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published by Cindy Carter | October 20, 2022
This summer, after a long pause due to COVID-19 considerations, Xi Jinping resumed his activity abroad and at home. His itinerary included visits to Hong Kong in late June, Xinjiang in mid-July and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in mid-September. (In particular, he did not spend the night in Hong Kong on his vacation to mark the 25th anniversary of the transfer of territory from British to Chinese rule, but chose to spend the night in Shenzhen. )Less publicized, perhaps, is the brief notice made in Wuhan on June 28, just before its appearance in Hong Kong.
These journeys through China’s most sensible leader naturally involve detailed preparations, strict security, and diverse crowd bureaucracy, keeping them at bay, increasing their numbers, or making sure they involve the right kind of safe and “politically trustworthy” people.
In this now-deleted first-person account, posted via Luoriyudeng 落日余灯 on the Matters News website, an instructor describes the silent preparations, and long periods of boredom and waiting, for an inspection scale through “certain esteemed character. “” :
“Look at everything. Reveal anything.
I am a teacher. Imagine my astonishment when I took on the political task of entering other people’s homes to close their windows and watch over them.
It’s around 10:00 p. m. on June 27 that I won an unexpected call from a school administrator. The call did not take into account the details: I had to show up at the school at 7:00 the next morning for an assembly at 7:15 on an unspecified topic. My colleagues, who would also be present, were informed individually. It’s more than a little strange. The paintings did not begin until 8:30 a. m. M. , so why did they call us an hour and a half earlier?Why did admins call us one by one instead of posting an ad on our WeChat runtime group and why didn’t they?tell us what is it? Why the mysterious air? One thing is certain: it’s probably not going to be good.
I arrived at 7:00 the next morning and discovered the cafeteria full of teachers lining up for breakfast or storing food in plastic bags. I swallowed my own breakfast and went to the teachers’ room, where my colleagues and I tried to guess what itArrayA colleague said he saw plastic bags full of raincoats and shoe covers, indicating some kind of output, maybe some kind of activity on the network?Someone else assumed that we would be forced to serve as “extras,” filling the crowd for a stopover through a senior official. Still exchanging assumptions, we address the assembly with a sense of apprehension.
Instead of the principal, who spoke at our meetings, the Communist Party school secretary was on stage, suggesting that today’s activities would have something to do with the Party. I imagine that when I finish speaking, the mystery will be cleared up. But his speech only muddied the waters.
The Party Secretary said he had obtained orders from his superiors to make a stop at a residential complex in Zuoling to assist police in a “Bring Civilization Home” campaign. It was our task to enter the assigned department and make sure the windows were closed. Not only would everyone participate, but also companions of the transit formula of the city and other municipalities. The most sensible chiefs had designated this a “political task of paramount importance. “importance. ” To determine responsibility in case of a problem, the organization was informed about the family information and everyone’s paintings.
Why would a crusade to raise awareness about “civilization” need police?And how can such a mundane task be called a “political task of utmost importance”?
The Party secretary added that he had gone to a school assembly the night before and joined provincial and municipal leaders in locating the residential complex in question. It is, however, the purpose is to practice everything and reveal nothing. “Nothing less than a stopover through a senior central government official can also cause such anxiety among provincial and municipal leaders, and given the red carpet treatment, it had to be the president or prime minister.
After the Party Secretary described our task, the school principal read a list of our names and apartment numbers to which we were assigned, and then handed out red badges (with the yellow crane tower in the center and “SPD” and “WH” above and below) and a white mask with the Optics Valley logo. He asked us to pin the badges on the left side of our breasts and reminded us to wear the face mask at all times. To go through security and enter the compound, he told us, we would want our national ID cards, but we were forbidden to bring our phones. After returning to the teachers’ room to tidy, we went downstairs, took our supplies, boarded the bus the school had arranged for us, and went to the complex, which was even farther away than our school.
Colorful badges of people
Despite the ambiguity of our task, the atmosphere on the bus looks more like a journey of elegance. The teachers chatted and laughed, and I’m probably the only one frowning at the idea of being used as a tool to “maintain social stability. “As we were driving, the Party Secretary told the motive force where to take a detour through the blocked roads, which further convinced me that a central government leader was coming for an inspection tour. However, he couldn’t be sure if it was Xi Jinping: he would be in Hong Kong on June 30, and there was no point in him passing into Wuhan in the days before.
