is ‘Teacher Grey’, a Chinese-speaking American who also writes and sings in Chinese. ‘Chinese Men Should Stop Masturbating’, one of his works recently released online has garnered a lot of attention, though his overnight fame on social media has also caused him some grief, so much so that he took down two other songs that the had posted because of the controversial nature of their lyrics.

Teacher Grey, could you say a few words of self-introduction, such as where you are from, what you thought of China when you were young and why you decided to study Chinese?

Teacher Grey: I grew up near Boston and it never occurred to me that I’d end up studying Chinese. I got interested in learning the language for one very specific reason — a girl. But, she disappeared when I was only three weeks into the language.

Li Yuan: What images did you have of China as a child?

Teacher Grey: I’ve always been pretty much all about enjoying freedom but growing up, I mostly disliked the American government. Some Americans have only the most superficial understanding of China, or it’s simply made no impression, though that was not true in my case. I think I was pretty much aware of the nature of the Chinese system from the start and I knew that things were heavily censored, too. I actually felt really uncomfortable on my first trip to China.

Li Yuan: When did you first go to China? Was it like what you had expected?

Teacher Grey: What really struck me was the pollution. Whenever you go to a new country or engage with a new culture you inevitably have to put your prejudices to one side. I found average Chinese people to be quite friendly, though I got a very strong sense that they were not aware that they were living under a totalitarian system. Since the system didn’t impinge on them directly they thought that they were pretty free.

Li Yuan: Did you get the feeling that it was a totalitarian environment?

Teacher Grey: I was always testing things out. One of the main reasons that I persisted with Chinese was that I was really interested in understanding what the people whose culture I was studying really thought about things. I remember a discussion I had with an elderly person about Mao Zedong. As someone who grew up in the West, what I had heard was that Mao was a genocidal ruler who had murdered people on an unprecedented scale. That’s all I knew. What surprised me was that many Chinese felt that, although Mao had made some mistakes, overall he was a good leader. It really shocked me.

Li Yuan: I get it. The Communists evaluate him as having been ’70 percent good and 30 percent flawed’. But, to change the subject, it looks as though you have over 100,000 followers on Bilibili as well as on YouTube, where you’ve posted videos of you teaching guitar. You’re known for guitar tutorials which have no political content or anything to do with current affairs. You were a musician, pure and simple. When did you take this political turn?

Teacher Grey: A good question. I don’t think I’ve ever intentionally censored myself. When you learn Simplified Chinese characters as part of the process of studying Chinese you are in effect absorbing a form of propaganda. I have a strongly antipathy to anyone or anything that tries to infiltrate my mind. Since I like to be able to think things through for myself, it means that I end up objecting to lots of things. Though, as you said, I’m a musician first and foremost and that’s why, when I first set up my Bilibili account, I did so because I wanted to share my knowledge of music.

Initially, I was probably also thinking that it might lead to some money-making opportunities, but that end of things never came to anything. Since I didn’t see much good coming from platforms like that, added to the fact that China was moving in a very particular direction, I gave up any thought that I might make anything from my account. I knew that to make money I’d have to give up my freedom [to do as I pleased]. If you’re making money from something, profiting from it, you’ll always end up being compromised, or you lose your neutrality.

Actually, I’d devoted a considerable amount of resources to putting things online and my reward was the followers that I attracted. I really do appreciate my followers and I enjoyed making content for them. If you want to know if it led to some practical, real-world results, I’d say there was because maybe someone would search me out in Boston to take classes with me, but they were few and far between. The choices I made might not have led to any profitable outcome, but still I really felt proud of what I was doing.

Later, when the social media response to what I was doing went south I started wondering whether I was somehow complicit [in the system] simply by being online in the way I was, or that I’d end up being used: ‘See how foreigners like Teacher Grey are publishing with us. China’s a normal country like everywhere else and our online platforms are the same as those overseas.’

But I don’t think China is a ‘normal country’, nor do I think that online platforms in China are ‘normal’ at all. That’s why I ended up feeling really conflicted.

袁莉:第三位嘉賓是格雷老師,一位會說中文會用中文作詞的美國人。他最近上線的一首諷刺歌曲《中國男生不要打飛機》傳播很廣,但社交媒體上知名度的上升也給他帶來了困惑,他最後不得不下架了兩首最敏感的歌。格雷老師你能不能先介紹一下自己,比如你在哪裡出生長大,從小對中國的印象是什麼樣的,怎麼會想起來學中文,你能不能說一下?

格雷老師:我出生在美國波士頓附近,之前沒有想到我長大後會學習中文。因為某些原因我畢業於大學以後就開始學習中文,然後因為我喜歡某一個中國的女孩子,但我沒學三個禮拜她就走了。

袁莉:你小時候對中國是什麼樣的印象呢?

