Chinese Red Army Singing Pokerface: A Sign of Unpatriotic Youth?
Jermaine, Trends and Insights, Viral Videos — By Jermaine on August 23, 2010 at 3:44 pm
“Red Army can sing every song!” is a statement that has been expressed widely by Chinese netizens after having viewed the video series “Red Army Version XXX.” Songs sung by the Red Army include: “Poker face –Red Army Version,” “Beat it –Red Army Version,” “Bad romance –Red Army Version” and “Theme song from the World Cup–Red Army Version”. In reality, it is actually not the real Chinese army who is singing these popular songs from the West, but videos of these songs and a model opera performed during Chinese war-time that were edited and clipped together by Chinese netizens. This one, “Poker face—Red Army Version”, has been viewed 174,937 times and shared 20,920 times so far.
Clearly, people have found this video series to be quite interesting, as they watch the serious Chinese army exuding revolutionary enthusiasm while singing Lady Gaga’s songs. The juxtaposition of traditional Chinese military entertainment with today’s international entertainment highlights the vast differences between the times and produces the funny dramatic effects. Decades ago, there were not many entertainment options outside of the eight model opera. However, today Chinese youth have wide ranging access to foreign pop culture that they avidly follow. Some critics have expressed concern over Chinese youth enthusiasm for foreign pop culture and disregard for traditional Chinese culture such as operas. Moreover, some have argued that the video shows disrespect to the army who sacrifice for the country, and have even elevated this issue to a higher level of patriotism.
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9 Comments
Jermaine,
Wow what a little tag on the end there. I disagree with your claim that Chinese youth netizens on the whole participated in a lot of fact checking with respect to the anti French sentiment in 2008. A case in point is that in the discussion on the rumours that Carrefour, or its shareholders gave financial support to the Dalia Lama no mention of a paper trail, or mention of ‘why is there no paper trial’ entered into the public debate on and off line.
Please let me know if you have differing information, I would love to know the sources you use to back up that last statement.
One of China’s biggest problems is that there are almost no real patriots – people who want to make the country a cleaner and better place – but lots and lots of fake patriots – people who blindly follow whereever their government leads them. In Western Europe 100 years ago it used to be this way, “our country right or wrong and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is against us” was the common attitude amoung the people. Of course this eventually lead to World War 1 and World War 2, two of biggest wars in the history of the world. Villages, cities, whole countries were completely destroyed, and tens of millions of people died. All for what? To prove their country was right? Now you don’t often find this attitude anymore, especially in Germany. It was an important lesson to learn, but it cost them their empires and the lives of millions of their people. So now a question must be asked. Since Chinese never seem to learn from history, either their own or someone elses, how many millions of people, chinese and non-chinese, need to die before Chinese people learn this lesson?
Hi, Byron
Glad to know your information sharing. Yes. There are always different attitudes on patriotism, some do the fact checking and so do not. But the kickup in Olympic Torch Relay did happen in France but not other countries around the world. I believe you can find tons of photos of that scene. If the French government put enough emphasis on security for this event, just as what other countries do, there would not be things that.
Hi, outcast
Glad to be given a chance to debate by you. I don’t know whether you draw your conclusion based on your fact checking or your stereotype. while I am telling you that Chinese are tending to do more fact checking now, rather than blindly follow the governments’ leading. That is why the government blocked many accesses of people’s voicing. But still, you can easily find sharp & level-headed opinions against Chinese government. As for your concerns for the war, I will say China has taught a good lessons to fascist countries like Germany and Japan, and known better about the importance and invaluableners of peace than anyone else in the world. So take it easy.
While there are some people you have describe, I look at things like this and it makes me wonder.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7347918.stm
or like perhaps like when they had the last major military parade. There were many people watching it and you could hear many many people clapping and cheering whenever some new gizmo was being demonstrated on tv. That bothered me, becuase that is exactly how it was in 1910. In fact on my computer I have archival footage from that era showing pretty much the same thing, except they’d be there in person because tv’s weren’t invented yet. Combining that with what has been happening with the Yellow Sea border disputes, and it is behaving exactly as an imperialist power would. So did it learn anything from Germany and Japan? I’d have to say no.
