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Berserk

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^^Thanks for the correction.

And yeah, I agree. The liberal love affair with him seems to be simply that they heard his anti-Bush, anti-corporate rhetoric and said, "well that's all we need to hear! Say no more! We love you!" And the news media these days don't do any actual research, so they're basically just reprinting the Venezuelan regime's press releases.

People can be so ignorant.
 

PureElegance

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Berserk wrote:
I'm actually really upset at the way liberals are responding to this. Check out Michael Moore's website. It makes me sick. Michael Moore really was one of my heroes.
Yesterday I was looking up articles about Chavez's death and I was kind of put off at how... normal (?) the articles seemed, as if Chavez was just another leader. I'm not sure if you know what I mean, but they make him seem as if he was someone who was just misunderstood or something.

Here are some that I'm looking at now:

Hugo Chavez: Admired and Despised by Readers
Hugo Chavez: An Unfinished Revolution
Venezuelans Recall Leader's Love of Game (NYtimes)
A Polarizing Figure Who Led a Movement (NYtimes)
Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez dead after struggle with cancer
Hugo Chavez, passionate but polarizing Venezuelan president ...
Hugo Chavez death echoes with leftists around the world
Hugo Chavez May Have Died but the Ideas for Which He Struggled Live on

Maybe it's too soon for me to analyze this objectively, but I can't even imagine a world without him. I can't even joke about him. It just seemed as if he would ALWAYS be there, like Fidel Castro, and I'm so surprised to hear that he died at 58, which is so much younger than what I was expecting. I read the news during Chinese class and I felt very weird, as if something really profound had just happened. I can't even imagine a world without Fidel, he seems to have been always in my life too, especially since I lived in Miami Beach.

Berserk wrote:
And yeah, I agree. The liberal love affair with him seems to be simply that they heard his anti-Bush, anti-corporate rhetoric and said, "well that's all we need to hear! Say no more! We love you!" And the news media these days don't do any actual research, so they're basically just reprinting the Venezuelan regime's press releases.
They do that all the time though, anyone making a joke about Bush or who's all "down with Wall Street!" is considered cool, so I'm not surprised about the media being like this. I feel like I've been seeing it for so long now, especially by the liberals XD

Speaking of which, we have some obnoxious British/Australian guys from our Abu Dhabi campus and they think they're cool for making anti-Bush jokes. They're kind of lame in general, it's as if they think they know so much about US politics and culture and all. In my head I'm like, "They're not even from the US..."

flowers wrote:
Oh my god.


I bought some really cute clothes today! ::squee:: And I can't believe I spent only $30 in total. My favorite piece is this black button down shirt with cream vertical stripes and gold/diamond buttons. When my friends saw it they went, "That is SO you." I can't get over black, gold, cream, and white together, that has to be one of my favorite color combinations ^^
 

flowersofnight

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PureElegance wrote:
Speaking of which, we have some obnoxious British/Australian guys from our Abu Dhabi campus and they think they're cool for making anti-Bush jokes.
It's like when I went to Washington DC a couple years back and there was a lady handing out a giant pile of "I Hate George W. Bush" books. I wonder if she even knew he wasn't president anymore XD
 

Berserk

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^^She was probably giving them away because no one would pay money for them anymore XD

@PE: Yeah, that's exactly what's been bothering me. The media have been acting like he's "just another leader" and they speak about everything on his terms like his "unfinished revolution." It would be like if when Kim Jong Il died all they wrote about was what a "dear leader" he was to the Koreans and how "sorely missed" the "greatest man on Earth" will be.

Kim Jong Il was more blatantly horrible than Chavez was, but still :|
PE wrote:
Speaking of which, we have some obnoxious British/Australian guys from our Abu Dhabi campus and they think they're cool for making anti-Bush jokes. They're kind of lame in general, it's as if they think they know so much about US politics and culture and all. In my head I'm like, "They're not even from the US..."
Seriously, who makes anti-Bush jokes anymore? ::meev::

Even during his last couple years in office they were out of style. It was such common knowledge that everyone, left and right, was so tired of his presidency there was just no point anymore.

