方舟子为什么对韩寒父子如此不屑一顾
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为了忘却的纪念：纪念韩二真菌。
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灰體輻射
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对韩寒不了解，没有看过一篇他的小说，只在CFC上看过一个叫rainforest转贴的韩寒含沙射影骂土共和中国政府的杂文，后面的CFCer跟帖几乎是一片叫好，尤其是自诩为右派和反共反政府不反华的。
下面这篇算是对方肘子与韩寒大战的一个最新总结吧。作者是“方学家”葛辛，其行文逻辑严谨，材料翔实，缮写长文。但我感觉他的文章都太长了，适合西人读，不太适合喜欢简明扼要的中国人读。其观点是否客观公正不好说，但其列出的内容都有佐证，而且是以实名发表，应该离事实不远。
Shamelessness Shouldn’t Be Anyone’s Nature──An Open Letter to Nature (Part XL)
Xin Ge, Ph. D.
Columbia, SC, USA
The Hanly War (I)
【Abstract】
On Jan. 18, 2012, Fang Zhouzi started his years-long attack on Mr. Han Han, a popular author and arguably the spiritual leader of China’s post-1980s generation. According to Fang, most, if not all, of Mr. Han’s writings were ghostwritten by his father. Although without any hard evidence, Fang’s war against Mr. Han continues till today. By fighting against Han Han, Fang exposed his own fraudulence and evilness, and the Hanly War became his Waterloo.
【Contents】
Why Would Fang Zhouzi Want to Attack Han Han?
Mr. Han Han was born in 1982 in Jinshan, a small town near Shanghai. He started publishing his essays and short stories in 1997. Two years later, in 1999, Mr. Han Han won the first class prize in the New Concept Writing Competition, sponsored by Mengya (Budding) magazine[1]. In 2000, Han Han dropped out of his high school, and published his novel Triple Door, which was a huge success: more than 5 million copies of the book was sold in 10 years[2]. Since then, Han Han has published many novels, become a race driver, and the most popular blogger in China[3]. In 2008, Mr. Han began to comment on China’s social and political issues, and soon he became a leader of public opinions. In November 2009, Southern Metropolis Weekly called him “one of the most influential public intellectuals in China”[4], and in 2010, Time magazine of the U. S. named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world[5]. Less than one month before being attacked by Fang Zhouzi, Mr. Han published 3 well-publicized blog articles, dubbed “Han’s Trio,” elaborating his opinions about revolution, freedom, and democracy[6].
From Citizen Han Han to Public Enemy Han Han
The cover pages of Southern Metropolis Weekly: left: Citizen Han Han, published on Nov 2, 2009; right: Public Enemy Han Han, published on Jan. 13, 2012. Two days later, the Hanly War broke out.
The Han Dynasty
On the Independence Day of 2011, The New Yorker published a lengthy report on Han Han.
Why Would Fang Zhouzi Want to Attack Han Han?
Admittedly, Fang Zhouzi was not the initiator of the Hanly War, even though many of his gangsters, including Mr. Wang Zhi’an (王志安), a CCTV commentator, had urged and instigated him to do so long before that fateful date[7]. The first appearance of Han Han’s name on the homepage of the New Threads occurred in 2000, when Fang Zhouzi pirated an article from a newspaper, Han Han Phenomenon: The Tragedy of the Narcissistic China’s Education?[8]. It would take nearly nine more years for Han Han’s name to appear in a title of another New Threads article. On July 9, 2009, Fang posted on his website an article he compiled, entitled Netizens’ Comments on “Liang Wendao: Han Han Is the Next Lu Xun.”[9] As I have mentioned before, compiling “netizens’ comments” is one of Fang’s most frequently used conventional tactics to attack his personal enemies[10]. Therefore, by compiling that post, Fang was sending the most definite signal showing that his attack on Han Han was imminent. However, one month later, Fang’s fight against Dr. Xiao Chuanguo restarted after the Wuhan court enforced their judgment issued three years earlier, and Fang was deeply involved in his revenge war against Xiao, therefore, Mr. Han was luckily let go, although Fang kept publishing on his New Threads other people’s articles attacking Han Han, especially by a person named Hu Shenghua[11], ironically, a proponent of Christian religion[12]. Considering Fang’s extreme hatred against religions, especially the Christian religion[13], his hatred towards Han Han could be easily estimated.
So, why would Fang want to attack Mr. Han? Obviously, the fraudulent fraud fighter always needs someone to fight against. However, in 2009, there were at least two particular reasons. The first one was that Mr. Han was considered by some people “the incarnated soul boy of Lu Xun,” which made Fang extremely jealous. Lu Xun (real name Zhou Shuren, 1881-1936) was a writer in the May Fourth era, and Fang Zhouzi has been worshiping him like God since early 1980s[14]. Yes, because Fang had already assumed the identity of Lu Xun’s incarnated soul boy before 2009, he could not endure the fact that a high school dropout was competing for, and winning, the title.
Disciple Fang Zhouzi paying homage to his God Lu Xun
The photo was posted by Fang on the Chinese Memorial Day in 2011 with the following note: “Paying homage to Lu Xun’s tomb for the last time in 2004.”[15]
Besides the title competition, Fang had another reason to attack Mr. Han in 2009. On June 11 of that year, Mr. Han posted an article ridiculing the infamous Green Dam, a governmental content-filtering software supposedly to be mandatorily pre-installed in all new computers sold in China[16]. Of course, Liu Juhua, a chief reporter with Xinhua News Agency and Fang’s wife, was one of the two persons who first reported the news, and they also fabricated a survey saying that 92% of the people surveyed supported the installation[17].
However, by the time Fang actually launched his attack on Mr. Han in January 2012, Fang had a lot more reasons to do so. In March 2010, Mr. Han posted an article, which was soon deleted, commenting on Google’s exit from China, in which he equalized GM foods with cooking oil recovered from sewerage system, melamine-tainted milk, and shoddy vaccines[18]. Of course Fang has been the number one GMO promoter in China, and Mr. Han’s brief comment was so influential that Fang’s New Threads published 7 articles, including one from the fake doctor Albert Yuan, to discuss it[19]. Indeed, many people who tried to lure Fang into attacking Han Han used that sentence by Han Han as the bait - yes, everyone in China knows that anti-GMO is more than enough a crime to be punished by the Mighty Fang. For example, on Jan. 18, 2012, probably not knowing that Fang had already fired his first bullet at Han Han minutes earlier, an anti-Han extremist sent Fang a screenshot of Han Han’s blog, showing his anti-GMO attitude[20].
Seduction
A Han-hater sent Fang the above screen image to prove that Han Han is a GMO-opponent. Han Han’s article had already been hidden by either Han Han himself or the blog system (the image on the left says that the article has been encrypted,) but that Han-hater used the search engine of the system to maneuver his way to get the evidence of Han’s “crime.” His message to Fang is simple: “Fang Zhouzi, look.”[20]
In addition to the commercial reasons, Fang’s attack on Han Han also had political background. In November 2011, two months before the outbreak of the Hanly War, in a high profile ceremony to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Xinhua News Agency’s founding, Mr. Li Changchun (李长春), one of the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of CCP Central Committee, and the person in charge of China’s propaganda affairs, praised Fang Zhouzi and his comrade Sima Nan for “sharing the sorrow with the party”[21]. At the same time, Mr. Li criticized some people, including Mr. Han Han. It turned out that every one of those who were criticized by Mr. Li Changchun had been, or would be, attacked by Fang Zhouzi[22,23]. Therefore, Fang’s attack on Han Han was most likely to fulfill his political assignment. As a matter of fact, just a couple of months ago, it was revealed by Mr. Bei Zhengcheng (贝志诚) that Mr. Cao Yongzheng (曹永正), a person who was trusted the most by Mr. Zhou Yongkang (周永康), another member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and the person in charge of China’s political and legal system during 2002 to 2012, had told his friends that Fang’s attack on Mr. Han Han was ordered by the upper level[24].
The big bosses and their lowly fighting dogs
Mr. Li Changchun, China’s Propaganda Czar during 2002-2012, praised Fang Zhouzi and his comrade Sima Nan for their “sharing the sorrow with the party” in November 2011. Although differing in so many aspects, Fang and Sima have been close friends and fighting in the same front since 2000. Mr. Zhou Yongkang, the Czar of China’s judicial system during the same time period, was the person behind Fang when he was in power.
Grapevine News
Top: The screenshot of Professor Zhang Ming’s post saying that Fang and Sima were praised by a “big leader.”[21] (The post has been deleted.) Middle: The screenshot of a post by a jingguzai0, saying that the “big leader” was Li Changchun, who, while praising Fang and Sima, criticized Mr. Yu Jianrong, He Weifang, Li Chengpeng (photos added by me), and Han Han[23]. (The post is still available.) Bottom: The screenshot of a post by Mr. Bei Zhicheng, under his web ID Yimao Buba Dashi (一毛不拔大师), saying that one of Mr. Zhou Yongkang’s confidants had told several celebrities that Fang’s attack on Han Han was authorized by the upper level[24]. (The post is still available.)
Of course, Fang’s ultimate consideration and motivation are always personal reasons. Beginning from the end of 2010, when his plagiarism history was being dug up, Fang turned to the public intellectuals (the liberals) in order to divert public attention to his scandals. Although Fang’s attacks on the public intellectuals had political motive, just like his attack on Han Han, a more important reason was, ironically, that these people had been among his strongest supporters: no matter how ridiculous, fraudulent, and evil Fang’s so called “fraud busting” activities had been, these people would always find reasons to support him. Since the fighter Fang dared not to fight his enemies, the so called Fang-haters, in the scientific and academic arenas, because they would fight back by showing mountains of evidence of his own frauds, dug up by the “Fang Experts,” and the fighter Fang had to fight to maintain his visibility in China and his usability to his bosses, therefore these public intellectuals became his perfect targets: they would tout him while being bitten by him[25].
However, things changed in the middle of 2011: the public intellectuals being attacked by Fang began to fight back by wielding “Fang-hater’s dog-beating stick,” the weapon Fang is scared of the most. For example, on August 19, 2011, after being accused by Fang of mediocrity in scholarship, Professor He Weifang of Peking University, a prominent leader of Chinese liberals, reposted messages about Fang’s plagiarism of Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein[26]. Three days later, Mr. Yuan Weishi, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and a senior member the liberals, did the same thing, apparently in support of Professor He[27]. Here is Professor He Weifang’s self-defense for using the “Fang-hater’s dog-beating stick” against Fang:
“Tell you the truth, I don’t want that hypocritical tolerance. It is very difficult for those people who have not been bitten by this guy to realize his deadly venomousness and viciousness when he is biting people. Although he has no hard evidence to accuse me, it is still very painful. If I don’t respond, the ignorant blames and the specious advice really hurt; if I do respond, [Fang’s attack] will never end.”[28]
Here is Professor Yuan Weishi’s statement after wielding “Fang-hater’s dog-beating stick” at Fang:
“I am a staunch supporter of Fang Zhouzi’s fraud busting. China needs more Fang Zhouzi. However, like any other people, Brother Fang needs to accept supervision too, correct your own mistakes honestly. The honest Chinese people should join hands to promote the arrival of a new era when hundred schools are able to contend, and strive for a free, constitutional, democratic, prosperous and strong China. For that purpose, [we should] focus on matter instead of person, fight against the rogues who fabricate materials to slander other people, and fight against the accomplices who rely upon the power to frame other people!”[29]
Fang Zhouzi and his liberal brother
Although Professor Yuan Weishi (right) had known the fact that Fang Zhouzi is a plagiarist, he didn’t point out the fact until his comrade He Weifang was attacked by Fang. Meanwhile, he reiterated his support for Fang’s fraudulent fraud fighting, and cursed those who dug up Fang’s dirty secrets. (You have to read between the lines to detect his undertone.)
By the end of 2011, the fraudulent fraud fighter Fang had essentially been driven out of academia, first of natural sciences, then of social sciences. It was mainly for this reason, Fang made a strategic announcement in the Chinese New Year’s Eve of 2012:
“After having seen that it is so easy to pretend to be a god and play ghosty tricks in the literary world, I am marching towards there this year, Bang!”[30]
Of course Fang’s retreat from academia started long before his formal announcement. In December 2011, Fang restarted his fight against Mr. Luo Yonghao, an ex-Fang-lover, a high school dropout, and, ironically, a public intellectual. The fight soon went extremely nasty because Mr. Luo, who used to blame Fang-haters for exposing the plagiarism committed by Fang’s wife Liu Juhua[31], began to use the scandal as his most powerful weapon to fight against Fang[32], which was exactly what Fang hoped for, because he could use his wife’s scandal to cover up his own, and pretend to be a hero by defending and protecting his wife on one hand, and legitimately using even more evil and vicious tactics against his opponents on the other. However, on Jan. 14, 2012, Mr. Luo made the following comment on a suggestion by one of Fang-lovers that Fang should return to the United States to do science popularization:
“Going back to America to popularize science? Are you kidding? All of Fang Zhouzi’s science popularization writings are ‘compilation and translation’ of articles written by American, although such an activity is beneficial to Chinese whose scientific literacy is backward, what is the usefulness of his articles in their original country?”[33]
The above message was interpreted by Fang-lovers, as well as Fang himself, as accusing, subtly, Fang of plagiarism[34]. Four days later, Fang turned upon Han Han.
