The Other China
被COS
May the young people of China cast aside indifference, move ever upwards and ignore voices that might discourage them. Those who can, should take action, while those who can speak up should also do so. Don’t wait for some torch-bearer: shine forth with whatever inner light you possess; like fireflies you will pierce the darkness.
願中國青年都擺脫冷氣，只是向上走，不必聽自暴自棄者流的話。能做事的做事，能發聲的發聲。有一分熱，發一分光，就令螢火一般，也可以在黑暗裡發一點光，不必等候炬火。
During Shanghai’s ‘Halloween Carnival’ of late October 2023, a young man dressed in a traditional scholar’s gown and sporting a stage mustache, read out this passage from Lu Xun, China’s most famous and quotable twentieth-century writer. He was holding up a sign that read ‘Studying medicine won’t save the Chinese’, a well-known reference to Lu Xun’s youthful rejection of a career in medicine in favour of a life devoted to cultural creativity and polemical fireworks.
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Shanghai’s latest cosplay halloween was an ebullient continuation of a new tradition that has seen a commercial western festival transformed into a particular kind of Chinese mardi gras. In 2023, participants flocked into the streets with a verve heightened by popular relief following the long years of Covid lockdown along with a edgy frisson that reflected anxiety over the direction of the country.
As Zhang Lifan 章立凡, a Beijing based academic turned social commentator, observed:
The social temperament of the City of Wonderment [Shanghai] is in marked contrast to that found in the Imperial Capital [of Beijing]. People in both cities felt the need to let off steam: in Shanghai they did so with light-hearted caricature during Halloween, while in Beijing grief and anger ran beneath the surface of the national obsequies [for the recently deceased premier Li Keqiang].
魔都人的生活態度，的確與帝都人迥異。同樣是情緒發洩，上海人戲謔萬聖節，北京人悲憤國喪日。
Canny Party propagandists like Hu Xijin 胡錫進, a rogue pro-regime commentator and the former editor-in-chief of Global Times, China’s answer to FOX News, is a master of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. In the mode of Ah Q, Lu Xun’s famous literary creation, Hu attempted to grasp victory from the jaws of defeat by casting the rambunctious street celebrations as yet another victory for Chinese cultural self-confidence (see: 10月30日，@胡錫進: 又一個洋節萬聖節被中國的小青年們生生給「中國化」了。雖說裝扮者的身份有一些似是而非的議論，但那又咋樣？而且，誰敢保證這不是萬聖節全球變異的開始？所以啊，國人別怕洋節，小青年們過著過著就會把它們過走樣成中國的別一番模樣。).
For nearly four decades, we have commemorated Chinese ‘seeds of fire’ 火種 huǒ zhǒng of the kind that Lu Xun wrote about shortly before his death in 1936. China Heritage has also commented on various attempts made by Xi Jinping’s party-state to forge a ‘silent China’ while also recording some of the efforts people have made to resist the overall pall of quiescence. In late October 2023, for a heady moment in the streets of Shanghai, new seeds of fire generated pinpricks of light that pierced, if only for a moment, China’s man-made darkness.
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In 2023, All Hallows’ Eve, 萬聖節 wàn shèng jié in Chinese — a veritable carnival of cosplay 變裝 biànzhuāng, or ‘COS’ — was dubbed a ‘Carnival of Gags’ or ‘Multi-meme Mash-up’ 萬梗節 wàn gěng jié. Given the signature killjoy nature of Xi Jinping’s rule, it is probable that in 2024 Halloween will be mandated to promote more ‘healthy, uplifting and consumer-oriented’ themes.
Update, 17 November 2023: Radio Free Asia reported that many participants in the Halloween festivities, as well as those who posted short TikTok videos of the festive shenanigans, had been ‘invited to tea’, or cautioned, by the police. Internet companies that permitted the posting or circulation of cosplay videos were also taken to task for giving license to western cultural infiltration. RFA reported that, henceforth, nothing that was at odds with China’s ‘socialist core values’ would be tolerated during future festivities.
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Monster Mash is a chapter in our series The Other China.
— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
4 November 2023
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From Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium:
- Chapter Twenty-one 醒 — Awakenings — a Voice from Young China on the Duty to Rebel, 14 November 2022
- Chapter Twenty-two 官逼民反 — Fear, Fury & Protest — three years of viral alarm, 27 November 2022 (see also Appendix XXIII 空白 — How to Read a Blank Sheet of Paper, 30 November 2022; Appendix XXIV 職責— It’s My Duty, 1 December 2022; and, Appendix XXV 贖 — ‘Ironic Points of Light’ — acts of redemption on the blank pages of history, 4 December 2022)
- Chapter Twenty-three — Chinese Time, Part I: 新鬼舊夢— More New Ghosts, Same Old Dreams, 1 January 2023; Part II: 忘卻的紀念 — the struggle of memory against forgetting, 2 January 2023
Related Material:
- We’ll Toast His Memory Together, China Digital Times, November 2023
- Li Keqiang’s Funeral, Radio Free Asia
- Chaguan, Why Chinese mourn Li Keqiang, their former prime minister, The Economist, 2 November 2023
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I experienced a kind of déjà-vu, a repeat of 27 November last year at Urumqi Road: the crowds jostling shoulder to shoulder. Just like then, this time there were also a few brave outspoken souls, as well as lots of onlookers enjoying the spectacle. Halloween is when ghouls and spectres haunt the night and parade in the streets. This night everyone was out taking pictures of each other in their outfits, strolling along, chilling out… There was a palpable sense that people were not simply taking part in the festivities of Halloween. It was as though, after three years of lockdowns, enforced isolation, hospitalisations and dynamic Covid restrictions, not to mention the Blank Page protests [of November 2022], people had gone into the streets to enjoy themselves, to make fun of things as well as to express their anger and frustration about the absurdity of things, but with playful inventiveness. Young people were demonstrating a hunger for self-expression and freedom.
