By Mabel Doge Luhan
You know how much I love parallel universes as a plot device!
Why, just four days ago, the Marianas Variety published a color-daguerreotype of some fellow named Li Xue, and said he’s from the Asia Chamber of America. Meanwhile, the Saipan Tribune said the same chap is from the China Education Association for International Exchange!
Insofar as CEAIE is an actual organization, and the Saipan Tribune article actually made sense, I’d lean toward the Tan version of things. The Variety got the basic facts of the story wrong, as it often does, despite the unerring supervision of its Reichsadler-eyed editor!
Of course, the Variety always prints an apology and retraction when it gets the basic facts wrong. CHARIZZ! We don’t even get a CHAROT! out of them.
The Tribune article actually provided all the details that the Variety couldn’t be bothered to provide — like who can go, what’s required to apply, what they’ll do in China, and so on. I don’t know how we got to the point for congratulating a newspaper for including some basic, publicly available facts, but here we are! Congratulations, Tribune!
The Tribune even provided a link to a link to the itinerary:
https://drive.google.com/file/
Why, this trip sounds like a rollicking good time! Seriously, it does. It made me sincerely wish I was under 28 — and I am, in Greenland shark years! In fact, back in my WWF days, I was known as The Greenland Shark! Oh, maybe I never mentioned my professional wrestling career, as a notorious heel under Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart. My entrance music was “Mrs. Robinson” and my signature was called the Man-A-Bat! You didn’t think I’d spent my whole life sitting in my whale-penis-leather recliner reading Althusser and smoking opium, did you?
Now, one thing I remember from that life in the squared circle is we had two kinds of fans. There were the marks — the ones with the big foam thumbs — who thought it was all unscripted athletic competition. And then there were the smarks — the ones who knew it’s all a performance, but enjoyed it nonetheless.
And you know what? I really think the smarks got more out of the show. I respected them. And unlike those poor marks who think bodyslams are real and Donald Trump loves America, the smarks never had a moment of growing up and being overwhelmed with shame for having been fooled for so long.
China — at least the China you’ll be seeing on this trip — is a big WrestleMania SummerSlam, basically. It’s all kayfabe, with Xi Jinping as the face, and the rest of the world as the heel. I do encourage you to enjoy the free trip and the food and song and everything else, but know that absolutely everything is scripted and largely fictional.
Are people actually debating about whether the China Education Association for International Exchange is controlled by the [Chinese Communist Party]? China’s law answers that question for you right away: by law, it is. It has to be. In fact, any legal organization in China has to be an organ (sorry, TMI) of the CCP. It is highly illegal in China to have any organization — whether an educational organization or a prayer group or a stamp-collecting club — that is not a part of the CCP. That’s how Falun Dafa (known pejoratively as Falun Gong) got into so much trouble with the Party.
So of course the China Education Association for International Exchange is entirely controlled by the CCP. And spreading propaganda and recruiting information sources and influencers is openly, officially, part of its mission. It’s not like those tasks are some clandestine conspiracy. They’re officially part of such organizations’ functions. CEAIE is most likely under the United Front Work Department ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
So you should know what well you’ll be drinking from. Don’t be like the Marianas Variety that thoughtlessly believes and repeats anything it’s told.
In fact, what could be an absolute slam-dunk for your educational and professional career, especially in journalism or the social sciences, would be keeping careful notes of the whole program — and doing a detailed write-up on it once you’re out of China. Submit it to Kandit, the New York Times, the Economist, or to even more prominent publications, like the Marianas Variety!
And it’s a good idea to read up on China from those real publications, as all real journalism is blocked on the internet in China. On your free tour, you certainly won’t hear about average Chinese people’s miserable lives, especially outside the politically powerful cities. You won’t hear about forced abortions and sterilizations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
But it’s a free trip. So it’s within your hosts’ rights to show you what they want to show you. That’s what you’re signing up for.
You’ll also certainly be videotaped, photographed, made to say nice thing about China — and have your image shown not just to domestic audiences but also international ones, to “prove” that “even foreigners” approve of China. In fact, it’s right in the liability release you’re supposed to sign:
—–
“I further give my consent for my child to be photographed or videotaped during the activities involved in this learning experience and grant permission to 2024 Global Youth Conference & China-U.S. Youth Camp (hereinafter “GYC”) to use said photos for promotional and/or educational purposes. Said consent is given without any expectation of compensation or reward for any photos taken and/or used in educational and promotional literature.”
—–
Perhaps more troubling is how much the criteria for the program resembles standard recruiting criteria for any intelligence organization.
You perhaps don’t know that after I was kicked out of WWF for performing an indecent and arguably unsafe act with Vince McMahon, I was recruited by Albanian intelligence services and spent a decade running Sigurimi’s Saipan station (until I got into a catfight with that hussy Nexhmije)? Oh, those too were the days! It was almost better than suplexing and clotheslining in the WWF!
And the recruiting criteria we used in the Sigurimi — identical to those used by our competitors — were eerily identical to the criteria for this program: academic track record (demonstrating ability to study, remember, and report), demonstrated ability to interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds, demonstrated ability to get into a leadership position (social engineering skills), and ready to “prepare a project of interest for presentations.” Why, I couldn’t have written a better spy recruitment job listing myself! It’s almost as good as the JVA you could pay CNMI DOL to write so you could harass a business to hire your relatives!
Oh, I always worry about you so much, my dear young ferrets. Just do what too few people in our islands do: ask a lot of questions, and think for yourself.
_____
Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.