To some extent, Han Han resembles Luo Yonghao: they both are high school dropouts, and they both are rich and famous. As I have mentioned repeatedly, Fang is extremely proud of his education: he has been bragging constantly his scores in the College Entrance Examination in 1985, his studies at USTC, and his American Ph. D. degree from the Michigan State University. And Fang does believe that these records demonstrate his “extraordinary intelligence”[35], which in turn entitles him huge success. However, in reality, what he has gotten is just the opposite. And that’s one of the reasons why he hates Chinese so much, and he resents especially those who had less education and gained much more success, financial and reputational success, than him[36]. Therefore, Han Han is a natural prey awaiting Fang’s preying upon.
Also like Luo Yonghao, Han Han has been one of the leading public intellectuals in China. Consequently, like Luo Yonghao, Han Han was a Fang-lover. In August 2010, right before Fang was hammered in Beijing, Han Han had the following dialogue with a reporter named Lin Chufang, a Fang-lover also:
Lin: Have you ever had any contacts with Fang Zhouzi?
Han: No. I think he is a stubborn person; however, the majority of his fights are problem-free, either from the perspective of opinions or others. There might be a small portion [of his fights] which is a little bigoted.
Lin: Probably. ……I’m wondering what kind situation it will be if one day he debates you.
Han: I’ll apologize immediately, no matter what he says.……[37]
By saying so, Han Han made himself the perfect target for Fang’s attack.
The Foreplay
1. Multiple Tries: Maitian’s Ignition
On Jan. 15, 2012, Maitian (麦田, “wheat field,” real name Ruan Peng, 阮鹏), a well-known internet figure working in IT industry, posted an article on his blogs entitled Man-made Han Han: A Farce about “Citizen”[38]. In the article, Maitian said that Han Han’s fame was actually manufactured by his father Han Renjun, he used his connection with the organizer of the New Concept Writing Competition to cheat so that Han Han won the first class prize; then, in 2008, Han Han was packaged by his publisher, Mr. Lu Jinbo, into a public intellectual. In other words, most, if not all, of Han Han’s articles and books were written by a team of ghost writers, but mainly his father.
The accuser and the accused
Maitian (Mr. Ruan Peng, left) and Han Han. (Source of the photos: NetEase Readings Channel.)
According to Maitian, he first suspected that Han Han’s articles were ghostwritten in late April or early May, 2010, when a man stabbed children in a kindergarten in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province[39].However, a few days after he started his suspicion, on May 7, 2010, Maitian posted an article on his blogs entitled Look Out for Han Han, in which he criticized Han Han’s populist positions on social and political issues, but he praised Han Han’s writing, saying that it was “first class,” and everyone who writes could learn from him[40]. Ironically, in his Man-made Han Han, Maitian claimed that one of the reasons for his “questioning” Mr. Han Han was because that he was angered by Han’s Trio which insulted Václav Havel[41]. Obviously that was a lie, because Han’s Trio was published between Dec. 23 and 26, 2011, and Maitian started bugging Han Han long before that time. For example, on Nov. 17, 2011, Maitian posted the following message:
“Frankly, I have been questioning all along that Han Han’s writings might be commercially packaged, written by other people,……”[42]
Self-contradictory
Upper: Maitian admitted on Nov. 17, 2011, that he had been questioning Han Han’s supposed ghostwriting all along. However, two months later, he claimed that his attack on Han Han was because that Han Han insulted Václav Havel in Han’s Trio. Lower: The screenshot of the content page of Han Han’s blog on sina.com, showing that Han’s Trio were actually published in late December, 2011 (red boxes). The numbers in parentheses are the numbers of comments/clicks.
On Jan. 3, 2012, Maitian posted an article entitled Questioning Han Han for the Third Time: Let the Evidence Speak, in which he counted Look Out for Han Han as his first shot at Han Han, a microblog post which he deleted later as his second one[43]. Two days later, Maitian tried for the fourth time, posting his The Fake Han Han[44]. And the Man-made Han Han was his fifth try. Based on what he has said and done, it can be concluded without any doubt that Maitian’s attack on Han Han was motivated by thing or things other than Han Han’s comments on Václav Havel.
For some reasons, none of Maitian’s previous attempts to topple Han Han had generated the impact remotely similar to the one by Man-made Han Han, and most people did consider the latter article convincing, because it contained not only many circumstantial evidences, but also some seemingly hard ones. For example, according to Maitian, at least 13 of Han Han’s blog articles were posted while he was participating in car racings, therefore they must have been posted, or more importantly, written, by other people. Also, according to Maitian, Mr. Li Qigang, the deputy editor-in-chief of Mengya magazine and the person in charge of the New Concept Writing Competition, who also personally gave Han Han the topic to write on the spot in the final round of the Competition, was a college classmate of Mr. Han Renjun, Han Han’s father, back in 1970s. It seemed that Maitian finally solve the Myth of Han Han.
However, almost immediately after Man-made Han Han was posted, these evidences were falsified one after another. Probably on the same day, Jan. 15, 2012, an official account of qq.com, Rumor Terminator (谣言终止者) investigated the 13 schedule conflicts Maitian listed, and the conclusion of the investigation was:
“The Rumor Terminator believes that when Maitian was trying to demonstrate that there were [schedule] conflicts between ‘blog writer Han Han’ and ‘race car driver Han Han,’ his evidence is not rigorous, his argument is too careless and arbitrary, and his conclusion is not convincing.”[45]
Terminated officially
Maitian’s Man-made Han Han was officially refuted on the same day when it was posted on his microblog on qq.com[45]. (The rumor stamp was added by me.)
72 minutes past the midnight of Jan. 15, Mr. Ma Boyong (马伯庸, real name Ma Li, 马力), a well-known novelist, posted a lengthy article entitled From Man-made Han Han to See the Construction of Conspiracy Theory[46]. The article demonstrated, logically, how Maitian diligently and deliberately tried to prove his point – Han Han is a faker – by using misleading and malicious tactics.
On the next day and the day after, several internet users, including Han Han’s biographer, demonstrated that Maitian’s evidence were either misrepresented or fabricated[47, 48,49]. The most damaging blow to Maitian’s “fraud busting,” however, came from Mr. Li Qigang, who issued a statement on Jan. 17, 2012, saying that he didn’t know the fact that Mr. Han Renjun went to East China Normal University until he read Maitian’s article[50].
The “fraud buster” was busted
Maitian’s Man-made Han Han was refuted by mountains of evidence in two days after its publication. Maitian has never rebutted these articles. Please note that each of above microblog message was accompanied by a “long microblog,” which is an image file contains normally a full-length article. To illustrate the actual capacities of these long microblogs, I reposted their entire contents to the right of these icons, after reducing the size of the characters to fit in the spaces. From top to bottom: 1. The screenshot of the post by Mr. Ma Boyong, who exposed the framing tactic Maitian used against Han Han[46]; 2. The screenshot of the post by an internet user who calls himself Ouyang Mengzhou, who pointed out the factual errors Maitian made when he alleged that Han Han had conflicted schedules as a blog writer and race car driver[47]; 3. The screenshot of the post by Mr. Wang Fan, a biographer of Han Han’s, refuting Maitian’s revised conflicted schedule theory[48]; 4. The screenshot of another post by Ouyang Mengzhou, refuting Maitian’s “a hundred rigorous arguments with one oversight” self-defense[49]; 5. The screenshot of Mr. Li Qigang’s statement denying that he personally knew Han Han’s father Han Renjun[50].
In the midnight of Jan. 18, 2012, Maitian issued an apology to Han Han, his father Han Renjuan, and Mr. Li Qigang, and took full responsibility for the questioning. He stopped short of admitting any wrongdoings. Han Han accepted Maitian’s apology immediately[51, 52]. Everyone thought the game was over, and it turned out that it was merely the end of beginning of the Hanly War.
An 83-hour farce: From Superciliousness to Deference
Upper: In the noon of Jan. 15, 2012, Maitian posted Man-made Han Han: A Farce about “Citizen” on his blog on sina.com, which generated an earthquake on Chinese internet and in news media;
Lower: in the midnight of Jan. 18, 2012, Maitian apologized to Han Han, his father Han Renjun, and Mr. Li Qigang. He would re-join in the Hanly War in about two weeks.
2. Multiple Missteps: Han Han’s Responses
According to Mr. Lu Jinbo, Han Han’s publisher and a personal friend, when Maitian tried to fix him as one of Han Han’s ghost writers in late 2011, Han Han simply told him the following:
“There is no way I can prove [my innocence]. Even if I write two articles in front of them, they would still say that I have memorized them and write them down from memorization. When I made a debut, someone even said that my books were written by my father. Let’s not explain, it will be over in two years.”[53]
It would have been a smart move had Han Han stuck to the strategy. However, in the early morning of Jan. 16, 2012, hours after Maitian dropped the internet bomb, Han Han posted his first response to the allegation, entitled A Little Brocken Essay, which did everything Maitian had hoped for: it was poorly written, as admitted by Han Han himself, suggesting that Han Han indeed couldn’t write; and it offered a twenty-million Yuan reward for anyone who could prove that his writings were ghostwritten, or identify a member of his ghost team[54]. One the same day, Ms. Fan Bingbing, one of the most celebrated actresses in China, added another twenty-million to the reward[55]. Maitian’s allegation became national news overnight, and Fang Zhouzi, who has been seeking the spotlight all of his adult life, smelt the blood like a shark in the ocean.
An internet carnival
On Jan. 16, 2012, Mr. Han Han offered a 20-million Yuan reward for evidence of his using ghostwriters. Actress Fan Bingbing soon added another 20-million Yuan to the reward. Thus the Hanly War had essentially all the ingredients for an internet carnival: a successful and handsome writer, a celebrated and pretty actress, a shitload of money, and millions of crazy fans and naysayers. The above is the screenshot of Ms. Fan’s announcement on weibo.com, to the left is the image of Han’s book, Youth. The images of Mr. Han and Ms. Fan are added by me.
In the afternoon of Jan. 18, 2012, after Fang Zhouzi joined Maitian and fired his triple bullets at him, Han Han posted his second response to the ghostwriting allegation, and this time, Han Han not only made Fang the major character of the drama, he also gave Fang several reasons to attack him. After answering every doubt raised by Fang, Han Han wrote:
“As for Mr. Fang Zhouzi, I specially made a phone call to Old Luo, asking if Fang Zhouzi is a team, or if other people do things for him, otherwise how could he have the energy to do research on every academic discipline and verify the facts in every category. Mr. Luo Yonghao’s answer was like this: Fang Zhouzi, as stubborn as he is, should be indeed a single individual; by sitting in front of a computer, he is able to search many papers and data, and then processing them for a day or so; the things he has done on science popularization are basically reliable. However, I have every reason to question that you Fang Zhouzi has a [ghost] team, because that your span [of areas] is too wide, your workload is too large, your sources of data are too broad, [your] responses are too fast, they do not like things which could be done by an individual in his forties.”[56]
As mentioned above and before, Mr. Luo is one of Fang’s most hated enemies, so any person who befriends with him would automatically become Fang’s personal enemy, except for that fake doctor Albert Yuan[36]. Also, it is an open secret that Fang has a well-organized and extremely loyal team, i. e. the Fangansters, although Fang keeps telling Chinese public that he “fights [against frauds] alone”[57]. Therefore, if anything, Han Han’s second response made himself Fang’s personal enemy.
In the midnight of Jan. 18, 2012, minutes after Maitian apologized and deleted his accusatory posts, Han Han victoriously posted his third response to the incident, entitled A Supernormal Essay:
“Seven hours after I posted A Normal Essay, Maitian published his apology letter. I accept his apology. Meanwhile, I am relatively worried about Teacher Fang Zhouzi. Because after Teacher Fang Zhouzi took the stage and sang a few sentences, and was about to hit the high notes, the [karaoke] music was switched. I wish Fang Zhouzi could walk out [of the awkwardness] as soon as possible. Happy New Year to everyone.”[58]
It is known to almost everyone in China that Fang’s biggest asset is his thick skin: he would always appear as a victor even if he had just been defeated disastrously; and his followers do believe, at least appear to believe, that Fang is invincible. Therefore, Han Han’s self-congratulation basically left no room for Fang to retreat. He had to fight on.
