New diary of Fo Tan

I had been satisfied with the old lifestyle, indulging in sexual immorality, and looking down on theoretical study and the struggle of ideas with the old life; the illustration accompanying the first diary entry was very similar to my state, and I had remained complacent and unambitious about it.

Until today, after reading Jerzynski’s The Prison Diary and Letters, I felt that life could no longer continue in the old way. The old life should be thrown into the trash, and a new life should be built through struggle. Therefore I start this post as the beginning of a new life.

Besides writing some views on current news, I can write more about my daily ideological struggles and critique erroneous thoughts.

In the past, many revolutionary predecessors would also write about how they studied Marxism to overcome erroneous thoughts. Just like Lei Feng would reflect that he cannot only advance himself, but only by helping comrades advance together is true progress. Jin Xunhua bled while working, but the hands of the peasants and workers do not shed blood. He would reflect on his long-time separation from labor.

“When we achieve results, we should attribute them to our great Party; when things are not done well, we should look for the reasons within ourselves.”

Attachments:

Prison Diary and Letters Jerzynski (1).pdf (18.3 MB)

How the Iron Was Made.pdf (8.5 MB)

Today I didn’t study much theory, mainly reviewing previous notes, organizing the “three essences” of materialist dialectics (contradiction in unity, affirmation and negation, quantitative change leading to qualitative change) and thinking about the three attitudes toward theory.

In revolutionary struggle, when facing difficulties, one goes to study theory to solve problems; after setbacks, one studies theory; only at a critical moment does one remember to study theory.

The first attitude is the Marxist learning attitude; the second (the “perplexed yet study it” attitude) is to push through laziness toward theory, turning toward Marxism; the third is the pragmatic learning attitude, not valuing theory in everyday life, treating revolutionary theory as intellectual capital or a stumbling block to personal gain, and only thinking of using it at a crisis moment, but having a distorted class stance makes it impossible to truly master revolutionary theory, inevitably leading to the failure of the struggle, and after losing heart, one wishes to escape reality and shake hands with bourgeois opium.

I talked with a female classmate for a bit and discussed the death of Zhang Xuefeng. She thinks Zhang is a hypocritical teacher who sells fake courses, saying his classes are for money, also ridiculing him for being “poor and anxious but pretentious” (the family is relatively “impoverished” yet has a pompous attitude; the rich ones lick up like dogs). She thinks his death was caused by someone moving the cake (?). She also jokingly mentioned a junior high classmate who was lured away to another place and semi-forced into marriage, saying this is the “harm of online dating.”

I told her that the news of Aunt Mei’s arrest is very likely fake and explained some doubts (not even a single mosaic image of Zhang). She agreed with me.

Previously in their class, a boy copied someone’s answers during an exam and scored higher than her. She reported him to Laojiu, but Lao Jiu gave the boy a lighter punishment under the pretext of “keeping harmony in all things” (a warning, no cleaning punishment).

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Overall today was fairly busy. I studied A Brief World History, read two chapters of In the Human World, and I feel that the life of a寄学生 (exchange student) is almost not different from that of a petty bourgeois employer family in the book, except that among the寄学生, all kinds of spiritual opium run rampant, and the disgusting acts like hand jobs, after being “processed and transformed” by those lecherous maniacs, create a bunch of sexual metaphors. Our great motherland’s language has thus been defiled by fascist patriarchy…

At noon I ran into an old classmate (from now on I’ll call her l). She likes to go out to some places and walk around, and I plan to interact with her more.

In math class, the old nine (teacher) called me to answer, I had fallen behind on some points, I was also reading a novel at the time, my brain couldn’t focus, I answered a random guess and he didn’t hear it. After everyone answered, he glared at me with those mongrel eyes and said, “I think I’ve called this number at least three times.” Then those lecherous men who kept guard started laughing lewdly. I turned red with anger. After sitting down, I thought, “What use is all this useless private knowledge? Unless I achieve excellent grades in speculative studies to continuously serve the bourgeoisie as a dog, or to be treated as superior as a capital by showing off to satisfy my vanity, what use does it have?”

