The top post on Weibo today is about friendship between China and Japan:
translation: Juanzi [1]: A few days ago a friend went on a business trip to Japan but had trouble leaving the country [2]. This morning he sent me a text [3] saying that last night he and a co-worker had been eating at a Japanese bar when it was uncovered that they were Chinese, after which they got a dish that had some words written on it. When I heard this, I was worried. But who would have thought it would be these words [4]. The bar owner said, “Thank you for being so willing to come to Japan, I hope there will be peace and friendship.” … I certainly was surprised. Patriotism: must we use xenophobia and hatred to express it?
[Larger image on Facebook… Any suggested edits to translation are welcome… I’ll be back to the regular weekly posts next Monday or Tuesday.]
(1) 涓子, name of blogger
(2) probably because of the cancellation of flights to and from China due to the protests and tension against Japan recently
(3) technically a WeChat message
(4) The words on the dish say: “Thank you China.”
UPDATE: All right! Now this is relevant for the blog! Not more than 10 mins after I posted this translation, the original Weibo post calling for friendship between China and Japan has been deleted from the site. It’s possible the author deleted it herself (maybe amongst the 30,000+ responses some were hateful?) or perhaps the censors stepped in? If so, it’s very sad that advocating for peace with your “enemy” can’t find a place on Weibo. UPDATE 2: In a follow-up message, the author says she deleted it herself (see comments) due to threats and pressure of some sort. [我删了。我自己也吓一跳 = I deleted it. I was a little scared.]
