340 Jiang Xue: On the National Day of Mourning, I refused to join the arranged chorus

Beast Note: On February 26, 2019, an exclusive interview with Jiang Xue "Jiang Xue: Freedom is a Way of Life" was reprinted on my Jianshu, but within seconds the article was deleted by Jianshu. But from then on, I also remembered Jiang Xue and searched for some of her articles on the Internet to read. Later, when she shared her article in her circle of friends, a friend told me that Jiang Xue was her former colleague, who turned out to be the chief reporter of the Chinese Business Daily. Tonight, when I was listening to Guo Jing's sharing in the second issue of the Matters lecture series, I heard a matty mention that Jiang Xue's article published by Today's End Media was quite good, so I immediately read it. And share it with your friends in the wall.

Exclusive Interview | Jiang Xue: Freedom is a way of life

Picked | Wang Yiwen Xu Chang

Editor | Zhang Yingyu

Editor's note

This is a submission.

Jiang Xue, former chief reporter and director of the commentary department of the Chinese Business Daily, investigative reporter for Caixin Media, is now an independent media person. His representative works include the pornographic disc incident report, the "Spark Case" interview series, and the Chinese lawyer interview series, etc.

Twenty years ago, Jiang Xue, who was born in law, wanted to do work related to public interests. After accidentally seeing the sentence "My Transparent Chinese Business News", she switched to journalism and "made a newspaper that the people like."

Recalling his career as a reporter, Jiang Xue believes that 2003 was of enlightening significance. When she first entered the industry, her understanding of the business was that of an "information collector." The 2003 reports on the Sun Zhigang case, SARS reports, and "Yellow Disk Incident" reshaped her understanding. "Being a reporter can actually connect with the country." 's pulse resonates with the same frequency."

In 2015, Jiang Xue left the institution and became an independent record-keeper. She began to focus on issues that really interested her, recording the stories of small people in grand events. In her view, journalism is not only a profession, but also a way of life.

"Every era encounters many setbacks, and everyone feels powerless when taking action. But for individuals, fighting against powerlessness means you do what you should do."

"My Transparent Chinese Business News"

Q: You majored in law as an undergraduate, so why did you later work at the Chinese Business News?

A: After graduation, I originally worked as a lawyer in a state-owned enterprise. At that time, my father wanted me to return to my hometown and do some more stable work, but what I wanted to do was related to public interests. At that time, I had to go to practice law, but I knew that I would not stay here for long.

I was thinking about enrolling as a graduate student in Chinese because I like writing and wanted to study literature before I went to college. You need to register to study for graduate school. I was passing by on my bicycle and happened to see the newspaper office recruiting people. What impressed me most at that time was their advertisement. They made a street advertisement and placed it in a large glass called "My Transparent Chinese Business News".

For the first time, I realized, oh, newspapers can be transparent. In 1996 and 1997, market-oriented media were developing, and they all had this awareness of making a newspaper that the public would like. At that time, I didn’t know much about the functions of the media. Anyway, I knew that I could write in newspapers, so I applied for the job and got there smoothly.

Q: You were not educated in a major, were there any difficulties when you switched to media?

A: I think you don’t need a major to be a journalist. It’s good to study law. In fact, when I looked back later, I felt that the most important quality for a reporter was problem awareness. Of course there wasn’t that much awareness of issues at the beginning, just recording events and scenes. But gradually, when you want to be a good reporter, you must have problem awareness. The important thing is that you build a general framework in a field.

I first worked in the social news department, which is actually the best training for reporters, because you have to go to many breaking news scenes, and this process also exercises writing. You have to write news, and you must also meet the five W’s of journalism. .

Q: How did newspapers operate at that time?

A: This has to do with the market-oriented reform of China's newspaper industry in the 1990s. A number of newspapers came into being. By 2000, there was a relatively strong urban newspaper everywhere. The state does not allocate funds to them. Newspapers have to support themselves. They must have credibility in exchange for advertisements and subscribers. It was also at that time that many such market-oriented media developed, and my newspaper was one of them.

"Chinese Business Daily" soon became the most powerful local newspaper and dominated the market for more than ten years. The purpose of this newspaper at that time was to provide real news and information, focusing on the issues in ordinary people's lives.