Old Nine ardently touted speculation as “the easiest and fairest path to social mobility,” just to keep students away from politics, making them a “two ears uncaring of outside affairs, one heart reading only the books of sages” speculative dog. In the constant, large-scale practice of problem-solving (which is entirely detached from reality, society, labor, and the people, relying on the problem-setters’ subjective imagination), the idea that “private knowledge (indeed these hardly count as private knowledge; for most students these ‘knowledge’ are private junk) the more you have and the more skilled you are, the more you can ride on the heads of the working people and rule” is taken as given. Engaging in speculation reinforces private concepts, i.e., it makes eyes and hearts drift toward bourgeois life; inwardly there is no revolutionary position. Jеlжern ski (Tcher) learning German is because he has to exile abroad and communicate with German comrades; I learn German purely out of a desire to accumulate private knowledge and the petty-bourgeois “to show off” fantasy, only with the pretense of “learning for revolution,” as it should be, as Fenghuo said:

Treat learning with a revolutionary attitude; learn whatever skills are useful to the revolution.

My main task now is to study revolutionary theory, first systematically study Marxist philosophy, and furthermore use Marxist philosophy to explain and transform life; as a principle of communication and interaction, it is also urgent and necessary.

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It’s mainly the persecution by patriarchy and male chauvinists. Even if not lured away to be forcibly married, in the end they would be dragged by family members to be sold. That Henan teacher Wei (surname Wei) was like this and eventually committed suicide.

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Today I chatted with an old classmate (female, from now on I’ll call her h). At first we talked about our lives; she said that every night as soon as she lies in bed she starts reading online novels, going on until almost 2 a.m., and she has been doing this since elementary school. I advised her to stop reading so late, or even if she adapts physically, it will damage her health. Then I talked with her about current events, showing her the links:

After hearing this, she expressed strong anger and said, “If it’s really like that, this government is already hopeless.” In the afternoon I talked with h and l; I initially wanted to reveal the truths by paraphrasing the news directly, but I’m not clear about i’s political views yet, so after a dry paraphrase I briefly wanted to talk about “The Private Nation” (the meaning is not clear in Chinese) and the real consequences of women’s oppression, but I got stuck on bourgeois literature (I originally planned to discuss the reactionary nature of bourgeois online novels and then pivot to the real effects of these spiritual opiates, but in the end I only touched on the books they each like).

Summary: I feel what I’m doing is a bit rushed; I haven’t clarified each person’s family background, worldview, and practical experience. I should first try to “deepen the friendship,” and then tailor my propaganda according to their positions; at the very least, raise their awareness.

Now I’m going home early tonight to have more time to read and study, but it still feels tight for time. Tonight I’ll read three books: “The Private Nation (Annotated Edition),” “Diary and Letters of a Prisoner,” and “In the World” (Ileu’s and Ru Long’s editions are both available). I had planned to read “Outline of Marxist Philosophy” as well, but there’s no time, so I had to give up.

I tried humming “When the Red Guards Move” and “The Red Guard,” and plan to finish one more after class this weekend and take notes on the lyrics.

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Deliberately stirring up division, my weakness and exposure of nearby students