3. Calculated Moves: Fang Zhouzi’s Mincing Entrance into the War
On the day when Maitian posted his Man-made Han Han, Mr. Wang Zhi’an, Fang’s closest follower in CCTV at the time, made the following comment:
“Fang Zhouzi overlooked this case, so Maitian took the lead.”[59]
By that, Mr. Wang meant that Fang missed a golden opportunity to be the first one to catch the biggest fish in China. As a matter of fact, one and half months earlier, Mr. Wang made a list of potential targets for Fang’s attack, and he put Han Han on the top of that list[60]. No wonder he accepted the title of the Chief of the Strategic Instigation Bureau[61]. So, how did Fang respond to Chief Wang’s regret? He said:
“I don’t have a tiny bit of interest in Han Han, unless he also bullies my family members.”[62]
Of course Fang was lying when he wrote the above. Based on what he did before and after, and at that very moment - reposting Maitian’s Man-made Han Han -, Fang has tremendous amount of interest in Han Han. Mr. Lin Chufang, Fang’s journalist friend who also knows Han Han very well, detected the overtone in Fang’s post, and his comment was:
“Fang Zhouzi’s this reply is really informative.”[63]
So, why did Fang pretend to be not interested in Han Han? The answer is in Chief Wang’s regret: because that Maitian had already grabbed the flag of the anti-Han Han campaign, so by saying that he had no interest in Han Han, Fang was downplaying his loss of the opportunity, very much like the grape-coveting fox saying that the grapes are sour. Also, by publicly expressing his “no-interest,” Fang was suggesting and encouraging his followers to beg him to come out to lead the campaign, an old trick used repeatedly by the usurpers in China’s history (the so called “quàn jìn,” 劝进). That’s why Fang kept showing his disinterest in Han Han on the next day, and the day after, by replying to the suggestions that he should join in:
“I have no interest in Han Han, just like I have no interest in Li Yuchun.”[64] (Note: Li Yuchun is a female singer famous for her neutral characteristics.)
“Let Han Han show us the bank statement of 20 million frozen deposit first, then I might have some interest.”[65]
Interestingly interested in showing his no-interest
From Jan. 15 to 17, 2012, Fang publicly expressed his no-interest in Han Han for 3 consecutive days, every day[62, 64, 65], and on the fourth day, he launched a sudden attack on Han Han, which continues till this day.
10 months later, when the Hanly War was nothing but dead, Fang initiated an internal fight among the Han-haters for the only reason of seizing the “big flag,” or its leadership. If you have ever wondered where the “ex-Fang-lovers” came from, that fight was one of the major sources. That’s how much interest Fang had in Han Han.
There was another reason for Fang’s hesitation to jump into the action: because he knew almost nothing about Han Han. So by saying that he had no interest in Han Han, Fang was actually buying him times to cram himself, basically by stealing from others, a tactic he would be using in the entire duration of the Hanly War.
However, it was the second half of the sentence which was more revealing, or “really informative” in Mr. Lin’s words. At that time, many people were puzzled by Fang’s saying[66], wondering why he would want to bring his “family members” into the matter, because, first of all, none of those who had been attacked by him, except for Mr. Luo Yonghao, had “bullied” his family members; and secondly, to those people who had indeed “bullied” his family member, i. e. those who dug up Liu Juhua’s plagiarism scandal in March and April, 2011, Fang hadn’t, and still hasn’t, done anything yet. So, why did he want to throw his family at Han Han?
Ever since being hit by a hammer in August 2010, Fang had found out that his “family members,” namely his wife Liu Juhua and his kindergarten daughter, are his most versatile weapon for his fraudulent fraud fighting (the story will be told later). Therefore, Fang would use his “family members” as a weapon whenever he had an opportunity. As a matter of fact, he would deliberately create opportunities so that he could use them, such as the above post. Generally speaking, Fang’s family members could be used in the following ways: to play victim by crying wolf; to solicit donations by crying poor; to pretend to be a hero by pretending to protect them; and to cover up his own scandal by hyping his wife Liu Juhua’s.
However, on Jan. 15, 2012, Fang had a specific reason to bring out his family members. As mentioned above, just before being fully involved in the Hanly War, Fang was engaged in a fierce fight against Mr. Luo Yonghao, and Mr. Luo was using the plagiarism scandal committed by Fang’s wife to ward off Fang’s ferocious blows. So, on Dec. 29, 2011, Fang issued a life threat to the entire world:
“I don’t fight with pigs, I kill them. Those pigs who are still trying to push my wife with their snouts after I issued a stern warning deserve even more to be killed. Even though it will cost my whole life to kill these pigs, even though my whole body will be spattered in their blood [, I’ll still do it].”[67]
A murderous threat
On Dec. 29, 2011, the fraudulent fraud fighter Fang swore that he would kill anybody who dares to discuss his wife’s plagiarism.
Four days after issuing the threat, Fang started to attack Mr. Luo’s English training school, saying that Mr. Luo was using an entity of public welfare in nature to make personal monetary gain, which, according to Fang, is illegal[68]. Among those who criticized Fang for his personal revenge in the name of fraud busting was Mr. Lu Jinbo, Han Han’s publisher. Here is Mr. Lu’s comment:
“Fang’s mind is in chaos, his gate is wide open.……What a pity for an old hero for more than ten years!”[69]
Fang’s response was almost instantaneous:
“If ‘the old hero for more than ten years’ frees his hands to teach a guy with a partial attitude like you, he is still as competent as he was more than ten years ago.”[70]
Two days later, when Mr. Lu posted an article to respond, sort of, Maitian’s attacks on Han Han, he mentioned the above episode, and gave Fang several suggestions, one of them was to have a daughter[71], by that he obviously meant that Fang’s ruthlessness and cold-bloodedness could be warmed and softened by a daughter. Sounds like a kind advice, right? Not so to Fang. According to Fang’s theory and practice, what Lu said had already constituted “bullying my family member.” And because of the close relationship between Lu and Han Han, the latter was already implicated.
Sure enough, in the morning of Jan. 18, 2012, after Maitian’s major arguments had been all falsified, Fang launched a sudden attack on Han Han. And after Han Han revealed that he had asked Luo Yonghao about Fang Zhouzi in his A Normal Essay hours later, Fang immediately seized that story as his excuse for his attacking Han Han (see below). The fact is, had the story not been told by Han Han, Fang would still attack him, using the excuse of his relationship with Mr. Lu. In other words, Mr. Han Han was doomed.
It is funny that just a little more than a year before the start of the Hanly War, Mr. Lu gave Fang a lavish eulogy:
“I like Fang Zhouzi very much. He is a Don Quixote-like fighter. As far as his fights which I have observed are concerned, I support them all. I’m even willing to trust him blindly. Ten years ago, when I was an internet write, I had written articles ‘teasing’ him. However, today, from here, I am saluting Mr. Fang. If there are ten thousand Fang Zhouzis who ask one hundred thousand whys, our era will certainly be more trustworthy.”[72]
A grand salute to Fang Zhouzi by Mr. Lu Jinbo, an ex-Fang-lover
Day One: The Triple Shots
After pretentiously showing his no-interest in Han Han for three consecutive days, and after every major argument or “evidence,” presented by Maitian to demonstrate that writer Han Han and public intellectual Han Han was artificially manufactured, had been destroyed, Fang launched a sudden attack on Han Han in the morning of Jan. 18, 2012. I have already answered the question why did Fang want to attack Han Han, so in the following I will just show you how did he do it.
1. The First Shot: Stealing from Zatoichi
(1) The Precedents
On Jan. 18, 2012, Fang started his day on weibo.com at 9:21 AM by reposting a message from one of his followers, saying that Fang had smashed Luo Yonghao decidedly. Fang’s comment on it: “It is a long term war, you guys be patient”[73]. As mentioned above, declaring victory is Fang’s surest way to win a fight, and no matter how miserably he has just been beaten up, he will always claims himself as the winner.
At 9:49 AM, Fang posted his second message of the day, advertising for a TV program developed by his buddy Fang Xuanchang, starred by himself, and produced by Shanghai TV Station[74]. The funny thing is, exactly 16 months earlier, Fang had vowed that he would never appear in a program produced by Shanghai TV Station, because he was badly humiliated in one of its programs back in 2007[75].
Self-slap
On Sept. 18, 2010, Fang said that he had not appeared since 2007, and would never appear in a program produced by Shanghai TV Station. 16 months later, minutes before showing his strong interest in Han Han after repeatedly saying he had no interest in Han Han, Fang bragged on his microblog that he had just starred in a program produced by Shanghai TV station.
(2) The Shot
Then, at 10:15 AM, Fang posted his third message of the day:
“In his article questioning Han Han, Maitian mentioned that Han Han admitted in his ‘The Middle-aged Gifted Boy Got Stuck in the Door,’ published in his blog in April, 2007, that some of his friends knew the password of his blog, and they had modified his articles for him. I was curious and wanted to take a look at the article, however, I couldn’t find it in Han Han’s blog, because Han Han has deleted all of his blog articles published in the nine-month period between Dec. 13, 2006 and Sept. 18, 2007. Offering a heavy monetary reward [for evidence] on one hand, and destroying the evidence at the same time on the other, it makes people think that the offering contains no sincerity.”[76]
Fang’s first shot in the Hanly War
The post has been hailed by Fang-lovers and Han-haters as Fang’s first shot in the Hanly War. Here are some of the posts by these people cheering for Fang’s declaring war on Han Han:
“A long time ago, Fang Zhouzi pounded historian Yu Ying-shih in the area of historical textual research, and Yu was humiliated badly. This time, he conducts textual research on Han Han, it will be a great show again!”[77]
“Sure enough, something is fishy! Fang Zhouzi is really awesome; a causal punch hits the fatal spot!”[78]
“Han-lovers, organize your team quickly; Fang-haters, assemble vixens fast; fire at Fang Zhouzi! ──[Otherwise,] when Fang Zhouzi’s interest is ignited, your genius Han Junior’s pants will be down to his heels!”[79]
The author of the last two posts was a major figure in the Hanly War, dubbed one of the Ten Marshals[80], and apparently for that reason, he got to know Fang personally. However, in less than a year he would become one of the fiercest Fang-haters, calling Fang a “mad dog”[81], and a “hierarch” with a “split personality”[82].
Clapping and cheering
The above is the screenshot of two comments made by a frantic Han-hater/Fang-lover acclaimed Fang’s first shot at Han Han[78, 79].
The question is: Did Fang really hit the fatal spot?
(3) The Mystery
In less than 5 minutes after Fang fired his first shot at Han Han, there were about two dozen internet users who told him that these articles were deleted by Han Han a long time ago, in 2008 to be exact, after they were published in a book, and more than three years before Maitian made his allegation[83]. Therefore the deletion is neither “destroying the evidence” nor “at the same time” when the reward was offered.
The fact is, Maitian had never mentioned Han Han’s “The Middle-aged Gifted Boy Got Stuck in the Door” in any of his anti-Han articles[84]. What he said, only once, in The Fake Han Han which was posted online on Jan. 5, 2012, was the following:
“In about October 2007, Han Han provoked Zheng Jun, and the two engaged in a fight. Something strange happened during the fight: in the afternoon of that day, Zheng Jun posted two articles in response to Han Han; however, in the morning of that day, Han Han said on his blog that ‘Zheng Jun posted two eccentric articles.’ The loophole was noticed by some people, and they wondered whether Han Han possesses the ability of knowing the future. How could he predict in the morning that in the afternoon Zheng Jun would post two retaliatory articles?
“Facing the awkward situation, Han Han explained that he wrote the article in advance and saved it in the draft box [of the blog], and when he saw Zheng Jun’s articles in the afternoon, he told [one of] his friends the password of his blog, and the friend helped him with a few corrections, and made the article public, ‘the only thing I didn’t predict right was where he made the corrections.’ Isn’t that Han Han’s explanation illustrates exactly the fact that Han Han’s ‘friends’ are able to login Han Han’s blog, correct his articles, and post these articles without letting Han Han know how the articles have been modified?”[85]
Another fact is, in The Middle-aged Gifted Boy Got Stuck in the Door, which contains 2,525 Chinese characters, Han Han never mentioned the above story. The story was told by Han Han in a later article, The Self-Revisionism of Getting Stuck in the Door[86]. Also, both articles, like Han Han’s other articles, as well as his books, were, and still are, widely available on the internet, a fact Fang, a self-claimed “a pioneer in the Chinese Internet”[13], and a “netizen” who has been living on the internet since 1993, should, and must, have been aware of.
So, how could Fang make these simple factual errors in a microblog post containing only 129 characters? And yet, as ignorant of Han Han as he was, Fang was able to correct a mistake made by Maitian, “in about October 2007,” to “in April 2007”!
