“Fatherly love is like a mountain” is an illusion; paternal authority as a shackle is the real issue: Lei Wuze’s “fatherly love” scam
Lei Wuze searched tirelessly for 22 years, and finally contacted his son Lei Yuechuan (Chuan Chuan), but why was he blacklisted by his son afterward? Why did the “Lei Wuze seeking son story,” which was once considered a “miracle in China” and moved many, turn into a suffocating emotional kidnapping? Recently, Lei Wuze shared his chat records with Chuan Chuan on Douyin short videos, revealing the specific details: it turns out that after Lei Wuze had a “child in old age,” he naturally demanded his son Chuan Chuan to acknowledge his ancestors and obey him in the name of “fatherhood” and “love”; initially respectful to Lei Wuze, Chuan Chuan finally couldn’t bear it and blocked this “father” who suddenly appeared, then under Lei Wuze’s persistent pestering and the pressure of Confucian social norms, he couldn’t completely cut ties with Lei Wuze and could only unblock and continue to tolerate. This seemingly “family matter” father-son dispute is not merely Lei Wuze’s personal problem of “overbearing paternalism,” but also a social issue stemming from the widespread promotion of reactionary and decayed Confucian ideas.
“There is no love without reason, and no hatred without reason.”【Mao Zedong: “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art”】 “Family affection” is never a supra-class emotion, and “fatherly love” is not inherently sacred. From Lei Wuze’s words, we see a typical disguise: masking oppression under the guise of “family affection,” and embellishing control with words of “love.” Lei Wuze doesn’t want his son’s happiness; he seeks an investment target and an heir, a huge traffic flow brought by the “seeking son” drama that boosts his e-commerce career. He wants Chuan Chuan to acknowledge his “identity” and engage in “intimate interaction,” just like capitalists want workers to recognize their legitimate exploitation rights—not “care,” but domination.
After 20 years of seeking his son, Lei Wuze fantasized about the scene where Chuan Chuan would look at him and call him “dad,” smiling at him, which he had imagined countless times. Even when Chuan Chuan had already said he was busy and questioned his motives, Lei Wuze insisted on meeting offline “to end the awkwardness that’s ‘neither painful nor itchy’,” and asked Chuan Chuan to review past chat records for reflection, as if Chuan Chuan, who had shared a life and practice with him, was naturally close and “filial” (obedient) to him; otherwise, he would be “chaotic and unruly.” When Chuan Chuan’s attitude grew cold, Lei Wuze was still self-congratulatory, believing his “fatherly love” was “too full.” He fantasized that Chuan Chuan was living too smoothly, and although internally suffering, lacked security and was unwilling to confide; he demanded Chuan Chuan add other kidnapped children who reunited with their parents on WeChat, hoping he could learn the filial comedy of paternal devotion; he urged Chuan Chuan to read the book “You Are Right,” trying to make his son “turn back.” (Original quote: “‘You Are Right,’ have you read it?” After two denials, Lei Wuze said, “Dad gave it to you, can’t you just ‘force’ yourself to read it? Or is it because I gave it to you that you don’t want to read it?” He naturally believed that what he gave should be read, and even tried to save face by praising Chuan Chuan’s straightforward refusal as a personality trait.) However, none of these behaviors could tame Chuan Chuan. Frustrated, Lei Wuze accused Chuan Chuan at the end of 2023 of not following his instructions to inquire about his sister’s flu and his surgery, directly attacking that Chuan Chuan was bought by a wealthy family and no longer recognized his biological father (in fact, the family that bought Chuan Chuan was not a wealthy bourgeois family, and Chuan Chuan himself was only a college graduate programmer), and aggressively questioned “What did we do wrong? What did we owe you? … We hope you can speak frankly,” even using tough questions and moral kidnapping, completely based on his own wishes, demanding Chuan Chuan “to come home often” under the pretext of sharing local specialties, etc. (Original words: “Work needs to be done, come home often, it’s only right, right? Especially since we’ve been apart for 22 years, we need face-to-face companionship and communication.”), to give him “companionship” and “communication.” In today’s internet era, such things can be done via video calls, but his unreasonable demands are purely to make Chuan Chuan his servant. If Chuan Chuan refused, he would be extremely dissatisfied, which is not about “family affection” at all. Even if Chuan Chuan agreed to meet after finishing his work in September 2023, Lei Wuze kept pushing: “Are you playing us like a monkey, pretending to look for you for 22 years? How busy are you? Can’t answer calls? Can’t do video calls? Come back for a few days? We come over to keep you company for 2-3 days? Isn’t that right?” He continued to perform the “for your good” act, self-congratulating: “Think about it, a 25-year-old… big principles, should understand…” The feudal patriarch image is obvious.
