Wo Shi Laowai – Wo Pa Shui

October 1st, 1949
Just four years after the end of the Second World War, the first Brave Chinese emerges from hiding under his bed. His name is Mao Zedong (lit. Hairy Fat Bastard). Unopposed by either the Government or the military (none of whom have been seen since the first Japanese tourist set foot in China back in 1937), Mao proclaims to the world:

“China has stood up! Actually, we stood up quite quickly, and now our head is a bit dizzy. We’re going to sit down again now, but we’ll probably have another go at it in fifty years or so, after we’ve had a bit of a rest.”

Mao, realising the true greatness of the Chinese Spirit, immediately orders the formation of a New Model Army* (TM) (*available only in Red), and the invasion of both East Turkestan and Mongolia. The fighting is fierce and at times it looks as though the Red Army might lose, but in the end the fact that neither East Turkestan nor Mongolia are in possession of any soldiers, weapons, or indeed anything more dangerous than a punnet of yak butter, proves to be decisive. Chinese scholars immediately discover a map showing that “…these regions have always been a part of China since ancient times”.

The new Chinese National Flag is described by Mao as representing ‘New Democracy‘, with the large star symbolizing the Communist Party of China’s leadership, and the surrounding four smaller stars symbolizing the Bloc of Four Classes: proletarian workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, and the nationally-based capitalists. Foreign groups such as Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, Peru’s Shining Path, the New People’s Army of the Philippines, and the Maoist Communist Party of India, later agree that Mao was on to a good thing.

1950
Mao, realising the continuing true greatness of the Chinese Spirit, orders the invasion of Tibet. The fighting is fierce and at times it looks as though the Red Army might lose, but in the end the fact that Tibet is not in possession of any soldiers, weapons, or indeed anything more dangerous than a prayer wheel, proves to be decisive. Chinese scholars immediately discover a map showing that “…this region has always been a part of China since ancient times”.

Later the same year, a People’s Volunteer Army* (*note complete non-resemblance to, or any affiliation with, the People’s Liberation Army), march across the Sino-Korean border in order to take part in the Aid Korea, Fight America Campaign. This, too, is a huge success, with nearly 54,000 Evil Capitalist Running Dogs killed at a cost of only a million or so Volunteers KIA.

1951
Mao launches the Three Anti’s Movement, in which the people are liberated from the evils of money, food, and independent thought. The people, freed from their burdens, rush to work every morning in labour camps all over the country.

The last Oppressive Foreign Capitalist Running Dogs are thrown out of the (now much-enlarged-since-ancient-times) country, and their (stolen) property nationalised in the name of the Chinese Communist Party. Mao celebrates with a hundred young girls and a few young boys, and declares that “…there is no prostitution in China”. Shanghai, formerly known as ‘The Whore of the Orient’, is renamed ‘The Keen Amateur Cadre Who Works In The Barbershop Around The Corner of the Orient’.

1952
Following the runaway success of the Three Anti’s Movement, Mao launches the Five Anti’s Movement, in which the people are liberated from the evils of money, food, independent thought, their homes, and their children. The program is a hugely popular one, with over 15,000 trained propagandists working in Shanghai alone. As many as 18,000 confessions of sin are made in the first week of February 1952, and 210,000 by the end of the first month. Some big companies voluntarily make 1,000 confessions a day. The owner of the Dahua copper company originally over-confesses to having illegally obtained 50 million yuan. His employees encourage him to confess to greater crimes, however, and he re-confesses to having obtained a staggering 2 billion yuan, a sum greater than the entire Gross Domestic Product, and nearly enough to purchase a decent steak meal somewhere in Texas.

The [insert random number here] Anti’s Movement concept works so well, in fact, that repeat performances are scheduled to be given to receptive audiences for the next five decades:

1953 New Three-Anti Campaign
1957 Party Rectification
1957-1958 Anti-Rightist Movement
1961 Re-education of Party Members
1963-1964 New Five-Anti Campaign
1964 Party Rectification
1964-1966 Socialist Education
1969 Party Rectification
1981 Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization
1982 Anti-Corruption, Anti-Economic Crimes
1983 Party Rectification, Anti-Spiritual Pollution
1983-1987 Party Rectification
1987 Anti-Bourgeois Liberalism
1987-1988 Against Bourgeois Liberalism
1989 Against Bourgeois Liberalism
1989-1992 Anti-Corruption Drive
1993-2000 Anti-Corruption Campaign

1954-1955
The Red Army seizes the Taiwanese-owned Yijiangshan Islands, forcing Taiwan to abandon the Yachen Islands. Mao orders the Red Army to begin shelling Taiwanese positions on the Quemoy and Matsu Islands. His order to “…fire continuously every waking moment that you are not eating” is taken seriously by his military commanders, and as many as five rounds are shot every weekday, except during National Holidays, when the soldiers are forced to work weekends as well. The Red Army eventually loses interest, after also losing well over 20,000 soldiers and almost all it’s landing craft. Mao doesn’t even notice, as he is distracted by a fly.