格雷老師:其實我從小就是一個比較愛自由的人,但是我最煩的是美國只關注自己國家的人,有一部分人對中國的印象非常膚淺,或者說視而不見,我從來不是這樣子。我從小我就知道中國這個體系是怎麼樣的,有嚴重的審查,甚至說我第一次去中國是非常的不舒服。

袁莉:你什麼時候第一次去中國?那裡的印象和你想象中的有什麼不同?

格雷老師:我還記得當時的霧霾非常嚴重。當你進入新的國家、認識的一個新的文化,你肯定要把你一些的偏見放下。我對中國人的印象,他們是比較友好的,我比較深的印象是,他們在那個時候不認為自己處於在一個極權的體系裡面,他們感覺自己很自由,因為他們感受不到極權。

袁莉:但你當時就有感覺到極權嗎?

格雷老師:我一直在摸索。其實可以說,我堅持學習中文的一個主要的因素是我想知道我要瞭解的人到底是怎麼想的。我還記得我在中國和老年人講毛澤東這個事情。因為在西方長大,毛澤東被認為一個前所未有那麼厲害的一個搞種族滅絕的殺手。沒有其他的評價。但我很驚訝的是,很多人在中國都覺得他有犯了一些錯誤,但他總得來講是一個好領袖。我覺得非常的驚訝。

袁莉:共產黨對他的評價三七開呀,七分是好的三分是犯了錯誤的。對那我再問你一下吧,我看你在B站上好像有十幾萬的個粉絲,還有你在B站和YouTube以前都是教吉他的視頻,沒有任何的關於政治的或者甚至新聞時事的東西,好像你就是一個純粹搞音樂的一個人。那你什麼時候決定你想要做一些政治的歌曲呢?

格雷老師:現在好問題。我覺得我沒有故意地學習如何自我審查。學習中文,只要是簡體字,多多少少是有宣傳的作用。我的意見非常的大,我不喜歡有其他人要滲透我的大腦,我喜歡自己獨立思考,所以我的意見很大。但是你知道我就是一個音樂人,所以我在當時開的Bilibili賬號是為了分享我的知識。那在最開始,我可能有一些希望,我很可能會帶來一些實質性的機會去賺錢,但在後來這些都沒發生,然後我自己也決定,因為我不是很看好這些平台或是說這整個國家的走向,所以我不想在那裡賺錢的,因為我覺得賺錢就沒有自由。賺錢就有利益,有利益,就可能有更少的自由,或者不是中立的。其實我投入了很多這裡的資源在這個東西上,主要的回報就是我喜歡我的粉絲,我喜歡為他們做工作,如果有一些實質性的回報,可能有幾個會偶爾找我在波士頓上課這樣的,但不是特別多。從那個回報來看,不是一個很好的選擇,但我還是很榮幸的做。

但在後來輿論中就從比較糟糕的情況繼續惡化,然後我開始感覺只要我存在在這裡,就等於一種默許,我就會變成一種工具:「你看就都有外國人來中國投稿,我們都是正常的國家,這些都是正常的平台」。但我不認為中國是一個正常的國家,更不認為那個平台是正常的平台,然後我就覺得很尷尬。

袁莉:你不覺得中國是一個正常的國家,比如說你在Bilibili的那些視頻,好像是在一個正常的國家做的一個正常的事情,教吉他這樣的課程,你覺得你就變成了一個大的宣傳機器把它正常化的一部分,你是覺得是這樣嗎?

格雷老師:沒錯,只要我願意配合,我就覺得是一種有這種正常化的作用。我覺得當你被逼到某個程度,你肯定要有立場,肯定要展現出來你的原則。我在那個時候,就在那個戰狼時代的開始,就感到根本沒有任何希望,我一定要公開我的立場,我一定要讓我這些粉絲知道,他們那個喜歡的那個老師,並不是支持審查平台的這麼一個人,我就想公開這個事情。

我有很多粉絲,我一直在掙扎,我怎麼辦,這個衝突。我的一些朋友們,即便是反賊,他們也是比較隨機應變的,所以我跟他們講,他們說格雷你不要擔心這個,因為他們已經把這個東西當作理所當然的,我想了兩年左右,然後一年半前我想通了。我覺得因為我一直在我的人生,我一直在想我在哪個地方可以用到我所謂的才華。我是為中文的,那個是一個有意思的地方,然後我是會音樂的人,我想我嘗試寫中文歌曲會不會比較有意思。因為我的身份就有點不一樣,所以我寫的內容,或者說我寫的風格,可能有一些不同的地方會令人感興趣。

當然我提出這個概念,我就不是亞洲人嘛,也是那個非母語者。我在當時還沒有開始想做這個調侃這個東西,我第一首歌是比較正常的一個歌,其實我還得花很多時間才學會如何寫中文歌詞。第一首歌我還記得可能有一個小時才跟寫出來一句,然後這一句我又要跟很多人咨詢,然後他們會讓我改變。基本上現在我可以寫一整首歌,然後我去咨詢,然後換幾個地方,就好了,甚至說我寫的,比如《偉大的中國男生不要打XX》……

Li Yuan: So, although posting videos of guitar lessons on Bilibili seemed normal enough, to you China was simply not a ‘normal country’ and that left you feeling as though you were part of a large propaganda operation and your participation contributed to normalising the site. Was that your sense of things?

