Rom7:15

This post should’ve happened several hours ago. However, I grew apathetic almost as soon as the idea snuck into my head.

According to my Chinese Lit professor, the people of China experienced a sort of awakening in the early 20^th century called the May Fourth Movement. During this time, China existed as a politically fragmented country under the control of various warlords. Simultaneously, several countries held a sort of economic monopoly on certain regions in China, dubbed the “spheres of influence.” Before World War I, Germany possessed a specific sphere of influence over present-day Shandong Province. After the War, however, the Treaty of Versailles transferred the control of this area from Germany to Japan, and China awoke.

On May 4, 1919, students from Peking University gathered at Tianenmen Square to protest the Treaty, effectively launching a social, cultural, political revolution called the May Fourth Movement. A publication called the New Youth Journal pioneered the spread of ideas and perspectives that would eventually characterize modern Chinese literature.

The purpose of modern Chinese literature was not to entertain.

It was to save China.

A congregation of intellectuals began to see the fictional short story as a freedom of sorts, a method for liberating the minds of Chinese citizens drenched in tradition, a pathway to a new type of thinking.

In the beginning, though, few Chinese felt inclined to walk, skip, jump, or even turn towards this new pathway. Most felt that China didn’t need saving.

Reformation leader Liang Qichao compared China to a mansion; vast and ancient and mysterious and beautiful. And crumbling. He compared the residents of the mansion to the citizens of China. Comfortable, sleeping, willing to paint over a crack in the foundation or sweep away an anthill, slow to change and slow to act. Slow, weary, content to crumble. The residents of the mansion needed to wake up.

I keep thinking. I am asleep, I am asleep. I do things that I don’t want to do, and I don’t do the things that I want to do.

This post doesn’t mean much. No, really. It is the feeble attempt of a little girl grabbing her will by its neck’s nape. It is the first whisper of a rebellion against slumber, against apathy. I wanted to write against this lukewarm tiredness that has crept into our lives. And so I did.

I finally did what I wanted to do.

What, in our lives, do we need to wake up for?

What, in our lives, do we need to save?