Forum - View topic

INTEREST: 9 'Spiritually Japanese' Cosplayers, Cartoonists Arrested in China For 'Anti-China Extremi

The problem is, how do you determine someone is “spiritual Japanese”? The two Chinese dressed as Japanese wartime soldiers part shown in the article I can understand (in the same veins of cosplaying KKK and Nazi) , but this is just...what? There are dozens of anime Cons took place in numerous Chinese cities, and thousands of cosplayers, how do you exactly define spiritual Japanese then if the ones who love Japanese entertainment and culture aren’t define as one, at least according to the local police

Lots of inconsistencies once you think deeper. Depicting Chinese people and police as pigs can be read in various ways, spiritual Japanese? Not that one, sorry

There’s so much yikes in this that I’m not sure where to start. For one, no one can be “spiritually [insert ethnic group]” if you’re not, y’know, that ethnic group. Secondly, there’s quite a bit of truth that Japanese people have a not-insignificant level of contempt for the Chinese (a friend of mine taught in several middle and elementary schools in Japan and was horrified at the Chinese stereotypes (they’re dirty, dumb, etc.) being bandied around),and I think it’s pretty telling that Chinese people who claim to be “spiritually Japanese” latch onto anti-Chinese sentiment specifically. Internalized racism, thy name is “spiritually Japanese”, apparently.

I’m not sure that they self-identify as “spiritually Japanese”. From the article, it seems to be a derogatory term, so it is probably something people are called rather than something they call themselves. It seems more like their government is trying to paint some dissidents as hating their country and sympathizing with the villains of history rather than people spuriously identifying as a different ethnicity, at least without further details about the particular case.

whiskeyii wrote:

There’s so much yikes in this that I’m not sure where to start. For one, no one can be “spiritually [insert ethnic group]” if you’re not, y’know, that ethnic group. Secondly, there’s quite a bit of truth that Japanese people have a not-insignificant level of contempt for the Chinese (a friend of mine taught in several middle and elementary schools in Japan and was horrified at the Chinese stereotypes (they’re dirty, dumb, etc.) being bandied around),and I think it’s pretty telling that Chinese people who claim to be “spiritually Japanese” latch onto anti-Chinese sentiment specifically. Internalized racism, thy name is “spiritually Japanese”, apparently.

I’m not sure that they self-identify as “spiritually Japanese”. From the article, it seems to be a derogatory term, so it is probably something people are called rather than something they call themselves. It seems more like their government is trying to paint some dissidents as hating their country and sympathizing with the villains of history rather than people spuriously identifying as a different ethnicity, at least without further details about the particular case.

Getting a 10 year sentence for writing gay books is pretty relevant to being arrested for creating political cartoons. It's all art.

zrnzle500 wrote:

I’m not sure that they self-identify as “spiritually Japanese”. From the article, it seems to be a derogatory term, so it is probably something people are called rather than something they call themselves. It seems more like their government is trying to paint some dissidents as hating their country and sympathizing with the villains of history rather than people spuriously identifying as a different ethnicity, at least without further details about the particular case.

"According to The Beijing News, one of those arrested was a 22-year-old cartoonist surnamed Zhang. The artist is reported to have drawn comics depicting Chinese people as pigs. "

Well, we know at least one.

Of course, the nice thing about labels like this is you can apply it to anyone and don't need any kind of proof. Who's going to disagree with the Chinese government? Nobody.

Communist China strikes again. And it's sad that nowadays China becomes more authoritarian country.

Internalized racism, thy name is “spiritually Japanese”, apparently.

It's kind of ironic that ANN links an article about crackdown on artistic freedom in China to Yahoo! - the very company that sold Chinese dissidents' info to the nasty party, which got innocent people jailed.

Yes, I still haven't moved on. Burn in hell, Yahoo!