(4) The Truth
Ten hours before Fang fired his first shot, an internet user with a web ID Zatoichi （座頭市）posted an article on tianya.cn, one of the most popular gossip websites in China. The article was entitled Could Han Han’s 20 Million Be Claimed This Way?[87], which contains five paragraphs, plus a reference list and a screenshot of Han Han blog. Briefly, that Zatoichi, inspired by both Maitian’s “discovery” described above, and Han Han’s 20-million reward, checked Han Han’s blog on sina.com and found a nine-month blank period. Here are his first two paragraphs:
“Today I found a weird phenomenon: the articles published in the nine months between 2006-12-12 and 2007-09-19 in Han Han’s blog on sina.com disappeared completely[1], and the period was exactly when Han Han was fighting against Zheng Jun which was mentioned in Maitian’s blog article The Fake Han Han[2]. (Maitian mistakenly wrote in October 2007, it was actually in April 2007.) It is really abnormal for a person like Han Han who writes continuously and is full of energy. Is there something fishy? Read on.
“Because Han Han made a ‘building a chastity torii after becoming a whore’ comment on Zheng Jun’s performance in a show, Zheng Jun published two articles, ‘Please Don’t Consider Yourself the Lu Xun Who Is Able to Drive’[3] at 2007-04-11 14:57:40, and ‘Thought the Matter Over, It Is Really Too Pointless, Really a Waste of Life’[4] at 2007-04-11 17:09:40. So the date was April 11, 2007. On that day, Han Han’s blog on sina.com was blank. Although Han Han has deleted the article, it could still be found on the internet, entitled ‘The Middle-aged Gifted Boy Got Stuck in the Door,’ the website address: [www.douban.com][5].”[88]
Have you got it? Fang didn’t read Maitian’s article at all, all he did was reading the article by that Zatoichi. And because he knew nothing about Han Han, plus his unimaginable inferior Chinese reading comprehension skill, he thought that Han Han revealed his secret in the article he wrote before his opponent had responded.
The source of Fang Zhouzi’s stolen first shot
The above is the screenshot of an article posted on tianya.cn at 00:32 on Jan. 18, 2012, by an internet user who calls himself Zatoichi. In less than 10 hours, it would be stolen by Fang Zhouzi who used it as his first shot at Han Han. The words with red underlines were the key components of Fang’s first shot.
The fact is, in less than an hour after posting his article, that Zatoichi posted Han Han’s The Self-Revisionism of Getting Stuck in the Door in the same thread, saying that it is “the article containing Han Han’s confession of ghostwriting”[89]. Had Fang read either one of Han Han’s articles, or just comprehended Zatoichi’s article correctly, he would have avoided the stupid mistakes he made in the post. In other words, the fraudulent fraud fight Fang is not only extremely fraudulent; he is also extremely incompetent and extremely lazy.
(5) A Dumb Thief
The funny thing is, to hide the source of his stealing, Fang tried to be smart by deliberately manufacturing a “difference in the details,” an excuse and tactic Fang uses frequently to hide and defend his plagiarisms. What he did was to shrink the brackets flanking the time period, from which the articles were missing from Han Han’s blog, inwardly by one day each, saying that the nine-month period started from Dec. 13, 2006, and ended on Sept. 18, 2007, instead of Dec. 12, 2006 and Sept. 19, 2007, respectively, as that Zatoichi pointed out (see the images below).
Evidence of stealing
Upper: The magnified image of Zatoichi’s screenshot of the content page of Han Han’s blog, showing that no articles were published in the nine-month period between Dec. 12, 2006 and Sept. 19, 2007. The red Chinese characters read: “the nine months in between were deleted.” (Please note that the original image was a full-screen shot as shown in the image above.)
Lower: The image Fang attached to his microblog post to substantiate his accusation. Based on the click numbers of the articles listed in the images (the numbers on the right side of the slashes in the parentheses), Fang’s screenshot must have been taken after Zatoichi’s. To hide the fact that the entire content of his post was stolen from Zatoichi’s article, Fang stated that the nine-month period started from Dec. 13, 2006, and ended on Sept. 18, 2007, while there was no reason or proof to support his claim.
The fact is, for Fang’s claim to be valid, two conditions have to be met: 1. Han Han published only one article each on Dec. 12, 2006 and Sept. 19, 2007; and 2. Han Han did published at least one article each on Dec. 13, 2006, and Sept. 18, 2007. However, neither of these conditions could be verified, therefore, Fang’s deliberation did nothing but demonstrate that his entire post, from materials to ideas, was stolen from Zatoichi’s article.
It needs to be pointed out that Maitian must have known Fang’s mistakes in his first shot, and he might also have noticed Fang’s stealing[90]. However, he chose to remain silent on the issue, meanwhile, he continued to instigate other people to attack Han Han.
2. The Second Shot: Stealing from Pelliot
The fact is, Zatoichi’s “discovery” was also discovered by another internet user with a web ID Nan Yunlou (南云楼, Southern Cloud Tower), and after having done some “original research,” that Nan Yunlou posted his article at 7:22 AM on Jan. 18, 2012, 173 minutes before Fang’s first shot[91]. The strange thing is, the number of Nan Yunlou’s followers on weibo.com was less than 1% of Fang’s (as of June 21, 2014, Nan Yunlou has 13,158 followers, while Fang had more than 1.7 million followers in January 2012); however, his article was twice as influential as Fang’s: it was forwarded more than 10,000 times, and generated more than 5,000 comments, while the corresponding numbers of Fang’s post were about 4,800 and 3,600, respectively. If you know Fang well, you’ll know that these numbers hurt him very much: his long-awaited first shot looked like a misfire. To save his face, Fang actually made a comment on Nan Yunlou’s article, implying that he had much more ammunition against Han Han than he had just revealed:
“You are really too impatient, revealing the secret even before seeing the evidence of the frozen deposit of the 40 million. Further, you want to donate the 40 million to Yu Jianrong, it is equivalent to put the money in a tiger’s mouth.”[92]
So, what else did Fang have?
63 minutes after firing his first shot at Han Han, Fang Zhouzi fired his second one:
“Following the link in Maitain’s article, I read Han Han’s work from which Han Han got his fame, Glimpsing Human’s Nature through a Cup of Water, in which even a Latin word was used: ‘In Latin there is a word “Corpusdelieti,” the explanation is ‘body, flesh’ and ‘condition of crime,’ thus it shows that the Romans had realized long ago that body is the condition of crime.’ The Latin word was misspelt, it should be Corpus delicti; it was also misinterpreted, the original meaning is the evidence of a crime, Corpus means virtual body (body of evidence), has nothing to do with flesh.”[93]
It seems that the American Ph. D. Fang Zhouzi is really much more knowledgeable than the Chinese high school dropout Han Han, right? Wrong. The misspelling was first pointed out by Maitian in his Man-made Han Han:
“In Glimpsing Human’s Nature through a Cup of Water, which made Han Han famous overnight, [Han Han] demonstrated his points by quoting copiously from many sources, citing the classics and using allusions. The writing was very skillful, and in the end even Latin appeared. To a 17-year-old boy who had not even mastered his English, it is unlikely that the writing was a live performance. (What relatively funny is that the Latin word used to show off his knowledgeability is in fact misspelt.)”[94]
Furthermore, about 6 hours before Fang shot his second bullet, at 5:26:55 on Jan. 18, 2012, an internet user who calls himself Pelliot posted an article on kdnet.net, another website very much like tianya.cn, entitled Han Han’s Latin Word corpusdelieti, in which he wrote:
“Maitian mentioned the Latin word Han Han used in his Glimpsing Human’s Nature through a Cup of Water, that word is corpus delicti, not corpusdelieti. First of all, it is a phrase consists of two words, equivalent to ‘corpus of delictum’ (body of crime), delicti is the singular possessive form of delictum. Secondly, it is delicti, not delieti, c was mistaken as e.
“There are two possibilities: one, Han Han read [the phrase] from a magazine or a book, the editor [of the magazine or book] didn’t know Latin, made the mistake during typesetting. Han Han didn’t know Latin either, so he memorized the wrong spelling. Two, what he wrote was correct, however, his handwriting was illegible, the two words were too close to each other, therefore the examiners mistook them as one word; and the c, which resembles e, was mistaken too.
“Han Han’s interpretation of the meaning is not right either. The original meaning of the word corpus (body) is body, flesh, however, in the phrase, it means the ‘body’ of crime (content entity). As far as I know, corpus delicti doesn’t have the dual meanings of body and crime condition. Corpus can be used to refer body, but corpus delicti can’t. Also, corpus delicti means the entity of a crime (fact, evidence, so called evidence or proof), not the condition of a crime.”[95]
And the above analysis and explanation would be selectively stolen by Fang in less than 6 hours.
Fang’s second shot at Han Han was stolen from Pelliot
Upper panel: the screenshot of a portion of Pelliot’s post[95]; lower panel: the screenshot of Fang’s second attack on Han Han[93]. Please note the times when the two posts were made public (red underlines.)
Although the above evidence is more than enough for Fang to convict any person of plagiarism, it is certainly not enough for a Fang Expert to convict Fang, not only because we have much higher standard, but also because Fang will never admit his guilt that easily. So, are there more evidences? Absolutely!
First of all, as having been revealed and to be revealed soon, Fang’s ultimate purpose to fire his shots at Han Han was to demonstrate that all or most of Han Han’s writings were ghostwritten. However, his second shot was to demonstrate Han Han’s stupidity and ignorance. Had he succeeded, it would have demonstrated that the award-winning essay was indeed written by the idiotic high school dropout Han Han, rather than by his omnipotent writer father. Why would Fang want to do that? The only reasonable explanation is that a habitual thief and pretentious imposter found something he liked, so he stole it and flaunted it as his own to show his superiority over both Maitian and Han Han.
Indeed, when Han Han fought back a few hours later, blaming Fang for doubting his ability to write a Latin phrase, Fang vehemently and repeatedly denied the charge, saying that he didn't have such an intention in the post[96]. Although Fang lies all the time, in this particular case, Han Han indeed wronged him. It would take Fang several days to realize that he should have used the case for his real purpose.
Secondly, that Pelliot claimed that he knows Latin[97], and it seems that he indeed does. However, in the post, he somehow misused an English term, “evidence,” which led to Fang’s misunderstanding of the Latin phrase. According to Wikipedia:
“Corpus delicti ……is a term from Western jurisprudence referring to the principle that a crime must have been proven to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime. ……Black's Law Dictionary (6th ed.) defines ‘corpus delicti’ as: ‘the fact of a crime having been actually committed.’”[98]
Obviously, Fang Zhouzi confused “the evidence of a crime” (such as a knife) with “the fact of a crime” (such as a man was beheaded), and besides that Pelliot, where could his confusion come from?
The fact is, Fang’s misbelief that Mr. Han Han had misinterpreted the Latin was also misled by Pelliot’s statement that “corpus delicti doesn’t have the dual meanings of body and crime condition.”
In 1848, German poet Georg Weerth (1822-1856) published a poem, Ich wollt, ich wär Polizeiminister, in which the phrase “corpus delicti” was used to mean human’s body:
“Ja, staatsgefährlicher als Rebelln/ Ist – Oh, ins Gefängnis schickt sie! –/ Eine einzige kleine Frau mit ihrem/ Süßen Corpus delicti.”[99]
When the above poem was translated into Chinese, the phrase “Corpus delicti” was translated into “sinful flesh” (罪孽的肉体), and the translator noted:
“The original word was Latin ‘Corpusdelieti,’ the legal meaning of the term is crime elements, however, Corpus also means ‘body,’ and here it was used as a pun.”[100]
Han Han’s possible Latin teacher
In 1985, Beijing Press published a book entitled Analyses of the Selected Lyrics by Famous European Poets, in which Georg Weerth’s Ich wollt, ich wär Polizeiminister was selected and analyzed. In the book, “Corpus delicti” was misspelt as “Corpusdelieti,” but the note on the phrase, used as a pun, was correct.
The fact is, not only did Georg Weerth use Corpus delicti to mean human’s body, Karl Marx did so too: in his private letters, Karl Marx repeatedly used the term to refer his own body[101].
The meaning of Corpus delicti according to the great proletarian revolutionary teacher Karl Marx
(See [101] for citations.)
In other words, the phrase corpus delicti does have dual meanings, and the best-known American Ph. D. in China is indeed more ignorant, and stupider, than the best-known Chinese high school dropout.
So, Han Han must have gotten his Latin word(s) from one of these books, as that Pelliot had predicted; and Han Han did admit that when he was in high school, he had a notebook containing many things which he thought he could cite in his articles to impress his readers[102]. Fang, when the above evidence was presented to him, also admitted that that must have been the case[103, 104]. However, even though many people had pointed out, right under his nose[105], that he had made a mistake when he said “Corpus means virtual body (body of evidence), has nothing to do with flesh,” Fang kept shamelessly saying that he “corrected the misspelling and misinterpretation” made by Han Han[96]. Furthermore, he has been insisting, till today, that Mr. Han’s Latin word is the evidence for his cheating in the New Concept Writing Competition[106].