We arrived at the residential complex at 9:30. After getting off the bus, all the companions began to talk to each other. The front door of the complex right in front of us, but no one knew when we could just walk in, so we stood there and waited. In the absence of improvement, I observed that other people came and went. Some wore red badges, like us, so I guess our roles were similar. Others wore black uniforms with green or gold insignia. and gave the impression of being in conditions of security and surveillance. Near the perimeter wall, there was an organization of other people unloading things from a cargo truck. The other people without license plates who arrived here and left relatively freely were probably the residents. Other The buses arrived while we waited, each of them bringing a few dozen more people, and before long, both sides of the street were full.
About an hour later, a black guy with a walkie-talkie ordered us to line up and enter the complex. We walked through the grounds to the designated buildings. Local residents, usually young or old, looked at us curiously, as if wondering why so many people had come to their network today. We didn’t know others.
The residential complex, Zhiyuan Apartments, housed nine 32-story buildings. There were wide tree-lined streets and a variety of small symptoms that pointed the way to spaces such as the “Red Room”, the “Red Cafeteria” and the “Fiesta”. Walk of History”. A network bulletin board was covered with text and photographs touting China’s technological progression and pandemic prevention measures. All this “red” made me realize that although this complex may seem perfect on the outside, on the inside, it was “both red and expert,” precisely as the Communist Party likes.
Our arrival outside the building was followed by another wait, in what would be the theme of the day. There were sunny periods and scattered showers, so I took refuge under the eaves of the nearby electrical substation. Without my phone, I still had nothing to do to see other people walking past construction.
At the front of the construction was a gray-haired middle-aged guy dressed in black clothes and a blue badge, and equipped with a giant abdominal and a walkie-talkie. Listening while chatting with local residents, I heard him mention that he had recently disrupted a gambling network, so it must have been a police officer dealing with thieve cases. Another middle-aged guy, also dressed in black but wearing a gold badge, arrived a little later. He stood at the front of the building, smoking and talking on his walkie-talkie as he searched the crowd around him with Olympic disdain. I deduced that it will have to be a senior police officer.
Now that their commander had arrived, it was time for the soldiers to get to work. Groups of two people cleared the electric bikes that were strewn on the sidewalk and loaded them onto the back of the vans to tow them. For shipping, the tricycles that were too heavy to lift, just took them out of the vicinity, at the risk of explosion, I guess. in the elevators. He had noticed those things when he was waiting, and they were obviously meant to be “comforting gifts” for the residents. You may not know if the other people on the conveyor line were network personnel or police officers. Official
A with the police
According to a colleague’s wristwatch, we waited almost an hour before a policeman dressed in black told us we could enter. After taking the elevator with my colleagues, I discovered an organization of what looked like plainclothes police sitting in front of the open door. of the apartment I had been assigned. A boy and a woguy were sitting outside, and two middle-aged men were sitting inside. The apartment belonged to an old woguy who watched TV on the sofa. I greeted her and she got up to offer me a seat and pour me a glass of water, but seeing my water bottle, she put down the kettle and went back to the couch to watch CCTV news.
I conscientiously grabbed a stool, joined the others outside, as one of the policemen had requested, and struck up a conversation.
“Are you from the community?” the policeman asked.
I shook my head. “I’m a in school. “
“They also dragged you all?”
“Every school in the district has sent their teachers here,” I said.
“Well, that’s wrong. . . ” He said thoughtfully.
I learned from our brief verbal exchange that not all of us who had been sent here from other systems knew each other’s identities. There was top-down coordination, but little communication between the other systems. We had been subsumed under the insignia of other color systems, which were the only way to identify ourselves, useful for hiding people’s genuine identities. Each individual sent to enforce order in this network knew only a small component of the plan, which naturally aroused our curiosity. Wanting to know more, we were forced to exchange data with others and revise to put things together, but we would never be able to build a complete picture.
After those superficial greetings, the officials left me alone and resumed their own topics of conversation, ranging from a woman undergoing surgery at the center to making appointments with a colleague’s daughter, to which colleagues were under serious pressure. I guess that’s the kind of thing cops communicate about when they’re not busy with a case.
I sat quietly as they chatted, raising my ears whenever a voice reached the walkie-talkies on the dining table next to them. police – saying, “Copy this, for yourself. ” Then I heard someone say that we could only a little bit until 2:30 in the afternoon, when we had to close all the windows in each and every apartment in the construction and make sure that one was not near the windows. Apparently, whoever was the leader would arrive at the venue at 2:30 p. m.
