Character and Sincerity
There was a set of figs sold earlier this year where the fig maker required a handwritten statement in order to purchase them. The statement required was:
本人是龚俊和张哲瀚的粉丝，相信他们的人品和真诚。本人为自留目的购买手办，承诺不拆、不溢价或捆鄉转让。
[my MTL translation]: I am a fan of Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan, and I believe in their character and sincerity. I purchase the figurines for my own use, and I promise not to dismantle it, pay a premium or bundle it for transfer.
I've not going to tell you how long it took me to write this out, nor my utter lack of anything even remotely resembling proper stroke order, as I was literally just trying to replicate the look of the characters. And well, no words are necessary, you can see it in the picture above. All I can say is that my Duolingo / Hello Chinese combo of basic Mandarin did not prepare me for this!
I also smiled as I wrote out Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan's names, because I recalled a challenge question by a different fig maker, asking for the number of strokes in Zhang Zhehan's name, in order to qualify to purchase a Gong Jun figure. The same fig maker asked for the number of strokes in Gong Jun's name, in order to qualify for the purchase of a subsequent Zhehan figure. It's 36 for Zhehan and 20 for Gong Jun, by the way. Let me tell you, I did NOT appreciate all those thirty-six strokes in Zhang Zhehan's name. Nor was the 龚 Gong an easy character for me to write, let me tell you.
But while I was slowly and painfully transcribing these characters, the seller's required statement up on my phone and zoomed in front of me, I was also thinking about what I was actually writing.
I do believe in their character and sincerity. I believe in it so much that here I am, on August 13, 2023, reaffirming my continued love and support of them both. I will continue to support and cheer on Gong Jun, and I will wait patiently for justice to come for Zhang Zhehan.
I will never forget what a terrible, tragic day August 13, 2021 was, and what the unfolding days after that were like. But I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the evil, greedy people behind 8/13 can take Zhehan from us, but they can't make us let him go.
And oh, they have tried. I would not have believed the storms that have come and keep coming for the JZP fandom. So many people want the JZP fans to give up. They want our love and they want our money. Or rather, they want to destroy our love so they can have our money.
Well, they can't have it. What, did they think our love came so easy? The JZP that are left, the Haizhe that are still there and still waiting for Zhehan - we're as tough as they come. The fans that are still here have souls of steel, and no matter how battered or bruised we are, we're staying the course. We believe in Zhang Zhehan's character and sincerity, and we believe in Gong Jun's character and sincerity, and we believe in both their character and sincerity together.
I was there, I lived through it. I saw the devastation on Gong Jun's face after 8/13. I saw how he never unfollowed Zhehan's accounts anywhere, at great personal risk to himself and absolutely no benefit. If he had broken the CP or even just quietly deleted him after 8/13, not a soul would have blamed him. In fact, people would have celebrated and cheered him on, and pointed to his righteousness and the correctness of his priorities. He had absolutely nothing to gain on say, 8/29 by continuing to follow all of Zhehan's accounts, and everything, everything of all his newfound and hard-fought fame to lose. He was one of the few, if not the only celebrity in China on the days after 8/13 who had Zhehan's face and name prominently on his social media. I can't believe there are people that think that kind of loyalty comes cheap.
Sincerity and character is at the bedrock of my belief in why none of the slander and cruel commercialism of Zhehan's hijacked Instagram account can possibly be true. It's not just me that noticed the resurrection of the stolen account has been fundamentally about money. Money money money, wrapped up in "freedom" and "moving on". Look, I'm an American, and while freedom and moving on is literally embedded in our national DNA, guess what else is? Yeah. I can recognize cold hard capitalism when I see it, dressed up in marketing spin. When was Zhehan's character ever about money? When did Zhehan ever sell anyone out (even when they so richly deserved it and had it coming, Director Yu Zheng I'm looking at you)?
In all the personal challenges and tragedies Zhehan had already been through in his life - losing his father, injuring his leg, his girlfriend leaving him, losing his great love of basketball, his career stalling out prior to SHL - did any of that change him in the slightest bit for the worse? Or did it only make him more wiser, and sadder, and more introspective? Didn't it only make him more philosophical, more open, so much so he was able to dive deep into the personal pain of Zhou Zishu and unlock the strength and gentleness of A-Xu?
Was Zhehan so unable to hold on to his own original intention? Was his own character and sincerity some easily mutable thing that he's willing to torpedo for cash? I don't believe so. He sure didn't sound like it in the one audio recording we absolutely know is him, Li Xuezheng's audio recording from Jan 1, 2022. He sounded exactly like the Zhehan we've seen before.
So yeah.
One of the tricks about running a marathon that I learned long ago, if you're just a jogger at heart and not particularly strong or intensely fit, is to walk every water station. Give yourself a break, get some water. Take a bunch of deep breaths, look back and see how far you've come, and gather strength for the road. And water station by water station, you'll finish the race.
So that's what I'm doing on this long arc towards justice. I'm going to water my heart along the way, and refill my strength for the road ahead. I'm going keep collecting my little figs, I'm going to dress up my little baos Junbaobao and Hanbaobao, and I'm going to buy Gong Jun's endorsements and admire his magazines and watch his shows and every single success he achieves is going to feel good. Every little remembrance, every little win, any time we can all link hands and stay strong together gets us one step closer towards justice and vindication.
I'm proud to be a JZP. I couldn't be any prouder of my sisters and brothers in China and across the globe. We're still here.
I am a fan of Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan, and I believe in their character and sincerity.