Last week the elder nine who likes to force us to do calisthenics tried to sow discord among the students again! We had just woken up, some people had just rushed back from the dorms. As soon as the elder nine walked in, he turned on a calisthenics video while banging the podium to wake us from our daze to do calisthenics. I was very dissatisfied and casually scratched a few times during the exercises. He seemed to notice that after one round, two people hadn’t done it and he called them to the front to lead the exercise, but no one went up. Frustrated, he then used division tactics: if no one comes up within the time limit, he would make two rows of students stand up to do calisthenics. Everyone groaned, but no one stepped up. At this moment, a deskmate of mine raised his head toward me and told the class monitor, “It’s him who didn’t do it and still wouldn’t stand up.” I suddenly felt very guilty and was considering whether to stand up when the elder nine made the two rows of students stand up. In the second round, I slyly swayed a few times in places where he could see, and after finishing he let them sit down (that lecherous male also said a few words like “This is causing a split among students.” I didn’t even say a word). I internally cursed the elder nine for his shameless act of sowing division, thinking I was too weak to confront him, which forced the classmates to stand up and do calisthenics. I also thought that if two rows of students persisted in fighting, the elder nine would be at a loss, and I would not step up to politically expose him, which would cause some classmates to attack me.

After class, I used a chat with classmates at the back to denounce the elder nine for doing this to split us. Originally he was playing this video to force us to do calisthenics in pain; but after this, the ones who were weak suffered the most. I even used a story of “The Snake and the Frog” (a python fell into a well, where a group of frogs lived; the python said it would only eat frogs that fell into the water; in the end, the frogs killed each other to survive) to compare, calling the elder nine that sits on the “throne” a snake, using a vicious plot to divert attention from himself. I also added (interest-driven) that this elder nine has no ability to arouse our interest, he can only use this forceful wake-up method to force us to listen to classes, and if we don’t do well on exams the blame will be on us, and then he pretends to be pitiful saying “you hurt my heart.” Nonsense, it’s clearly his own lack of ability who only uses these schemes to destroy student relationships, and he even “opposes campus violence” while he himself is creating campus violence! That classmate said he was equally furious and spent an entire period thinking about this, telling me I “made the issue clear.”

What should I be careful about in a short-term job?

I plan to use Confucian father’s verbal pledge to work, probably during Tomb-Sweeping Day to find a job, and I’ll need to take a few days off (the school is stupid and deducts holidays again).

Today I argued with Confucian mother again (one argument was about going to the forum and back to school to argue, but after the forum I wasted an hour on debauchery, watching a bunch of bloody violence, porn, and things unrelated to politics! Like “Blood-stained Town,” etc. Now thinking back, it felt so empty—like those rich merchants in “In the World,” watching such oppressive entertainment to “vent,” then I looked at the time, not much left, ate and opened a book, and in a few pages Confucian mother came again to tell me to hurry to the resource university), she kept shouting at me to be opportunistic and kept calling it “opportunistic methods,” telling me to read the opportunistic books she bought, “Don’t always look at your phone; this will only harm you!” I retorted that I am studying, I do read, taking leave is a matter of course, and I told her not to spend every moment pushing her set of fallacies on me. She then said only “top students (opportunists)” would use computers and phones when they don’t know the problems. My opportunistic studies require more reading to build a foundation. (Here I should say the online explanations are quite clear, not like books with self-study systems, so the more basic a student is, the more they need to use electronic devices to assist their opportunistic study.)

In short, after two arguments I became furious and walked straight to the school. Confucian mother initially threatened me, “Be obedient, don’t cause trouble,” but I insisted on leaving. She rode a bike to keep up and told me, “Don’t cause trouble in public.” Later she tried to compel me with a command tone, “I understand you.” but I walked all the way to the resource university (more than five kilometers). Just now I found on the desk a note she left that said “she was wrong” (truly Confucian parents, paper tiger; I stood firm and you cried). After I read it, I tore it and threw it in the trash. At the resource university I had thought the homeroom teacher elder nine would scold me for tardiness and “chat with me,” but during the entire evening study he said not a word to me, it seemed he thought I was “incorrigible” (best if that’s the case!)

Additional: Confucian mother also used AI to generate ways to subdue me. I was so angry that I exclaimed “shameless.” It’s worth noting that Confucian mother also mentioned that I “read red books” (in middle school “Concern for the World” used to discuss a bunch of abstract propositions; in the third year of junior high I bought a set of “Mao Zedong’s Selected Works” and other social science books to show improvement; in senior high I trusted that Leftist circle and bought Bukharin’s abc by those who opposed the road, etc.).

