So Long, My Son 地久天长

"地久天长" is a Chinese idiom, pronounced dì jiǔ tiān cháng. It describes the friendship and affection between people, and is also used to describe a long and lasting relationship (often referring to love) [2-4]. Its grammatical structure is coordinate, and it can function as a predicate or attributive. It is often used to describe the relationship between two people [1] [6]. This idiom originates from Chapter 7 of the *Tao Te Ching*: "Heaven and earth are long-lasting. The reason why heaven and earth can be long-lasting is that they do not live for themselves, therefore they can live long." [3-5] It is also frequently used in later literary works, such as in Bai Juyi's *Song of Everlasting Regret* from the Tang Dynasty, where he writes, "Heaven and earth may end, but this regret will last forever" [3-4], and in the writings of Yu Xin from the Northern Zhou Dynasty [4] [6]. In addition, there is a movie of the same name, So Long, My Son. ...

...The English translation is: as long as the heaven and earth endure. [13]

The source of the excerpt above is Baidu. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%9C%B0%E4%B9%85%E5%A4%A9%E9%95%BF/1540381

I heard a critic of Chinese cross cultural influence with the west, while comparing their influence to that of Japan and South Korea, describe it as quite limited. Then he said the exception was the 2019 film So long, My Son, which I found quite moving. It seem so humanistic and real, that I thought it might have universal appeal. If anything it was an eye opener.

On its face, the film seems to have the stamp of approval from The China Film Administration, which from the Baidu write up, is an agency of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee. Does So Long, My Son pull any punches on sources of dissatisfaction with the recent history of Chinese modernization? I wondered about this during the film. Auld lang syne is heard in the film, which I guess is regarded as a pertinent theme. There also seemed to be official disapproval of bourgeois habits, like dancing to loud music, drinking and having fun, to the limited degree that transpired. I tried to listen to an interview with the director in English, but his English wasn't adequate I think to fully express his ideas. I suppose one could watch the film, if they had the time, it was three hours long, with the object of drawing their own impressions.

I had recently listened carefully to a South Korean reporter, discuss some of the economic, social, and political impacts in China of modernization in recent decades and policy after Tiananmen. Although, she did not mention this film, the background she provided seemed reflected in the experiences of the main characters. I consider myself lucky to have come across the video So Long, My Son, on youtube. Somewhat surprised, because or in spite of the story's perspective, it can be found there. The English subtitles are excellent.

Call in China to end English's core status sparks debate

Also came across this interesting article on changing perspectives in China toward their "core" English curriculum at every educational level. Heard this discussed by another South Korean reporter who covers English language media reports for a South Korean media outlet. When I looked for the subject matter in English language media, I found a couple of articles but they were behind paywalls. Those were NYT, and SCMP. But this DW article was translatable into English. The South Korean discussion also raised the issue. With AI do we really need to spend so much time studying English in our schools? Think of the resources families and educators expend on this subject. Is it worthwhile enough to justify when we can just turn on the AI translator? I confess the Baidu excerpt above is a computer translation. Except for the Korean sources I used I was almost entirely dependent on computer translations. It would take me weeks to read that topic on one page of Baidu. The Korean reporters I alluded to were language experts in their respective reporting beats, one China, the other English language media.

Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil fell dark years ago. Now its organizers have been convicted

The article linked above is from August 21 but it's worth a note. There is some typical loaded language from CNN of course. I don't think for a moment that the Tiananmen uprising was nonviolent. It would be misleading to characterize the Hong Kong uprising in 2019 as non-violent. My contention would be that the Tiananmen uprising itself was related, at least in part, to the kind of factory closings particularly in northeast China only suggested in the movie So Long, My Son. Tiananmen was not mentioned explicitly in the film. I learned today from another leading Chinese scholar in South Korea, that mentioning Tiananmen is still off limits there. Some pro-China reporting here in the west, mostly independent media to be sure, tends to gloss over the root causes of violence at Tiananmen and treat it in entirely superficial ideological terms. In terms of hardship and social unrest, the concession that yes, well, their were problems during modernization, is grudgingly made; the sacrifices were worth it, or something like that. Western neo-liberal propaganda misrepresented what had happened entirely. Obviously, for historical and security reasons, Hong Kong, had to be restored to the mainland political control. Pretending that it would continue to be an outpost of western neoliberalism was largely wishful thinking. These are my characterizations not those of So Long, My Son. I'm trying to provide context as I now see it.