Teacher Grey: That’s right: my collaboration helped normalise things. I feel that after you’ve been unduly pressured and pushed into a corner, you really have to take a stand, one that reflects your principles. It was the beginning of the ‘Wolf Warrior’ era [around 2018-2019] and I was feeling pretty hopeless about things,. That’s why I felt that I had to come out in public and express my stance. I had to let my followers know that this teacher couldn’t support a site that tolerated censorship. So I wanted to out myself.

I struggled with it: because I have a lot of followers I agonised over what I should do. I really was conflicted. Some of my friends were willing to adapt, even if they were pretty rebellious [in private]. So, when I told them about my inner conflict, they just told me to chill out, but that was because they’d come to an accommodation. I kept mulling things over for a couple of years before I really settled on my position. That was about 18 months ago. I realised that my personal journey was about finding ways for me to use my talents to express myself. Here was what I was working with: I knew Chinese, which is interesting, and I was a musician. I thought maybe the way to go was to write some Chinese songs. Given my background and my particular perspective, I hoped to create things people would find interesting.

I say all of this while knowing full well that, of course, I’m not Asian and Chinese is not my mother tongue. Initially it didn’t occur to me to write satirical songs and the first thing I composed was pretty mainstream. And, to be frank, learning how to write lyrics in Chinese was a really slow process. It took me about an hour or so to write the first line of that first song of mine, even then I sought advice and guidance from a pile of people. Now I can pretty much draft a whole song before I check it with anyone else. Then, after I’ve tweaked it a bit, it’ll be pretty much good to go. Now I can say my songs really are all my own work. One example is ‘Chinese Boys, Don’t XXX Anymore’…

***

***

Li Yuan: Don’t worry, you can say ‘jerking off’ in this podcast.

Teacher Grey: Cool. That song only took me ten or so minutes to write.

Li Yuan: Wow, that’s really fast. What was your inspiration?

Teacher Grey: Maybe the truth is not so interesting. At the time, I was still feeling my way and hadn’t posted that many songs. Nor had I given up on my other pursuits but I knew full well [that after I posted it] I’d be banned, but I hadn’t given up. So I was experimenting with various kinds of content and one of the things I came up with related to the colloquial expression for ‘to masturbate’ in Chinese — that is, ‘take potshots at airplanes’. I’d decided the melody would be my starting point and though I hadn’t made a video to go with it, the idea of a big airplane was very much in my thoughts. Anyway, I thought ‘potshots at planes’ was a pretty funny expression, what was that all about? Sure, it was a bit on the smutty-side of things, but not so much. Everyone did it whenever they had a chance. Starting with this funny idea I had to see how I could work it into a song. Then I thought that I could associate it with China’s aging population and the falling birthrate. I just sat down and came up with a draft. I showed it to a few people and continued revising it until in just over a week I had a final version.

Li Yuan: You posted another song titled ‘Let’s Say Goodbye, Zhao Lijian’. Was that the first song you put up? It meant that you’d been paying attention to the Wolf Warriors for a while. When did you write it?

***

***

Teacher Grey: Some time this February. The day I posted that song my life changed.

Li Yuan: What kind of reactions did you get?

Teacher Grey: ‘NMSL’ [你媽死了 nǐ mā sǐle] — your mother is dead meat!

Li Yuan: In other words, abuse from Little Pinks [that is, patriotic zealots].

Teacher Grey: I treated those attacks as being bots. The messages were all in the same stilted style and didn’t sound the way people really speak. After all, I know quite a few Chinese people and that’s simply not the way anyone expresses themselves. Why was some machine talking to me like that?

Li Yuan: So, what you’re telling me is that you’d been thinking about writing political songs for about 18 months, and then you worked out how to combine the Chinese lyrics you wrote with your own music. Then, all of a sudden, in February this year, you decided to write a whole pile of songs.

Teacher Grey: A few things happened that really inspired me to act, including a vigil here in Boston. People gathered to commemorate and mourn the Urumqi apartment fire and I was one of the speakers. [Before] I addressed the crowd I was thinking, what do I as a foreigner have to say that could be useful here? . So I addressed the issue of what I call ‘fake Chinese friends’ and ‘real Chinese friends’.