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You should be mindful of wage payment issues. Short-term gig work will definitely encounter situations like delayed or unpaid wages, and not paying overtime. I don’t know how the employment situation is where you are; you can say which province you’re in. And 51-day is also doing gig work elsewhere; perhaps you could go near him?

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A ninth-grade English-language teacher spoke shamelessly about supporting the clampdown on cosmetics: there is a “Director of Political and Educational Affairs” at the school gate who grabs those who wear makeup, and when he sees one, he uses a towel dipped in water to wipe it off. This has sparked dissatisfaction among some petit-bourgeois students who say, “The heart to love beauty is human; this is an infringement on students’ freedom.” As a result, the Zhongxiu mouthpiece Dahuashe (the Huash Society) published an article supporting this老九’s behavior as “the最低 standard for entering the world.” (At this point, surely there are some “justifiable” readers who say things like “freedom has its limits” to defend the harsh restraint.)

The painful “life” and my small mental crisis

Today I’ve been reading In the World. When comparing the extreme poverty and emptiness described in the book with the lives of the students, I’m surprised to find that what the students talk about and what the book’s characters talk about are equally empty and dull, but the spiritual opium in reality is more toxic, more politically reactionary, and the means of expression more cunning. Take video games, for example: a deskmate of mine was recently recommended to try Delta and soon became addicted, constantly asking how to play lewd pleasures; playing those openly pornographic games is already commonplace among boys. The more wildly someone in the class lusts, the more they shamelessly use all sorts of things as metaphors to utter all sorts of tiger and wolf words. In the class, two other students, whenever they have time, perform various inexplicable behaviors; classmates nickname them “The Fun.” They often suddenly dance in front of everyone like clowns, drawing laughter, and then they dance even more vigorously. When forced self-study becomes unbearably boring, students invent games themselves, such as “Truth or Dare” and “Drop the water bottle to see who drops more.” Here, curses and dirty words are treated as daily necessities; consumption of mind-altering substances, conversations about, reminiscing, and debating about spiritual opium have become everyday activities.

Being immersed in such an environment feels like being in a swamp, spinning and sinking… In middle school I would often think about social issues, believing that “the world’s rise and fall is everyone’s responsibility,” but as the parasitic time grows, my thoughts have become increasingly numb. For many lowbrow amusements, I not only fail to reflect, but also sink into them; it wasn’t until today that I woke up a little and started thinking about some questions again:

Why live at all? If a person only lives for himself, then he cannot be considered truly alive, because everything about him revolves around his narrow little life, indifferent to and silent about everything that is happening or will happen. This is the default and maintenance of capitalist society, because although he seems not to be related to this society, in fact he is a parasite of capitalist society, able to feel at ease to create some pastoral utopia, while in reality he is dividing excess profits in this world and, in his narrow little world, creating a utopia to escape the impending bankruptcy of himself. Most of the students, not to mention, once they graduate they will be shackled; so this life of compromise and seeking a parasitic life is a life of self-destruction, pursuing parasitic living is no different from being dead.

Feeling that after finishing I’m still very confused, I don’t know what to do? (There are still reading and studying, as well as socializing and exercising. The noisy life in the class is already very painful. I’m still dizzy about why to live, and I hope comrades can lend a hand.)

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Are there any plans in Huotang to drop out and participate in labor reform?

This too is parasitic: staying idle every day, immersing in these spiritual opiates and pursuing these low-level pleasures and刺激, only forms a vicious cycle of increasing emptiness, then pursuing more reactionary lewd pleasure. Because they live such a life of pursuing personal enjoyment, they openly make pornographic jokes and play FXS games without considering others’ feelings; in this life, morality becomes more decadent. The bourgeois schools today are one side using fascist constraints to control students, indoctrinating the black economy of personal speculation, while at the same time letting students detach from labor and from the people. Finally, they make students selfish and only want to indulge in pleasure, thus becoming slaves who can create profits for the bourgeoisie without disturbing bourgeois peace.