At that time, newspapers had to interact with readers. Each newspaper had a hotline where readers could provide news information. Once a clue was taken, there were rewards. The minimum reward for a news clue was fifty yuan, which was quite a lot at the time. If there are good news clues, there will be a reward of 1,000 yuan.

So the newspaper I worked for had a circulation of 4 to 50 million in just over a year, growing exponentially. That group of market-oriented media all have the experience of growing wildly, because the public still needs information, but there was no carrier or channel before. After the emergence of this kind of newspaper, it quickly formed a relatively profitable profit model. After they have money, they will slowly build up a team of reporters, and will also invest in in-depth reporting and other forms to increase their credibility.

“Journalists can resonate with the pulse of this country.”

Q: You said before that journalists are "information collectors." How has your professional understanding of journalists changed since then?

A: When you first start working as a reporter, you are actually a collector of information. But if you work as a collector of information every day, you won’t be satisfied. I have seen so many tragic things, and there may be problems with the social mechanism behind them. Of course, there is a process of enlightenment in the process. 2003 was a very turning year for many people who still pay attention to civil society today, such as the reports on the Sun Zhigang incident, SARS reports, etc.

At that time, I did a report on the "Pornographic Disc Incident". I studied law, and I discovered the issue of the boundary between public rights and private rights. This matter is actually the abuse of police power. Police power represents public power, and individual rights are actually private rights. From a legal perspective, it is impossible to do anything without express authorization from the law. What administrative agencies want to do must be authorized by law and must go through administrative and legislative procedures. For private rights, I can do whatever I do without express prohibition by law. As long as the law does not prohibit me from doing something, I have the right to do it.

Q: Speaking of the "pornographic disc incident", you later published "The Supreme People's Court Urgently Orders the Shooting to Save the Prisoner 4 Minutes Before the Execution", which was also a law-related report.

A: This incident is also meaningful. It involves the death penalty, and later extended from the incident itself to the right to review the death penalty. There was a process of withdrawing the power of review of death penalty from the Supreme Court. Initially, the power of review of death penalty was delegated to provincial courts. Later, Professor Chen Xingliang of Peking University wrote a book titled "Review of China's Death Penalty", which used my case for analysis. To me, these are very early pieces of law-related news, and I think they still have a certain social significance. It may not be a very mature piece of journalism, and it may be crude, but it still plays a role in promoting social progress.

It was a reckless era, and none of us had any particularly strong training in journalistic professionalism. We only had a simple humanitarian mindset. As a reporter, sometimes you feel that you are a righteous person and want your reports to help others solve problems. At that time, you will be moved by yourself for a while and think that what you are doing is quite meaningful. After that stage slowly passes, you will calm down and become more aware of the problem, and you will become more mature.

Q: You also went to the disaster area for interviews during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. Is there any difference between doing disaster reporting and regular operations?

A: I went there on May 17th. The disaster was so great that rescue operations were still not completed in many places on the 17th, and survivors were still being looked for. I first went to Qingchuan and Mianyang, and then to Yingxiu. Later, some colleagues took this opportunity to write about the lack of experience of Chinese media reporters in disaster reporting. So when a big disaster occurs, media people are also confused. When you go to the scene, you will find that everything is miserable. Some reporters will simply say that they can't stand it and can no longer do interviews. They will think that your interview is a cruel thing.

After arriving at the scene, I noticed something about volunteers. That year was also called the first year of volunteers. Millions of volunteers came from all over the country. This was also an important part of civil society. I remember seeing many scenes like this. In every place, volunteers from all over the country came to help distribute supplies.

I also went to the Ludian earthquake in 2014 and found that it was different from before. All volunteers were camped in a large yard, and there were NGOs working on site to serve everyone.

Some philanthropists in Yunnan said that many volunteer organizations for the Ludian earthquake were established after the Wenchuan earthquake. During the Wenchuan earthquake, volunteers were all spontaneous. Many people found each other on the plane, and everyone matched up relatively randomly. But when the Ludian earthquake hit, they formed an organization before going there. They would communicate online and formed a volunteer system with each other. This is also a social progress. We have the Internet, which helps us connect groups and then build social affairs.

