Corrupted Hero, Corrupted Dream

Adapted from Zhou Meisen’s book of the same name, In the Name of the People (2017) is a Chinese TV series that centers on the struggles of unearthing corruption within a fictional province and its provincial capital. As one of the major antagonists, Qi Tongwei is the director of the Public Security Department. Once an anti-drug police officer, he has been gradually corroded by the luxurious taste of power. He never hesitates to maintain a groveling attitude towards his superiors so as to be in their good books. To ingratiate himself with a former Executive Deputy Chief Procurator, who has a good relationship with the incoming Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Qi went to his home to help “dig around in the little garden.” Another time at a party secretary’s family gravesite, Qi “prostrated himself on the ground and cried, tears and snot both streaming down his face” – a performative and overly dramatic display meant to ingratiate himself with the party secretary, a possibly natural instinct to please his superiors.

Qi believes China is a nepotistic society. Of course, he does not forget to help his fellows after he goes up, but these deeds also leave himself open to charges of cronyism. He was once reprimanded by his former teacher and present leader, Gao Yuliang, due to his arrangement of an illiterate peasant to be an auxiliary policeman and keep watch over a parking lot. Gao was furious, and reprovingly asked the officer if Qi “plan[s] on bringing all the stray dogs from your village to the Public Security Department to be police dogs and eat from government coffers.” Hearing this, Qi felt wronged, and in an attempt to change the subject he argued that over the past few years he had been constantly striving, climbing the ranks in bureaucratic circles.

In China, people within the bureaucratic hierarchy tend to avoid explicitly expressing their ambition of seeking higher office. This hesitation often stems from a fear of being perceived as too self-serving, a critique that could undermine a promising career. Thanks to Emily Hein’s translation of the original novel, this interesting yet ambiguous tension is exemplified with diversified euphemisms from “move (on) up the ladder”, “advance/advancement”, “progress”, to making others into “a stepping stone”.

Apparently, neither the original novel nor its TV adaptation is intended to portray Qi as a laudable character. Yet, many years after its debut, he is cherished by some as a poignant figure. His onscreen images are shared, accompanied by music and repurposed as a representation of the desire to join the civil service, enter the government, and endeavor to reach higher positions. There are also voices praising him as a grateful person who offers his friends and associates positions of authority. They look at him as someone born and raised in an ordinary family with few resources desperately trying to reach the upper level.

Despite the resurgent popularity, his darkness is not whitewashed, covered, or deliberately ignored. Viewers and readers know about the ruthless crimes he commits when attempting to evade internal inspections and confront the new Party secretary and the Anti-Corruption Bureau director. They are also aware that such sycophantic posturing is not the ideal answer to the world. Still, they choose to find good in the evil. They find it necessary to acknowledge the existence of subservience, flattery, the abandonment of integrity, and to learn how to trade one’s dignity and principles to curry favor with the powerful. This appalling cynicism is a reluctant rationalization of codes and norms that were once rejected by the same group of people who are now attempting to be part of the establishment.

Late last year, I read Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. In his conversation with Sally, Holden fiercely attacks a prospective scenario, where he will be “working in some office, making a lot of dough, and riding to work in cabs and Madison Avenue buses, and reading newspapers, and playing bridge all the time, and going to the movies and seeing a lot of stupid shorts and coming attractions and newsreels.” Had I read this book when I was younger, I would cheer for Holden’s defiance of perhaps one of the dullest, least creative, and most depressive futures. I would loathe the wasted potential of the human imagination to dream only of something that has been done and repeated by too many individuals before me. But right now, I am no longer entitled to consider Holden’s complaints about a life that can be seen all the way to the end. Instead, I jump into the hustle and bustle of that kind of life; I chase after it. I embrace what was scorned by my youthful mind and turn it into today’s bind.

This is not reproachable cynicism. Rather, it is a resigned response from innocent ignorance coming to terms with life. One has to admit that efforts at resistance often fail and sink, adding another insignificant footnote to the legitimacy of the dominant order. Holden finally returns to school after his experiences wandering, and I am worried if I would repeat his trajectory, a rebellious past finally put to rest with a return to a conservative life even more old-fashioned than our forefathers. If a hero cannot resist the corruption of reality, are we doomed to be corrupted as well?

Lu Xun, China’s great writer and thinker, asserts the most painful thing in life is to wake from a dream and find there is no way out. Sometimes, people who dream are fortunate.

So, wake me up when it’s all over, when I’m wiser and I’m older.

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Zonghang Zhou is a small-town boy from one side of the Pacific. He likes to talk about games and culture with a critical concern. And he is waiting with great anticipation for people to find him @zhzhou86.