EDIT: I love the second comic.
 

PureElegance

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Berserk wrote:
@PE: Yeah, that's exactly what's been bothering me. The media have been acting like he's "just another leader" and they speak about everything on his terms like his "unfinished revolution." It would be like if when Kim Jong Il died all they wrote about was what a "dear leader" he was to the Koreans and how "sorely missed" the "greatest man on Earth" will be.
OMG if they acted that way about Kim Jong Il that would be ridiculous. Kim Jong Il had this really cool song though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmI2yDAyWYI

A few more:
Hugo Chavez, fiery Venezuelan leader, dies at 58
Venezuela's Brassy President Hugo Chavez Dies
Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan leader and U.S. foil, dies
Hugo Chavez: Death of a revolutionary
Hugo Chavez Dead: Tributes Pour In From Sean Penn, Oliver Stone And Political Leaders
... ::meev:: My parents think Sean Penn is the biggest loser.

They even describe Chavez as "flamboyant" and "firebrand," seriously? XD
Seriously, who makes anti-Bush jokes anymore? ::meev::
I'm like the only one who doesn't laugh during them ::meev:: They're kind of obnoxious in general though. There's one Australian guy in particular who's cocky and is pretty disrespectful towards the professors. He doesn't curse them out or anything, but he tries to outwit them, trying to be smart, and it's awkward for the whole class to watch. My friend is bothered by the fact that our professor is like his father's age, she can't believe the guy could talk to him that way.

That reminds me, around Yuyuan Gardens they have a lot of "Obamao" shirts, hats, etc. I should get some for everyone here ::gaku:: I swear, Obama's getting more communist by the day! (as for my purchases so far, I got Cultural Revolution Mao playing cards, Mao's Little Red Book, and a small book from the 1970s about Lei Feng, a revolutionary hero. LEARN FROM HIS EXAMPLE~! At Changfeng Park there's a huge area devoted to Lei Feng, and I took a picture with Lei Feng's statue, the police chatting nearby were surprised! Interesting stuff though.)

EDIT: I love the second comic.
I feel like in the second picture the woman in black would mostly be the poor. I think Chavez (and other similar types of leaders) is an interesting person, you wonder what they had in them to get to that level of power, but they're making him out to be too much of a revolutionary or just another leader. It's interesting though to see how much communism has affected our world, huh?
 

Iskanderia

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Flowers, get SailorKa in here to tell us how he and the people around him feel about the death of Hugo Chavez.

I always found his posts about Venezuela interesting. A lot of it was common knowledge (amongst people who aren't dummies, that is) but somethings I did not know and getting reports from own our reporter in the field made it seem more...real, I guess?


Meanwhile, I continue to be befuddled and somewhat disturbed by PE's love of Mao.

Edit: and yeah, Bush jokes were already hacky 7 years ago and in 2013 it's almost as embarrassingly out of date as having a mullet. They were widely replaced with Sarah Palin jokes, which also became hacky like a week before the election though I still hear them once in a while and just kinda cringe like I would at someone making an unironic "where's the beef?" joke.

Yes, yes, Bush was a big ol' stupid doodyhead, we get it. We know, we know, Sarah Palin has a funny Alaskan accent, can see Russia from her house and you hate women - let's move on now.
 

PureElegance

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Iskanderia wrote:
Meanwhile, I continue to be befuddled and somewhat disturbed by PE's love of Mao.
LOL. I think the entire history of that period is so interesting and he's a fascinating person. His thoughts have influenced so many around the world, he transformed China, and he even had a huge impact on Peru. I've been studying countries like Russia (especially the 1800s to the Stalin years) and China for forever now and I'm starting to learn more about modern Chinese history as opposed to ancient China. The late 19th Century up to the 1970s in China is such an interesting period, I love reading about it and learning what I can. I don't know why it would be befuddling and disturbing for someone to be interested in him.