Q: What changes have these experiences brought to you?

A: No longer just a person collecting information like in the past. You will slowly and vaguely feel that being a reporter can actually resonate with the pulse of this country. This country is making progress, and media people play a role in it. As a journalist, you can play your part if you work hard. At that time, you will gradually have a sense of self-consciousness, a sense of pride, and feel that doing this kind of thing has higher value and meaning.

Becoming an independent recorder: freedom is a way of life

Q: In 2015, you left institutional media and became an independent recorder. Do you have any concerns about making such a choice?

A: Actually at that time, I was thinking that it would last for up to three years. I had some savings from working in the media before, but actually not much. I just said that without financial support, I could make a transition for a while. As an independent recorder, if you have a relatively close connection with readers, there will still be readers willing to reward you and support you. I feel that I am an independent recorder who comes from the public, and it is normal to accept support from the public.

Q: Is your sense of independence related to your childhood experiences?

A: There may be a small impact. When I have the consciousness of independent thinking, I yearn for freedom more and practice what I believe in. I will implement it as my way of life. I can let myself live as much as possible as a free person. .

Q: If the interviewee lacks trust in you because you are not an institutional media reporter, how do you convince the interviewee to accept an interview?

A: They know some of the things I have written before and will have trust in me. They know that I care about their story, and I will also write in a humane and "human" way, and I will try my best to record their stories. In fact, everything you wrote before will become part of your image.

Q: Before becoming an independent journalist, when reporting, you paid more attention to the event itself?

A: Before, I focused on the story itself, but later on, I focused more on the story’s perspective. I still start many stories from the characters, who are all narrators. I think compared with the grand narrative of history, human stories are still very impressive and can arouse people's resonance.

Q: Your book "The Pain of Xi'an on September 15th" tells the story of the seriously injured Li Jianli. There are many details about his life. How were these details obtained?

A: Mainly just chatting with him. He brought me some photos from which I can also deduce some information. Because the details are what a thoughtful person will ask about. For example, I remember his brother said: "A few days ago, someone wanted to give me something from Japan, but I didn't dare to use it. I don't know when these people would burst into the house and accuse me of using something from Japan."

Q: You also pay attention to some folk artists. Why do you pay attention to this group?

A: Actually, they have a group of artists going to Xi'an to do some work, and more than 300 taxi drivers went to the Xi'an Art Museum to watch movies. What impressed me most was that the artist told me that his work was not the result of the film, but the gathering of more than 300 taxi drivers who came to the art museum for the first time. They have never met each other, and have never been to an art museum. The art gallery is a public space. But the public space did not play its public role. The artist shot a documentary for them and gathered them in the public space to record. The artist believes that the greatest value of his work is here.

I think it breaks down some of the mental barriers we have in observing that he will turn a corner and leave a little bit of something there. Artists have become diggers of facts, but their methods are very implicit . I think artistic methods can also be a supplement. Today, the exploration of methods in various fields is quite valuable and can guide public understanding. The focus on the field is quite important.

Q: Looking at your New Year's speeches for the past three years, it seems that you are not optimistic?

A: I don’t think I always have a little bit of hope despite my pessimism. A weak living thing, it will grow like grass slowly. If it does not die, it will grow up. Because I think every era encounters many setbacks, and everyone will feel powerless when taking action. But for individuals, fighting against powerlessness is to do what you should do at the moment.

Q: If you want to be an independent journalist, what kind of foundation do you need?

A: I think you still need to have a lot of experience as a non-independent reporter: you need to have connections so that you can find the people you want to find; you need to accumulate a certain reputation so that others will trust you. For example, I feel that I am still a relatively reliable person. Maybe I am not a very good writer, but my peers also know that I am not a boastful person. In fact, I always have a check when forwarding messages to Moments. , these things are accumulated over a long period of time and will make others trust you more.

Face the most important issues head on

Q: You mentioned before that journalism school education is actually out of touch with reality. When did you feel this way?

