ALWAYS SOMEONE TO HATE:

Putting Lang Lang in Context: The Background of His White House Performance (Heng He, 1/28/11, Epoch Times)

There is a direct line between Lang Lang’s use of music to inspire feelings in the Chinese about a “powerful China and a united Chinese people” and the policy on culture enforced by Mao Tse Tung.

Yan’an is a place in the mountains of northwest China where Mao’s army hid as the nationalists fought the Japanese Imperial Army. It was the site of the Yan’an rectification movement and may be said to be the birthplace of the modern CCP culture. At Yan’an, Mao ruthlessly enforced adherence to CCP ideology, including the doctrine that all forms of culture must serve the interests of the CCP.

Wang Shiwei was a writer who questioned Mao's cultural and artistic policy and was executed on Mao's direct orders in 1947—two years before the CCP took over China. After the anti-rightist campaign in 1957, nobody was able to step out of Party's control in this field. Almost every single song or piece of music written during that period has political meaning.

That political meaning may not be obvious, particularly to those coming to communist China from the outside, and harmless or even beautiful words may have hidden meanings. Patriotism, for instance, has a different meaning in today’s China than it has in other nations and cultures. Patriotism is not love of the nation or the people. It is first of all love for the state—in this case the Chinese communist regime. But this is not all. The culture established by the CCP teaches that the love for the state must be expressed in the form of hatred towards its enemies.

One of the CCP's role models is the People’s Liberation Army truck driver Lei Feng. In a famous poem, he described his loyalty to the Party: “(we should) treat our comrades as warmly as the spring, and treat the enemies as ruthlessly as a harsh winter.”

Whether intentionally or not, lyrics in “My Motherland” echo the sentiment of this poem: “When friends are here, there is fine wine /But if the jackal comes/What greets it is the hunting rifle.” The “jackal” is the CCP’s enemy, the United States. But the lyrics of “My Motherland” as whole have a totally different meaning among Chinese than Westerners would understand from reading their translation.

The most popular songs among the Chinese outside China are, “Ode to the Motherland” and “My Motherland.” Both were written during the harshest time of Mao’s rule and neither of them has anything to do with the Chinese nation—with China’s tradition and culture.

Outside China, Chinese students sang these songs to attack those protesting the Olympic Torch relay. The pro-CCP patriot, in the name of loving the country China, can always find someone to hate, which shows their loyalty to the regime.