The Year of the Plague | After the epidemic, we don't have any "life we know" to go back to (Part 2)

Either lose the freedom to write, or lose the life of writing

For a long time, I lost motivation to write.

First of all, because I found that my words have inaccessible places, I no longer have the courage to be invincible, cut myself apart and write whatever I want to express. It hit me, because at one point I was so confident that no matter what happened, at least I could make it into a good story—meaning unshakable sovereignty, and omnipotent healing. However, when I moved around in a more complex reality, I had more concerns and vulnerabilities. Externally, I began to care about the impact of words on others. Internally, I also saw limitations that I could not face. Stare into the abyss.

Secondly, I finally understood that as long as I am a Chinese user, I cannot escape the influence of this totalitarianism.

I'm a lover of writing, and it's my most handy form of self-expression, and it's the same as my "existence". Finding peace in the identity of a bereaved dog is also because I believe it is worthwhile to endure loneliness and displacement in order to be able to write freely.

But over time I felt that language and its soil are inseparable. Without the context of growth, language loses its roots and constant nourishment. This is not something that can be solved by insisting on reading Chinese and social media, but when you are separated from the community and society composed of "people", and lose the stimulation and various awareness of the fresh details in life, it is difficult to have original words. Sex can be said, it is easy to fall into a rut, or slowly wither, and no longer touch people's hearts.

I like to watch my friends in China write about their personal experiences and knowledge. The vitality and appeal of local writing is irreplaceable by skills. I can only rely on a large number of texts in the media to make an abstract interpretation of China. I find it is more comfortable to write public opinion and media observations from this "abstract" perspective, but I have to go back to the beginning. The "immersion" state required when writing novels is difficult to achieve, but after all, this is my passion.

So I realize pessimistically that either losing the freedom of writing or losing the life of writing is actually a no-brainer choice. The price that totalitarianism makes you pay has never been discounted. Going to a country is far from a physical reset of the body, but the alienation of memory and language, the latter of which can be called "miserable" and the essence of this exile.

However, there is a hint of happiness in the pain, fortunate that I felt it, and I also endured this pain. When that land has been controlled by lies and silence, I escaped with at least a private memory and language, and used my body and mind as a place for Chinese to grow, like a small potted plant on a spaceship, It was uprooted and planted in a pot, and it may never have room to grow, but I will try to keep it alive.

How will feminism move forward in the future?

From the end of March, the Xiao Meili incident, which lasted almost the entire month of April, may be the biggest blow to the feminist activists and even the Chinese feminist community after the Five Sisters Incident. If the Five Sisters of Feminism incident ended the activists’ street activity space, then after the Xiao Meili incident, their online channels were also banned. The long-term social media campaign experience the activists have explored will be used again. facing failure.

In this incident, Xiao Meili resonated with the public by discouraging and exposing the smoking man in the hot pot restaurant, and rushed to the hot search on Weibo. After that, her resume as a feminist activist was unearthed, and she was quickly detained as "Hong Kong Independence". ” hat and suffered a lot of cyber violence. Her Weibo account and official account have been banned one after another, Taobao stores have been attacked, and feminists who are related to her and support her have also been killed and bombed.

This cyber violence eventually turned into a witch-hunting spree of ultra-nationalists and anti-feminists, and what was coinciding with it was the systematic censorship of feminists by related platforms. But as Lu Pin said: "The only thing that needs to be understood is how political mobilization and persecution have escalated the tyranny of today's gender war." Ultranationalists and anti-feminists use "patriotism" as a killer, and find a way to "gender confrontation" The ultimate solution to feminism in the war.

No amount of rational understanding of the damage caused by this incident can compare to the emotional shock experienced privately. It can only be said that people who have not experienced cyber violence can hardly understand the absurdity and madness of group violence - even if I was only on the edge of the storm, I was completely unable to live my own life during that time. The whole day has been consumed by the smog and bad things on the Internet. It is hard to imagine how much torture Xiao Meili and Datu, who are in the center, have endured.