[Note: See Fear, Fury & Protest — three years of viral alarm, 27 November 2022; and, Yangyang Cheng, In China’s Diaspora, Visions of a Different Homeland, ChinaFile, 12 December 2022.]

At first I was shaking from nerves. That’s because I was saying out loud things that I had been mulling over for ages. I was really worked up, angry. Since I was crying behind my mask I just pulled it off. I was saying in effect that I’m not afraid. I’m an American, after all, what did I have to fear? I took off my mask to demonstrate my position, it was my way of saying to everyone: there is no reason to be that afraid. From then, no matter what I did, I kept thinking to myself: I will no longer remain silent; I will no longer censor myself. I will no longer be a false friend of China.

Li Yuan: Why do use the expression ‘a false friend of China’? Do you mean that if you don’t tell the truth then you are a false friend?

Teacher Grey: Why not be truthful — people want to be able to make a buck, but how exactly are they making their money? By collaborating with the Communist Party. I mean, they are playing by the Party’s rules and everyone knows that if you say something inappropriate you’ll lose your source of income. At the same time, you also know full well that people are suffering, but you make no effort to speak out on their behalf.

I remember how many videos were posted online about what had happened in Urumqi, so many of them were put up by enthusiastic online friends, but the censors kept on deleting them. I remember one piece in particular. It was an article consisting of just one word: ‘Correct’ [對 duì]. ‘Correct, correct, correct, correct, correct…’

[Note: For a calligraphic compilation of the word 對 duì, see A Protection Mantra for the Year of the Rabbit, 22 January 2023.]

Li Yuan: Whatever you [the authorities] say is correct, ‘everything you say is right’.

Teacher Grey: I shared it with my circle of friends because I didn’t think it’d be deleted. But, within ten or so minutes, even ‘correct’ had been scrubbed. It was absolutely ridiculous.

Li Yuan: Black humour.

Teacher Grey: Even when we use one simple word to show you up for what you are, you can’t cope.

Li Yuan: So, for you, a ‘false friend’ is someone who doesn’t tell the truth. Though if you go onto Chinese social media sites you can’t say anything negative about China. Is that the sense you have?

Teacher Grey: That’s right. Actually, it was a slow process, like becoming addicted to a kind of drug. At first, you’re not really conscious of what’s happening to you. I just kept posting things and talking about stuff in China with friends on Facebook. Then, after a few years, I realised that I didn’t even dare do that. Later, when I started thinking about going to Taiwan, I was even afraid of mentioning the word ‘Taiwan’.

Li Yuan: Really? You mean on WeChat?

Teacher Grey: Yeah. I didn’t dare use the word. In reality, it was no big deal talking about things like that with friends, but some of the groups I was in — some followers and fans — and places online where you can interact with your followers, I became worried that something I said would trigger a ban. I finally embraced the idea that I’d be cancelled one way or another so I made a point of doing stuff that would get me banned. Then I didn’t have to worry any more.

Li Yuan: Have you been completely barred from Chinese sites.

Teacher Grey: I sure have been.

袁莉:你可以說打飛機,沒有關係。

格雷老師:對,那首歌大概寫在十幾分鐘內就寫出來了。

袁莉:哇,你怎麼可以這麼快。你怎麼會想再寫這麼一首歌?

格雷老師:可能沒有你想象的沒有意思。在那個時候,我還沒有放那麼多歌,我還在摸索,所以我沒有放棄別的,我知道我會被封殺的,但我還沒有放棄,然後我開始摸索新的內容。其中一個就是解釋在英文裡面你怎麼可以說打飛機這樣的一個東西。但在那天我已經大概決定,我想用音樂為主,所以那個影片並沒有上,但我還是有大飛機這個概念在我的大腦裡面。其實我覺得打飛機本身就比較好笑,為什麼?當然色,但不是特別色,有一種機會等大家都做。所以我覺得有一種好笑的一個概念,然後我就想我怎麼可以把這個概念寫入歌里。然後我就想到那個生育率跟老年化這些東西,當然有所聯想的,我就坐下來,寫了一個草稿,然後就和其他人咨詢一兩次,然後第二個禮拜我就放了這首歌。

袁莉:你還有一首歌《趙立堅,我們說再見》,這好像是你上傳的第一首歌,所以你說很早就注意戰狼了。這首歌你是什麼時候寫的呢?

格雷老師:應該是今年的二月左右。那天改變了我的人生。

袁莉:然後你收到了什麼樣子的回復呢?