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My plan is to first try to get a card through classmates (after turning 18, it needs to be transferred; otherwise my mother will keep using internet tactics to prevent me from accessing forums).

Second, prepare to take leave for the Qingming holiday (the Zhi Xuefu and Lao Jiu require our class to only have one and a half days off for Qingming; the rest of the time is self-study, but in the following weeks there are “make-up classes for Qingming” still involving us) to go work, but it’s still unclear which stores will hire temporary workers.

Holiday part-time job plan: plan to keep sabotaging speculative efforts and then say I can’t continue learning, forcing my parents to concede and let me work (also using my parents’ “experience life” excuse), finish the senior year courses and then take long leaves (my parents may get angrier earlier, making the struggle even more intense). Then use the excuse to let me suffer and “change my mind” to go work, but I feel the bigger likelihood is that my parents will lash out earlier, so a showdown may begin before I enter the third year; moreover, I’m not sure how Qingming work or summer work will affect me. If my parents delay their reaction a bit, I’ll proceed as planned.

Today I keep thinking about some impractical issues, but until now I remain hazy and have not touched the core, which is very painful, not knowing what to do.

“Not fearing hardship, not fearing death” — why endure hardship and why die; this is an important question. “There is no merit but there is toil; there is toil but no fatigue” is a slogan that treats one’s own “work” as “capital” to bargain with the Party and demand to receive a “salary,” turning the collective cause into a “pseudo-job,” rather than making a contribution to human liberation.

How should a person live? Bernstein’s revisionist fallacy that “movement is everything,” and the life view that praises nihilism and a life of indulgence and going through the motions, trying to lead the working class’s liberation astray.

Talk with L

A fourteen-year-old boy sexually assaults and murders a classmate and dumps the body. She is very shocked and says, “这种小畜生应该立即判死刑” (“this kind of little beast should be sentenced to death immediately”). She thinks such things are “ridiculous,” and also mentions a book by Han Han, “His Country,” and how some men shamelessly seduce women with sweet words; about life in her class (average): she is one of the class’s monitors, and the strict teacher often dumps dull tasks on her, but she has two subjects with outstanding academic performance, making her one of the top in the class; that teacher even used petty favors like “lottery” to win over the speculative big shots. I asked her what her attitude toward life was; she thinks life should be spent as it comes, that dull, monotonous days are somewhat satisfying with small things like “lottery” and chatting with classmates (I didn’t ask her about her views on her own future).

I also talked to her about the current situation of Chinese workers by imagining a “worker friend,” such as the milk-tea shop worker during “Qianwen Free Pass” suffering labor from parasites until their whole body aches, and being oppressed by the dog-like shop manager; the hypocrisy of the “Labor Law” revised and the various exploiters colluding to squeeze workers; food delivery riders enduring platform exploitation, running orders day and night for that meager wage. I didn’t let her express her views at the time. Later I wrote some things about “Big Brother” as myself, extracted some sentences from “The Prison Diary and Letters” that I thought were very good, and sent them to her.

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How did Huotang imagine communicating with the “workers”? Isn’t this a self-delusion and self-questioning by yourself alone? And the entire piece is very abstract, especially the last sentence which I cannot understand. This kind of Liu Xiu’s bourgeois idealist cultivation of the way of thinking cannot be combined with the masses or understand the masses. It feels like Huotang should still劳动 as soon as possible; according to your plan, the fastest would be three to four months later. Can you plan to work now?

[quote=“青松, post:8, topic:2648”]
What plans are there currently for expulsion and labor reform education?\n\n[/quote]\n\n[quote=“北风, post:11, topic:2648”]
From your plan, the earliest is three to four months later; is it possible to plan to go to labor now?\n\n[/quote]\n\nSame question: does Huotan have any long-term part-time work plans.

