I don’t blog about sports, but early this morning my favourite athlete Johnny ‘Hockey’ Gaudreau was knocked off his bicycle and killed along with his younger brother the night before their sister’s wedding. He had just turned 31 years old, married his next door neighbour and had a toddler daughter and a 6 month old son (who were planned to be flower girl and ring bearer at the wedding).
I adored Johnny because he was a such a small streak of lightning in a game full of huge dudes who were regularly a whole foot taller than him. His skills were just fucking phenomenal and he was so exciting to watch. I screamed with joy and cheered him on so loudly I lost my voice on many occasions. He represented his country for International Competitions and is the highest US point scorer.
I could get technical and talk about my favourite goals of his, his stickhandling, dangles, on ice spatial awareness etc but it is all on film for anyone to see, just too much to choose from. Nobody moved like Johnny Hockey.
As a person he was a sweet, kind guy who was universally liked in the sport and beyond. I do not follow celebrities on social media, but on hockey forums there are endless stories of his voracious love of mac and cheese (so much so Kraft put him in a TV ad) and skittles candies that he had a hockey stick covered in them and auctioned for charity.
In interviews he always talked hockey and his family. Whenever asked about new contracts and paycheques he would just shrug and say ‘yeah I bought my dad a boat so we can go fishing’ or ‘I just got a cool new wheelchair lift installed in my holiday home so my cousin can come and spend time with me’, or change the subject and talk about his dog, his wife and kids or The Birds. He was a real gem of a gentleman, modest and always ready to give credit to his team and dad (legendary NJ coach Guy Gaudreau) who motivated Johnny to skate as a toddler by placing skittles candies on the ice for him to fetch.
I’m am so sad for him, his family. This is just a blurb of feels about someone I counted down the days for until I could see them make magic on ice. I wish I could write a good tribute, dammit. Thank you Johnny Hockey.
Hello all you wonderful figthusiasts! Today is the day that I hit 600 fan figs on my spreadsheet total (not all in hand, the vast majority are in some stage of production or transport), and I wanted to take a minute to stop and celebrate what is, by all accounts, an incredible number.
This is less about me (and my perhaps fiscally-questionable use of disposable cash) and more about the fact that more than 600 individual figures of Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan were produced and made solely by fans. That this many actually exist in the world. What this is about, above all other things, is about love, and resilience, and the awe-inspiring, unstoppable combination of both.
I don't normally talk about the current situation with Zhang Zhehan and Chinese entertainment, because this blog is meant to be a little island of happiness and fun for us that love this show, love these two actors, and love seeing cute renditions of them. But 600...well, 600 feels powerful. It feels like something worth talking about.
This fandom has had half of our vibrant, beautiful soul ripped from us in the nastiest, cruelest, most contemptible way possible. This is greed and evil in the most overt form I've seen in the world, and it was horrifying to watch it unfold that August.
As overseas fans, we at least can still see Zhang Zhehan's past works, post videos and photos of him, and freely say his name as much as we want. The Chinese fandom cannot. Zhang Zhehan has been so comprehensively erased from Chinese media that he cannot even use his own name. The fandom can't even search for his name online, his pictures and videos have been removed, and any of the shows or movies that feature him that remains still available has him (literally) scrubbed from the screen.
This is what I see when I search for Zhang Zhehan on Taobao, Weidian, and Xianyu:
The Chinese fans have taken matters into their own hands, and stood up and fought back and refused to forget him. The fig makers, the doll makers, the merch makers - all of these incredibly brave, loyal, and loving fans have gone out there and dedicated thousands and thousands of hours of their own time and their own money to keeping his memory fresh, his work front and center, and his light constantly burning.
They took him from the fans, but they can't make the fans let him go.
Luckily, the fandom still has the other half of it's soul, and continues to celebrate Gong Jun and his accomplishments, and his own fiercely loyal and great heart, and celebrates the love and affection and care these two souls have for each other. Zhehan promised Junjun forever on May 5th, 2021, and the fandom honors and helps keep his promise.
Think about it. Six-hundred-plus fan-created figurines of the two of them. I don't even own all the fan figs - there's absolutely more than this, I'd estimate closer to 700.
There's Wenzhou figs, of course, but random side character in a long ago TV show? Check. Main characters? Check. Appearance(s) on a variety show? Check. Ad campaigns? (Lots of) magazine shoots? Check check. Casual airport outfit? Workout pose? Douyin moment? any number of Weibo posts? Livestream? not just one, not just two, not just three, renditions of childhood photos? Check check check.