格雷老師:有一些nmsl哈哈哈,你媽死了。

袁莉:有小粉紅來罵你是吧。

格雷老師:我覺得是人工智能搞出來了,那是一樣的話,而且不是人說的,因為我認識不少中國人,他們不是這麼講的,所以為什麼這個機器人你得這麼講呢?

袁莉:其實你已經有一年半的時間都在想著要做這個關於政治性的內容,然後怎麼結合中文和音樂。然後突然之間,二月份,你就決定就一下子就寫了好幾首歌。

格雷老師:突然有一些人生的一些發現才讓我這麼做,包括在波士頓有一個悼念活動,烏魯木齊路的那個活動。在參加這個活動,我還演講了。我在我演講當中,我一直在想,因為這些都是中國人,所以我一直在想我的立場,我的角度,有哪一些比較好講的地方,所以我的演講是關於中國假朋友跟真朋友。我開始演講我就發抖了,因為我想這些事情很長時間,我真的很憤怒,基本上哭了,脫了口罩。我脫了口罩的意思是,大家都很恐懼,但我覺得我是美國人,為什麼要恐懼,我脫了口罩給他們炫耀一下,你不用那麼的恐懼。在那個演講,我以後我做任何一件事情,我都會想起這一句話:從今天開始,我再也不沈默,我再也不自我審查,我再也不當中國的假朋友。

袁莉:你覺得為什麼是假朋友?不說真話就是假朋友嗎?

格雷老師:因為為什麼不說真話,有人在要賺錢,但他們賺的是誰的錢,他們賺的是的共產黨的錢,因為這是共產黨的規劃,你說什麼不恰當的話,你就不能賺這個錢了。但你知道同樣有人在受難,你從來沒有敢為他們發聲。你知道在烏魯木齊這個事件後來的幾天,不是有很多網友們在上傳影片,關於這個事件的一些影片,然後在這兒不斷被404、被下架,他們會說我再上傳了,通過很多的方式去繞,所以有意思的我覺得是一個文章這個文章,它的內容就是一個詞,對對對對對對對對對對對對對對對對對。

袁莉:你說什麼都對、你怎麼說都對。

格雷老師:然後我把這個分享了,我覺得不可能下架,所以我下載了,然後我分享了,然後過了十幾分鐘,它就被下架了,我覺得非常非常好笑。

袁莉:黑色幽默。

格雷老師:讓我們拆穿你的本質是什麼,連那個詞都不能說。

袁莉:你說,不說真話就是假朋友。但是你只要上了中國的社交媒體,就沒法說任何中國不好的話,你覺得是這樣嗎?

格雷老師:對,然後我是慢慢地學習,就是你慢慢地上癮某一個毒品,你可能沒有意識到。因為我在一開始我還是會發東西,在臉書說有跟我自己朋友說中國的現狀,但我發現過了幾年,我連這個都不敢做。然後我開始想去台灣,我發現連這個詞「台灣」我不敢提。

袁莉:哦啊,是嗎?在微信上面。

格雷老師:對啊,我不敢說,其實跟朋友講話是我沒有問題,但是我有一些群,粉絲群,還有一些地方跟粉絲互動,我就怕我做什麼事情,讓我被封殺。後來我終於覺得要擁抱封殺,去主動地讓我自己被封殺,才不用怕了啊。

袁莉:你現在被封殺了嗎?

格雷老師:被封殺了。

Remembering Every Sperm is Sacred

It is forty years since the musical sketch Every Sperm is Sacred featured in The Meaning of Life, a cinematic sketch comedy released by Monty Python in 1983. The song mocked Catholic teachings about sex, masturbation and contraception. As the most famous line in the spoof put it:

Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.

(See YouTube for the full song. Also, for the lead in to the sketch, see here.)

For some people in the English-speaking world, Every Sperm is Sacred was a landmark moment. A pop culture sensation, the song further legitimated criticisms of Catholicism and religious dogma that had flourished since the 1960s. In The God Delusion the outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins used the song to highlight the ‘surreal idiocy’ of pro-religion, anti-abortion arguments. Today, the barbs of Every Sperm is Sacred hit the mark just as hard as they did forty years ago.

GRB

Li Yuan: After you released ‘Chinese Boys, Don’t Masturbate Anymore’ you no longer self-censored — you were going to say whatever you wanted — and that song certainly had a considerable impact. Even so, you still ended up taking two other songs that you’d posted down from the web. Can you tell me about that?

Teacher Grey: Sure. It’s been the source of a lot of inner conflict since, as you said, I was determined not to censor myself anymore but here I was self-censoring again. I think that the point is, I no longer wish to self-censor the topics and ideas I discuss, but I still can be mindful about exactly how I choose to discuss them. In particular when it might result in some kind of physical danger for me. The two songs I took down could have resulted in me being physically harmed, but that was because they touched on the most sensitive topic of all.

