About that term they call zh. I looked it up and it seems the chinese word for traitor is actually different? 🤔 Is there a difference between han jian and that? Feel free to ignore if it's a silly question 😅
Yep the general word for traitor/turncoat is "Pan Tu" 叛徒. The term they use for ZH is "Han Jian" 汉奸 which can also be translated as traitor, but has a heavier connotation and a more specific meaning. "Han" 汉 as in the Han ethnicity, and "Jian" 奸 which can mean traitor or illicit liaison, so someone who "lays with the enemy". A more literal translation is "traitor to the Han race".
Calling someone a traitor in english may sound almost cartoonishly evil, but the term hanjian is probably the most politically disastrous title for a Chinese citizen. If you are recognized as such by enough people, you may get excluded from communities and face severe harassment, and those threats almost always extends to family & people known to be close to you. Modern usage of the word is mainly rooted in the crackdown of collaborators to Japanese forces during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, but it's an old concept. It was used by people against each other during the Opium Wars, and it dates as far back as the 13th century, used by Hans of the Song dynasty to call those who sold out fellow Han people to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty. It's a very heavy label to slap on someone, and calling someone a Hanjian is akin to accusing them of treason, and in the times of the Cultural Revolution, it can mean full ostracization, that extend to sons and daughters, if not death.
It's often used as a way to unite people under a single banner by "othering" a select few. And a lot of people, especially ones who lived through the Cultural Revolution, know how effective it is in turning the masses against a person and how powerful it is as a tool to destroy someone with. Even the Red Brigade differentiated the Pantu from the "more sinister" Hanjians during their purging. There are probably some dissertations out there that go through the long history of the term that can better express how heavy it is. It's a word that you can almost feel.
That's why it was shocking that during August, everyone outside the fandom seemed to agree that ZZH deserved what was happening, and some even celebrating it, even though it was his life and possibly his whole future, that was being destroyed in real time. I read many posts saying he deserved it for being a "Japanophile" simply because he loves anime? As if billions of Chinese didn't grow up loving Japanese anime and still love Japanese anime to this day? The internet (well, weibo) went nuts when Ultraman was temporarily pulled.
All those sanctimonious essays from offended "Chinese diaspora" lecturing everyone about how problematic his sakura pictures were, and how everyone else was stupid or insensitive for thinking that the punishment grossly exceeded the "crime". It's disgusting how they justified that horrific witchhunt all because they wanted to be woke, sanctimonious wankers on social media. And it's funny how your opinion was only valid as a Chinese when you were condemning him, but if you were on his side you were suddenly not Chinese enough. And if they know SO much about Chinese culture then surely they know what kind label hanjian is? What it would mean for ZZH to have such a damning epithet hung around his neck?
For me I just know it as a word not to be thrown around lightly, but for older people it invokes a stronger reaction. It was brought up when I was over at my friend's house a few days before and we talked to her uncle about it, how ZZH had taken pictures in front of sakura trees within the Yasukuni compound and then he was called a Hanjian, and his reaction was "Who wants to kill him?"
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