I first met Xiao Mei at an event at the New York Cultural Salon after I came to New York, and since then, she has become one of the feminist activists I am most familiar with. In 2019, I began to compile and compile "A Brief History of the Youth Feminist Movement in China". I wanted to leave a more complete record of the actions of the activists. Xiao Meili copied me a large amount of information she kept. If you read her story, you will marvel at her bravery from the heart. But in my impression, she is still a sensitive, emotional and eccentric girl, and she is also a versatile artist who can create beautiful things. When I saw the most vicious personal attacks on her on the Internet, I felt It's physical pain, and -- hatred. I even registered a Weibo account to hit back at the accounts that slandered her with the same vicious swearing, but thankfully, I soon felt empty and stopped participating.

The "A Brief History of China's Youth Feminist Movement" compiled at that time was fortunately made progress. At the end of March this year, Wainao and I jointly launched a special project on feminist activists, the theme of which is " Rescue the Faulty Ten Years of Chinese Feminist Movement History: Group Portraits, History and Current Situation of Activists ". After more than two months of preparation, we have sorted out an almost forgotten contemporary history of the folk feminist movement created by activists with feminist activists as the core since 2011. Lv Pin, Datu, Xiao Meili, Liang Xiaomen, Li Maizi, Qiqi and many other core actors were interviewed and wrote articles for us. Through this project, we also want to answer a question: How did the contemporary folk feminism (movement) in China develop to the point where it is today?

As I wrote in the introduction, I believe that integrating narrative and recording history is crucial. It is because people's memories are deprived and rewritten that they lose the ability to control their own destiny. Today's Chinese feminist movement is deeply fractured. Feminist events in the past ten years are rarely known by the new generation of online feminists. When we lose a coherent narrative and historical context, it is difficult to inherit the experience of our predecessors, and it is difficult to form reflection and long-term vision. Lose your grasp on the agenda.

In my heart, I ideally regard this special project as my modest contribution to them and the cause of Chinese women's rights.

Unfortunately, our special project was published at the climax of this online violence, and some pink accounts posted screenshots of our articles on Weibo as their guilt. One of the most widely circulated screenshots is the title image of a review article I wrote, titled " We're Going to Identify the State as a Maker of Women's Problems": Feminist Voices and the Birth of Young Feminist Activists . The sentence is actually a concept expressed by Lu Pin in her speech "Witnessing Women's Rights in China for Twenty Years" when she talked about the establishment of "Voice of Women's Rights". This concept determines her and the feminist line in the previous system. The difference also runs through the work of Feminist Voices and the action orientation of the later activists - that is, to focus on institutional gender inequality, to attract media and public attention to gender issues through artistic public actions, and to actively To hold government agencies and businesses accountable, to promote the improvement of our national policies and systems, and to strive for equal social resources and civil rights for women.

In fact, when I saw the reaction caused by this picture on Weibo, I just felt extremely funny. These people were inexplicably astonished, as if they were facing a great enemy, as if they had never seen anyone who dared to point out the problems of the country in their life. They were all scared out of their minds, jumping and screaming like an old eunuch guarding the emperor's orthodoxy. !", "What a formality!"

Compared with the liberal atmosphere on Weibo, which was dubbed "Crowd Watching Changes China" during the "First Year of Civil Society", the dramatic changes in China's public opinion field can be called shocking. My expectation is to promote this history to be seen and understood by more people, and the confusion and misunderstanding of the public about feminism will be somewhat resolved. But it was not until then that we realized that long-term information censorship and political propaganda have distorted the coordinates of people's value judgments. In a public opinion field where black and white are reversed, the more we prove our innocence, the more we are self-incriminating. As a result, I wanted to do my best for them, but I became an accomplice to stigmatize them in this online violence, which made me very frustrated.

But we did not give up on ourselves. The feminist community has always organized counterattacks and various supports to the parties. Xiao Meili is even more indomitable and insisted on speaking up. Until the World No Tobacco Day at the end of May, when all the Internet abusers had lost interest, she also appeared and sent a letter to the National Health Commission, calling for strengthening the prevention and control of male smokers.

I remember when the Internet violence was at its peak, we met on Clubhouse several times to discuss the progress of the incident and related issues. The question we are most concerned about and asked the most is: how will feminism move forward in the future?

As Lu Pin said, "feminism has been mired in political stigma since then. It has already begun. From now on, not only Xiao Meili but all feminists will be hit back wherever they go: feminism is not only about women Boxing, feminism, or foreign powers, feminism wants to mess up China, feminism... Also like all gender-based violence, their purpose is not only to cause immediate harm, but to cause long-term fear and surrender.”