1956
WAR! Chinese forces peacefully self-defend themselves against foreign aggression in Burma. The Evil Foreign Oppressors are taught a lesson by the Brave Chinese, who don’t even run away very much at all. This ‘Mass Incident‘ is not mentioned in later Chinese textbooks. Repeated Burmese demands for an apology go unreported in China.

1958
The Great Leap Forward is announced, the stated aim of which is to enable China to quickly overtake Great Britain and the United States in the production of shoddy, unsellable goods, and worthless, unusable pig-iron. The Leap is a complete success, and forty-two million people celebrate by voluntarily starving themselves to death. General Peng Dehuai, Supreme Commander of the People’s Volunteer Army and Defense Minister, mistakenly mentions that he isn’t convinced by the economic benefits, but later comes to realise his mistake and beats himself to death in 1974.

In other news, the Red Army resumes shelling of the Quemoy and Matsu Islands, as a prelude to the invasion of Taiwan. Failing to make any headway, Mao issues a ‘Message to the Compatriots in Taiwan’, calling for a peaceful solution to the ‘Taiwan Issue’ and asking for all Chinese to unite against the “American plot to divide China”. Sporadic shelling continues until 1979.

1959
Mao steps down as Chairman of the Party, saying that he wants to concentrate on his writing. His ‘Little Red Book’, he says, isn’t what the publishers are looking for at this time, and all the Chairmaning work doesn’t leave him enough time for any of his wives or children. He names Liu Shaoqi his successor.

1960
WAR! Chinese forces peacefully self-defend themselves against foreign aggression in India. The Evil Foreign Oppressors are taught a lesson by the Brave Chinese, who don’t even run away very much at all. This ‘Mass Incident‘ is not mentioned in later Chinese textbooks. Repeated Indian demands for an apology go unreported in China.

1962-1963
WAR! Chinese forces peacefully self-defend themselves again against foreign aggression in India. The Evil Foreign Oppressors are again taught a lesson by the Brave Chinese, who don’t even run away very much at all this time, either. This ‘Mass Incident‘ is also not mentioned in later Chinese textbooks. Repeated Indian demands for an apology go unreported in China.

1966
The Cultural Revolution, which never actually happened at all, ever, not even a little bit, we don’t know what you’re talking about, nothing to see here, doesn’t actually begin. The Central People’s Broadcasting Station doesn’t set up over seventy million hate-propaganda speakers all over the country, on every street and in every neighbourhood, and the non-existent Cultural Revolution Group doesn’t issue a statement saying:

“Chairman Mao is a genius, everything the Chairman says is truly great; one of the Chairman’s words will override the meaning of tens of thousands of ours.”

Tens of millions of young people are not there at the time. They are probably away visiting their aunts in the country or something. Millions of students don’t form gangs to torture and kill their teachers and professors, nurses and medical students don’t drown doctors in toilet effluent, not one single young person denounces his or her parents for any reason at all. Liu Shaoqi’s death is an unfortunate case of accidentally torturing himself to death and then cremating himself afterwards. Nearly three million people are certainly not brutally murdered by anyone at all, especially by the young people who are probably in the countryside visiting their aunts or something. And that’s all as it should be, particularly since those same young people would be in their late forties and early-to-late fifties today, and therefore running most of the companies and institutions in the country.

1969
WAR! Chinese forces peacefully self-defend themselves against foreign aggression along the Sino-USSR border formed by the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, on which China claims the historic right to navigate since ancient times. The Evil Foreign Oppressors are taught a lesson by the Brave Chinese, who don’t even run away very much at all. This ‘Mass Incident‘ is not mentioned in later Chinese textbooks. Repeated Russian demands for an apology go unreported in China.

1971
Business is booming, and a journalist, visiting at the invitation of the unfortunately-named Deng Xiaoping, reports that:

‘In 1969 the total output increased 90 percent over 1966. That increase was 100 percent over designated capacity. On this basis, in 1970 we fulfilled production 42 days ahead.”

1976
Mao Zedong, the Great Helmsman, dies. His body is converted into a wax candle by means of Advanced Alchemy, and is put on display. Rumours that he later turns orange and has his ear fall off are greatly exaggerated. A verdict on his reign finds that he was 70% correct, and 30% incorrect. The 30% incorrect portion relates to his repeated hosting of Curry Night at Zhongnanhai, in which he would cook his Famous-in-the-World Beef Vindaloo. Lin Biao in particular had been a staunch critic of Mao’s Vindaloo’s, and refused to allow his own staff anything other than Traditional And Delicious Chinese Cuisine*

(*Ironically, Lin Biao died on September 13th, 1971, when his private jet crashed. The inquest found that both Lin’s pilots had been poisoned by actually eating Chinese food, and recommended that in future, at least one pilot eat real food, imported from the West. This led in turn to KFC, McDonalds and Coca-Cola being invited to set up operations throughout China, and Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Open Door Policy’).

On July 28th, there is an earthquake in Tangshan, killing as many as 750,000 people and destroying 93% of all residential buildings. Mao’s successor, Hua Guofeng, shows great concern for the feelings of all the Chinese people, by refusing to accept Evil Foreign Assistance.