A: I once went to a university to communicate with students and found that they were discussing the issue of "off-site supervision." They said that off-site supervision was a very bad phenomenon. In fact, there is no such thing as off-site supervision. Media reports may only be published locally, but when this event has a national impact, readers will also pay attention to events in other places. There is also public interest in this.

But when this matter was discussed that time, the college may have taken it for granted that off-site supervision was a struggle between powers in different provinces.

Journalism schools often remain stuck on concepts. Our question is whether we can report it, while journalism schools are still discussing issues of gains and losses. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you don’t discuss gains and losses. It’s just that when the things produced become more and more scarce, you should discuss the essence of the problem, but he will ask about the details, and these may not be the most important issues.

Q: Talking about the issue between journalism academia and the industry. Not long ago, the public account "Yoyou Luming" published an article "Gan Chai is inferior to fire". The "review" writing method used in this article caused controversy, both in academia and industry. Discussion, what do you think of this matter?

A: I think there is still a suspicion of manuscript laundering. No matter what, you have not obtained first-hand collected information and you have not marked it clearly enough. Of course, he now caters to the taste of online reading, but a large number of facts quoted in this article come from people's first-hand investigations. If quoted properly, there will be no suspicion of manuscript laundering.

Q: This controversy has also raised another question. Traditional investigative reporting is more rigorous, but may lack readability. How to reconcile this contradiction?

A: I don’t think investigative reporting should be written as a “hit”. Investigative reporting still has to go through the traditional process of checking information and refraining from narration. It is destined to be unable to compare with the popular articles based on current news reading habits. Doing so will actually undermine the seriousness of investigative reporting, affect the trust of those who really want to obtain information, and affect the credibility of the media. Investigative reports will not deliberately cater to readers, but in today's Internet age, the public likes things that add some ridicule, or Internet language, etc.

Q: Non-fiction writing has become more popular in recent years. This type of news work usually pays more attention to readability. What do you think of non-fiction writing?

A: Nowadays, non-fiction writing is very sophisticated about playing with words, which makes you feel good about yourself. I think no matter what, the essence of it is that you don't pay attention to the most important issue. Anyway, I don’t have that fascination with words. People who have received formal journalism training or have a background in investigative reporting are actually not very willing to do nonfiction. Nowadays, many people are obsessed with non-fiction writing, which I think is too pretentious. Everyone criticized the previous article "The Frightened Pang Mailang". It exaggerated some meaningless details with a kind of malicious intent. What's the point of exaggerating the embarrassing life of a small person and talking about his dandruff? There's some very mean stuff in there, and I don't really like that stuff.

Q: Do you usually read some non-fiction works?

A: Actually, I don’t really read it. Of course, sometimes I think, “Oh, someone’s writing is really good, let me take a look and see if there is anything I can learn from his style.” Some people’s writing is indeed very exquisite. It’s a good thing if the writing is good, but it’s meaningless if you just ask for the writing. I still think we should pay attention to the real issues in this era. There are more important things out there, so should we be more honest and brave and face this most important issue head-on.

I now feel that non-fiction writing is a false fire, making it look mysterious and high-end, but in fact it is nothing. Maybe non-fiction writing is more willing to focus on the dark side of human nature. The dark side of human nature will always exist, but human nature in this era is not necessarily much darker than in other eras.

(Chen Jianjia, Huang Chongchong, Bian Yun, Jiang Zihan, and Sha Sha also contributed to this article)

Jiang Xue: On the National Day of Mourning, I refused to join the arranged chorus

You are not free to speak, and you are not free to speak out. But you don’t know that today, the sadness and mourning are not your own.

2020-04-05

1

This is clear. In the north, it rains mixed with snow, and the heating stops. It turns warm and cold at first. At night, on the cross streets of the city, people draw circles and burn paper money. In this seemingly crude way, they communicate with the dead, kneeling in the light of the fire, letting a pile of ashes warm the ground, and wishing the dead to live a prosperous life underground. Peaceful life. This spring has been eventful, and I shed countless tears, mostly for Wuhan, and for those people and things that I have never met in person, but it makes my heart hurt to talk about them. In March, because my mother was ill, I rushed back from outside the country. Fortunately, I arrived at my mother's bedside to wait on her before the country was closed. For the past few days, I have kept my eyes closed and my ears shut. In a small town where the tension of the epidemic has not yet completely passed, I wear a mask and run between the hospital and my home.