【For the rest part, please download the PDF file】
下面这篇算是对方肘子与韩寒大战的一个最新总结吧。作者是“方学家”葛辛，其行文逻辑严谨，材料翔实，缮写长文。但我感觉他的文章都太长了，适合西人读，不太适合喜欢简明扼要的中国人读。其观点是否客观公正不好说，但其列出的内容都有佐证，而且是以实名发表，应该离事实不远。
Shamelessness Shouldn’t Be Anyone’s Nature──An Open Letter to Nature (Part XL)
Xin Ge, Ph. D.
Columbia, SC, USA
The Hanly War (I)
【Abstract】
On Jan. 18, 2012, Fang Zhouzi started his years-long attack on Mr. Han Han, a popular author and arguably the spiritual leader of China’s post-1980s generation. According to Fang, most, if not all, of Mr. Han’s writings were ghostwritten by his father. Although without any hard evidence, Fang’s war against Mr. Han continues till today. By fighting against Han Han, Fang exposed his own fraudulence and evilness, and the Hanly War became his Waterloo.
【Contents】
Why Would Fang Zhouzi Want to Attack Han Han?
Mr. Han Han was born in 1982 in Jinshan, a small town near Shanghai. He started publishing his essays and short stories in 1997. Two years later, in 1999, Mr. Han Han won the first class prize in the New Concept Writing Competition, sponsored by Mengya (Budding) magazine[1]. In 2000, Han Han dropped out of his high school, and published his novel Triple Door, which was a huge success: more than 5 million copies of the book was sold in 10 years[2]. Since then, Han Han has published many novels, become a race driver, and the most popular blogger in China[3]. In 2008, Mr. Han began to comment on China’s social and political issues, and soon he became a leader of public opinions. In November 2009, Southern Metropolis Weekly called him “one of the most influential public intellectuals in China”[4], and in 2010, Time magazine of the U. S. named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world[5]. Less than one month before being attacked by Fang Zhouzi, Mr. Han published 3 well-publicized blog articles, dubbed “Han’s Trio,” elaborating his opinions about revolution, freedom, and democracy[6].
From Citizen Han Han to Public Enemy Han Han
The cover pages of Southern Metropolis Weekly: left: Citizen Han Han, published on Nov 2, 2009; right: Public Enemy Han Han, published on Jan. 13, 2012. Two days later, the Hanly War broke out.
The Han Dynasty
On the Independence Day of 2011, The New Yorker published a lengthy report on Han Han.
Why Would Fang Zhouzi Want to Attack Han Han?
Admittedly, Fang Zhouzi was not the initiator of the Hanly War, even though many of his gangsters, including Mr. Wang Zhi’an (王志安), a CCTV commentator, had urged and instigated him to do so long before that fateful date[7]. The first appearance of Han Han’s name on the homepage of the New Threads occurred in 2000, when Fang Zhouzi pirated an article from a newspaper, Han Han Phenomenon: The Tragedy of the Narcissistic China’s Education?[8]. It would take nearly nine more years for Han Han’s name to appear in a title of another New Threads article. On July 9, 2009, Fang posted on his website an article he compiled, entitled Netizens’ Comments on “Liang Wendao: Han Han Is the Next Lu Xun.”[9] As I have mentioned before, compiling “netizens’ comments” is one of Fang’s most frequently used conventional tactics to attack his personal enemies[10]. Therefore, by compiling that post, Fang was sending the most definite signal showing that his attack on Han Han was imminent. However, one month later, Fang’s fight against Dr. Xiao Chuanguo restarted after the Wuhan court enforced their judgment issued three years earlier, and Fang was deeply involved in his revenge war against Xiao, therefore, Mr. Han was luckily let go, although Fang kept publishing on his New Threads other people’s articles attacking Han Han, especially by a person named Hu Shenghua[11], ironically, a proponent of Christian religion[12]. Considering Fang’s extreme hatred against religions, especially the Christian religion[13], his hatred towards Han Han could be easily estimated.
So, why would Fang want to attack Mr. Han? Obviously, the fraudulent fraud fighter always needs someone to fight against. However, in 2009, there were at least two particular reasons. The first one was that Mr. Han was considered by some people “the incarnated soul boy of Lu Xun,” which made Fang extremely jealous. Lu Xun (real name Zhou Shuren, 1881-1936) was a writer in the May Fourth era, and Fang Zhouzi has been worshiping him like God since early 1980s[14]. Yes, because Fang had already assumed the identity of Lu Xun’s incarnated soul boy before 2009, he could not endure the fact that a high school dropout was competing for, and winning, the title.
Disciple Fang Zhouzi paying homage to his God Lu Xun
The photo was posted by Fang on the Chinese Memorial Day in 2011 with the following note: “Paying homage to Lu Xun’s tomb for the last time in 2004.”[15]
Besides the title competition, Fang had another reason to attack Mr. Han in 2009. On June 11 of that year, Mr. Han posted an article ridiculing the infamous Green Dam, a governmental content-filtering software supposedly to be mandatorily pre-installed in all new computers sold in China[16]. Of course, Liu Juhua, a chief reporter with Xinhua News Agency and Fang’s wife, was one of the two persons who first reported the news, and they also fabricated a survey saying that 92% of the people surveyed supported the installation[17].
However, by the time Fang actually launched his attack on Mr. Han in January 2012, Fang had a lot more reasons to do so. In March 2010, Mr. Han posted an article, which was soon deleted, commenting on Google’s exit from China, in which he equalized GM foods with cooking oil recovered from sewerage system, melamine-tainted milk, and shoddy vaccines[18]. Of course Fang has been the number one GMO promoter in China, and Mr. Han’s brief comment was so influential that Fang’s New Threads published 7 articles, including one from the fake doctor Albert Yuan, to discuss it[19]. Indeed, many people who tried to lure Fang into attacking Han Han used that sentence by Han Han as the bait - yes, everyone in China knows that anti-GMO is more than enough a crime to be punished by the Mighty Fang. For example, on Jan. 18, 2012, probably not knowing that Fang had already fired his first bullet at Han Han minutes earlier, an anti-Han extremist sent Fang a screenshot of Han Han’s blog, showing his anti-GMO attitude[20].
Seduction
A Han-hater sent Fang the above screen image to prove that Han Han is a GMO-opponent. Han Han’s article had already been hidden by either Han Han himself or the blog system (the image on the left says that the article has been encrypted,) but that Han-hater used the search engine of the system to maneuver his way to get the evidence of Han’s “crime.” His message to Fang is simple: “Fang Zhouzi, look.”[20]
In addition to the commercial reasons, Fang’s attack on Han Han also had political background. In November 2011, two months before the outbreak of the Hanly War, in a high profile ceremony to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Xinhua News Agency’s founding, Mr. Li Changchun (李长春), one of the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of CCP Central Committee, and the person in charge of China’s propaganda affairs, praised Fang Zhouzi and his comrade Sima Nan for “sharing the sorrow with the party”[21]. At the same time, Mr. Li criticized some people, including Mr. Han Han. It turned out that every one of those who were criticized by Mr. Li Changchun had been, or would be, attacked by Fang Zhouzi[22,23]. Therefore, Fang’s attack on Han Han was most likely to fulfill his political assignment. As a matter of fact, just a couple of months ago, it was revealed by Mr. Bei Zhengcheng (贝志诚) that Mr. Cao Yongzheng (曹永正), a person who was trusted the most by Mr. Zhou Yongkang (周永康), another member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and the person in charge of China’s political and legal system during 2002 to 2012, had told his friends that Fang’s attack on Mr. Han Han was ordered by the upper level[24].
The big bosses and their lowly fighting dogs
Mr. Li Changchun, China’s Propaganda Czar during 2002-2012, praised Fang Zhouzi and his comrade Sima Nan for their “sharing the sorrow with the party” in November 2011. Although differing in so many aspects, Fang and Sima have been close friends and fighting in the same front since 2000. Mr. Zhou Yongkang, the Czar of China’s judicial system during the same time period, was the person behind Fang when he was in power.
Grapevine News
Top: The screenshot of Professor Zhang Ming’s post saying that Fang and Sima were praised by a “big leader.”[21] (The post has been deleted.) Middle: The screenshot of a post by a jingguzai0, saying that the “big leader” was Li Changchun, who, while praising Fang and Sima, criticized Mr. Yu Jianrong, He Weifang, Li Chengpeng (photos added by me), and Han Han[23]. (The post is still available.) Bottom: The screenshot of a post by Mr. Bei Zhicheng, under his web ID Yimao Buba Dashi (一毛不拔大师), saying that one of Mr. Zhou Yongkang’s confidants had told several celebrities that Fang’s attack on Han Han was authorized by the upper level[24]. (The post is still available.)
Of course, Fang’s ultimate consideration and motivation are always personal reasons. Beginning from the end of 2010, when his plagiarism history was being dug up, Fang turned to the public intellectuals (the liberals) in order to divert public attention to his scandals. Although Fang’s attacks on the public intellectuals had political motive, just like his attack on Han Han, a more important reason was, ironically, that these people had been among his strongest supporters: no matter how ridiculous, fraudulent, and evil Fang’s so called “fraud busting” activities had been, these people would always find reasons to support him. Since the fighter Fang dared not to fight his enemies, the so called Fang-haters, in the scientific and academic arenas, because they would fight back by showing mountains of evidence of his own frauds, dug up by the “Fang Experts,” and the fighter Fang had to fight to maintain his visibility in China and his usability to his bosses, therefore these public intellectuals became his perfect targets: they would tout him while being bitten by him[25].
However, things changed in the middle of 2011: the public intellectuals being attacked by Fang began to fight back by wielding “Fang-hater’s dog-beating stick,” the weapon Fang is scared of the most. For example, on August 19, 2011, after being accused by Fang of mediocrity in scholarship, Professor He Weifang of Peking University, a prominent leader of Chinese liberals, reposted messages about Fang’s plagiarism of Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein[26]. Three days later, Mr. Yuan Weishi, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and a senior member the liberals, did the same thing, apparently in support of Professor He[27]. Here is Professor He Weifang’s self-defense for using the “Fang-hater’s dog-beating stick” against Fang:
“Tell you the truth, I don’t want that hypocritical tolerance. It is very difficult for those people who have not been bitten by this guy to realize his deadly venomousness and viciousness when he is biting people. Although he has no hard evidence to accuse me, it is still very painful. If I don’t respond, the ignorant blames and the specious advice really hurt; if I do respond, [Fang’s attack] will never end.”[28]
Here is Professor Yuan Weishi’s statement after wielding “Fang-hater’s dog-beating stick” at Fang:
“I am a staunch supporter of Fang Zhouzi’s fraud busting. China needs more Fang Zhouzi. However, like any other people, Brother Fang needs to accept supervision too, correct your own mistakes honestly. The honest Chinese people should join hands to promote the arrival of a new era when hundred schools are able to contend, and strive for a free, constitutional, democratic, prosperous and strong China. For that purpose, [we should] focus on matter instead of person, fight against the rogues who fabricate materials to slander other people, and fight against the accomplices who rely upon the power to frame other people!”[29]
Fang Zhouzi and his liberal brother
Although Professor Yuan Weishi (right) had known the fact that Fang Zhouzi is a plagiarist, he didn’t point out the fact until his comrade He Weifang was attacked by Fang. Meanwhile, he reiterated his support for Fang’s fraudulent fraud fighting, and cursed those who dug up Fang’s dirty secrets. (You have to read between the lines to detect his undertone.)
By the end of 2011, the fraudulent fraud fighter Fang had essentially been driven out of academia, first of natural sciences, then of social sciences. It was mainly for this reason, Fang made a strategic announcement in the Chinese New Year’s Eve of 2012:
“After having seen that it is so easy to pretend to be a god and play ghosty tricks in the literary world, I am marching towards there this year, Bang!”[30]
Of course Fang’s retreat from academia started long before his formal announcement. In December 2011, Fang restarted his fight against Mr. Luo Yonghao, an ex-Fang-lover, a high school dropout, and, ironically, a public intellectual. The fight soon went extremely nasty because Mr. Luo, who used to blame Fang-haters for exposing the plagiarism committed by Fang’s wife Liu Juhua[31], began to use the scandal as his most powerful weapon to fight against Fang[32], which was exactly what Fang hoped for, because he could use his wife’s scandal to cover up his own, and pretend to be a hero by defending and protecting his wife on one hand, and legitimately using even more evil and vicious tactics against his opponents on the other. However, on Jan. 14, 2012, Mr. Luo made the following comment on a suggestion by one of Fang-lovers that Fang should return to the United States to do science popularization:
“Going back to America to popularize science? Are you kidding? All of Fang Zhouzi’s science popularization writings are ‘compilation and translation’ of articles written by American, although such an activity is beneficial to Chinese whose scientific literacy is backward, what is the usefulness of his articles in their original country?”[33]
The above message was interpreted by Fang-lovers, as well as Fang himself, as accusing, subtly, Fang of plagiarism[34]. Four days later, Fang turned upon Han Han.