You misunderstood, right? When talking with L, you should tell her about some comrades’ experiences working part-time on the forum.

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I was mistaken, I thought it was about Fire Coal and fictional workers talking, sorry.

Questions from previous discussions: How to criticize the “day-to-day people” idea among petty bourgeois students?

Yesterday, starting from how individuals should live, we talked about how people of different classes have different lives, and condemned the bourgeois life as being built on the pain of the vast majority (she agreed on this point); university students seem both oppressed and not oppressing others, but in fact they live by parasiting on their parents, living a “paradise on earth” (she thinks as long as they do not oppress others they should not criticize “how he lives, as long as it does not affect others”). I think the university student who can create a “paradise on earth” basically does so because they own social labor (here there is no exposure that petty bourgeois families are appropriating surplus value, i.e. through intellectual capital owning social labor to criticize) yet want to detach from society; this is a selfish and self-centered act, and selfish people cannot be truly happy (she gradually fell silent here, only a few sounds). I will next begin to discuss “family property and the nation” through the reality of women’s oppression, but since I did not plan this in advance, overall it was very chaotic and rigid (for example, when talking about marriage I jumped over the Puntary family; not getting married and constantly elaborating theories with social news, in the end not finished).

Today I tried to communicate with her; she kept chatting with classmates (it’s always like this, but when I came she would come over to talk). I also did not approach her to explain my problem. She also talked about the letter of the workers, thought what he said was very philosophical. I seized the opportunity and said, “This is the working class; although they have almost no wealth, their spirit is far richer than those of the rich; in times of confusion, it helps to listen to the workers’ viewpoints.”

The left circle really has degraded the reputation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and socialism; today the political jester again wears the hat of粉畜 (this term likely refers to a pejorative group) to play with factory jokes, another one who got addicted to the Delta Triangular (sic) obsession is also constantly whispering in my ear, “the grandiose xxx is over,” and other political jokes. I deliberately ignore them. During a meal, one of them came over to talk about this; I seized the opportunity to bring up exams, complain that I wrote xxx wrong, and easily shifted the topic.

I do not need to seek the meaning of life in the same way as some others. Because in this world I have found happiness…

Why do I feel distressed about my current life? Seeking the “meaning of life”? It is because my worldview is basically old, whether to participate in revolution or for personal interests; however, this “personal liberation” conflicts with social liberation, and the two worldviews clash, prompting my reflection. On the other hand, the parasitic life with various low-level pleasures and the spiritual opium I consume in my brain continuously try to pull me back into the mire of my old life, while reviewing learned theoretical knowledge and studying new theories, planning life, reading excerpts from the Red Book, quotes from forums, singing red songs, and engaging in principled exchanges with classmates to actively guide me toward the prole (proletarian) luminous path. To invigorate myself, only those who keep others’ pain and happiness in their hearts at all times can truly live and be truly happy.

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Today, Confucian mothers launched a surprise raid and even turned off the lights to “wait for rabbits,” but nothing was caught and they finally left in a dejected manner.

Spring Thunders

Today the first thunder of spring roared, and in an instant the class’s buzzing discussions about speculative studies and the sedative effects of spiritual opium were drowned out. I thought to myself: the revolution is like this spring thunder, awakening the land that has burned fiercely; before it, all personal interests seem so small, petty, ugly, and loathsome.

The proletariat has a heavy, long road ahead (the mad assault of fascist ideology)

While reading Comrade Jack Baiyin’s poetry, a petty-bourgeois right-wing thought suddenly popped up: “If you don’t go, you won’t be harmed; going to die is stupid.” I was very indignant about this: “You spend all day parasitizing on pleasure, making others’ pain a source of amusement and gossip. Jack Baiyin is a son of the working class; he sacrificed himself for the liberation of the Spanish people. You, a person who lives a rotting parasitic life, greedy for life and afraid of death, with nothing but personal interests in your brain, think others are as cowardly as you— isn’t that too arrogant?! While pointing fingers at a warrior who dies for the people’s interests, you bow to capitalism; you, such a person, are the truly stupid one— treating the oppressor as your brother, and looking at the oppressed who dare to resist as ‘stupid’ people, what a slave-like demeanor.”

