fading glory
- Details
- Category: current online writing
- Created on Sunday, 01 May 2011 18:27
- Published on Sunday, 01 May 2011 18:27
- Written by Erik
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It is not entirely clear in what sense China still is a Communist country. For one thing, there really are no Communist symbols on display anywhere, not even where you'd expect them such as when entering the country or on official buildings. The face of Chairman Mao looks particularly incongruous the times it does appear, such as on the money. Surely these reminders of an earlier and very different era are embarrassing, but the problem is only how to remove them. Taking down a symbol is itself, well, symbolic. It is easy to understand why the political leaders prefer to leave things as they are.
I have an idea. Why not simply fade the pictures little by little? New flags could be sewn up, for example, which gradually made the Communist stars fainter and fainter. If the progress was slow enough -- say drawn out over 10 years -- no one would notice. And if somebody did, it would be easy enough to just deny there had been any changes. "Communist stars? I don't think so. This is China, don't you know!"
And take the large Mao portrait in Tiananmen Square. What you could do here is to replace the picture with a computerized image which slowly, slowly morphed into something else -- like transforming the Chairman into popular film star Andy Lau, for example. See above.