I asked the officials when we can leave. Not until 4:00 or 5:00 p. m. M. , predicts the Great. It’s disappointing. A bag of KenGee buns outside the apartment reminded me that I had left my food on the bus. With a gurgling stomach, I pointed to the rollers and asked if I could eat one. The skinny policeman said they had brought them to him. And he advised me to locate the user in the rate of this construction and ask if we can locate someone to bring us food. Clutching this straw, I went to my assigned colleagues on the same ground and asked them what they would do for lunch. They had brought it It was nothing either and had resigned themselves to hunger. Nothing to do yet “lie on the ground,” I thought.
A wait for a short visit
The citizens of this apartment were an older couple: an elderly bedridden man with terminal cancer and his wife, who cared for and fed him. According to the wife, the Zhiyuan apartments were resettlement housing for staff at the state-owned Gedian chemical plant. And she and her husband had moved here after the demolition of the factory. Seeing that we had returned, he kindly gave us bottles of mineral water and invited us to sit on the sofa and watch TV.
Without our phones, even watching TV was a luxury. We took turns navigating the canals, searching and not finding a drama that could be seen. After watching the news for a while, we left the TV on CCTV five and watched all the sporting events randomly. That took place. One of my colleagues joked that it was like having to go to the bloodless turkey to cure our smartphone addictions.
Luckily, other colleagues brought us bags of rolls at lunchtime. I jumped on the bag and broke it, putting a curl in my mouth as I grabbed another. Between us, we controlled to gobble up all the rolls in about five minutes. Around 1: At 20 a. m. , a middle-aged man dressed all in white came and told us to close the windows. With the permission of the old lady who lived in the apartment, we made sure that the windows of each room were closed, and then we continued to wait for the appearance of the vital character. From time to time, he would go up to the balcony and sneak at what was going on underneath, but he couldn’t see anything.
There was nothing to do yet, watch TV and run down the hall to look in the windows from time to time. Around four o’clock in the afternoon, outside in the distance, I saw an organization of other people near building 6. They were all dressed in white. Combining this with the photos of other people in white Mao suits that I had seen on TV news, I can only say that the “esteemed character” had nevertheless arrived. About 10 minutes later, two minibuses and a sedan pulled out of building 6. I assumed the caravan would leave and we’d be on the loose, but soon after, the caravan reappeared in front of building 1. This time Array I didn’t see anyone. white, so maybe they went straight into the building. When I looked out the window again 10 minutes later, the trailer was gone. People dressed in ordinary clothes began to come out of the building opposite us, and soon after, the police told us that our task was finished. We were loose to go, despite one and all! “Why such a short visit?” I groaned as I walked down the stairs. “Maybe he lacks stamina because he’s so old. “
Back in the sun, the masters talked excitedly to each other, marveling at none other than Xi Jinping. Some said they saw sentries stationed at the windows of the most sensitive floor; others said they saw Xi’s status next to the network’s bulletin board. Others said they wanted to follow in his footsteps. When I left the complex, I heard one of the teachers laughing, “I never imagined that we would achieve such a wonderful project today!
But I fancied the loss of the best day at work.
Epilogue
There were so many buses leaving the hotel that they could have been just for a popular tourist spot. When we left, all the teachers were eagerly clamoring for their phones and checking their notifications. A friend of one of the teachers had sent a video Footage of Xi’s visit and the other teachers piled up to watch, as if catching up on news from a favorite celebrity.
I hadn’t brought my phone. I sat there in my seat, feeling mixed emotions. Had he completed something that day, or had he done nothing at all?Yes, I there on stage, however, I felt a little bit like I had been there.
Despite the Party’s discourse on “From the people, for the people,” on President Xi’s scale, “the other people” were treated as adversaries to be careful of. political scrutiny, and their function was to serve as secondary actors, to help create a “harmonious” atmosphere. Xi’s scale in was not aimed at listening to the authentic opinions of others, but underscoring the will of the Party. [ Chinese]
Translation by Mick Barry.
Categories: CDT Highlights,Article Level 2,Politics,Society,Translation
Tags:P CC,CCP leadership,civil society,COVID-19,pandemic strategy,police,political image,propaganda,schools,security,security agents,maintaining stability,teachers,travel,wuhan,Xi Jinping