Pseudo-erotic pleasures

Today a few classmates around me, whenever there’s a spare moment, tell vulgar pornographic jokes, indulge in pornographic metaphors and pleasures, discuss pornographic comics and even threaten to watch hentai. I not only do not criticize them, but tolerate and indulge this; sometimes I even laugh at it. This provides fascist ideology with new material again, and the bad mental state has caused my studies to fall behind. Tomorrow we will go to fight on Labor Day, so we should oppose such behavior and record these words and deeds to expose their reactionary ideas.

Why do I tolerate this behavior and even “laugh”? The primary reason is that my life lacks a plan. I stayed up very late last night, yet during exams I still engaged in opportunism (except for the subjects that are “hopeless” which I use to recall “Home and Country”). This wasted energy, and the confusion in thought (wavering attitude toward the revolution) is still unsettled, and theoretical study gets stuck. Thus, the laxity in ideological struggle leads to spiritual emptiness, and the instability of class stance results in indiscriminate absorption of things, and these vulgar words and deeds collude with the ghost of bourgeois ideology to satisfy fascist pornographic thoughts.

How to destroy this pornographic ideology? Merely repeating theory is meaningless. Treat the oppressed’s suffering as your own suffering (for example, that classmate who likes to seek pleasure often deliberately takes things from my deskmate, pokes my deskmate’s waist and anus during reading periods; after being scolded, it only escalates, thinking they’ve played enough and let it go). We should view this behavior of making others suffer for pleasure as oppression of oneself, rather than turning a blind eye as if it doesn’t matter. Only by achieving personal liberation through social liberation can we truly have the courage to fight the oppressors.

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Today my Confucian father is coming back; he might take me back to our hometown to “pay respects to ancestors,” and by the way “educate” me (my exam results just came out; this time I did worse than last time, my Confucian mother has been urging me to read the investment/venture books carefully, and even threatened to cut off the internet). At dinner I made clear to my Confucian mother that I will go to do odd jobs tomorrow, using my Confucian father’s words as a shield, but whether I’ll succeed is still an unknown.

Qi Que’s school diary gave me a lot of inspiration: no matter how “careful” parents are about their children, it’s ultimately to serve their own “private” interests. My Confucian father runs a e-commerce business (ordinary employee; the boss above him is more obsessed with speculation than the entire team), he has previously worked as a delivery rider (crowdsourcing). He is more superstitious about Zhuangzi’s philosophy, but relies on this philosophy to “strengthen his health,” and openly told Confucian mother that he wants to “go far away.”

In the chat records with Confucian mother, he also said “if you don’t want to study, just go get a job.” I previously thought he genuinely supported me to work, but after Qi Que’s analysis, it’s actually for long-term interests—when I told him last year that “college is useless,” he blew up, thinking I was “eating too well.” He then supported me to work because he believed I would retreat in the face of hard labor and stick to studying, and in earlier struggles he often spoke about the benefits of speculative studies.

Recently I heard from classmates about a big incident: an excellent junior high school girl in our local school jumped off a building (almost twenty meters). It seems the bourgeois university pressured her with money, and on the day of the jumping, the whole school still “attended classes as normal.”

I recall that last semester a student at another school in our city also jumped from the night self-study area. The principal who ordered the purge also suppressed the matter. The surrounding petty bourgeoisie students discussed it, casually gossiping after meals, and there were even some fascist fiends who made the utterly shameless hellish joke, “If our school also jumps one, give us three days off.” It reminds me of the Chinese international students in Lu Xun’s The Students of Fenju (Mr. Tojo?) who take pleasure in watching their own countrymen suffer executions; history repeats itself, and it’s so ironic.

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