After sorting out the history of feminist activists, I also hope to put forward some ideas of my own on this issue based on the thread of the past. What I am interested in is whether there is a possibility that the now divided pan-feminist community will be more united under the indiscriminate blow of anti-feminist forces inside and outside the system? And is it possible for feminists and even other civil resistance groups to form a consensus and connect with each other?

Even though I am saddened to know, what "other groups of civil protesters" are there? Feminism may be the last visible social movement in China at such a dark hour. Within the 'red line' that has been tightened again and again, how feminists can be sustainable and insist on publicity has become an increasingly severe test.

After seeing the special plan we published, some people said that not only the vein of the feminist movement is broken, but in fact the vein of all civic movements in China is broken. Not only is the feminist community divided, but the entire civil society is a mess. We are invisible to each other, and it is difficult for us to learn from and connect with each other.

Later, I started a discussion with Wainao at Clubhouse based on the content of the project. I asked Chen Chun, Fang Kecheng and other pan-liberal friends who are concerned about feminism to share their thoughts. There has always been a lot of tension between feminism and liberalism in the Chinese context, especially during the Mi Rabbit movement, when it was even more tit-for-tat. But under this unprecedented reality, I hope that each other can open up some new horizons and new situations.

As people who have also been attacked by "Little Pink" and blocked by the entire network, Fang Kecheng and Chen Chun both said that their biggest feeling is to realize that the rules of the game in the public opinion field have changed, and we can no longer maintain the initiative. power and control.

Fang Kecheng said, "I worked as a reporter at Southern Weekend for three years before. Everyone knows that being a reporter in a Chinese media requires self-censorship, so I always feel that I have rich experience in self-censorship. I have been on Weibo since 2009. Bo, after ten years of use my account has not been bombed, I think it is because I can grasp a boundary very well. But after the Internet violence happened, it made me feel that the current rules have changed, it no longer depends on What did you post and what you said depends on the charges the other party puts on you. Others claim what you said, so we ourselves have lost active control.

It was said before that there was censorship, but it seemed like everyone had a little bit of control, and where you put the line seemed to be your own choice. If you cross the line you are in danger of being bombed, but if you do not cross the line there is no danger, but that control has now been lost and given to this group of terrorists. This will lead to a serious consequence. For example, in feminist action, everyone needs to pursue visibility, and the values you advocate and the things you do need to be seen by everyone. But under such circumstances, getting out of the circle becomes a very dangerous thing. "

Afterwards, Fang Kecheng suggested from a platform perspective that everyone’s actions and voices need to become more multi-level, with different attributes, different scales, and relatively visible and invisible action methods. And the platform characteristics of Weibo as a "hate machine" may no longer be suitable for some real and meaningful connections. He suggested that we explore new platforms, like Clubhouse, podcasts and Newsletters can all be new options.

Chen Chun also recounted his experience of being attacked by the Internet. In 2019, when he went to Hong Kong, he was screenshotted and posted on Weibo in the Moments. Later, he was approached by the police, and his Weibo, Douban And the official account was also completely blown up, and the writing had to be transferred outside the wall. He said: "I feel the same as Fang Kecheng, not only the rules of the game have changed, but also a new group like this - the so-called little pinks, their influence is getting bigger and bigger, and their actions have appeared. A big change. In the past, for example, when the emperor went on an expedition, their scope of action was still relatively limited, that is to say, at least many times, they were still at a distance from the liberals and other people who were not so close to the system. , or the state where well water does not commit river water.

But after the online violence, I found that their aggressiveness has become very strong, and they will start picking on your attitude towards the country. Not only that your attitude is obviously criticized, but that maybe your attitude is not good enough, or your faithful expression is not sincere enough, and you start to be attacked by them. So after the incident in 2019, many of my friends were attacked by the same group of people, Gu Yan Mu Chan, and the Eagle of God. In my opinion, the wave we suffered at that time will not be the end, and the scale will definitely increase. "

What impressed me the most was that Chen Chun said that he chatted with some friends about this not long after that, and talked about the development of the entire liberal group. It happened to be going through the epidemic at the time, and everyone asked where the future space was. When there was something to do, he said: "I was pessimistic at the time, because I had a history of being crushed by the liberals. So I told them that right now the liberals want to build back their momentum within the wall. It is already very difficult, we can only devote more energy to it, either you do some research yourself, or if you still want to do some action and solidarity, you should look to more progressive groups, such as feminism We should go to support them."

