Walking the street far away from a homeland

“Burn it all. If tomorrow it's me, if I don't come back tomorrow mother, burn everything.”

The banner ‘Just for surviving, is that too much?’ that we held / Photo by author

I never stand in the street in China advocating for anything. Born in the late 1990s, the civil society in the mainland of China experienced a boom during my childhood, but started shrinking since I went to university in 2015 for my bachelors. After I was relieved from the heavy workload of high school, I entered the department of social science, where I learned about the theory of constructing the world. I started asking myself: is it reasonable to be differentiated by the household registration system? (1) Is it normal for a girl to be tamed, and always conform to external expectations? More importantly, why can’t we express ourselves online and in person, communicating with the public as an independent individual? Then how can I explain what makes me feel uncomfortable?

But there was nothing to do. After 2020, China showed the ambition of utilizing its authority to implement the multiple policies of QR codes for green passes and PCR-test (2) as daily routine, leading to an economic recession (3), the loss of lives of those that could have survived the virus deepened the sense of powerlessness of people. In autumn 2022, I left the place where I grew up, my family and friends, and I went to Italy for my first experience studying abroad.

I could not say I stepped out of my comfort zone, because comfort has been a false proposition for me.

Initially, I was shocked by the graffiti at the corners of the street. Completely. Within three days of my arrival, I just wandered alone and used the translator to understand the lines, slogans and advocacy on the wall. Colorful voices were intertwined, some fading, some remaining, and some new continuously emerging. Yes, people could speak out, not only on the walls, but also through their voices.

There were many protests, demonstrations and marches for different issues, including local and other ethnic concerns. And the crucial one emerged. On the 8th March of 2023, I met some Chinese girls in the street, and we wanted to integrate our observations, our feelings and our claims to local action. Despite having different political viewpoints and priority, we all cared for women rights. On the internet in China, there was a lot of news related to gender-based violence and reports stirring up the wave of public opinion, but it was hard to intervene as grass-root activists, due to the monopoly of the official information on nearly every event.

When we spoke about Chinese issues in the streets of Italy, through the support of Non Una Di Meno, our anger found no clear destination, like nomads on a foreign land, yet, our actions were so valuable.

It marked our entrance into public spaces, allowing us to connect with the local strength of civil society.

In Italy, there are many Chinese diaspora communities, but most of them organize for economic reasons. Were there any young people involved in public and social life? I discovered some of them in different cities like Rome, Bologna, Milan, and Padua. A common issue also emerged among us, we all wanted to advocate for gender equality and feminism.

Feminism is a word based on academic theories, but its essence depends on the daily practice by individuals or groups.

So, a public space for an equal, non-judgmental discussion on the interpretation of feminism mattered. This kind of opportunity was developing in China on the internet and in urban spaces, but gradually vanished. We want to rebuild it here, in our surroundings, in a place of proximity.

My talented girlfriends started a community focusing on Chinese overseas women based in Italy, including students and workers, aiming to support them through information sharing, guidance on local administrative affairs, discussion on individual lives and public events. Up to now, it is based on intrinsic drive and self-governance, and we do not want to consolidate the institution of patriarchy. Specifically, we connected female and queer people through different events, such as making a zine together, to deconstruct and reconstruct present words and expressions.

A big time for us was in November 2023. The death of a girl from our University, Giulia Cecchettin, made us hurt, just like every other time we heard that a woman in China died because of “an intimate relationship”, for the violence of the one she gave the most extent of her trust, and her death went unaddressed by law enforcement, because it was considered a “private” rather than a “public” issue. However, we all know these acts are public and institutional violence against females. We decided to prepare something for the Rome march on the 25th November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In the early of 2010, some Chinese feminists wore the wedding dress with red paint to play the physically injured brides on the street to appeal to the public to pay attention to domestic violence. Inspired by them, after departing from other cities, we rushed to the second-hand store to find some clothes looking like wedding dresses, and used the red color to create the bleeding effect. (Thanks to the discount of the store and Italian art students!)

We brought the “bloody” dress and the flyers to Rome, explaining many incidents of gender-based violence. By 14.30, many people, many banners and flags had gathered. The wind got cold, but the sky was so blue, and we were all under bright sunlight. Some of us wore the dress, distributing the flyers to the passer-by, and explained our purpose. Of course, our concern was also keeping anonymity, we wore masks, that were previously considered the terrible sign of the pandemic, but now served as necessary disguises.

The ‘bloody wedding dress’ we made / Photo by author

Therefore, a powerful image came up: some Chinese women were stating: “Just for living, is that too much?” while holding the slogan both in Chinese and English. We all felt empowered by expressing genuinely in our mother tongue and also using Italian to communicate to the locals, receiving admiration and encouragement from others. As for me, I also was deeply moved by the banners held by others. When translated for me, I learned their Italian pronunciation and meaning, and deepened my connection with this land through its language. “Bruciamo”, “we burn” - the anger of females will not be silenced but will keep burning, and it is a kind of witchcraft we can name: a new power to challenge the unreasonable aspects rooted in the patriarchal structure.

The calling for mom also reminds me of a special connection in the world. Staying beside my mother, I can experience her sacrifice, her individual dreams vanishing, her gentle gaze on family members, her effort to make a living, her warm cuddling. All her pain and tenderness are mixed, so if I call her, I am calling a kind of complexity in the woman. I called her: “Mom, I am a part of you, if the rest of me will not come back, please burn all things just like I had never been there”.

You can find further information on this community through Instagram: @colletiva_yilou

1. The household registration system, named ‘Hukou’ in Chinese, since 1958 has defined two sorts of citizens based on urban or rural residence and implements different policies in education, medicine, social insurance, etc. It is still an ongoing process to reform rural-urban integration and lift the restriction of domestic mobility.

2. During the pandemic, the PCR-test to examine whether an individual is positive or negative of COVID-19 was widely used in China to screen medical cases, and targeted management. In 2022, the mobility of public transportation required the certificate of time-limited (mostly within 24 hours) negative situation.

3. The strict policies, the shops and restaurants could not maintain a continuous flow of business due to lockdown of communities, so people did not consume and the business did not open, leading to recession.