Throughout the process, Lei Wuze often pretended to play with Confucianism, claiming he didn’t want to disturb Chuan Chuan’s life, “giving a stick and a sweet date” to retreat and advance, further moral kidnapping Chuan Chuan, disgusting to the extreme. Early 2024, Lei Wuze, impatient, first cut and then reported, attempting to use the purchased train ticket to force Chuan Chuan to dine with him at a set time. Later, Chuan Chuan finally couldn’t bear it and refused Lei Wuze’s nauseating “520” red envelope, which he claimed had been prepared for 22 years. After continued harassment and threats, he issued a declaration of severing ties: “What I mean is very clear. If you want to cancel your household registration, publish whatever you want, after canceling, cut ties from now on. Take your household registration and go happy. Don’t expect me to see you in the future, I have no mind to chat with you.” He then blocked Lei Wuze’s WeChat. Faced with this scene, Lei Wuze finally couldn’t help but jump and curse: “Heaven strikes thunder! Starting tomorrow, crack down on buyers, raise my son like this!”
Lei Wuze’s personal behavior is a microcosm of the control and oppression of children by feudal parents in the entire Confucian society. The reason Lei Wuze could demand Chuan Chuan to “acknowledge ancestors” and obey him without shame is because the “Neo-Confucian” ideology, which promotes “all parents are good,” “pity the parents’ hearts,” and decorates “father as mountain, mother as water,” “family harmony brings prosperity,” and secretly promotes “father as the head of the family,” is used to justify feudal parents’ pursuit of personal gain by treating children as tools. This ideology, which advocates “no father or mother is at fault,” is widely spread because it benefits feudal parents to control and oppress their children. But “reversal of the situation is not welcomed,” and after the Chinese people, tempered by the proletarian Cultural Revolution, have grown weary of the oppression and control cloaked in “fatherly love,” and have rejected reactionary and decayed Confucian ideas, the online public opinion turned sharply against Lei Wuze after he published chat records and issued insincere apologies. Comments on social media almost unanimously criticized Lei Wuze and sympathized with Chuan Chuan, with some even praising him for escaping such suffocating environment, garnering up to 13,000 likes. — What does this indicate? It shows that Chinese society is not without progress; the masses are not ignorant, numb, or indifferent crowds. It is precisely the broad working masses long oppressed by Confucian “filial piety” who understand the hypocrisy of this “fatherly love.”
The Neo-Confucian regime’s stubborn maintenance of reactionary and decayed Confucian ethics is because it promotes idealism and metaphysics, advocating “exploitation is justified, oppression is reasonable; revolution is a sin, rebellion is unreasonable,” which makes Confucianism most suitable for maintaining the unstable rule of Neo-Confucianism amid chaos and danger. For the bureaucratic bourgeoisie of Neo-Confucianism, the ideas of “confusing right and wrong, black and white, hiding the truth,” and “righteousness and unrighteousness,” are not outdated but “effective”: they make workers “diligent and conscientious,” wives “gentle and virtuous,” young people “courteous to elders,” and all resistance to exploitation and oppression are labeled “disloyal,” “unfilial,” “inhumane,” “unrighteous,” aiming to make the rule of the exploiting class eternal.
Lei Wuze’s “fatherly love” is not kinship but control; not respect but domination; not love but oppression. The revolutionary moral code is fundamentally opposed to Confucian ethics. Revolutionary family affection is not based on “natural kinship” flowing in bloodline or unconditional obedience to the “Three Bonds and Five Constants,” but on shared labor, struggle, practice, and mutual respect. Revolutionary family affection should be about pursuing progress together, letting children experience the storms of class struggle, rather than using children as tools for old-age care and binding them to oneself. We must see through Lei Wuze’s “family kidnapping,” expose the lie of “fatherly love as mountain,” and break the shackles of “filial piety above all.”
Reference links
News 1: After reading Lei Gong and his son’s chat records, I finally understand why Chuan Chuan is so reluctant to go home
News 2: Lei Gong posted a large number of chat records with his son Chuan Chuan, making us stunned. His so-called mountain-like fatherly love is really suffocating!
Lei Wuze’s Douyin account