Suddenly I heard that there is a national day of mourning for Qingming Festival. April 4th, what a coincidence, happened to be the common deletion and account deletion sign "404" that fills the screen.

When I heard the news, I happened to have a copy of the official media at hand, with a huge title, "Live Broadcast of the Fight Against the Epidemic" - "Sharing China's Plan with the World." There are more news, mostly about "the world is copying China's work", how Western countries have fallen into dire straits of the epidemic, etc. China, on the other hand, has become a model for epidemic control. First, it is a big country that takes responsibility, and then it is a "big party that takes responsibility." In fact, it has only been two months since Dr. Li Wenliang passed away on February 6, and people's tears show no sign of breaking through the cage. Now, the official celebration meeting is about to take place.

After Dr. Li Wenliang passed away, some intellectuals called for the establishment of February 6 as a national day of mourning. As a result, the letter calling for signatures did not even have a chance to appear on the network behind the wall. I saw the news two days ago that there was a long queue of people waiting to receive the ashes of their loved ones outside the Wuhan funeral home. People were silent, quiet and silent. That scene made many people cry. Later I learned that every person who goes to collect the ashes of a relative must be "accompanied" by two government staff.

Then I saw the news again. A female lawyer from Henan reposted "Long queues at Wuhan funeral parlors" and was punished by the Lawyers Association. So far, there is no news about citizen journalists Chen Qiushi and Li Zehua who went to Wuhan to report on the epidemic...

Qingming is a day of memorial service. In fact, there are not only those who died in this man-made disaster but also many hearts, many words, a lot of sorrow, a lot of pain, a lot of reflection, and a lot of appeals for the truth that are still alive in this man-made disaster. Those words of expression were almost doomed to be "404" after they were published on the Internet by chance.

Those words flash across the Internet and you can’t catch them. They were cut in half and deleted instantly. Sometimes, after reading half of a post, I find that I can no longer open it. And those who are banned and locked up in a dark room for speaking are like being locked up in a glass room. They can see outside the glass room, but cannot say a word. I have also experienced that suffocating feeling.

Just like that, suddenly, on April 4th, people could grieve and mourn. A friend teaches at a university, and the school requires that he must mourn on April 4 and take photos to upload to the office. A friend’s child is in kindergarten, and the teacher requires that parents accompany their child to grieve at home and upload photos to “complete their homework.”

This is a country where people are powerless to speak. You have always known that you are not free to speak and speak out. But you don’t know that today, the sadness and mourning are not your own. This sense of absurdity is so real today. What’s even more ridiculous is that due to various concealments and information control, the epidemic broke out on a large scale and eventually ravaged the world, but it became a model of “responsibility” and “anti-epidemic” and became a “homework” that all countries should copy. ".

What happened in the middle? Ridiculous joke, who can understand it?

"Wash your body with dirty water, go to the banquet with a dirty cup. If you want to argue, you forget to speak, but if you forget to speak, you want to argue. Actors and policemen sing poems." Song Dongye sang in "Airport Song", but it is very appropriate.

2

At ten o'clock in the morning, the siren sounded outside the hospital ward. I looked out the window and remembered another national day of mourning, that was 12 years ago in 2008, when the Wenchuan earthquake occurred.

That year, my colleagues and I also went to Sichuan for interviews. I remember that on the seventh day after the earthquake, we encountered the National Day of Mourning during the aftershocks in Qingchuan.

I still remember that it was a temporary concentration point in the countryside of Qingchuan. The children are preparing a program to express condolences to those who come to support disaster relief. The audience has not yet arrived, and the children are rehearsing on a crude stage. In fact, at that time, the bones were still cold and the people were still in shock. At Muyu Middle School in Qingchuan County, the collapsed school building trapped hundreds of students. More than 400 children were injured or killed, and more than 200 children were recognized as dead by official media.

The flag was raised and the children were saluting. At that moment, I burst into tears when I saw the children's childish faces and the red scarves around their necks.