I don't "love" Mao, but I think he's a totally fascinating and complex person. Sometimes you think that people like Mao are just evil tyrants with no brains or whatever, but when I read his essays I was surprised by his great use of rhetoric, his eloquence, and how intelligent he was and knowledgeable about the world and people's characters. I was amazed at how he could just carry you through a paragraph and build up the momentum up to the climax. You really feel as if you're being swept up and you want to join in and help the oppressed people. China was in a miserable state because of the foreign powers slicing it up, the Opium Wars, the Japanese invasion, the weak Qing Dynasty, the civil wars, feudalism it had no industrialization, etc, and Mao managed to emerge as a leader above all of that and at least change things. I think that's impressive and something to learn about. I wonder how he was able to do all that.

From what I gather the people here have the 70% good, 30% bad view of him. Yes, he did have that Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward disaster and horrible, but he also raised the economy/GDP, provided education, life expectancy rose, modernized and grew the military, industrialized China, was able to urbanize/industrialize China even with all the embargoes placed on it by the US and other countries, etc so it's a mixed bag. I'm not sure why people wouldn't be interested in him at all or would just write him off as an evil person. I used to have a close-minded opinion about Mao until I actually studied him and spoke for a while about him with my dad, who was in high school when Mao's thoughts were coming to Peru for the first time and he studied his works there.

However, my friends and I like to joke around a lot about Mao and the whole revolutionary communist thing ::gaku:: If you saw the CCP ballet from a long time ago "The Red Detachment of Women," you would love laugh, oh my goodness. Communist music, literature, etc in general make me laugh. I can't really take that seriously XD

Romance of the Three Kingdoms had a big impact on him too, YAY ::meev:: I read how it was always on his bedside, and he wouldn't eat sometimes because he was so interested in a comic book version he was reading of it. XD He admired Sun Quan and Cao Cao, and I don't know, Sun Quan was never one of my favorite people. I like the Wu Kingdom's naval power, but I was never interested in them much even though they did have great people too. I really admire Cao Cao even though you're not supposed to like him, but even my Chinese language partner said she likes Cao Cao over Liu Bei. I *so* agree.
 

Iskanderia

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Of course there's nothing wrong with being interested in him as a student of history. That's not what I meant. I'm just puzzled by things like decorating your room with Mao memorabilia, like he's a rockstar. On the other hand, we bought a deck of Mao playing cards in China sort of ironically, so I get it on that level too, I guess.
 

faith

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Happy women's day! ::kisaki::
 

PureElegance

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Iskanderia wrote:
I'm just puzzled by things like decorating your room with Mao memorabilia, like he's a rockstar.
What memorabilia? I have playing cards and a book of his, I have nothing of his in NYC, that's not really decorating my room with him XD I know, scandalous ::meev:: I have revolutionary earmuffs though. I HAD to get those. I saw a Chinese girl a couple of days ago with a Mao bookbag, I thought that was so interesting. He's definitely a rockstar in China.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tCMI0uKbBE
OK Iska, at least I'm not like this guy ::meev:: Holy TOLEDO, what a Mao fangirl XD Just look at his wall. This video is huge on Youku since it's so odd. I can't tell if it's supposed to be making fun of communist China or if he's really an avid lover of it. It looks like he put so much work into singing and composing... Too bad you can't see the English in the captions on a phone though! At least he sang a part of Lei Feng's song, that's pretty catchy XD (My Chinese language partner taught me the first verse!)

If you're talking about memorabilia, here in Shanghai I have New Year's decorations, tickets of all the places I've been to, and a Zhuge Liang Beijing opera figure on a frame which is adorable and I love it to bits. I'm going to see his temple in April, finally! ::squee::

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY! My friends got haircuts today and for women's day they received flowers XD I didn't know it was women's day until they told me that, because we're all comrades here in China. (good one) DOWN WITH THE MAN-PIGS!