"Then a friend asked a question at the time, and he said: After listening to you tell the whole history of the destruction of liberals, do you say the same thing can happen to feminists again?"

When I finished writing this part, I just encountered a new round of iron fists - the public accounts of LGBT associations in major Chinese universities were blocked in batches. This is another systematic ban after the Xiao Mei incident. The LGBT community was deeply shaken, and compared to the counterattacks that spread across the Internet when Sina Weibo banned homosexual content and Les's super talk, this time, several public accounts that spoke out were quickly banned.

I saw some friends in the community express their resolute emotions in the circle of friends, she said: "I have received so much hatred education since childhood, hated Japan, hated the United States, hated the Eight-Power Allied Forces, hated the traitors, and even now children are beginning to hate Taiwan and Hong Kong. What should I do now. I don't know what this feeling is in my heart over the years. I don't want to use "hate" to define it, but what should I do with those scars that have fallen. Empty hate, real hate, Where will it end up and what should be done about it.”

"A few days ago, I reposted Li Mingcong's 'Have vain enthusiasm, appreciate failure itself', but what if it was 'vain failure'. Can people in the future speak out against the people who are now imprisoned because of labor because of women because of their ideals? Friends say 'You deserve jail time!' Is that true?"

I replied, "Yes, realize 'this is a vain failure', and then it all begins, because the known path has been traveled, and the unknown lies ahead."

end

In the storm, we have a deeper understanding of the life of each of us and the value of the real companionship around us.

The days in Vancouver have healed me. This city by the mountains and the sea is much cleaner and more stretched than New York. In spring, the breeze is cool and the sun is shining. The cherry blossoms on the UBC campus bloom into piles of pink clouds. When we lived in Qiqi's house, we took on the pressure of coping with the online violence, participated in many discussions, and extracted knowledge from the rubbish thrown at us. Although I spend most of the time working, attending classes, and doing homework, and she also has studies to complete, but supervising each other with them, I no longer feel so depressed, and the efficiency is also higher.

We often play a few games and watch a movie together after a busy day before going to bed and sneaking out to play when the weather is nice. So in a month, we chased cherry blossoms, played in the Great Suspension Bridge Park, visited museums and art galleries, rode bicycles along the coastline, went to picnics, basked in the sun, licked cats, drank small wine, and cooked together. , I ate a lot of Sichuan food... Qiqi also set up a "Feminist Everyday Pistachio" group for feminist partners to give each other a spiritual massage. In the group, everyone never talked about national affairs, but only shared food, drink and fun.

I have experienced the happiness of family life after a long time. Because of being anesthetized by happiness, I have no anxiety to express, and the articles I planned to write have been put on hold indefinitely (until now).

One day when I was busy with my homework, Qiqi and FT suddenly came over mysteriously and gave me a pair of egg-yellow "lazy eggs" socks, because they wanted us to wear the same socks, and she Said, "We will form a multi-family pension group together in the future." At that moment, I felt that the softest part of my heart was hit. The disappointments I never told anyone were caught by them.

On the eve of leaving her house for New York, I was in a hurry, but when I came to my senses, I was already in tears. Qiqi sent a message to tell me that a friend who was playing at her house asked her to choose a horror movie to watch together. She remembered that I liked watching horror movies the most, so she couldn’t help crying, and then I cried all the way.

Originally, I was worried that the epidemic was not over, and that I would not be able to pass the customs smoothly from Canada to the United States, but I did not expect it to pass quickly. Qiqi said that she was very happy for me and that she could finally go back to New York to have a look. "I think one day, I can also go back to Chengdu," she said.

From the period of the "dog of bereavement", it seemed that I was destined to find no home in any place, and I had to keep turbulent. I think it must be because I love freedom too much. God rewards me for being on the road. Whenever I have nostalgia for a place or some people, it is time to leave, even if I shouted in my heart: "Don't I want to stop!" He couldn't stop.

The loneliness that accompanies freedom, although enjoyable loneliness, is contradictory and unified with the desire for companionship. Whenever my heart becomes cold and hard because of wandering, it is my friends who build a safe haven for me, keep me in the warmest place on earth, let me live well, and feel all the beauty in this world.

As long as the thought that there are friends waiting for me, there is no fear.

Thank you for reading through my notes.