Spring 2022, Voice of April (1): Cui Jian "Continue to Sprinkle Some Wilds"

The first quarter of 2022 doesn't seem like good news. I heard from friends that foreign countries have gradually relaxed epidemic prevention measures, while domestic cities such as Xi'an and Shenzhen (the main reason for domestic propaganda is that Hong Kong smuggled back) have successively outbreaks of epidemics, resulting in closure of cities. The difference is that this year's city closure is not called "city closure", but "global static management". On February 4th, the Beijing Winter Olympics opened. In my impression, the eight-child mother incident in Xuzhou, Fengxian County, with iron chains around their necks broke out during the same period, and the attention was wider and more lasting than the Winter Olympics and Gu Ailing. No one could imagine that such a thing could still happen in this prosperous China. The official issued five contradictory and unbelievable statements, caught "I can hold 120 pounds" among the two girls who were investigating the matter, deleted all the information, and the matter was over for the time being. Regarding this incident, the public opinion inside and outside the wall is rarely unanimous, and they basically express their concern and sympathy for the chain girl.

One wave after another, on February 24, I was shocked to hear that Russia invaded Ukraine by force. It felt unreal, just like the first time I heard a national leader saying "don't give up the use of force" when talking about reunification a few years ago. stunned. What is even more astonishing is that Putin the Great can actually do it. At first, the United States released intelligence that Russia would attack on the 16th, and then China was busy helping to refute the rumors, but it turned out to be a fight. When I heard that the war broke out, my first reaction was death, death, death. I wonder if the emperor would take the opportunity to suddenly invade Taiwan? Will it lead to a third world war? Then, it is completely unexpected that the domestic people who have always been the most opposed to secession in their mouths actually support Russia almost one-sidedly. In the beginning, there was no mention of the "invasion", and it was said that NATO's eastward expansion forced Russia to fight back in self-defense. The mainstream opinions inside the wall were 180 degrees opposite to those outside the wall. The views on both sides of the Great Firewall were split more than in 2019. When Hong Kong protested the extradition, it was even worse, although the official statement of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was to remain neutral. In a WeChat group that usually doesn't send much information, the discussion suddenly swiped, and a weak anti-war voice was arrogant in the group, drowned in the saliva of nationalism. Unexpectedly, even such a humble desire to be anti-war will be discriminated against in China, on the grounds that "anti-war is not anti-American, there must be ghosts in your heart" and so on. I can't help but wonder if the public opinion environment in Germany and Japan before World War II was the same? The modern high-tech war, which was initially said to be over in two days, did not end as scheduled, and has lasted for more than two months.

Around April 9, there were gossips about various secondary disasters such as difficulty in shopping for vegetables and difficulty in seeing a doctor when the city closed in Shanghai. In the end, the bad news became more and more absurd and scary by the day. Who would have thought that a famine could suddenly occur in the wealthiest city in today's world's second largest economy? Patients in urgent need of first aid died in vain (even in front of the hospital) because they could not wait for the nucleic acid test results? It seems that more and more cities are closing down, and they are very worried about relatives and friends in China. However, for them who don't believe or spread rumors, this kind of worry seems completely superfluous, and it is also interpreted as malicious and malicious Western remarks with ulterior motives. I wanted to remind me kindly, but I was sprayed with a fart. Of course, this information will never appear in the domestic media, unless it is publicly criticized as the object of refuting rumors. Seeing that the official media spread rumors every day by refuting rumors, the ignorant masses sincerely protect the Lord, and the people outside the wall feel exhausted physically and mentally.

On the weekend of the Easter holiday, I suddenly heard that Cui Jian will hold his first online concert (April 15, 2022). It is very convenient to use WeChat to watch, just click to open the live broadcast room and listen to it for free. Since the epidemic, such live broadcasts of concerts and lectures have quietly become popular, and of course they are very good for the audience.

I didn't participate in Cui Jian's most popular era, nor did I remember my parents. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a period of time when karaoke was popular in mainland China, and my parents also sang songs. They seemed to sing "Blood-stained Demeanor", "Xiaofang", and "Rolling Red Dust", but they didn't seem to be Beijing rock. At that time, was the South and the North still very separated? Unlike today, even the elderly watch CCTV; maybe they watched it back then, I don't know.

The first time I heard "Nothing" was from a college roommate who came from the north. But the singer she was talking about was Chen Fangyuan, not Cui Jian. I had never heard of these songs and singers at the time. Many years later, I came into contact with June 4th and a little bit of Beijing rock before I came into contact with Cui Jian. I didn't like it at first, I thought he was screaming with a broken voice until I heard "A Piece of Red Cloth" and "The Last Shot".

 That day you covered my eyes with a red cloth and you asked me what I saw and I said I saw happiness 

Inspired by the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, "The Last Shot" was later associated with 8964.

 A stray bullet hit me in the chest and the past came to me in an instant oh oh last shot oh oh last shot 

Of course, the 2014 Huang Yaoming concert under the Taiping Mountain, which is about to explode, is indispensable. Cui Jian's words on the projection were very shocking, and one sentence woke the dreamer. Unawakened people may hear only noise in their ears when they listen to Cui Jian and Da Ming's faction.

 Why do you always laugh enough? Why do I keep chasing?
Do I always have nothing in front of you?

"A Piece of Red Cloth", "The Last Shot" and "Nothing" did not appear at the concert. Surprisingly, I can't say it, the forbidden song is still the forbidden song, and we are still the same generation. It seems that the executioners never dared to forget the blood debts they committed, and later we also touched the embers of a little residual history in the fragments of the times. Now I see someone digging out the mainland movie "Jiao Yulu" released in 1990, and the comment area is full of wailing, lamenting that everything could be said in that era, and it proves that there are more and more things that can't be said now, and the era that is visible to the naked eye is regressing.

I don't know if the memory is accurate or not, but there is no physical evidence to support it now - it should be in the 1980s or 1990s. I read a comic in a mainland comic magazine with the theme "It's not that I don't understand, the world is changing fast." It was only after many years that I learned that this was a lyric by Cui Jian. Looking back now, many people start to miss that era. Cui Jian, known as the godfather of Chinese rock and roll, is one of the iconic figures in China's transition from a closed to an open period. Listening to Cui Jian again at the turning point of an era that is about to move from open to closed again, the 40 million views of these three hours are a testimony to the common feelings of those of us in this era.

rfa Radio Free Asia: Cui Jian's online concert burst into the air, is he still the same as he used to be?

Phoenix.com: Cui Jian's first online concert was a hit! Huang Qishan, Xu Wei, Liang Long, playing CAll online

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 * "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to make yourself absolutely free, and your very existence is resistance." - Camus, The Myth of Xerxesphus
*The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory and forgetting. – Milan. Kundera's "Laughing and Forgetting Book"
*Let's make a little firefly and light each other in the dark.