There was just this sudden collective realisation that, suddenly, they had a chance to express themselves freely and openly in the exuberant silliness of Halloween.
— ‘F’ in Yuan Li’s podcast. See 袁莉，這可能是上海最肆無忌憚的節日（文字版），《不明白播客》，2023年11月2日
- Note: See A voice from old Shanghai under COVID lockdown, The China Project, 6 April 2022
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As crowds offered floral tributes in Hefei
Ghouls haunted the Shanghai night
Liu Chan 劉蟾
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Over the last few days, people around the country have been mourning, though in some cases there have been road closures, particularly in the case of Hefei [in Anhui, the hometown of Li Keqiang] where large crowds made offerings of flowers. Some citizens even organised the delivery of chrysanthemums [an autumnal bloom traditionally used to commemorate the dead] from other parts of China for mourners to offer [outside Li’s old home]. The scene was moving yet marked by restraint.
By contrast in Shanghai on Halloween there was a variegated spectacle. Some people dressed up as ‘Big Whites’ [in reference to hazmat suits of Covid invigilators], there were even a few made up to look like Wu Jing [a famous cinematic ‘wolf warrior’]. All of the costumes and references were on point and they demonstrated what young people really think about things. It was truly a night during which deviltry was unleashed. I was absolutely delighted by it all.
— Dasheng Liu Chan, 31 October 2023
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Reports on and Videos of Halloween in Shanghai, October 2023:
- 李老師不是你老師，上海萬聖節：與其悼念總理，不如讓他們扮鬼遊行，油管， 2023年11曰1日
- 魏春亮，我可太愛上海的萬聖節了, 《中国數字時代》
- 二爺的故事， 魔都萬聖節：上海人反了，2023年10月31日
- 五嶽散人，上海還是中國這個地下室的天花板：聊兩句「魔都」的百鬼夜行，油管， 2023年11曰1日
- 王局拍案，上海萬聖節，中國的年輕人真棒！，油管，2023年11月1日
- Shanghai’s Halloween Party, a Rare Chance for Chinese to Vent in Style, The New York Times, 1 November 2023
- 袁莉，這可能是上海最肆無忌憚的節日（文字版），《不明白播客》，2023年11月2日
Monster Mash
群魔乱舞：1966
A conga line of political grotesques, attributed to the cartoonist Weng Rulan (翁如蘭, 1944-2012).
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群魔乱舞：1988
A comical cultural parade featured in the film The Troubleshooters
(Watch from minute 30:00)
Note: Monster Mash is a 1962 novelty song by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett. It was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on 20-27 October of that year, just before Halloween and has been a perennial Halloween favorite ever since. The first two verses of the song are:
I was working in the lab, late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab, began to rise
And suddenly to my surpriseHe did the mash, he did the monster mash
The monster mash, it was a graveyard smash
He did the mash, it caught on in a flash
He did the mash, he did the monster mash
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Alarums & Excursions
Shanghai, 31 October 2023
危言聳聽
- A video report by China Change, 11 November 2023
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‘Every breath you take’
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‘An unspoken message’
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Flying
TrackTribe
Flying was one of the unofficial theme songs of Shanghai Halloween 2023
[Verse 1]
Fly so high I’m hypnotized
What’s up is down what’s left is right
Chasing stars and holding you
I can’t see the end but we’ll see it through
[Chorus]
Flying
Get on board
We’re smiling
On top of the world
[Verse 2]
Dangerous times don’t fly too high
Be sure to keep the ground in sight
Fly forever if you keep it tight
Love the world but keep the sky on your mind
[Chorus]
Flying
Get on board
We’re smiling
On top of the world
Flying
Get on board
We’re smiling
On top of the world
Li Keqiang’s Melancholic Exit
A funerary couplet composed by former university classmates of Li Keqiang
In all things the people should come first
萬事民為先
We remember the grand ambition we shared studying together at Peking University during that golden age, our energies focussed on how to create a better world
憶燕園時光欣逢黃金歲月砥礪奮發後立修齊治平鴻鵠志
As our ways now part we mourn that you were never truly able to realise the dreams of our generation, your bequest is the unrequited hopes for the nation
傷今朝永別惜君長オ末展一代夢斷惟遺家國天下不了情
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