"Child, you salute the flag, but this country does not provide you with a safe classroom." Later, I wrote this sentence in my reporter's notes, but it was deleted when it was published.

That year, many media outlets were purged for reporting on the collapse of school buildings.

On May 12, 2009, I went to Sichuan again and lived in a board house in Yingxiu Town. I witnessed the filming of a gala for a local television station. Like many scenes we are familiar with, the theme of that party was "Come on Sichuan, Come on China", but there was not a single word of condolence for the victims. I remember that in the warm firelight deliberately created by the director, there was a pregnant mother standing quietly without saying a word, as if she had forgotten everything around her and was just staring at the photo of a family of three in her hand. On it, there was her dead child.

The number of students who died in the Wenchuan earthquake has not been calculated after all. Only the artist Ai Weiwei has been keeping statistics on the children who died. He collected schoolbags left by children in the rubble and collected more than 5,000 of them. He has been collecting the names of every child who died. I met a volunteer who helped him in Yingxiu Town. I provided the names of several children, one of whom was named Ma Fengyan. Before her death, the child wrote a letter to the principal, saying that she saw cracks in the roof of the classroom and was worried about quality problems.

The parents of the students who died in the Sichuan earthquake have been complaining for 10 years. On the tenth anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2018, a few friends and I participated in a "voice" writing project. A young writer made a special trip to visit Tan Zuoren in Chengdu and wrote "Our dolls are still there ten years after the Sichuan earthquake." Waiting for the answer", dodging and jumping around, finally published. Of course, there is no way to escape the fate of deletion of posts within the wall.

12 years later, it’s another round. The names and number of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake, the truth behind the collapsed school building, and accountability are still unclear to this day. All I know is that the parents of the students who died in the accident have always been the targets of local stability maintenance.

For many years, we expressed our condolences this way. Forgetting the truth, blurring the truth, how can our condolences comfort those who have died who can no longer speak?

True condolences is to give the truth, let the truth be remembered in people's hearts, and prevent the tragedy from happening again. Shouldn't this be basic common sense? But Song Dongye sang in "Airport Song", "Faith means there is no truth." This is an era when even lamentations have to take twists and turns.

In an age when all true expressions of emotion are forbidden, is this condolences honest?

I refuse such condolences.

3

I remembered the night when Dr. Li Wenliang died. I was in a foreign country and burst into tears. I saw many people change their avatar to him, until today. That night, everyone I saw in WeChat Moments was crying. I wrote that night: "Can the tears tonight break the prison of 1984?" I remember that Dr. Li passed away. Someone used their body to write big characters in the snow by the Tonghui River in Beijing, "Farewell Li Wenliang." Many people went there to mourn Dr. Li. Later, the snow melted, but would everything be okay? I think real mourning happens in people's hearts.

Li Wenliang's last Weibo was published on February 1, 2020. After his death, he stopped updating Weibo, but he continues to live on to this day. On April 4, there were hundreds of messages on his Weibo.

Someone said: Thank you for your bravery. Some people also said: "Why do we miss the doctor Li Wenliang? Because the shield of protection has become the target of criticism, the warning of criticism has become the fate of the prophet, and the life of the prophet has become the evidence of the warning."

His Weibo has become a miracle on the Internet. Every day, countless people visit him and talk to him on Weibo. If there are young people who are going on a blind date or falling in love, go and tell them. If you have any troubles, tell him. People remember him and tell him what happened today. Tell him that he should live a good life.

In this way, real condolences truly live under Dr. Li Wenliang’s Weibo.

True condolences do not need to be arranged by a country that bans accounts, deletes posts, and suppresses all critical voices. It happens naturally. In people's hearts, everywhere they can express themselves.

Today I mourn the loss and vow to never forget. But I will always refuse to join the loud, orchestrated chorus.

Jiang Xue: On the National Day of Mourning, I refused to join the arranged chorus

You are not free to speak, and you are not free to speak out. But you don’t know that today, the sadness and mourning are not your own.