So Long, My Son, appears to take a somewhat fatalistic view of the political tides of history, the ebb and flow of which, in their brutal course, are only tempered by the warmth and love of those closest to us. At the same time, it renders to Caesar what is his due, with a superficial "all's well that end's well" resolution; apologies accepted. Not entirely satisfactory. But life is not a fairy tale, is it?

Another historical film note-

In South Korea, the movie Assassins has come out. Unlike So Long, My Son, the film is blatantly political according to the lengthy commentaries I have watched concerning the release. The movie has not been released yet overseas. This is a retrospective on the Park Chung-hee era, specifically focused on the assassination of his wife, First Lady Yuk Yŏng-su, on August 15, 1974, during his speech celebrating Liberation day. The assassination is the subject of speculation in South Korea, namely, whodunit and what was their motive? This is similar to the Kennedy Assassination, in its historical impact on the history of South Korea and its questionable circumstances. There was a principal suspect, Moon Se-kwang, who was tried and after his appeal to Supreme Court promptly executed. The ostensible target Park himself wasn't hit with any bullets, but his wife and a teenage choir member sitting nearby were shot and killed. Moon fired four bullets from his revolver. Seven shots are heard on the video. What happened to the bullet that struck the First Lady in the head and killed her? Where are the ballistics reports? Why was the assailant brought to the venue in a limo characteristic of a state VIP? Why was he allowed entry without a pass or security clearance?

Due to the death of the generally admired first lady, her popularity based upon her commitment to charity efforts, the public mood shifted somewhat, from opposition to Park, to public sympathy and acquiescence to his rule. The latter consisted of Emergency Decrees, suppression of press freedoms, dissent and martial law justice, including torture and execution for those who didn't comply. The Korean establishment media was involved in a free press movement at the time opposing Park's effort to censor, oppress, and control it. Ironically, Dong A Ilbo led the opposition to Park's oppression in this respect, with support from other newspapers. Yet today, Dong A, and it's broadcast medium Channel A News are the center of the establishment right wing media today, and with its conservative cronies, have panned Assassins as leftist conspiracy theories. The suspicions concerning the First Lady's assassination existed in 1974, as evidenced in contemporary press of that era, and still exist today.

Much attention is drawn to the fact, that during this period, masses of South Koreans went from food insecurity and famine to three meals a day, with rice returning as the staple. Previously, most rice was subject to export for foreign exchange, and earlier to support the Japanese metropole during the colonial era. So there is some retrospective fondness or nostalgia for Park's oppressive reign of terror mostly by elderly conservatives. Park is credited for the solid economic foundation laid for subsequent South Korean economic advances in spite of the horrible political conditions. I recall at least one analyst comment that China's experience was ten or more years behind South Korea's. Another China expert I watched today called what China was and is still doing "nation building." Although not on China's scale by any means, this is exactly what Park was doing in South Korea years earlier.

The Cultural Politics of Remembering Park Chung Hee

The celebration of economic growth as the source of self-affirmation and pride, accompanied by the selective erasure or overlooking of brutalities and negative consequences, characterizes Park Chung-hee nostalgia and underscores the hegemony of economic developmentalism in the current era of globalization.

The author Seungsook Moon emphasizes that cultural memory of the dictator Park falls into three categories: glorification, demonization, and humanization. The first two are largely based upon ideological perspective. Frankly, I prefer the "demonization" part of his essay, because it lays out the bad part that tends to get swept under the rug by contemporary mainstream media in the US and South Korea. The humanistic part, principally, the biographical details, upbringing, rocky career path, and so on, is necessary to know. The glorification part falls into the realm of a whitewash or apologia.

The South Korean right wing is upset about the movie Assassins because it serves to undermine contemporary conservative glorification of the former dictator in South Korea, by those whose social roots emerged either during the colonial era, like Park's, or during his dictatorship or both. There is overlap with the "Yoon again" crowd. Yoon himself worshiped Park. Similarly, the main protagonist in So Long, My Son, was briefly excited to see a statue of Mao in the old neighborhood. His wife did not seem to react. In a scene earlier in the Chinese film, a large group of factory workers become disorderly as party cadre announced their arbitrary dismissals, yelling loudly "Is this how you treat workers?!" Historically, from what I understand to be the case, it was Deng's followers who were behind this early part of the modernization process.