Chairman Mee-ow!
I guess a bunch of Chinese foreign students are upset over the parody their New Zealand uni newpaper did on Chairman Mao (cover left) and communist China.As such, there've been numerous protests from the Chinese students exclaiming they've been insulted to their core by such blatant defialment of their once great leader. In near tears (crying, not laughing like the rest of us), they exclaimed that it was on par with someone making a funny cartoon of...
Jesus
George Washington
President Bush
Comparing Mao to George Bush and George Washington is fair (all being despots), but Jesus, really? I mean I'm no Christian, but in many circles he's touted as "The Son of God!" And that's a hell of a title; kick's the ass off "Great Helmsman" no matter how you say it. The students also, through their tears of the travesty, said it's an insult on par with the Muslim cartoon thing that was a hot topic a couple months back.
It's part of Islam to not make cartoons of the prophet or Allah, as they could be misconstrude as false idols - best I can figure Maoism is NOT a religion and Mao is NOT a God - despite his devotees possibly believing otherwise. Besides, that 'cartoons of the prophet' thing was a farce. A well ochestrated one, but farce none the less. Just a great way to stir up some hate and up the reasons why the Islamic world should hate the West.
This cover issue though, is just stupid. I mean, we wouldn't criticize anyone for making funny pictures of Hitler (and he killed less people). The REAL kicker is the paper's issue was taking the piss out of China not having freedom of speech nor freedom to protest - two things this whole fiasco draws attention to. The students are protesting an insult to the leader of a party that doesn't allow you to protest. Like time travel, this does my head in.
Besides Mao's looking sexier than ever, don't ya think? He didn't look half as good in that wax rendering of him I saw in Tiananmen.
HaoHao This |
posted by Ryan McLaughlin @ 3:35 p.m.
6 Comments:
dude
your blog still SERIOUSLY blows
Cheers man, you keep coming back.
Why do you have to labe Washington and Bush as despots? The language is a bit extreme. No American president has "absolute power" despite what you may think. Mao murdered millions of his own people. Bush, as fallible as he may be, doesn't even begin to come close to that. And I'm not sure where you're getting the Washington correlation.
Hey!
Wow! I am so amused that this has made it's way all the way over to China! It was big news in the paper here - happened at the University right here in Wellington. Very interesting to me because Kiwis tend to get so defensive when people call them out for making fun of things that others might find disrespectful. Don't get me wrong - I don't necessarily agree with the Chinese students who found it upsetting, it's just that whenever Kiwis poke fun at others and people get upset, they tend to say we (those who get upset) are "too politically correct." It can be upsetting when they are constantly trying to get off the hook for disrespecting people by saying, "have a sense of humour!" Sometimes there should be a line. I was in NZ about 5 months after September 11 and had to endure constant ridicule of American's "making too big a deal out of it" (amongst a barage of other off-colour remarks, cartoons, etc). When it comes down to it, more than anything I guess, I am just amazed by how different their culture and sense of humor can be from ours (speaking from an American point of view, don't know if this applies to Canada as well).
I found it especially upsetting though, that the publishers of the newspaper couldn't seem to grasp WHY the Chinese students could possibly be upset. I don't think people really understand how isolated China really can be (information-wise) - and by no means am I saying that I completely understand either; but from the little experience I did have there, I would say that you can't exactly fault people for not knowing the truth when the truth isn't very accessible to them.
On a side note, there have been a lot of problems here recently concerning crime targeted at Chinese international students studying here, and I think people are very tense about the whole issue. These students seemed to interpret it as a threat and a direct disrespect - which isn't so far-fetched when you see Chinese students being kidnapped and killed on the news. There is a lot of underlying racial tension here... :(
Sorry to ramble... :)
~Vanessa
In the words of a Chinese colleague "I don't understand Christianity, it all seems so stupid."
As well as studying overseas goes, never encountered such a bunch of 'pian zi' especially in China (private/university) organising it.
Ry, your blog must still SERIOUSLY blow John's away, lol.
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