Li Yuan: Both songs mentioned Xi Jinping by name. One had a very suggestive title — ‘Uncle Xi, I wanna make love with you’, which was translated from English. I was pretty taken aback when I saw it and thought to myself: Only an American could possibly come up with something like that. No Chinese would dare. Can you tell me who or what sounded the alarm?

***

习大大,我想和你交融
byu/MarkAustinEE inreal_China_irl

***

[Note: The title of the second song is ‘Xi Jinping, Some Day You’ll Die’ 習近平將來你會死去.]

Teacher Grey: I’d just set up a Twitter account and already had 12,000 followers. That’s just crazy. I felt immense pressure from the day after I posted them. I’d been wanting to do something like that for ages, but there’s no way I could guess what the repercussions might be. Such instant popularity in and of itself made me feel pretty anxious, in particular because some media outlets got in touch. Of course, there were people attacking me online too. It all happened at once: the good, the bad and the ugly.

That morning my dad rang me to cuss me out: ‘Don’t you realise that you’re going to get yourself killed?’ He was furious and he ordered me to take those two songs down immediately. I wanted to ignore him and, although I didn’t delete them entirely, I did make them invisible. That’s to say, I can always re-post them if I want to. By removing them I could have a bit of a cooling off period.

Li Yuan: How much does your father know about China? I can’t imagine anyone would actually murder you for those songs. [Laughs.]

Teacher Grey: I know. The Chinese government wouldn’t order a hit job lightly, though it’d be different if it was Russia.

Li Yuan: Don’t you think you were overreacting?

Teacher Grey: Sure, I didn’t think I’d be murdered, but the anger was palpable and I felt real pressure. I needed a little breathing space, both for the sake of my family and for myself. Recently I haven’t enjoyed the best psychological health, anyway, and I was in therapy. I was completely caught off guard when all the reactions flooded in. I really felt as thought I was on the verge. In fact, I broke down sobbing about once a day every day for the following week.

Li Yuan: That’s to say that you were overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the response to your songs and the pressure that you felt as a result. People were being hypercritical, even though you felt that some of the reactions were computer-generated bots, or the work of paid online vigilantes. Others were participating in the mob to make some money out of the furore, since being an online vigilante is an easy way to generate income these days. Added to that was your determination not to self-censor any more, even though in the event you felt compelled to take those two songs down. At that moment, which of all of these factors was the most important?

Teacher Grey: I don’t want to say too much about my personal situation, though my actions really had a negative impact on my family. I felt devastated. Having said that, I still didn’t feel that I’d done anything wrong, so the contrast between what I had done and what was going on at home was something that was pretty much beyond repair.

Li Yuan: From a certain perspective this goes back to the pressure brought to bear on you by the Chinese authorities, even if that pressure expressed itself in this indirect way.

Teacher Grey: That was definitely a factor. In a society with legal protections you wouldn’t be impacted so badly for having said something like that. But we all know that’s not the situation when it comes to China. It doesn’t respect the rule of law. What I’d done wasn’t a criminal offense, but if they want to, they have other means at their disposal to threaten me, or make trouble. That was a real pressure.

Li Yuan: I understand how you might have feel that you were being treated unfairly, Some people attacked you for using art to make political statements. Others claimed that you were composing dissident songs because you couldn’t make money in China any more. Then there was the line that you had got yourself involved in anti-China activities so you could curry favour in the US.

Teacher Grey: Of course, I want to be able to make money. I’m a musician; what’s wrong with making a living from my music? For me, that was never an issue. As individuals we also have complex motivations, and why should we judge people entirely on the basis of their motives? If I really wanted to make money, why had I chosen to do it like this? That kind of logic made no sense to me.

袁莉:《中國男生不要打飛機》這首歌出來以後,雖然你說你再也不要自我審查,你一定想說什麼話就說什麼話,但是在那個出來以後,因為影響力很大,你最後還是下架了兩首歌,你願意說一下嗎?

格雷老師:我可以說,這也讓我又有了很多的衝突,因為我說我不要自我審查,又開始自我審查。但我覺得主要的自我審查是關於講的話題、講的內容、講的觀念,而不是他們的包裝。所以我可以說我以後不太會怕講什麼東西,但我也要考慮到怎麼去包裝,也涉及到我個人的安全。因為下架的兩個東西,有人真的是怕我人生不安全了,因為涉及到中國最敏感安的地方。

袁莉:你下架的兩首歌,其實是都是和習近平有關的,都是點名習近平,其中有一首叫《習大大我想跟你交融》實際上就是意思,就是英文翻譯過來,就是習近平我想跟你做愛。我當時看了這個,我覺得哇,只有美國人會這麼寫出來,任何一個中國人都不會寫出來這首歌。你怎麼被警告了,誰警告了你,你願意說嗎?

