If I were a cloud,
I would stop flying high in the sky,
Instead, I would choose to change into rain drops that alight on the world of men.
If you ask me why,
Please look upon the verdant lands of life,
And that would be my answer.

If I were a river,
I would stop rushing toward the ocean,
Instead, I would choose to irrigate the dry wheat fields of Shaan’Xi [province].
If you ask me why,
Please listen to the joyous laughter of my uncles, the farmers,
And that would be my answer.

If I were a mushroom,
I would stop growing old,
Instead, I would choose to turn into medicine that sooths men’s quivering mouths.
If you ask me why,
Please look at the smiling faces of the recuperating ill,
And that would be my answer.

If I were ore,
I would stop resting in the mountains,
Instead, I would choose to melt and become boiling steel.
If you ask me why,
Please look at all the tall buildings and large mansions made of me,
And that would be my answer.

If I were a white pigeon,
I would stop frolicking about,
Instead, I would, Olive Branch held up high with my beak, ceaselessly dance in front of warring nations.
If you ask me why,
Please look at the victims of war, all these suffering children, now enjoying themselves merrily,
And that would be my answer.

Human life is an unending sequence of choices,
Move forward, move backward, turn left, turn right?
If you have lost your direction, look into the truth in your heart, how well disposed and beautiful you are!
And that would be my answer. (Footnote 1)

I received this poem quite some time ago from a Hong Kong friend. She introduced it with these words: “This poem scored full marks in last year’s [2007 mainland China] University Admissions exam. I am sure you can understand the Chinese. Bravo! To youth and optimism!”

Sometime later, I forwarded it to a mainland friend of mine with similarly enthusiastic words: “China may be rough around the edges, but there is good reason to be optimistic yet when its young can dream like this.” But my mainland friend – normally fun-loving and, as far as I had gotten to know her, not in the least given to pessimism – didn’t think much of it, “Don’t be silly. It’s just another one of our countless slogans telling me what to do and how to be. When you’re bombarded with them from the day you’re born, they just go in one ear and out the other. I for one am sick of them.”

That made me think. Perhaps she had a point. Indeed, you needn’t live in China for long to notice that the environment is plastered with paternalistic slogans. Usually using white letters on a blue background, red paint on white or white on red, they can be found on walls or on flags fluttering in the wind anywhere in country, although these days more in the countryside than in the cities.

Some I can relate to: “A person’s worth is measured by what he contributes, not by what he takes.” This one I saw under an image of Einstein in a school in Shanggao, a small town in Jiangxi province about which I’ve written before.

Some slogans like this one, painted onto a wall in Shanggao, are innocuous: “Customers are the basis of our livelihood. Therefore, we must with our hearts’ innermost sincerity make good products for our customers!”

Others, like one I’ve seen on the road in Sichuan, don’t quite seem to make sense: “Transport the harmonious Olympic spirit. Build a smooth transport system!”

Some are sort of funny: “Optical cables don’t contain copper; don’t waste your time stealing one”(Footnote 2).

Others change with the times. When Mao wanted the country to grow, he proclaimed: Ren Duo Hao Ban Shi [人多好办事]: “Many hands make light work!” being the nearest English equivalent, but more accurately if clumsily translated as: “The more people there are, the better to get work done!”

Since the introduction of China’s one-child policy, the exhortatory slogans advise opposite behaviour. Often they make me cringe, like this one seen in a remote suburb of Beijing: “Make fewer babies, plant more trees! Make fewer babies, raise more pigs!”. That seems just a bit too misanthropic, but it’s nothing compared to the one found at the entrance to a crematorium in Hubei province: “Improve the economy, reduce the population!” Doesn’t this take “zero-sum” thinking a touch too far?

Please don’t get me wrong: I firmly believe that China’s family policies are beneficial in many ways not only for itself but also, and this is less often appreciated, for the world as a whole. No, the policy isn’t the problem. Instead, it is the lower-level cadre’s approach to communicating the policy. Could it be any less sensitive? No wonder some in China aren’t enthralled by anything that sounds like an exhortation to behave in one way or another, no matter how well-intended it may be.

Many of the slogans are indeed well-intentioned. Is there anything wrong with wanting to induce people to reduce garbage? Not really, except if you put it the way it’s written on a flag on Pudong Avenue in Shanghai: “If garbage starts with me, it’s better if I first become garbage!” What would the 2007 university entrance exam competition winner have made of this one? “If I were garbage,…”

And when insensitive communication meets exaggerated self-importance it can result in a slogan such as the one plastered onto the government compound wall of a town in Guangdong Province: “It is our national policy to develop undergarment manufacturing!” I wonder in exactly what position the development of undergarment manufacturing is on the country’s national policy priority list.

Who, then, in China would not feel cynical about anything smacking of a slogan? Who would not feel put down by these exhortations, not feel treated like a child and patronized by a nanny state? What must it feel like to live in a world like this? At this time of year when positive thoughts prevail, I would like to wish my many Chinese friends that their lives will, before long, become slogan-free. And as the exhortations subside, one can hope that a child’s poem will come to evoke not creeping cynicism but an excited exclamation: “Bravo! To youth and optimism!”

******************

Foot note 1: Here is the poem in its original Chinese:

如果我是一片雲，
我會放棄高高在上，
我選擇化作一滴滴小雨飄落人間。
你要問我為什麼，
請看看那些鬱鬱蔥蔥的生命，
那，就是我的答案。

如果我是一支河流，
我會放棄奔流到海，
我選擇化為甘泉流入麥田。
你要問我為什麼，
請聽聽農民伯伯喜悅的笑聲，
那，就是我的答案。

如果我是一株靈芝，
我會放棄長命百歲，
我選擇化為一滴滴藥湯灌入人口中。
你要問我為什麼，
請看看那位康復病人的笑臉，
那，就是我的答案。

如果我是一塊礦石，
我會放棄平靜安逸，
我選擇熔入爐中化為滾燙的鋼水。
你要問我為什麼，
請看看那一座座的高樓大廈，
那，就是我的答案。

如果我是一隻白鴿，
我會放棄自由嬉戲，
我選擇永不停息地把橄欖枝銜到戰爭的國度。
你要問我為什麼，
請看看那些飽受戰爭痛苦的兒童正在快樂地玩耍，
那，就是我的答案。

人生，是一篇做不完的選擇題，
向前？向後？往左？往右？
如果你已迷失方向，瞧瞧你心靈中的真、善、美吧，
那，就是你的答案。

Footnote 2: The “optical cable” slogan and subsequent ones mentioned in this essay come from a website created by one cynical Chinese.

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