The rhyming verse formed an enduring soundtrack of my childhood. What I did not know at the time was how the lyrics could be read to contain a hidden message. Malan, a type of iris, is also the name of China’s only nuclear arms testing base, and 21 was its military unit number. Situated on the northwestern edge of Lop Nur in Xinjiang, it’s named after the eponymous plant common in the arid landscape. The Chinese government formally acknowledged the site in 1987. Since then, the blossoming of the malan has become a euphemism for the Chinese nuclear weapons program, inscribed in military ballads and school plays.
lørdag 19. oktober 2024
Where the Malan Blooms: 60 Years After the First Chinese Nuclear Bomb
Like many children in 1990s China, every day when the bell rang for recess, my friends and I would rush out of the classroom and onto the playground. Our favorite activity was "tiao pijin", a form of jump rope using elastic. It was a team sport. Two of us secured the elastic on either end so it formed a long loop, and the rest hopped in and out of it. To keep up the pace and count our steps, we recited a song: “The malan blooms. It’s twenty-one! Two-five-six, two-five-seven, two-eight-two-nine thirty-one!”
The rhyming verse formed an enduring soundtrack of my childhood. What I did not know at the time was how the lyrics could be read to contain a hidden message. Malan, a type of iris, is also the name of China’s only nuclear arms testing base, and 21 was its military unit number. Situated on the northwestern edge of Lop Nur in Xinjiang, it’s named after the eponymous plant common in the arid landscape. The Chinese government formally acknowledged the site in 1987. Since then, the blossoming of the malan has become a euphemism for the Chinese nuclear weapons program, inscribed in military ballads and school plays.
The rhyming verse formed an enduring soundtrack of my childhood. What I did not know at the time was how the lyrics could be read to contain a hidden message. Malan, a type of iris, is also the name of China’s only nuclear arms testing base, and 21 was its military unit number. Situated on the northwestern edge of Lop Nur in Xinjiang, it’s named after the eponymous plant common in the arid landscape. The Chinese government formally acknowledged the site in 1987. Since then, the blossoming of the malan has become a euphemism for the Chinese nuclear weapons program, inscribed in military ballads and school plays.