To some extent, Han Han resembles Luo Yonghao: they both are high school dropouts, and they both are rich and famous. As I have mentioned repeatedly, Fang is extremely proud of his education: he has been bragging constantly his scores in the College Entrance Examination in 1985, his studies at USTC, and his American Ph. D. degree from the Michigan State University. And Fang does believe that these records demonstrate his “extraordinary intelligence”[35], which in turn entitles him huge success. However, in reality, what he has gotten is just the opposite. And that’s one of the reasons why he hates Chinese so much, and he resents especially those who had less education and gained much more success, financial and reputational success, than him[36]. Therefore, Han Han is a natural prey awaiting Fang’s preying upon.
Also like Luo Yonghao, Han Han has been one of the leading public intellectuals in China. Consequently, like Luo Yonghao, Han Han was a Fang-lover. In August 2010, right before Fang was hammered in Beijing, Han Han had the following dialogue with a reporter named Lin Chufang, a Fang-lover also:
Lin: Have you ever had any contacts with Fang Zhouzi?
Han: No. I think he is a stubborn person; however, the majority of his fights are problem-free, either from the perspective of opinions or others. There might be a small portion [of his fights] which is a little bigoted.
Lin: Probably. ……I’m wondering what kind situation it will be if one day he debates you.
Han: I’ll apologize immediately, no matter what he says.……[37]
By saying so, Han Han made himself the perfect target for Fang’s attack.
The Foreplay
1. Multiple Tries: Maitian’s Ignition
On Jan. 15, 2012, Maitian (麦田, “wheat field,” real name Ruan Peng, 阮鹏), a well-known internet figure working in IT industry, posted an article on his blogs entitled Man-made Han Han: A Farce about “Citizen”[38]. In the article, Maitian said that Han Han’s fame was actually manufactured by his father Han Renjun, he used his connection with the organizer of the New Concept Writing Competition to cheat so that Han Han won the first class prize; then, in 2008, Han Han was packaged by his publisher, Mr. Lu Jinbo, into a public intellectual. In other words, most, if not all, of Han Han’s articles and books were written by a team of ghost writers, but mainly his father.
The accuser and the accused
Maitian (Mr. Ruan Peng, left) and Han Han. (Source of the photos: NetEase Readings Channel.)
According to Maitian, he first suspected that Han Han’s articles were ghostwritten in late April or early May, 2010, when a man stabbed children in a kindergarten in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province[39].However, a few days after he started his suspicion, on May 7, 2010, Maitian posted an article on his blogs entitled Look Out for Han Han, in which he criticized Han Han’s populist positions on social and political issues, but he praised Han Han’s writing, saying that it was “first class,” and everyone who writes could learn from him[40]. Ironically, in his Man-made Han Han, Maitian claimed that one of the reasons for his “questioning” Mr. Han Han was because that he was angered by Han’s Trio which insulted Václav Havel[41]. Obviously that was a lie, because Han’s Trio was published between Dec. 23 and 26, 2011, and Maitian started bugging Han Han long before that time. For example, on Nov. 17, 2011, Maitian posted the following message:
“Frankly, I have been questioning all along that Han Han’s writings might be commercially packaged, written by other people,……”[42]
Self-contradictory
Upper: Maitian admitted on Nov. 17, 2011, that he had been questioning Han Han’s supposed ghostwriting all along. However, two months later, he claimed that his attack on Han Han was because that Han Han insulted Václav Havel in Han’s Trio. Lower: The screenshot of the content page of Han Han’s blog on sina.com, showing that Han’s Trio were actually published in late December, 2011 (red boxes). The numbers in parentheses are the numbers of comments/clicks.
On Jan. 3, 2012, Maitian posted an article entitled Questioning Han Han for the Third Time: Let the Evidence Speak, in which he counted Look Out for Han Han as his first shot at Han Han, a microblog post which he deleted later as his second one[43]. Two days later, Maitian tried for the fourth time, posting his The Fake Han Han[44]. And the Man-made Han Han was his fifth try. Based on what he has said and done, it can be concluded without any doubt that Maitian’s attack on Han Han was motivated by thing or things other than Han Han’s comments on Václav Havel.
For some reasons, none of Maitian’s previous attempts to topple Han Han had generated the impact remotely similar to the one by Man-made Han Han, and most people did consider the latter article convincing, because it contained not only many circumstantial evidences, but also some seemingly hard ones. For example, according to Maitian, at least 13 of Han Han’s blog articles were posted while he was participating in car racings, therefore they must have been posted, or more importantly, written, by other people. Also, according to Maitian, Mr. Li Qigang, the deputy editor-in-chief of Mengya magazine and the person in charge of the New Concept Writing Competition, who also personally gave Han Han the topic to write on the spot in the final round of the Competition, was a college classmate of Mr. Han Renjun, Han Han’s father, back in 1970s. It seemed that Maitian finally solve the Myth of Han Han.
However, almost immediately after Man-made Han Han was posted, these evidences were falsified one after another. Probably on the same day, Jan. 15, 2012, an official account of qq.com, Rumor Terminator (谣言终止者) investigated the 13 schedule conflicts Maitian listed, and the conclusion of the investigation was:
“The Rumor Terminator believes that when Maitian was trying to demonstrate that there were [schedule] conflicts between ‘blog writer Han Han’ and ‘race car driver Han Han,’ his evidence is not rigorous, his argument is too careless and arbitrary, and his conclusion is not convincing.”[45]
Terminated officially
Maitian’s Man-made Han Han was officially refuted on the same day when it was posted on his microblog on qq.com[45]. (The rumor stamp was added by me.)
72 minutes past the midnight of Jan. 15, Mr. Ma Boyong (马伯庸, real name Ma Li, 马力), a well-known novelist, posted a lengthy article entitled From Man-made Han Han to See the Construction of Conspiracy Theory[46]. The article demonstrated, logically, how Maitian diligently and deliberately tried to prove his point – Han Han is a faker – by using misleading and malicious tactics.
On the next day and the day after, several internet users, including Han Han’s biographer, demonstrated that Maitian’s evidence were either misrepresented or fabricated[47, 48,49]. The most damaging blow to Maitian’s “fraud busting,” however, came from Mr. Li Qigang, who issued a statement on Jan. 17, 2012, saying that he didn’t know the fact that Mr. Han Renjun went to East China Normal University until he read Maitian’s article[50].
The “fraud buster” was busted
Maitian’s Man-made Han Han was refuted by mountains of evidence in two days after its publication. Maitian has never rebutted these articles. Please note that each of above microblog message was accompanied by a “long microblog,” which is an image file contains normally a full-length article. To illustrate the actual capacities of these long microblogs, I reposted their entire contents to the right of these icons, after reducing the size of the characters to fit in the spaces. From top to bottom: 1. The screenshot of the post by Mr. Ma Boyong, who exposed the framing tactic Maitian used against Han Han[46]; 2. The screenshot of the post by an internet user who calls himself Ouyang Mengzhou, who pointed out the factual errors Maitian made when he alleged that Han Han had conflicted schedules as a blog writer and race car driver[47]; 3. The screenshot of the post by Mr. Wang Fan, a biographer of Han Han’s, refuting Maitian’s revised conflicted schedule theory[48]; 4. The screenshot of another post by Ouyang Mengzhou, refuting Maitian’s “a hundred rigorous arguments with one oversight” self-defense[49]; 5. The screenshot of Mr. Li Qigang’s statement denying that he personally knew Han Han’s father Han Renjun[50].
In the midnight of Jan. 18, 2012, Maitian issued an apology to Han Han, his father Han Renjuan, and Mr. Li Qigang, and took full responsibility for the questioning. He stopped short of admitting any wrongdoings. Han Han accepted Maitian’s apology immediately[51, 52]. Everyone thought the game was over, and it turned out that it was merely the end of beginning of the Hanly War.
An 83-hour farce: From Superciliousness to Deference
Upper: In the noon of Jan. 15, 2012, Maitian posted Man-made Han Han: A Farce about “Citizen” on his blog on sina.com, which generated an earthquake on Chinese internet and in news media;
Lower: in the midnight of Jan. 18, 2012, Maitian apologized to Han Han, his father Han Renjun, and Mr. Li Qigang. He would re-join in the Hanly War in about two weeks.
2. Multiple Missteps: Han Han’s Responses
According to Mr. Lu Jinbo, Han Han’s publisher and a personal friend, when Maitian tried to fix him as one of Han Han’s ghost writers in late 2011, Han Han simply told him the following:
“There is no way I can prove [my innocence]. Even if I write two articles in front of them, they would still say that I have memorized them and write them down from memorization. When I made a debut, someone even said that my books were written by my father. Let’s not explain, it will be over in two years.”[53]
It would have been a smart move had Han Han stuck to the strategy. However, in the early morning of Jan. 16, 2012, hours after Maitian dropped the internet bomb, Han Han posted his first response to the allegation, entitled A Little Brocken Essay, which did everything Maitian had hoped for: it was poorly written, as admitted by Han Han himself, suggesting that Han Han indeed couldn’t write; and it offered a twenty-million Yuan reward for anyone who could prove that his writings were ghostwritten, or identify a member of his ghost team[54]. One the same day, Ms. Fan Bingbing, one of the most celebrated actresses in China, added another twenty-million to the reward[55]. Maitian’s allegation became national news overnight, and Fang Zhouzi, who has been seeking the spotlight all of his adult life, smelt the blood like a shark in the ocean.
An internet carnival
On Jan. 16, 2012, Mr. Han Han offered a 20-million Yuan reward for evidence of his using ghostwriters. Actress Fan Bingbing soon added another 20-million Yuan to the reward. Thus the Hanly War had essentially all the ingredients for an internet carnival: a successful and handsome writer, a celebrated and pretty actress, a shitload of money, and millions of crazy fans and naysayers. The above is the screenshot of Ms. Fan’s announcement on weibo.com, to the left is the image of Han’s book, Youth. The images of Mr. Han and Ms. Fan are added by me.
In the afternoon of Jan. 18, 2012, after Fang Zhouzi joined Maitian and fired his triple bullets at him, Han Han posted his second response to the ghostwriting allegation, and this time, Han Han not only made Fang the major character of the drama, he also gave Fang several reasons to attack him. After answering every doubt raised by Fang, Han Han wrote:
“As for Mr. Fang Zhouzi, I specially made a phone call to Old Luo, asking if Fang Zhouzi is a team, or if other people do things for him, otherwise how could he have the energy to do research on every academic discipline and verify the facts in every category. Mr. Luo Yonghao’s answer was like this: Fang Zhouzi, as stubborn as he is, should be indeed a single individual; by sitting in front of a computer, he is able to search many papers and data, and then processing them for a day or so; the things he has done on science popularization are basically reliable. However, I have every reason to question that you Fang Zhouzi has a [ghost] team, because that your span [of areas] is too wide, your workload is too large, your sources of data are too broad, [your] responses are too fast, they do not like things which could be done by an individual in his forties.”[56]
As mentioned above and before, Mr. Luo is one of Fang’s most hated enemies, so any person who befriends with him would automatically become Fang’s personal enemy, except for that fake doctor Albert Yuan[36]. Also, it is an open secret that Fang has a well-organized and extremely loyal team, i. e. the Fangansters, although Fang keeps telling Chinese public that he “fights [against frauds] alone”[57]. Therefore, if anything, Han Han’s second response made himself Fang’s personal enemy.
In the midnight of Jan. 18, 2012, minutes after Maitian apologized and deleted his accusatory posts, Han Han victoriously posted his third response to the incident, entitled A Supernormal Essay:
“Seven hours after I posted A Normal Essay, Maitian published his apology letter. I accept his apology. Meanwhile, I am relatively worried about Teacher Fang Zhouzi. Because after Teacher Fang Zhouzi took the stage and sang a few sentences, and was about to hit the high notes, the [karaoke] music was switched. I wish Fang Zhouzi could walk out [of the awkwardness] as soon as possible. Happy New Year to everyone.”[58]
It is known to almost everyone in China that Fang’s biggest asset is his thick skin: he would always appear as a victor even if he had just been defeated disastrously; and his followers do believe, at least appear to believe, that Fang is invincible. Therefore, Han Han’s self-congratulation basically left no room for Fang to retreat. He had to fight on.