I just wanted to share Doctor Rockit's "Cafe De Flore (Charles Webster's Latin Lovers Mix)" with you guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diQ-5ksFnJY
I heard it in a restaurant yesterday, and I loved it. I said, "Wow, this is a good song," and shazamed it. It was perfect with the restaurant too, which had low lighting with black and red furniture and not many people. I love the accordion, guitar, piano, and what I think is a saxophone. It reminds me of walking down busy streets at night, sitting in low-key restaurants, riding the bus and seeing everything pass you by. On the bus today, it was so crowded and I was pushed up to the very front, next to the driver, and the huge window in front of me and the driver facing the road gave me such a lovely perspective. I'm not sure how to describe it except as "chill" and "elegant." :)
 

faith

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OMG I understood the first line of that!

没有共产党就没有新中国♪♪

For women's day our colleagues sent us pictures of flowers lol
 

PureElegance

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faith wrote:
OMG I understood the first line of that!

没有共产党就没有新中国♪♪

For women's day our colleagues sent us pictures of flowers lol
OMG I knew most of the words to it already ::meev:: Beat that Faith, BEAT THAT! XD But yeah, I could too! The video is hilarious though, I can't believe he made the songs sound so... modern? Discotec-ish? XD It's so cool how you can figure out things now right? I always get excited when I understand what people say here quickly ::kisaki::

There's a song I heard too which is popular now called "客官不可以" and it's adorable and kind of melancholic. I could actually understand some of it. I can't find it on Youtube with any translations, it's weird.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS8ZYzfuJUQ
It's a simple song and it has cats in the video so you'll like it. One of the parts I totally understood was "Where are you? I think about you every day." "I'm angry." Things about returning to memories, remembering funny meetings, and the sad ending (if I understand correctly), things like that. Also when the guy sings: "Miss, Miss, Miss don't be sad, Miss, Miss, Miss, I'm sorry." D'aw. Yesterday I was walking down with a friend and I heard this song on someone's radio on the street, and I was like, "This sounds like one of those sad, adorable songs," my friend agreed and I shazamed it XD

pig_zps841028e3.jpg

This made me chuckle ::meev::
 

sailorKa

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I'm back by popular demand! ::meev::

I dont know if I should post here about Venezuela or make a new thread so ppl arent flooded with my pictures and anecdotes?

I'm looking for photos and links to share with you guys so I'll post in a bit. I'm touched that so many of you still remember my times as a protesting student(getting tear gassed by the government!)and that you thought of me when hearing of Chavez's passing.

This is certainly one of the last things I ever thought would happen, even knowing that he was bedridden - Chavez just seemed invincible.

So again, thanks for remembering me. >_<

edit: Made a new thread here.

--aleks.
 

Iskanderia

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^^^Good to see you!

@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.
 

sailorKa

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Iska wrote:
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.
I have a Venezuelan friend who ~ironically~ hangs a Confederate flag in his room...... yeah, I don't get it either.

As for Mao's face.... ::ash:: Since I'm Venezuelan, I'm very sensitive to stuff like that. If I see some ridiculous white guy wearing a Che Guevara shirt bought at Urban Outfitters in USA, I just want to ljfgdsfljdsfksdA SCREAAAAAAM.

--k
 

Iskanderia

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The hero worship of Che Guevara in particular is a huge pet peeve of mine. I once wrote a 10-page essay about him and the mythology surrounding him for a college history course (a topic I chose) and my research and reading of his writings made me really hate the guy. I used to just kinda roll my eyes when I saw a Che Guevara shirt on campus, but since writing that essay, I now have to resist the urge to go up to those people and start an argument with them.

I saw this fascinating documentary (I wish I could remember what it was called) a few years ago about the phenomenon. Besides talking about those American college kids, it also focused on the cult of Che that has evolved all over South America. They interviewed people in tiny villages who had shrines to him set up in their homes and who prayed to him like a saint. They had turned him into a literal mythological figure in that some of them believed that, when he was alive, he had various magical powers like the ability to fly. (bolded because it's incredible and people shouldn't skim past it).

They also talked to Cubans who believed that he was still alive and that the news of his death was just propaganda by the US. The documentary-makers showed one family the famous photo of Che's dead body to prove that he was actually dead and they were shocked and saddened. They had never seen the photo because the state-run media had never allowed it to be shown.

It was pretty amazing.
 

PureElegance

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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.
 
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