Naturally it wasn’t going to take long before Cai Mingchao, the mystery man who’s become a hero to many patriotic Chinese, would be celebrated in song. With accompanying video. This is titled “I’m Not Paying” (就不付你钱）and it comes to us courtesy of H.O.T Video Studio (H.O.T视频工作室).

Cai Mingchao, as you may already know, was the anonymous bidder who won the Christie’s auction of the bronze rabbit and the rat heads so infamously pried off a Jesuit-designed fountain by Anglo-French forces during the looting of the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) in Beijing in 1860. Cai bid a whopping 14 million euros for each piece before famously refusing to pay for them. He certainly made his point, though I don’t know what this does for China’s chances of actually recovering the pieces.

Below is a transcription and translation of the song in the above video. Thanks to Steven Lin for the draft translation, which I’ve polished a bit, taking a bit of poetic license and rendering it into suitably bad doggerel. The original Chinese follows.

If the phrase “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” were banished for all time it couldn’t possibly be too soon.

We have the Frenchmen all unnerved
The auction got what it deserved
The mystery man’s named Cai Mingchao
He pulled a fast one, showed us how

That Cai Mingchao did something great
The Chinese sighed, resigned to fate
But his bid won these jewels of state.

No matter how you Frenchies holler
He won’t give you a single dollar
The French can’t get away with stealing
Playing dumb and double-dealing

The Allied troops were so damned callous
Burning the Old Summer Palace
They take our treasures, it’s no mystery
Disrespect the bloody history

With no regard to bilateral dealings
The auction hurts the Chinese people’s feelings
The French are nauseating beyond measure
Mocking China’s national treasure

The auction house, it had no shame
But it can’t cleanse itself of blame

法国的人哪 被气死了啊
活该那拍卖 被搅黄啊
神秘的人呐 叫蔡铭超哇
漫天过海 他出绝招

话说这个蔡铭超 做得那是一个高
华人叹抗议无效
他已拍下那国宝

任你法国再咆哮
兜里有钱就不交
谁让法国无赖做强盗
他们竟还装作不知道

罪恶的联军 烧杀抢掠无人性
无情火烧圆明园
卷带国宝流出境
历史创伤很血腥 他们从来不反省

又不顾中国的交情
拍卖兽首华人很痛心
法国的人哪 真恶心啊
拿咱国宝寻开心啊

拍卖的人哪 不要脸啊
曾经的罪过洗不清啊