This piece is just for fun, and is published only in encrypted form on Suixuan. Please do not repost.
When I was little, I actually didn’t have much of an impression of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”; only when I grew up and thought back on it each time did I begin to feel that it held some meaning.
Who is the worst person in this story? Clearly the tailors are bad: they deceived the emperor and his ministers. The ministers, who lied one after another about seeing the clothes in order to save face, are also bad. But the emperor, who deceives himself and others, is probably the worst of all; the tailors and ministers were merely catering to his tastes.
When I grew up, I also thought that the public was bad too; at the very least, upright people ought not to cheer and applaud. If no one echoed the emperor, and when he appeared he were met with a deathly silence and stunned embarrassment, then there would be no need for a child to expose the fraud.
But I never expected that this question would have a “standard answer” — that child — that little child who shouted that the emperor was not wearing any clothes was actually the worst of all, guilty beyond measure, vile in the extreme……
The child’s crimes are simply too numerous to list. Here are ten of them:
1. Dark and prejudiced
There are so many beautiful things in the world, so many people wearing clothes whom you could praise; yet you refuse to praise any of them and focus only on exposing one person who isn’t wearing clothes. You don’t speak of beauty, only go looking for trouble. That is obviously a sign of a dark and twisted mind. Open your eyes and look: after the emperor came to power, haven’t people’s clothes gotten better and better? Aunt Wang next door dressed herself up in a dazzling array of colors today, and you didn’t even glance at her once, only fixating on one person to pick a fight. What’s the point of that?
2. Disrespectful of labor
At any rate, the emperor’s original intention in pursuing beauty was good, and even if the tailors deserve no credit, they still deserve credit for their toil; not to mention how many people worked day and night to prepare for the celebration. Surely they are innocent, aren’t they? Do you know how much sweat the sanitation workers shed so that you could stand on a neat curb and watch the ceremony? How much time the security personnel sacrificed? Not to mention anyone else — just so that you could see more clearly, your own father was just straining himself to lift you up. Don’t you have any sympathy for their hard work? One move from you has made so many people’s efforts go to waste. Are you worthy of the laborers who toil in obscurity?
3. Inopportune
What is a celebration for, anyway? Isn’t it to stimulate cohesion, so that the whole country can be of one mind, united in purpose, and then defeat enemies and build the homeland? Everyone is brimming with enthusiasm, and then you suddenly stand up and sing a different tune — that is completely lacking in judgment, and it disrupts the atmosphere of stability and unity. Must you insist on saying it? Can’t you just endure it for a bit and then speak rationally at a more appropriate time?
4. Disrupting order
At a time like this, singing a different tune — whose responsibility are you trying to pursue? If you bring down the ministers, the country will descend into chaos; do you know how great the losses will be in trying to calm the disorder? What if hostile forces seize the opportunity to overthrow everything, and in the end the country is destroyed and the nation wiped out? Then you will be a sinner for all ages!
5. It should not be made public
Even if the emperor or the ministers have flaws, there are clearly channels through which you can offer your opinions. You should first raise your concerns with your parents, then let your parents report them to the lord; after the lord reviews them, they will naturally be passed on to the next level. So long as your criticism is accurate and is reported through proper procedures, the leadership above will take it seriously and give it active attention. Yet you refuse to use the proper channels and not even take a single step along them; instead you are here spouting off recklessly. Isn’t that deliberately adding to the confusion?
6. Handing the enemy a knife
The reason you don’t go through the proper channels to raise your concerns is obviously that you are not trying to make the country better; your behavior is “handing the enemy a knife.” They spend all day trying in every possible way to destroy our stability and unity, and now, at last, they’ve found a breakthrough. You’ve led the enemy by the hand.
7. Eating the rice while smashing the pot
Whose rice did you grow up eating? Without the emperor’s rule, without everyone uniting their wills and maintaining stability and unity, could you have grown this big? Eating the emperor’s rice and then wanting to smash the emperor’s pot — your intentions are punishable. Could it be that you received funding from foreign forces?!
8. Think about yourself
No one is without fault. Think about yourself: two years ago you were still going out in split-crotch pants; did anyone laugh at you? Instead of spending time criticizing others, you should reflect more on your own problems. Did you slack off on your winter break homework? Did you make mistakes on the midterm exam? You have so many of your own faults; if you don’t even manage your own responsibilities properly, what right do you have to criticize others?
9. If you can do it, you do it
You think the tailors did something wrong, so why don’t you do it yourself? Can you do it well? What the tailors made may not have been perfect, but apart from you, I think most people would be satisfied. Why don’t you make a set of clothes that satisfies everyone? You can’t do it yourself; you rely entirely on your parents to buy your clothes, and you don’t even know how to thread a needle, so what right do you have to criticize the tailors?
10. Can you even understand the grand strategy?
Do you think it is easy to be the chief tailor? Do you think the ministers are all dumber than you? The things you can see through — are they things they don’t know? They are the smartest minds in the country; their methods surely have their own deeper meaning. In the places you don’t understand, there must be more profound considerations. They are playing a grand game of strategy — do you have their strategic vision? You only see the surface and yet arrogantly step forward to stir things up. If you ruin the grand design, can you bear that responsibility?
11. Keep investigating
Besides the obvious problems above, this child certainly has many more issues. Check his homework — maybe he plagiarized. Ask his teacher and deskmate too — maybe he skipped class, damaged school property, or harassed girls. Investigate more carefully, and you may discover that he has an uncle who works abroad or something, who once gave him New Year’s money — case solved! Even if he’s not a spy, he’s still a traitor. At a time like this he jumps out to cause trouble, so he must have ulterior motives and have been plotting for a long time. After causing such a huge commotion, the emperor was still merciful and didn’t have you beaten to death, yet you still won’t show gratitude or apologize; that shows how stubborn you are. The emperor can be merciful, but the people will not agree! For someone like this, execution is still too light; at the very least, he should first be paraded through the streets for public humiliation and nailed to the pillar of historical shame.
Where, exactly, did things go wrong? Was that child really guilty? The child’s “crimes” were, in a way, just like the emperor’s new clothes. When everyone is speaking with absolute certainty about these charges, perhaps we are waiting for the next person who is out of step with the times to say this obvious sentence: he is innocent.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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