2020-04-05

1

This is clear. In the north, it rains mixed with snow, and the heating stops. It turns warm and cold at first. At night, on the cross streets of the city, people draw circles and burn paper money. In this seemingly crude way, they communicate with the dead, kneeling in the light of the fire, letting a pile of ashes warm the ground, and wishing the dead to live a prosperous life underground. Peaceful life. This spring has been eventful, and I shed countless tears, mostly for Wuhan, and for those people and things that I have never met in person, but it makes my heart hurt to talk about them. In March, because my mother was ill, I rushed back from outside the country. Fortunately, I arrived at my mother's bedside to wait on her before the country was closed. For the past few days, I have kept my eyes closed and my ears shut. In a small town where the tension of the epidemic has not yet completely passed, I wear a mask and run between the hospital and my home.

Suddenly I heard that there is a national day of mourning for Qingming Festival. April 4th, what a coincidence, happened to be the common deletion and account deletion sign "404" that fills the screen.

When I heard the news, I happened to have a copy of the official media at hand, with a huge title, "Live Broadcast of the Fight Against the Epidemic" - "Sharing China's Plan with the World." There are more news, mostly about "the world is copying China's work", how Western countries have fallen into dire straits of the epidemic, etc. China, on the other hand, has become a model for epidemic control. First, it is a big country that takes responsibility, and then it is a "big party that takes responsibility." In fact, it has only been two months since Dr. Li Wenliang passed away on February 6, and people's tears show no sign of breaking through the cage. Now, the official celebration meeting is about to take place.

After Dr. Li Wenliang passed away, some intellectuals called for the establishment of February 6 as a national day of mourning. As a result, the letter calling for signatures did not even have a chance to appear on the network behind the wall. I saw the news two days ago that there was a long queue of people waiting to receive the ashes of their loved ones outside the Wuhan funeral home. People were silent, quiet and silent. That scene made many people cry. Later I learned that every person who goes to collect the ashes of a relative must be "accompanied" by two government staff.

Then I saw the news again. A female lawyer from Henan reposted "Long queues at Wuhan funeral parlors" and was punished by the Lawyers Association. So far, there is no news about citizen journalists Chen Qiushi and Li Zehua who went to Wuhan to report on the epidemic...

Qingming is a day of memorial service. In fact, there are not only those who died in this man-made disaster but also many hearts, many words, a lot of sorrow, a lot of pain, a lot of reflection, and a lot of appeals for the truth that are still alive in this man-made disaster. Those words of expression were almost doomed to be "404" after they were published on the Internet by chance.

Those words flash across the Internet and you can’t catch them. They were cut in half and deleted instantly. Sometimes, after reading half of a post, I find that I can no longer open it. And those who are banned and locked up in a dark room for speaking are like being locked up in a glass room. They can see outside the glass room, but cannot say a word. I have also experienced that suffocating feeling.

Just like that, suddenly, on April 4th, people could grieve and mourn. A friend teaches at a university, and the school requires that he must mourn on April 4 and take photos to upload to the office. A friend’s child is in kindergarten, and the teacher requires that parents accompany their child to grieve at home and upload photos to “complete their homework.”

This is a country where people are powerless to speak. You have always known that you are not free to speak and speak out. But you don’t know that today, the sadness and mourning are not your own. This sense of absurdity is so real today. What’s even more ridiculous is that due to various concealments and information control, the epidemic broke out on a large scale and eventually ravaged the world, but it became a model of “responsibility” and “anti-epidemic” and became a “homework” that all countries should copy. ".

What happened in the middle? Ridiculous joke, who can understand it?

"Wash your body with dirty water, go to the banquet with a dirty cup. If you want to argue, you forget to speak, but if you forget to speak, you want to argue. Actors and policemen sing poems." Song Dongye sang in "Airport Song", but it is very appropriate.

2

At ten o'clock in the morning, the siren sounded outside the hospital ward. I looked out the window and remembered another national day of mourning, that was 12 years ago in 2008, when the Wenchuan earthquake occurred.

That year, my colleagues and I also went to Sichuan for interviews. I remember that on the seventh day after the earthquake, we encountered the National Day of Mourning during the aftershocks in Qingchuan.