3. Calculated Moves: Fang Zhouzi’s Mincing Entrance into the War
On the day when Maitian posted his Man-made Han Han, Mr. Wang Zhi’an, Fang’s closest follower in CCTV at the time, made the following comment:
“Fang Zhouzi overlooked this case, so Maitian took the lead.”[59]
By that, Mr. Wang meant that Fang missed a golden opportunity to be the first one to catch the biggest fish in China. As a matter of fact, one and half months earlier, Mr. Wang made a list of potential targets for Fang’s attack, and he put Han Han on the top of that list[60]. No wonder he accepted the title of the Chief of the Strategic Instigation Bureau[61]. So, how did Fang respond to Chief Wang’s regret? He said:
“I don’t have a tiny bit of interest in Han Han, unless he also bullies my family members.”[62]
Of course Fang was lying when he wrote the above. Based on what he did before and after, and at that very moment - reposting Maitian’s Man-made Han Han -, Fang has tremendous amount of interest in Han Han. Mr. Lin Chufang, Fang’s journalist friend who also knows Han Han very well, detected the overtone in Fang’s post, and his comment was:
“Fang Zhouzi’s this reply is really informative.”[63]
So, why did Fang pretend to be not interested in Han Han? The answer is in Chief Wang’s regret: because that Maitian had already grabbed the flag of the anti-Han Han campaign, so by saying that he had no interest in Han Han, Fang was downplaying his loss of the opportunity, very much like the grape-coveting fox saying that the grapes are sour. Also, by publicly expressing his “no-interest,” Fang was suggesting and encouraging his followers to beg him to come out to lead the campaign, an old trick used repeatedly by the usurpers in China’s history (the so called “quàn jìn,” 劝进). That’s why Fang kept showing his disinterest in Han Han on the next day, and the day after, by replying to the suggestions that he should join in:
“I have no interest in Han Han, just like I have no interest in Li Yuchun.”[64] (Note: Li Yuchun is a female singer famous for her neutral characteristics.)
“Let Han Han show us the bank statement of 20 million frozen deposit first, then I might have some interest.”[65]
Interestingly interested in showing his no-interest
From Jan. 15 to 17, 2012, Fang publicly expressed his no-interest in Han Han for 3 consecutive days, every day[62, 64, 65], and on the fourth day, he launched a sudden attack on Han Han, which continues till this day.
10 months later, when the Hanly War was nothing but dead, Fang initiated an internal fight among the Han-haters for the only reason of seizing the “big flag,” or its leadership. If you have ever wondered where the “ex-Fang-lovers” came from, that fight was one of the major sources. That’s how much interest Fang had in Han Han.
There was another reason for Fang’s hesitation to jump into the action: because he knew almost nothing about Han Han. So by saying that he had no interest in Han Han, Fang was actually buying him times to cram himself, basically by stealing from others, a tactic he would be using in the entire duration of the Hanly War.
However, it was the second half of the sentence which was more revealing, or “really informative” in Mr. Lin’s words. At that time, many people were puzzled by Fang’s saying[66], wondering why he would want to bring his “family members” into the matter, because, first of all, none of those who had been attacked by him, except for Mr. Luo Yonghao, had “bullied” his family members; and secondly, to those people who had indeed “bullied” his family member, i. e. those who dug up Liu Juhua’s plagiarism scandal in March and April, 2011, Fang hadn’t, and still hasn’t, done anything yet. So, why did he want to throw his family at Han Han?
Ever since being hit by a hammer in August 2010, Fang had found out that his “family members,” namely his wife Liu Juhua and his kindergarten daughter, are his most versatile weapon for his fraudulent fraud fighting (the story will be told later). Therefore, Fang would use his “family members” as a weapon whenever he had an opportunity. As a matter of fact, he would deliberately create opportunities so that he could use them, such as the above post. Generally speaking, Fang’s family members could be used in the following ways: to play victim by crying wolf; to solicit donations by crying poor; to pretend to be a hero by pretending to protect them; and to cover up his own scandal by hyping his wife Liu Juhua’s.
However, on Jan. 15, 2012, Fang had a specific reason to bring out his family members. As mentioned above, just before being fully involved in the Hanly War, Fang was engaged in a fierce fight against Mr. Luo Yonghao, and Mr. Luo was using the plagiarism scandal committed by Fang’s wife to ward off Fang’s ferocious blows. So, on Dec. 29, 2011, Fang issued a life threat to the entire world:
“I don’t fight with pigs, I kill them. Those pigs who are still trying to push my wife with their snouts after I issued a stern warning deserve even more to be killed. Even though it will cost my whole life to kill these pigs, even though my whole body will be spattered in their blood [, I’ll still do it].”[67]
A murderous threat
On Dec. 29, 2011, the fraudulent fraud fighter Fang swore that he would kill anybody who dares to discuss his wife’s plagiarism.
Four days after issuing the threat, Fang started to attack Mr. Luo’s English training school, saying that Mr. Luo was using an entity of public welfare in nature to make personal monetary gain, which, according to Fang, is illegal[68]. Among those who criticized Fang for his personal revenge in the name of fraud busting was Mr. Lu Jinbo, Han Han’s publisher. Here is Mr. Lu’s comment:
“Fang’s mind is in chaos, his gate is wide open.……What a pity for an old hero for more than ten years!”[69]
Fang’s response was almost instantaneous:
“If ‘the old hero for more than ten years’ frees his hands to teach a guy with a partial attitude like you, he is still as competent as he was more than ten years ago.”[70]
Two days later, when Mr. Lu posted an article to respond, sort of, Maitian’s attacks on Han Han, he mentioned the above episode, and gave Fang several suggestions, one of them was to have a daughter[71], by that he obviously meant that Fang’s ruthlessness and cold-bloodedness could be warmed and softened by a daughter. Sounds like a kind advice, right? Not so to Fang. According to Fang’s theory and practice, what Lu said had already constituted “bullying my family member.” And because of the close relationship between Lu and Han Han, the latter was already implicated.
Sure enough, in the morning of Jan. 18, 2012, after Maitian’s major arguments had been all falsified, Fang launched a sudden attack on Han Han. And after Han Han revealed that he had asked Luo Yonghao about Fang Zhouzi in his A Normal Essay hours later, Fang immediately seized that story as his excuse for his attacking Han Han (see below). The fact is, had the story not been told by Han Han, Fang would still attack him, using the excuse of his relationship with Mr. Lu. In other words, Mr. Han Han was doomed.
It is funny that just a little more than a year before the start of the Hanly War, Mr. Lu gave Fang a lavish eulogy:
“I like Fang Zhouzi very much. He is a Don Quixote-like fighter. As far as his fights which I have observed are concerned, I support them all. I’m even willing to trust him blindly. Ten years ago, when I was an internet write, I had written articles ‘teasing’ him. However, today, from here, I am saluting Mr. Fang. If there are ten thousand Fang Zhouzis who ask one hundred thousand whys, our era will certainly be more trustworthy.”[72]
A grand salute to Fang Zhouzi by Mr. Lu Jinbo, an ex-Fang-lover
Day One: The Triple Shots
After pretentiously showing his no-interest in Han Han for three consecutive days, and after every major argument or “evidence,” presented by Maitian to demonstrate that writer Han Han and public intellectual Han Han was artificially manufactured, had been destroyed, Fang launched a sudden attack on Han Han in the morning of Jan. 18, 2012. I have already answered the question why did Fang want to attack Han Han, so in the following I will just show you how did he do it.
1. The First Shot: Stealing from Zatoichi
(1) The Precedents
On Jan. 18, 2012, Fang started his day on weibo.com at 9:21 AM by reposting a message from one of his followers, saying that Fang had smashed Luo Yonghao decidedly. Fang’s comment on it: “It is a long term war, you guys be patient”[73]. As mentioned above, declaring victory is Fang’s surest way to win a fight, and no matter how miserably he has just been beaten up, he will always claims himself as the winner.
At 9:49 AM, Fang posted his second message of the day, advertising for a TV program developed by his buddy Fang Xuanchang, starred by himself, and produced by Shanghai TV Station[74]. The funny thing is, exactly 16 months earlier, Fang had vowed that he would never appear in a program produced by Shanghai TV Station, because he was badly humiliated in one of its programs back in 2007[75].
Self-slap
On Sept. 18, 2010, Fang said that he had not appeared since 2007, and would never appear in a program produced by Shanghai TV Station. 16 months later, minutes before showing his strong interest in Han Han after repeatedly saying he had no interest in Han Han, Fang bragged on his microblog that he had just starred in a program produced by Shanghai TV station.
(2) The Shot
Then, at 10:15 AM, Fang posted his third message of the day:
“In his article questioning Han Han, Maitian mentioned that Han Han admitted in his ‘The Middle-aged Gifted Boy Got Stuck in the Door,’ published in his blog in April, 2007, that some of his friends knew the password of his blog, and they had modified his articles for him. I was curious and wanted to take a look at the article, however, I couldn’t find it in Han Han’s blog, because Han Han has deleted all of his blog articles published in the nine-month period between Dec. 13, 2006 and Sept. 18, 2007. Offering a heavy monetary reward [for evidence] on one hand, and destroying the evidence at the same time on the other, it makes people think that the offering contains no sincerity.”[76]
Fang’s first shot in the Hanly War
The post has been hailed by Fang-lovers and Han-haters as Fang’s first shot in the Hanly War. Here are some of the posts by these people cheering for Fang’s declaring war on Han Han:
“A long time ago, Fang Zhouzi pounded historian Yu Ying-shih in the area of historical textual research, and Yu was humiliated badly. This time, he conducts textual research on Han Han, it will be a great show again!”[77]
“Sure enough, something is fishy! Fang Zhouzi is really awesome; a causal punch hits the fatal spot!”[78]
“Han-lovers, organize your team quickly; Fang-haters, assemble vixens fast; fire at Fang Zhouzi! ──[Otherwise,] when Fang Zhouzi’s interest is ignited, your genius Han Junior’s pants will be down to his heels!”[79]
The author of the last two posts was a major figure in the Hanly War, dubbed one of the Ten Marshals[80], and apparently for that reason, he got to know Fang personally. However, in less than a year he would become one of the fiercest Fang-haters, calling Fang a “mad dog”[81], and a “hierarch” with a “split personality”[82].
Clapping and cheering
The above is the screenshot of two comments made by a frantic Han-hater/Fang-lover acclaimed Fang’s first shot at Han Han[78, 79].
The question is: Did Fang really hit the fatal spot?
(3) The Mystery
In less than 5 minutes after Fang fired his first shot at Han Han, there were about two dozen internet users who told him that these articles were deleted by Han Han a long time ago, in 2008 to be exact, after they were published in a book, and more than three years before Maitian made his allegation[83]. Therefore the deletion is neither “destroying the evidence” nor “at the same time” when the reward was offered.
The fact is, Maitian had never mentioned Han Han’s “The Middle-aged Gifted Boy Got Stuck in the Door” in any of his anti-Han articles[84]. What he said, only once, in The Fake Han Han which was posted online on Jan. 5, 2012, was the following:
“In about October 2007, Han Han provoked Zheng Jun, and the two engaged in a fight. Something strange happened during the fight: in the afternoon of that day, Zheng Jun posted two articles in response to Han Han; however, in the morning of that day, Han Han said on his blog that ‘Zheng Jun posted two eccentric articles.’ The loophole was noticed by some people, and they wondered whether Han Han possesses the ability of knowing the future. How could he predict in the morning that in the afternoon Zheng Jun would post two retaliatory articles?
“Facing the awkward situation, Han Han explained that he wrote the article in advance and saved it in the draft box [of the blog], and when he saw Zheng Jun’s articles in the afternoon, he told [one of] his friends the password of his blog, and the friend helped him with a few corrections, and made the article public, ‘the only thing I didn’t predict right was where he made the corrections.’ Isn’t that Han Han’s explanation illustrates exactly the fact that Han Han’s ‘friends’ are able to login Han Han’s blog, correct his articles, and post these articles without letting Han Han know how the articles have been modified?”[85]
Another fact is, in The Middle-aged Gifted Boy Got Stuck in the Door, which contains 2,525 Chinese characters, Han Han never mentioned the above story. The story was told by Han Han in a later article, The Self-Revisionism of Getting Stuck in the Door[86]. Also, both articles, like Han Han’s other articles, as well as his books, were, and still are, widely available on the internet, a fact Fang, a self-claimed “a pioneer in the Chinese Internet”[13], and a “netizen” who has been living on the internet since 1993, should, and must, have been aware of.
So, how could Fang make these simple factual errors in a microblog post containing only 129 characters? And yet, as ignorant of Han Han as he was, Fang was able to correct a mistake made by Maitian, “in about October 2007,” to “in April 2007”!