格雷老師:我就剛開的推特,從這個晚上到現在已經有1.2萬粉絲,非常的離譜,第二天其實我壓力很大,因為當然我一直想做這個事情,但沒有辦法感受到它的後果,就是爆紅本身是很有焦慮的,因為開始有一些新聞媒體找我,當然有一些人噴我,我就是各種好壞都一起發生,讓我感覺有所焦慮。第二天的早上我老爸給我打電話,就罵了我說,「你他媽的會被暗殺,你知道嗎?」他非常生氣,他先說讓我下架的那兩個視頻的,我本來沒有準備聽他的話,但是因為我一直很焦慮,所以我覺得我沒有刪,我就下架了,所以以後如果我想再放,我可以放回去,所以我先下架了,冷靜一會兒。

袁莉:你爸爸他是不是不瞭解中國。我覺得你還不至於會被暗殺哈哈哈。

格雷老師:暗殺不是一個中國政府會輕易做的事情。如果我們是講俄羅斯,那說不定。

袁莉:但是你也不想自己太焦慮了。

格雷老師:我不認為我會被暗殺,但他人對我憤怒也是一種壓力,我要爭取一點空間,所以對於我家庭情況,我個人情況。我本來其實精神健康也不是特別的好,本來在看心理醫生,所以受到這麼多的信息,可能沒有做好準備,覺得比較崩潰,甚至可以說,從那個時候,應該不斷的一個禮拜左右,沒有過一天我沒有哭,這樣子。

袁莉:你這麼焦慮,這麼難過,主要是因為這個壓力太大,一下子有太多的信息過來了,然後又有很多是指責你,然後這種指責,有的你認為可能是中國政府機器人生出的那種的賣罵人的,還有一些說你動機不純是想掙錢,因為現在攻擊中國噴中國是一個更容易掙錢的方式,還有你要你自己一直說我不要再自我審查了,但是你還是得要把兩首歌拿了下去。這種conflict,哪一個因素對你的情緒影響更大一些?

格雷老師:我不方便講太多關於我自己家庭的情況,但主要是可能因為我做了這件事情,我要破壞我的家庭,讓我非常的難過。但我不覺得我做錯了,所以這個衝突基本上是解決不了的。

袁莉:實際上還是中國政府的一個壓力,哪怕不是最直接的,其實也是一個變相的壓力。

格雷老師:一定是一個部分。在一個法治的社會裡面,你不會因為你說的言論受到什麼影響,但我們都知道不是這麼一個樣子,這不是一個法治的國家,我做的那個行為,沒有什麼法律是可以去審判的,但同樣可以用各種各樣的方式去恐嚇,或者是找我麻煩,這是一種壓力。

袁莉:你可能也覺得委屈,是因為有些人就說你把藝術當成了政治的工具是吧,說你現在寫這種的所謂的反賊歌是因為中國不好賺錢了,所以你開始做反華的事情,在美國謀好處了。

格雷老師:當然我希望我可以賺錢,我是音樂家,我寫音樂不能賺錢嗎?其實我不覺得什麼問題。我們的我們人的motivation是非常的複雜。我們為什麼要用動機來判斷人。如果我只想賺錢什麼的,我為什麼選擇這個方式?我覺得很奇怪。

Li Yuan: There are some foreigners who work for Chinese state media. They post or write things on YouTube or in the international media and create videos which essentially parrot the official Chinese line. What do you think of that kind of work and the foreigners who participate in it?

Teacher Grey: I have absolutely no respect for them. They’re trash. I guess that you’re talking about ‘Foreign Fifty-centers’, right? I don’t think any Chinese person should have any doubt that people like that are hypocrites. If you’re born and raised in a free country you don’t learn how to behave like that, unless there is something seriously wrong with you. But there’s no lack of people like that. Furthermore, they really are in it for the money.

Li Yuan: So, you’ve written a few songs, been confronted by many people who have attacked you and, on top of that, you’ve had problems at home. How then do you regard the situation of Chinese artists? They don’t even have the freedom to say what they want to.

A while back there was a stand-up comedian by the name of Chizi who performed during a trip to North America. His set couldn’t even be posted on the Chinese internet and he even forbade people from recording his show. Every Chinese creator faces the same situation that you’ve had a taste of, though things are worse for them. How do you see it?

[Note: See on The ‘Social Death’ of Chizi.]

Teacher Grey: We are all victims of the system, and as such I don’t feel that I’m in the position to criticise or even comment on others. If a person chooses to remain silent and just goes about their business making money then I have no right to criticise them. However, if you are really an artist who wants to actually create something meaningful I think you have to do your utmost to do so. If you can’t, then you still have to try. We shouldn’t be critical of our friends, we need to understand their circumstances, understand the root cause of the problem.

