Patriotism, Jealousness, or Prejudice?

I don't want my blog to be political at all. But today I feel want to comment.

Sina is said the largest Chinese language blog community. This week on top of Sina blog site was a post by Chinese Mainland actor Jie Zhou (周杰), titled "Forgetting the past equals betrayal". Of course it was posted in Chinese. But here is the background.

Jie Zhou became known 12 years ago, in 1998, for his performance in a TV series called "Princess Pearl", or Huan Zhu Ge Ge (还珠格格). This TV series was produced and shot by Taiwan-based companies, and two former members of the Taiwan idol band "Little Tigers" (Xiaohudui) starred in it too. This series turned out so popular that both leading actresses, Vicky Zhao 赵薇 (Mainland Chinese) and Ruby Lin 林心如 (Taiwanness) became household stars overnight. It even popularized Bingbing Fan 范冰冰 who played a supporting role. Two sequels (HZGG2 and HZGG3) followed, and the novelist Yao Qiong （琼瑶）conquered millions of audiences with her romance stories.

Jie Zhou has been a famous yet controversial figure since then, too. Rumors about his tensions with Taiwan-born actors and staffs in the cast became a topic for paparazzi. The recent post (12 years after!) on his blog included his explanations and comments behind those conflicts. According to what he wrote, actors from Taiwan (he apparently indicates the two Little Tigers - Alec Su 苏有朋 and Zhipeng Chen 陈志朋) were holding arrogant and insulting attitudes towards Chinese Mainland. Taiwan had a much more mature and commercialized show business at that time, compared with Chinese Mainland, so they were already superstars before the shooting of HZGG. They frequently gave complaints and negative comments on Chinese Mainland, viewing it a different country to where they are from. In his blog, Mr. Zhou sounds critical and somewhat furious about these attitudes, even after 12 years.

Most readers sound supportive for Jie Zhou on his blog, which did not surprise me at all for two reasons. One, most readers of celebrities' blogs are their fans. Two, the One-China view is rooted in most Mainland Chinese's minds as a principle. Any claim about Taiwan independence usually stimulate instinctive antipathy among Chinese Mainlanders. In fact, many people who have not lived abroad also assume that most Taiwan people favor "returning" to China. This illusion is a big part of the reason behind many misunderstandings between the straight. Due to different conditions between the political contexts, Taiwan is much opener to whatever voices on political views. This fact, neglected by many Mainland Chinese, also creates a gap in communications.

The timing of his post is interesting, too. Only three weeks ago, the singing group Little Tigers had a shining reunion show at CCTV Spring Festival Gala, which is televised all over China and countries. Their show reminded millions of audiences of the good old days, and rejuvenated the Little Tigers' popularity again. Jie Zhou, in contrary, has been away from center of spotlights for a while. Though he frequently emphasized his intention to stay away from media and be a low-key celebrity, the interesting timing of his post triggers me to question his motivation behind the post.

Now, here is my point.

The conflicts between Little Tigers and Jie Zhou are essentially cultural conflicts rather than political or interpersonal ones. Jie Zhou apparent lacks full understandings about Taiwan and its people. At the end of his post on blog he wrote: People from both sides of the straight should all know there is only one China. This is the bottom line that all Chinese should stick to.

I would not comment on the intention of this red-sounding statement, but I guess not many readers from Taiwan (if any) would agree. Jie Zhou is also making serious mistakes by transforming personal experiences to a generalization about all Taiwan people. This approach does no good to cross-straight communication at all. If there were to be a war between two sides (though I will never believe there would be one), people like Jie Zhou are the first to blame.