Iskanderia wrote:
@PE: Sorry if I misunderstood or am remembering incorrectly, but I thought you said you were planning on getting a bunch of Mao stuff for your room and made a comment like "I wonder what the housekeepers will think."
Either way, I wasn't being judgmental; I was just trying to understand. Sorry for "Godwinning" (I think it's okay in this case because it's a valid analogy) but, I wouldn't buy a bunch of stuff with Hitler's face on it though he too was an eloquent and intelligent man who actually did some good things for his country that tend to be overshadowed by his brainwashing of a nation and responsibility for millions of murders.
It was a joke. Maybe I'll buy some for fun though because I love the dramatic poses and intense faces. I like posing like that for my mom on Skype, holding random things like pencils and rulers XD
I don't know what Godwinning is, but I'd never buy something of Hitler's. Get ready for a long post XDD
When was the last time you saw people selling Hitler things in Germany (which I've been to for a few consecutive summers)? Or people ever (besides neo-nazis and weirdos) speaking highly of him? I've read some of Mein Kampf and he's definitely intelligent and everything, but I can't equate him to Mao.
I'm not sure why people almost always say that all the people were brainwashed. That's something I don't really get. For example, I hear people say that people were "brainwashed" into following Shining Path in Peru (mostly when it just started). What a simple view of it. The people who joined at first were all poor peasants who wanted to change things, and it wasn't something terrible. My parents were even supporting it at first because it was an amazing idea, to finally bring some reform to Peru. Even the middle class wanted to be part of the movement to reform things. Yet now that we look back on it and its later violent horrible times, we say all those people who joined were "brainwashed" and I think this limits any type of good discussion.
It's the same for Mao era China. It's not as if every single person was blindly following the CCP. The CCP had actually held out against the Japanese, built up China, got rid of feudalism, pushed Western powers out (which is a big deal in China and what I keep hearing is enough for the Chinese to like Mao), finally unified China (another big deal), made public education, improved the GDP, gave rise to the peasants' social status-- if you were part of the 95% of the Chinese people, who were poor farmers working for landlords, this didn't seem like some terrible thing. I'm not sure you can even say that he did only "some good things." My dad reminds me how I'll never understand how terrible it was to be poor in those times and to finally be able to change things for the better and see real improvements while making sacrifices because it was like that in Peru as well.
During the Cultural Revolution/Great Leap Forward things got bad and the Red Guards (made up of young people), the Gang of Four (including Mao's wife, who was later arrested for life for doing this) heading it, got insane and Mao's personality cult was developed by the Four. IIRC that's when many people turned into those weirdos who persecuted people, Mao was turned into a god, and destroyed things and that's what the Chinese really don't like about Mao. But there are even mixed views about that. For example, some people think it was all just a huge mistake, some people thought it was necessary, some think the good outweighs the bad, some think it was the worst event ever, some are indifferent (mostly young people), etc. I'm surprised about that because whenever I think of those years I automatically think "bad" but apparently it's a debated issue. Same for the Great Leap Forward. I used to automatically think "horrible" but there are differing Chinese opinions on that. For example, something I hear often is that Mao didn't plan things right and made a huge mistake in his attempt to quickly industrialize China to get it out of its poverty. It's seen as him having good intentions though it became a big failure, so it's complicated.
He's all over China and it's not like people are uniform in their opinion of him. Even my friends, some of whom came from Chinese aristocratic families that lost their titles and some of their wealth from the Cultural Revolution don't hate him. It depends on who you talk to. Usually the intellectuals and rich people are extremely critical of Mao and who are the ones producing most of the movies we see about that time, which are always negative. There are only a few accounts made by the poor and average people who went through the revolution, which I've read and they were pretty honest, pointing out the pros and cons, but still respecting Mao.
http://www.amazon.ca/China-Witness-Voic ... 0701180390
If you want to see how some of the grassroots people, peasants, the average person, etc went through the three years of the Cultural Revolution and the GLF you should read this. They're called the "Silent Generation" because you never hear their accounts, they feel as if no one cares about them and their sacrifices, and they're dying off. I think it's a really great insight on people's memories of the time, especially since they're pretty honest and recall a lot of the bad things that happened under Mao. It's an interesting book and made me think differently about China, but TBH I don't love the transcript format.