For me, what’s more serious is that [given this state of affairs] China is incapable of producing any truly meaningful art: Chinese films are garbage, so is the music scene. It’s simply not popular. Meanwhile, much smaller places like Taiwan, Japan and Korea produce cultural work that is vastly superior to that of China. You have to ask, why is this so? It’s no accident. If every artistic form is under such immense pressure then of course you’re not going to see any real talent flourish.

Li Yuan: Too true. Censorship really is a killer for creative people.

[Note: See Less Velvet, More Prison, 26 June, 2017.]

When were you last in China and do you plan to go again in the future?

Teacher Grey: I was last in China in late 2018. As for going back, I don’t see that happening, unless there are some pretty major changes.

Li Yuan: Such as?

Teacher Grey: Like if the Communist Party quits the scene.

Li Yuan: [Laughs] Sure.

Teacher Grey: There’ve been a few minor changes lately, but maybe that’s been more in tone than in substance. But we’ve seen it all before; the main hope lies in fundamental change.

Li Yuan: Is there anything more you’d like to add?

Teacher Grey: I’ve posted these more political things because I felt I had to be open about my stance. I willingly outed myself and that led to me being censored. But that allowed me peace of mind and the freedom to write my music. In future, I might continue creating more comical songs like the ones I’ve released lately. Whatever. At least now I’m free to write whatever I want.

Anyone who wishes to see what comes next should keep an eye on Teacher Grey and subscribe to my Instagram account and my YouTube channel.

[Note:

袁莉:有一些外國人為中國的官方媒體工作,或者是他們在YouTube等外國社交媒體上面寫的東西、創作的視頻,其實經常是被中國的政府和宣傳背書的。你怎麼看待這樣的工作和這樣一些外國人呢?

格雷老師:看不起。垃圾 。你說的大概是洋五毛對吧?我覺得中國人不要再自我懷疑,你看這些人,你不要以為他們是認真的,因為作為一個出生在一個自由國家,不會有任何人學會這些東西,除非一個大腦有嚴重問題,其中其實不少是這樣。第二是為利益來的。

袁莉:你創作了這幾首歌,然後就面臨了很多的這種網絡上的攻擊,還有你的家庭各方面的這種的壓力。那你怎麼看一些中國的藝術家是吧,他們就不能夠說話,前一陣子一個人叫池子的stand up comdedian,他到了美國去開脫口秀,說的話完全不能放到中國的互聯網上,但是他不允許別人去錄音。你面臨的這個困境,是普通的任何一個中國的藝術家都在面臨的,他們的困境比你還要大一些。你怎麼看這個呢?

格雷老師:我們都是體系的受害者,所以我不想去指責跟評價,如果一個人,他們要沈默,為了賺錢,我不想去批評。但是我覺得作為藝術人,也要真的做藝術,那你如果有能力的話,你要找辦法;那你沒有能力的話,你要找出能力,我們也不要指責自己的這朋友,我們要瞭解到,這個問題是哪裡來的。我覺得更嚴重是,我不認為中國能有任何藝術。中國的電影爛、中國的音樂爛、中國這個行業是不受歡迎的,這麼小的一個台灣、一個日本、一個韓國,都能推出比中國好的太多的文化產品,這是為什麼? 我不覺得是巧合,我覺得當你這麼的嚴重去壓迫著整個行業,那就養不起這個才華。

袁莉:嗯對。審查真的是對做藝術的人來說是一個特別可怕的事情。你最後一次去中國是什麼時候,你以後還會不會去?

格雷老師:最後一次是2018年底吧,然後回去,我不覺得我會回去的,除非有比較大的改變。

袁莉:什麼樣的改變?

格雷老師:共產黨下台。

袁莉:哈哈哈哈哈好吧。

格雷老師:現在有一些比較小的改變,一些比較嘴上的、語氣的改變,但我覺得我們看過的一切,其實更期待一個大的改變。

袁莉:你還有什麼我沒有問到但是自己想補充的?

格雷老師:本來上這些比較有政治的影片,是因為我想公開我的立場,主動的讓我自己被封殺,因為這樣的話,我可以心安理得的去繼續寫中文歌曲。我以後寫的歌可能會有這樣的調侃的味道,現在可以說我有自由了,我想寫什麼歌,我都可以寫,所以想跟我後來的一些的作品的人,歡迎你來關注一下格雷老師的Instagram和YouTube。

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Arriving in Hsinchu 新竹市 after an 80km bike ride. Grey plans to circumnavigate Taiwan. Photograph courtesy of 格雷老師