And the figs are still coming. I have a whole list of figs in sketch form sitting in my Weidian cart, waiting to be opened for deposits. One after another, fig makers dipping deep into their precious hoards of recorded shows and magazines and photos and videos of Zhehan, designing one fig after another. Every time Junjun wears some fancy new designer outfit, fans are hard at work pairing that look with a complementary one from Zhehan's archive, determined to keep these two front and center in a country where they can't even type Zhehan's name into a search engine without it being censored.
My respect for the Chinese fandom and the fan creators is immense. They have souls of steel. Every time I hold one of these figs in my hand, and marvel at the cleverness and creativity and all the fine little details, I feel the strength of that connection to them, that iron determination, the fierce will to persevere, that pride and joy, and the love that can't be stopped. 坚强 indeed.
Yeah, 600+ figs is a trauma response, no question. For the fan makers and the fan buyers. But it's a response, all right. Today I have 600 and more tiny (giant) shouts of, you can't stop us, we're going to keep loving and celebrating and remembering him no matter what happens.
It's incredible. I don't know why 600 is the number that really hits me - I had thought it would be 500, but I blew past 500 without blinking in a frenzy of late night and early morning fig drops, and then it was Gong Jun's birthday, and a tidal wave of love and figs, and now here I am. I was at 598 yesterday and already today I'm at 612. I'll be at 700 before I know it, with a lot of remainders starting to be released and the Spring Festival coming up.
I have less than 200 fan figs actually at home, and it's ... a lot. My husband asked me a while back, staring at my display shelves, so, what's the end game here? and I just looked at him, and said, I don't know.
I really don't. I have to believe this is totally unprecedented, but then again, what happened to him is totally unprecedented. The only thing I know that if the fans keep making them, I'm going to keep supporting them.
So here's to resistance, and resilience, and love. Here's to the fans staying strong, and here's to Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan. It's going to be a glorious sunrise on the mountaintop when it comes.
[SHL] Zhou Zi Shu 周子舒 and Wen Ke Xing 温客行 name analysis
I know SHL is a small fandom but I feel like it deserves a names analysis post. I love how script writers have incorporated such beautiful, well researched lines of Chinese poetry from different time periods into the drama. The two main characters’ names are assigned couplets which we’ll explore below.
Zhou Zi Shu 周子舒
执子之手，坐看云舒（zhí zǐ zhī shǒu, zuò kàn yún shū）means “holding your hands, sitting and watching the clouds unfurl”.
It derives from two lines of poetry.
The first comes from the 《诗经》 Classic of Poetry, or Shih-ching, dating back to the Zhou 周 Dynasty (coincidence much?): 执子之手，与子偕老 means “holding your hand, growing old beside you”. It was a pledge said by a soldier to his wife whilst he was fighting a seemingly endless war. Nowadays, it is almost always used in a romantic or matrimonial context.
The second part comes from 《小窗幽记》 by Han Dynasty writer Chen Ji Ru 陈继儒: 去留无意，漫随天外云卷云舒 means “to be or not to be needs no hard decision, let nature take its course and the clouds gather and unfurl at will”.
Wen Ke Xing 温客行
天涯孤鸿，无根行客（tiān yá gū hóng, wú gēn xíng kè）means “a solitary swan at the ends of the earth, a drifting wanderer with no roots”.
It also derives from two lines of poetry.
孤鸿 originates from 《咏怀诗》, written in the Three Kingdoms 三国 period by the poet Ruan Ji 阮籍. It means a lone swan, referring to the wild swan geese that formal monogamous pair bonds for many years. A solitary swan is known for its sorrowful cry, and the phrase is often used in poetry to lament one’s loneliness.
The second part comes from 《忆少年·别历下》, written in the Northern Song 北宋 Dynasty by philosopher Chao Bu Zhi 晁补之: 无穷官柳，无情画舸，无根行客 means “endless rows of willow trees by the road side, boats sweeping by heartlessly carrying drifting wanderers with no roots”. It is part of a poem written to depict the poet’s sadness when leaving Li Xia town, lamenting how when he next returns, time would have flown by like a dream, leaving his loved one’s hair to turn white and no more vitality of youth.
Reflections
I can’t help but notice how strongly these two lines of poetry for each character match their personalities. ZZS has seen through the vanities of the world and has accepted whatever will be will be, eventually finding a soulmate he is willing to grow old with. On the other hand WKX hides his real name and motives, coping with loneliness and taking many trials and tribulations to fully trust even his soulmate. He masks his remorse and revenge behind a smiling and confident outer shell, until he slowly finds himself revealing his inner turmoil and vulnerability to ZZS.
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