I do not think the reason why Chinese people behave excitedly is the same to that of westerners one centry ago. Shall we Chinese show sadness to fabulous achievement in comprehensive national strength, just rocovering from the war and developing so much in the past sixty years? At that time, there is no such story as globalization and they do not understand the importance and invaluableners of peace. While from the War 2， Chinese taught Germany and Japan a good lesson and learned a lot from huge sacrificing as well. Do you really believe Chinese “fake and radical” patriots will lead to a war? and a war will start so easily, while Chinese government has been contributing so much in the economy construction all these years?
one for sure, no matter how many countries would be destroyed in the next war, China would be the last one to fall.
Some people would never realize that how far a joke should go. i think those “RED ARMY” stuffs are inappropriate though i won’t label their creator as Unpatriotic.
Why not to make a video of G. W. Bush Jr. singing “潘金莲” (a song from 雪村)? i think it would be more funny.
“Shall we Chinese show sadness to fabulous achievement in comprehensive national strength, just rocovering from the war and developing so much in the past sixty years?”
I’ll give it credit for coming as far as it did, but the fact remains that China wasn’t the only nation ravaged by the war. In Germany there were only 300 buildings in the entire country that were still standing, the rest were flattened by Allied bombing campaigns and the Allied and Soviet invasion (remember Germany was an advanced, industrialized nation with a highly urbanized population). And despite being split in half, they still rebuilt into one of the most advanced nations in the world today, and are still a leading innovator. What about China today? What is it famous for? Toxic and copycat products. It has a very very long way to go before it can claim the same kind of respect Germany has. And what of German nationalism? Today it’s almost non-existent, despite that it has so much to be proud of, despite that it has accomplished so much, despite the well deserved worldwide respect it has for its achievements, they are humble about it. Germany so far has 103 nobel prizes, how about China? I think this reflects very well on the character of its people as a whole. First have some real fabulous achievements, then we’ll talk about this again.
“At that time, there is no such story as globalization and they do not understand the importance and invaluableners of peace. While from the War 2， Chinese taught Germany and Japan a good lesson and learned a lot from huge sacrificing as well. ”
Actually the world was globalized, at least until the Great Depression and resulting protectionism wrecked the world economy. I’d also like to know exactly what “lessons” China taught them. It wasn’t Chinese that sank their fleets, it wasn’t Chinese that bombed their cities, in fact Chinese didn’t really do much other than just die. How could they? What the vast majority of what little industry China had at the time was in Japanese occupied territory. No industry means not enough bullets and guns to fight with. What Chinese had wasn’t flown in and smuggled in by the British and Americans.
But you are right, they didn’t understand the value of peace, and China was no exception to this. All of those countries including China had long histories as imperialistic, predatory empires.
“Do you really believe Chinese “fake and radical” patriots will lead to a war?”
Yes. Because that is exactly what has happened before. The most recent example was the American war in Iraq. Look at what happened between 2002 and 2003. Using fear, the majority of the people were riled up into a “fake and radical” patriotic fervor. “If you don’t support the president then you’re not patriotic!” “If you’re not with us, then you’re against us!” The tone should sound very familair, after all many of your fake patriots say much the same thing. The French, saw through the lies and bullshit of the Bush presidency and said openly that there was no evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. “How DARE they disagree with us!” the fake patriots thought, and so they started a massive boycott of everything French, even renaming french fries “freedom fries”. The French, being somewhat more enlightened did not fall to their level, instead simply pointing out that french fries are originally from Belgium. So, that was 7-8 years ago. Here we are now, and all that had happened then is being repeated in China. The same things I saw with my own eyes, that dragged my country into a pointless, 7 year long imperial adventure that’s costed us 5,000+ dead young men and women, tens of thousands crippled, and over $1 trillion. The war in Iraq, quite frankly, never would have happened if there wasn’t so much fake patriotism then. Governments are limited by what their people allow them to do. Never think this can’t happen to you, because it can and if you aren’t careful it will.
“and a war will start so easily, while Chinese government has been contributing so much in the economy construction all these years?”
It has happened before and if you are not careful it will happen again. As I have said, China’s recent behavior in the Yellow Sea is like that of an imperialist power, instead of cooperating with it’s neighbors, it is simply trying to take what it wants. This is just the beginning, the harbinger of what is to come, but only if you allow it.