(4) The Truth
Ten hours before Fang fired his first shot, an internet user with a web ID Zatoichi （座頭市）posted an article on tianya.cn, one of the most popular gossip websites in China. The article was entitled Could Han Han’s 20 Million Be Claimed This Way?[87], which contains five paragraphs, plus a reference list and a screenshot of Han Han blog. Briefly, that Zatoichi, inspired by both Maitian’s “discovery” described above, and Han Han’s 20-million reward, checked Han Han’s blog on sina.com and found a nine-month blank period. Here are his first two paragraphs:
“Today I found a weird phenomenon: the articles published in the nine months between 2006-12-12 and 2007-09-19 in Han Han’s blog on sina.com disappeared completely[1], and the period was exactly when Han Han was fighting against Zheng Jun which was mentioned in Maitian’s blog article The Fake Han Han[2]. (Maitian mistakenly wrote in October 2007, it was actually in April 2007.) It is really abnormal for a person like Han Han who writes continuously and is full of energy. Is there something fishy? Read on.
“Because Han Han made a ‘building a chastity torii after becoming a whore’ comment on Zheng Jun’s performance in a show, Zheng Jun published two articles, ‘Please Don’t Consider Yourself the Lu Xun Who Is Able to Drive’[3] at 2007-04-11 14:57:40, and ‘Thought the Matter Over, It Is Really Too Pointless, Really a Waste of Life’[4] at 2007-04-11 17:09:40. So the date was April 11, 2007. On that day, Han Han’s blog on sina.com was blank. Although Han Han has deleted the article, it could still be found on the internet, entitled ‘The Middle-aged Gifted Boy Got Stuck in the Door,’ the website address: [www.douban.com][5].”[88]
Have you got it? Fang didn’t read Maitian’s article at all, all he did was reading the article by that Zatoichi. And because he knew nothing about Han Han, plus his unimaginable inferior Chinese reading comprehension skill, he thought that Han Han revealed his secret in the article he wrote before his opponent had responded.
The source of Fang Zhouzi’s stolen first shot
The above is the screenshot of an article posted on tianya.cn at 00:32 on Jan. 18, 2012, by an internet user who calls himself Zatoichi. In less than 10 hours, it would be stolen by Fang Zhouzi who used it as his first shot at Han Han. The words with red underlines were the key components of Fang’s first shot.
The fact is, in less than an hour after posting his article, that Zatoichi posted Han Han’s The Self-Revisionism of Getting Stuck in the Door in the same thread, saying that it is “the article containing Han Han’s confession of ghostwriting”[89]. Had Fang read either one of Han Han’s articles, or just comprehended Zatoichi’s article correctly, he would have avoided the stupid mistakes he made in the post. In other words, the fraudulent fraud fight Fang is not only extremely fraudulent; he is also extremely incompetent and extremely lazy.
(5) A Dumb Thief
The funny thing is, to hide the source of his stealing, Fang tried to be smart by deliberately manufacturing a “difference in the details,” an excuse and tactic Fang uses frequently to hide and defend his plagiarisms. What he did was to shrink the brackets flanking the time period, from which the articles were missing from Han Han’s blog, inwardly by one day each, saying that the nine-month period started from Dec. 13, 2006, and ended on Sept. 18, 2007, instead of Dec. 12, 2006 and Sept. 19, 2007, respectively, as that Zatoichi pointed out (see the images below).
Evidence of stealing
Upper: The magnified image of Zatoichi’s screenshot of the content page of Han Han’s blog, showing that no articles were published in the nine-month period between Dec. 12, 2006 and Sept. 19, 2007. The red Chinese characters read: “the nine months in between were deleted.” (Please note that the original image was a full-screen shot as shown in the image above.)
Lower: The image Fang attached to his microblog post to substantiate his accusation. Based on the click numbers of the articles listed in the images (the numbers on the right side of the slashes in the parentheses), Fang’s screenshot must have been taken after Zatoichi’s. To hide the fact that the entire content of his post was stolen from Zatoichi’s article, Fang stated that the nine-month period started from Dec. 13, 2006, and ended on Sept. 18, 2007, while there was no reason or proof to support his claim.
The fact is, for Fang’s claim to be valid, two conditions have to be met: 1. Han Han published only one article each on Dec. 12, 2006 and Sept. 19, 2007; and 2. Han Han did published at least one article each on Dec. 13, 2006, and Sept. 18, 2007. However, neither of these conditions could be verified, therefore, Fang’s deliberation did nothing but demonstrate that his entire post, from materials to ideas, was stolen from Zatoichi’s article.
It needs to be pointed out that Maitian must have known Fang’s mistakes in his first shot, and he might also have noticed Fang’s stealing[90]. However, he chose to remain silent on the issue, meanwhile, he continued to instigate other people to attack Han Han.
2. The Second Shot: Stealing from Pelliot
The fact is, Zatoichi’s “discovery” was also discovered by another internet user with a web ID Nan Yunlou (南云楼, Southern Cloud Tower), and after having done some “original research,” that Nan Yunlou posted his article at 7:22 AM on Jan. 18, 2012, 173 minutes before Fang’s first shot[91]. The strange thing is, the number of Nan Yunlou’s followers on weibo.com was less than 1% of Fang’s (as of June 21, 2014, Nan Yunlou has 13,158 followers, while Fang had more than 1.7 million followers in January 2012); however, his article was twice as influential as Fang’s: it was forwarded more than 10,000 times, and generated more than 5,000 comments, while the corresponding numbers of Fang’s post were about 4,800 and 3,600, respectively. If you know Fang well, you’ll know that these numbers hurt him very much: his long-awaited first shot looked like a misfire. To save his face, Fang actually made a comment on Nan Yunlou’s article, implying that he had much more ammunition against Han Han than he had just revealed:
“You are really too impatient, revealing the secret even before seeing the evidence of the frozen deposit of the 40 million. Further, you want to donate the 40 million to Yu Jianrong, it is equivalent to put the money in a tiger’s mouth.”[92]
So, what else did Fang have?
63 minutes after firing his first shot at Han Han, Fang Zhouzi fired his second one:
“Following the link in Maitain’s article, I read Han Han’s work from which Han Han got his fame, Glimpsing Human’s Nature through a Cup of Water, in which even a Latin word was used: ‘In Latin there is a word “Corpusdelieti,” the explanation is ‘body, flesh’ and ‘condition of crime,’ thus it shows that the Romans had realized long ago that body is the condition of crime.’ The Latin word was misspelt, it should be Corpus delicti; it was also misinterpreted, the original meaning is the evidence of a crime, Corpus means virtual body (body of evidence), has nothing to do with flesh.”[93]
It seems that the American Ph. D. Fang Zhouzi is really much more knowledgeable than the Chinese high school dropout Han Han, right? Wrong. The misspelling was first pointed out by Maitian in his Man-made Han Han:
“In Glimpsing Human’s Nature through a Cup of Water, which made Han Han famous overnight, [Han Han] demonstrated his points by quoting copiously from many sources, citing the classics and using allusions. The writing was very skillful, and in the end even Latin appeared. To a 17-year-old boy who had not even mastered his English, it is unlikely that the writing was a live performance. (What relatively funny is that the Latin word used to show off his knowledgeability is in fact misspelt.)”[94]
Furthermore, about 6 hours before Fang shot his second bullet, at 5:26:55 on Jan. 18, 2012, an internet user who calls himself Pelliot posted an article on kdnet.net, another website very much like tianya.cn, entitled Han Han’s Latin Word corpusdelieti, in which he wrote:
“Maitian mentioned the Latin word Han Han used in his Glimpsing Human’s Nature through a Cup of Water, that word is corpus delicti, not corpusdelieti. First of all, it is a phrase consists of two words, equivalent to ‘corpus of delictum’ (body of crime), delicti is the singular possessive form of delictum. Secondly, it is delicti, not delieti, c was mistaken as e.
“There are two possibilities: one, Han Han read [the phrase] from a magazine or a book, the editor [of the magazine or book] didn’t know Latin, made the mistake during typesetting. Han Han didn’t know Latin either, so he memorized the wrong spelling. Two, what he wrote was correct, however, his handwriting was illegible, the two words were too close to each other, therefore the examiners mistook them as one word; and the c, which resembles e, was mistaken too.
“Han Han’s interpretation of the meaning is not right either. The original meaning of the word corpus (body) is body, flesh, however, in the phrase, it means the ‘body’ of crime (content entity). As far as I know, corpus delicti doesn’t have the dual meanings of body and crime condition. Corpus can be used to refer body, but corpus delicti can’t. Also, corpus delicti means the entity of a crime (fact, evidence, so called evidence or proof), not the condition of a crime.”[95]
And the above analysis and explanation would be selectively stolen by Fang in less than 6 hours.
Fang’s second shot at Han Han was stolen from Pelliot
Upper panel: the screenshot of a portion of Pelliot’s post[95]; lower panel: the screenshot of Fang’s second attack on Han Han[93]. Please note the times when the two posts were made public (red underlines.)
Although the above evidence is more than enough for Fang to convict any person of plagiarism, it is certainly not enough for a Fang Expert to convict Fang, not only because we have much higher standard, but also because Fang will never admit his guilt that easily. So, are there more evidences? Absolutely!
First of all, as having been revealed and to be revealed soon, Fang’s ultimate purpose to fire his shots at Han Han was to demonstrate that all or most of Han Han’s writings were ghostwritten. However, his second shot was to demonstrate Han Han’s stupidity and ignorance. Had he succeeded, it would have demonstrated that the award-winning essay was indeed written by the idiotic high school dropout Han Han, rather than by his omnipotent writer father. Why would Fang want to do that? The only reasonable explanation is that a habitual thief and pretentious imposter found something he liked, so he stole it and flaunted it as his own to show his superiority over both Maitian and Han Han.
Indeed, when Han Han fought back a few hours later, blaming Fang for doubting his ability to write a Latin phrase, Fang vehemently and repeatedly denied the charge, saying that he didn't have such an intention in the post[96]. Although Fang lies all the time, in this particular case, Han Han indeed wronged him. It would take Fang several days to realize that he should have used the case for his real purpose.
Secondly, that Pelliot claimed that he knows Latin[97], and it seems that he indeed does. However, in the post, he somehow misused an English term, “evidence,” which led to Fang’s misunderstanding of the Latin phrase. According to Wikipedia:
“Corpus delicti ……is a term from Western jurisprudence referring to the principle that a crime must have been proven to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime. ……Black's Law Dictionary (6th ed.) defines ‘corpus delicti’ as: ‘the fact of a crime having been actually committed.’”[98]
Obviously, Fang Zhouzi confused “the evidence of a crime” (such as a knife) with “the fact of a crime” (such as a man was beheaded), and besides that Pelliot, where could his confusion come from?
The fact is, Fang’s misbelief that Mr. Han Han had misinterpreted the Latin was also misled by Pelliot’s statement that “corpus delicti doesn’t have the dual meanings of body and crime condition.”
In 1848, German poet Georg Weerth (1822-1856) published a poem, Ich wollt, ich wär Polizeiminister, in which the phrase “corpus delicti” was used to mean human’s body:
“Ja, staatsgefährlicher als Rebelln/ Ist – Oh, ins Gefängnis schickt sie! –/ Eine einzige kleine Frau mit ihrem/ Süßen Corpus delicti.”[99]
When the above poem was translated into Chinese, the phrase “Corpus delicti” was translated into “sinful flesh” (罪孽的肉体), and the translator noted:
“The original word was Latin ‘Corpusdelieti,’ the legal meaning of the term is crime elements, however, Corpus also means ‘body,’ and here it was used as a pun.”[100]
Han Han’s possible Latin teacher
In 1985, Beijing Press published a book entitled Analyses of the Selected Lyrics by Famous European Poets, in which Georg Weerth’s Ich wollt, ich wär Polizeiminister was selected and analyzed. In the book, “Corpus delicti” was misspelt as “Corpusdelieti,” but the note on the phrase, used as a pun, was correct.
The fact is, not only did Georg Weerth use Corpus delicti to mean human’s body, Karl Marx did so too: in his private letters, Karl Marx repeatedly used the term to refer his own body[101].
The meaning of Corpus delicti according to the great proletarian revolutionary teacher Karl Marx
(See [101] for citations.)
In other words, the phrase corpus delicti does have dual meanings, and the best-known American Ph. D. in China is indeed more ignorant, and stupider, than the best-known Chinese high school dropout.
So, Han Han must have gotten his Latin word(s) from one of these books, as that Pelliot had predicted; and Han Han did admit that when he was in high school, he had a notebook containing many things which he thought he could cite in his articles to impress his readers[102]. Fang, when the above evidence was presented to him, also admitted that that must have been the case[103, 104]. However, even though many people had pointed out, right under his nose[105], that he had made a mistake when he said “Corpus means virtual body (body of evidence), has nothing to do with flesh,” Fang kept shamelessly saying that he “corrected the misspelling and misinterpretation” made by Han Han[96]. Furthermore, he has been insisting, till today, that Mr. Han’s Latin word is the evidence for his cheating in the New Concept Writing Competition[106].
【For the rest part, please download the PDF file】
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