The same year, China is admitted to the United Nations as a result of a typing error. Repeated calls for the typist to apologise go unreported in China.

1978
Deng Xiaoping takes his place at the reins, and over a billion people spontaneously rush out and buy Deng-style suits, replacing the now-faded Mao-style suits. Deng, standing just 3 feet, 4 inches high, quickly becomes famous for his habit of chain-smoking cigarettes made from Panda skin. Panda populations plummet worldwide. Deng also orders the setting up of a ‘Birth Planning Commission’ in every town, the purpose of which is to ensure that useless girl babies no longer waste the State’s resources. Boy babies, on the other hand, are fine, just so long as people only have one of them per pair of parents.

Deng, focused on ‘Developing China’s Economic’, observes that:

“To get rich at the expense of everyone else, at any cost, by any means fair or foul, is glorious.”

and:

“It doesn’t matter whether it is a black cat, or a white cat, as long as you can shove a stick up it’s arse, and sell it as a lamb kebab.”

1979
WAR! Chinese forces peacefully self-defend themselves against foreign aggression in Vietnam. The Evil Foreign Oppressors are taught a lesson by the Brave Chinese, who don’t even run away very much at all. This ‘Mass Incident‘ is not mentioned in later Chinese textbooks. Despite the fact that the Red Army’s maps are 75 years out of date, that the Red Army is one of only two militaries in the world with no system of rank, that there is no air support, that they are armed with WWII-era weapons, that there are no modern logistics, communications or transport facilities, and casualties may well be as high as 75% (the Red Army later admits to a 25% casualty rate), the self-defending operation against Evil Foreign Oppressors is a complete victory. Repeated Vietnamese demands for an apology go unreported in China.

1982
Wang XianSheng becomes the first Chinese citizen in history to look both ways before crossing the road. Sadly, this goes totally unnoticed by anyone else, thus answering the question: “If a tree falls down in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. Obviously, it doesn’t.

1984
Deng Xiaoping proclaims that Hong Kong is to be incorporated into China under a policy of something called ‘One Country, Two Systems’ – no one knows precisely what he is talking about, but most people in China suspect it has something to do with the electrical grid or voltages or something. Perhaps telephones. People in Hong Kong start purchasing flights to Vancouver.

June 4th, 1989
Starbucks officially opens it’s first outlet in Tienanmen Square, Beijing. Hundreds of thousands of students form an orderly queue and wait patiently for their chance to have a coffee. Fireworks to celebrate the opening of the store are mistakenly reported to be gunfire by Evil Foreign Media, NATO estimates of 7,000 deaths, and Soviet estimates of 10,000 deaths, are all cited as examples of why China is a Victim Of Foreign Aggression. Starbucks are told to relocate their outlet to the Forbidden City, where they won’t be able to cause any trouble in the future.

Shortly afterwards, Jiang Zemin is promoted to the top job. Over a billion Chinese citizens spontaneously rush out and buy cheap, ill-fitting business suits. Jiang Zemin is later credited with ‘Three Represents’, an enormous intellectual contribution to world philosophy. Put simply, ‘Three Represents’ states that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for “…the requirements of the development of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation of the development of China’s advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people in China”. No one really understands it, but it sounds catchy all the same.

1997
Hong Kong becomes a colony of China. Both the electrical and telephone systems get re-wired. Shares in airlines that fly out of Hong Kong go through the roof.

1999
An Evil Cult manages to cause spiritual harm to the entire Chinese people. It is, quite rightly, banned from practising in future. Chinese leaders are praised by the Chinese media for following a correct path.

In other news, hospitals open their doors to Good Foreigners Who Need Organ Replacement Therapy.

2001
A US Navy EP-3E, a converted airliner, deliberately and without warning initiates Air Combat Manoeuvres (dogfighting) with a pair of Chinese fighter aircraft. One of the Chinese fighters is hit by the US Navy aggressor, killing the Brave Pilot. The EP-3E is damaged, but makes it to Hainan Island, where it is carefully repaired one system at a time by Chinese technicians, and the US crew allowed to enjoy a stay at a luxurious hotel, gratis. The inflight recorders are retained by the Red Army for legal reasons.

2002
Hu Jintao, known affectionately to his Tibetan colleagues as ‘the Butcher of Lhasa’, is promoted to the hot seat. He immediately sets about making sure that everyone is healthy, and that everyone is protected from Foreign Diseases. A few newspapers who have been printing irresponsible rumours are closed down for the good of the people, and some lawyers get what’s coming to ’em. Hu Jintao, as an avid musician, presides over the commissioning of a new ‘Harmonica Society’ – the response from jailbirds is overwhelming. The Red Army, too, is delighted, having had it’s wish-list fully granted.

‘Morally Correct’ media reporting and entertainment that is free of Evil Foreign Influences leads to a citizenry that is fully content in every way. Everyone is happy, and China becomes known as the Land Of Milk And Honey.