Written and performed by Xin “Zinc” Tong 

With staging help from Christian Johnson and Baba Israel

Voiceover by Zif Ye, Christian Johnson and Siri 

Technical support by Lani Boschulte and Emma Rivera

Special thanks to Cynthia Yiru Hu, Ring Yang, Emma Callahan, and the nice people at the Cultural Hub! 

Socialist Core Values is a letter of love and regret. It is inspired by my own experience of resisting against memorizing the simple 24 words in middle school and praying that I wouldn’t get picked underneath the flag every morning. On this eve of PRC’s National Day, this is my most heartfelt present to the motherland. I hope this piece can be a window to nuances of lives with the everlasting Cold War that is the East vs the West, and to my fellow like minded friends, I hope this can be a pat on the back: we are here; we’re not going anywhere.