Here's a quote from an interview:
I feel that the Liberation of China in 1949 really was a fantastic event. And I include Mao Zedong in that. Even though Chairman Mao did a lot of wrong, and even committed crimes — I do acknowledge that. But we have to recognize Mao Zedong’s contribution to the revival of the Chinese nation as a whole. He was actually a great historical figure and his name will go down in the annals of history. He’s like the Emperor Qin Shi Hung Di, who burned books, buried Confucian scholars alive and tyrannized the people, but this can’t obscure his achievements in uniting China, setting up the legal code, developing commerce, and even building the Great Wall, one of the wonders of the world. Mao Zedong gave the Chinese back their self-respect as a people after the Opium War, and that achievement can never be wiped out.
One of the things I keep hearing/reading about Mao is this point. A big theme in China for thousands of years has been unification. One of the reasons ROT3K is loved and remembered in China is because of this theme, which is summed up in its first line. After the Three Kingdoms period, China wasn't unified for a long period of time under a native Han Chinese ruler until Mao's time. (this is one of the reasons why the Chinese also love Zhuge Liang; he was the last person to nearly unify it permanently before his tragic death). After being occupied by the Japanese, being sliced up by the US, Britain, and other countries for years, to be finally unified and coming out strong is a huge, good change for China. Mao's often seen as being representative of the "new China," when China was finally able to stand firm on its own, gain respect, and become its own power. It was even better since Mao was a peasant as well and knew what it was like to be poor. Some even see him as a symbol of Chinese strength. Whenever there's an issue with Japan or whatever, people will say, "If Mao was here we'd take the Daiyu islands from the Japanese," as if the current president isn't as strong. The feelings about this are really strong and I wouldn't minimize it. It's the same with their rising economic prosperity, even if Deng Xiaoping made most of the economic reforms, Mao is still seen as laying the foundations for them to happen. These things are definitely not overshadowed here.
from another article wrote:
People in the West are clearly unprepared to hear this, and the stereotyped image of poor oppressed Chinese kept down with an iron fist by a despotic unelected regime is undoubtedly hard to shake off, but what I saw yesterday was breathtaking - and I believe the celebrations are due to continue today. There was no three-line whip to attend, and we only became aware of what was going on because we had been kept awake by the dress rehearsal the night before.
I too fail to understand the continued reverence for Mao, but to the Chinese he's apparently on par with Churchill, the Queen Mum and for that matter probably King Arthur, and to suggest that they are either being duped or coerced is surely very wide of the mark. Personally, I hold no candle for Mao, and think he was a deeply flawed character, and that the real star was Zhou Enlai, but - like Churchill - he has been adopted as a national symbol of the guy who brought them out of their darkest hour, and as far as I can tell, there is absolutely no sense of shame, embarassment nor indeed indifference about what he and the CCP are credited with having achieved.
Anyway, there's a lot of respect here for him even with his cons, it's not as if they all want to erase him from their lives like many Germans want to do with Hitler. Even the government here is pretty realistic about Mao (this started with Deng Xiaoping), pointing out the later mistakes he made but that in his earlier years he was a good person and helped China in a lot of ways. Don't even try to criticize Mao because people are so proud of what China's become and see Mao as a founding father who united China and made it independent even if he wasn't perfect and made mistakes in his later years. It's interesting though, the national pride here. My point is, it's not a simple thing in China. People think the good changes were huge and not only "some good things," maybe they're overshadowed in the West because that's how we normally see and present China, so I can't see how buying something of Mao's is equivalent to buying something of Hitler's.