[VIDEO] Fascists Applauded in Square Dance Performances
As seen last week in Charlottesville, public displays of fascism are usually denounced wherever they appear. And yet, here in Beijing, one such display isn't just tolerated – it's applauded and set to a danceable beat.
On most nights in a downtown public square located outside Raffle City in Dongzhimen, a group of women performs an anti-Japanese dance in which they "defeat" a person dressed up as a WWII-era imperialist Japanese soldier.
Wielding replicas of AK-47s and plastic swords, the women are seen overcoming a person dressed with the words "Jap bastard" on his T-shirt, who ultimately surrenders to them at the end of the performance.
This kind of thing isn't common. Square dancing is a popular activity in China but doesn't usually involve political content. Most of the time, the pastime involves middle-aged women called dama dancing in unison while holding fans and scarves.
And yet, the Dongzhimen anti-Japanese square dancers have been doing this as far back as July 2014 and as recently as the beginning of August.
And while the display of fascist imagery has been contentious, the dance has been officially sanctioned by the city. On the Beijing Tourism website (english.visitbeijing.com.cn), visitors to Beijing are encouraged to go to Dongzhimen to watch the woman "kill bastards," telling tourists they may "get a seat in the front row."
However, if you think China universally condones public displays of fascism, you'd be dead wrong.
This past Sunday in Guangxi, two men were seen dressed up as WWII-era Japanese soldiers outside the Bingyang High-Speed Railway Station. As they recorded themselves for a livestream broadcast, one of the men was seen brandishing a toy sword and shouting the very inappropriate "bagayalu," a curse associated by Chinese with Japanese invaders.
Unfortunately for the men, they neglected to bring along the adorable dancing dama and a flag of China. Without this context, a crowd of some 300 people surrounded the performers' home and prevented police from taking them away for questioning. When they weren't able to act out their threats of violence toward the men, the crowd settled for destroying their scooter instead.
Images: The Observer (guancha.cn), ThePaper.cn, Sina.com.cn, Weibo.com, TheNanfang.com
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