Blank Signs and the Decline of Language

Everyone has heard about the clever dodges Chinese protesters and online debaters use to avoid words and phrases banned by the government. In the NY Times, Mengyin Lin worries that this is destroying the ability of Chinese people to speak forthrightly about freedom and rights, and that the blank signs held up by protesters may mean that the government is destroying Mandarin as a language of democracy; you can't say anything radical in Mandarin, so you must fall silent.

The demonstrations are best remembered for the blank sheets of paper held by many protesters. It was a clever way to avoid trouble: making a statement without actually saying anything. But to me those empty sheets also visually, and literally, represented how my generation is losing its voice, perhaps even control of its own language.

The Communist Party’s monopoly on all channels of expression has helped prevent the development of any resistance language in Mandarin, especially since 1989, when the brutal military suppression of the Tiananmen Square student movement demonstrated what happens to those who speak out. If language shapes the way we think, and most people think only in their own language, how can China’s youth conjure up an effective and lasting resistance movement with words that they don’t have?

Lin reports that she once tried to write a short story about a sensitive subject: Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist who first warned that a new virus was spreading in Wuhan. But she found that she could not summon the necessary words. Knowing that they would be banned made her unable to write them.

Before his death, Dr. Li reportedly said that “a healthy society should not have just one voice.” But words that go unused, and ideas that are no longer contemplated, face oblivion. The question for my Chinese generation, and those that follow, is not just whether they will make their voices heard, but whether they can find the words.