I still remember that it was a temporary concentration point in the countryside of Qingchuan. The children are preparing a program to express condolences to those who come to support disaster relief. The audience has not yet arrived, and the children are rehearsing on a crude stage. In fact, at that time, the bones were still cold and the people were still in shock. At Muyu Middle School in Qingchuan County, the collapsed school building trapped hundreds of students. More than 400 children were injured or killed, and more than 200 children were recognized as dead by official media.

The flag was raised and the children were saluting. At that moment, I burst into tears when I saw the children's childish faces and the red scarves around their necks.

"Child, you salute the flag, but this country does not provide you with a safe classroom." Later, I wrote this sentence in my reporter's notes, but it was deleted when it was published.

That year, many media outlets were purged for reporting on the collapse of school buildings.

On May 12, 2009, I went to Sichuan again and lived in a board house in Yingxiu Town. I witnessed the filming of a gala for a local television station. Like many scenes we are familiar with, the theme of that party was "Come on Sichuan, Come on China", but there was not a single word of condolence for the victims. I remember that in the warm firelight deliberately created by the director, there was a pregnant mother standing quietly without saying a word, as if she had forgotten everything around her and was just staring at the photo of a family of three in her hand. On it, there was her dead child.

The number of students who died in the Wenchuan earthquake has not been calculated after all. Only the artist Ai Weiwei has been keeping statistics on the children who died. He collected schoolbags left by children in the rubble and collected more than 5,000 of them. He has been collecting the names of every child who died. I met a volunteer who helped him in Yingxiu Town. I provided the names of several children, one of whom was named Ma Fengyan. Before her death, the child wrote a letter to the principal, saying that she saw cracks in the roof of the classroom and was worried about quality problems.

The parents of the students who died in the Sichuan earthquake have been complaining for 10 years. On the tenth anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2018, a few friends and I participated in a "voice" writing project. A young writer made a special trip to visit Tan Zuoren in Chengdu and wrote "Our dolls are still there ten years after the Sichuan earthquake." Waiting for the answer", dodging and jumping around, finally published. Of course, there is no way to escape the fate of deletion of posts within the wall.

12 years later, it’s another round. The names and number of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake, the truth behind the collapsed school building, and accountability are still unclear to this day. All I know is that the parents of the students who died in the accident have always been the targets of local stability maintenance.

For many years, we expressed our condolences this way. Forgetting the truth, blurring the truth, how can our condolences comfort those who have died who can no longer speak?

True condolences is to give the truth, let the truth be remembered in people's hearts, and prevent the tragedy from happening again. Shouldn't this be basic common sense? But Song Dongye sang in "Airport Song", "Faith means there is no truth." This is an era when even lamentations have to take twists and turns.

In an age when all true expressions of emotion are forbidden, is this condolences honest?

I refuse such condolences.

3

I remembered the night when Dr. Li Wenliang died. I was in a foreign country and burst into tears. I saw many people change their avatar to him, until today. That night, everyone I saw in WeChat Moments was crying. I wrote that night: "Can the tears tonight break the prison of 1984?" I remember that Dr. Li passed away. Someone used their body to write big characters in the snow by the Tonghui River in Beijing, "Farewell Li Wenliang." Many people went there to pay their respects to Dr. Li. Later, the snow melted, but would everything be okay? I think real mourning happens in people's hearts.

Li Wenliang's last Weibo was published on February 1, 2020. After his death, he stopped updating Weibo, but he continues to live on to this day. On April 4, there were hundreds of messages on his Weibo.

Someone said: Thank you for your bravery. Others said: "Why do we miss the doctor Li Wenliang? Because the shield of protection has become the target of criticism, the warning of criticism has become the fate of the prophet, and the life of the prophet has become the evidence of the warning."

His Weibo has become a miracle on the Internet. Every day, countless people visit him and talk to him on Weibo. If there are young people who are going on a blind date or falling in love, go and tell them. If you have any troubles, tell him. People remember him and tell him what happened today. Tell him that he should live a good life.

In this way, real condolences truly live under Dr. Li Wenliang’s Weibo.

True condolences do not need to be arranged by a country that bans accounts, deletes posts, and suppresses all critical voices. It happens naturally. In people's hearts, everywhere they can express themselves.

Today I mourn the loss and vow to never forget. But I will always refuse to join the loud, orchestrated chorus.