For the past few months, a decades-old territorial dispute between China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands has flared up again, inciting bad blood in East Asia.
Now, I know what you’re expecting. Some sort of geopolitical article, perhaps, about the history and legitimacy of both claims. But, there are other friends of mine who can probably write better pieces on that topic, and that’s been done before. No, I think that today I want to cover a previously under-appreciated portion of this story: territorial dispute swag.
That’s right! Just like 9/11 was the kick in the pants the American Flag industry needed to get back on their feet, the combination of ardent nationalism and consumer culture have given rise to unique subset of tchotchkes: The hyper-nationalist junk market.
Let’s review some of the items for sale on this episode of China Central QVC:
First off, we have this lovely plaster… paperweight? Decoration? It features two children in communist-era clothing (insinuating a time when hard work and struggle were the backbone of being a good citizen) sweeping up a skull that has the word “ghost”, a derogatory term for Japanese people, etched on the forehead. A sign on the island reads, “The Diaoyu islands are our home! Cleaning up the ‘trash’ relies on everyone!”
It’s a good one, for sure. But I know what you’re saying. All my shelf space is already filled with plaster statues with images of dead Japanese on them! My counters, too! Isn’t there something smaller that I could pull out for parties or game times that could also show support for my government’s assertion as to the territorial control of a few rocks in the middle of the ocean, but that won’t take up so much space?
Well, apart from a few periods to break up that run-on sentence, I would recommend this gem I picked up: Diaoyu Island playing cards!
The front of the box shows a massive Chinese flag dominating the island.
For those of you that feel that a mile-high flag doesn’t send a clear enough message, the back cover shows a swarm of smaller flags, designed by a graphic designer who clearly just discovered the copy+paste shortcuts on their computer’s editing program.
I was excited for more flags inside, but instead, I found this:
Yes, there’s nothing like a series of diagrams and photos accompanied by blocks and blocks of text to take a game of Gin Rummy and make it into something truly special. Other cards included pictures of historical documents seeming to claim ownership of the island (dated, of course, to sometime in the 1400s) or pictures of massive protests against Japanese control of the island.
As a comedian—and a foreign comedian, at that—I need to be very careful about joking about topics that invoke such a strong reaction amongst everyday Chinese. The Anti-Japanese reaction here was so strong that the word “Japan” was ripped down from many Japanese restaurants in Beijing; I saw one LED sign on a Chinese restaurant switching between displaying “Roast Duck! Delicious!” and “Dogs and Japanese not allowed.” Japanese cars were smashed on the road—everywhere you go, you still see window stickers that read “My car is a Japanese car, but my heart is a Chinese heart.” More swag!
My role as an American is even more complicated because of formal agreements tying America to Japan in the case of territorial dispute resolution. When I’ve chatted with people I’ve met at shows and bars, people who are extremely interested in intercultural comedy one moment have soured the next when I expressed even the vague suggestion that the scale and vitriol behind the Chinese reaction to the crisis was excessive.
And that is my personal opinion: this issue’s main attribute is that it is being taken WAY TOO SERIOUSLY. People legitimately have asked me whom I will support—Japan or China—if a war breaks out over the islands. As an individual, that question is upsetting. When one realizes that it is not being asked to me as an individual, but rather, as an ad-hoc way of asking what America as a nation thinks, it gets frightening.
So, I plan on finding a way that we can laugh about these things—and in this case, maybe highlighting the ludicrous nature of Diaoyu island swag is a way of drawing people’s minds back to reality, and creating a way forward.