If you've been up on your news concerning efforts to introduce or increase freedoms in China, you know the name Ai Weiwei. Weiwei is an artist, China's most famous (you know him as the guy who designed the Bird's Nest, the main stadium from the 2008 Olympics), who has been critical of the Chinese government, most notably over mishandling of the Sichuan earthquake, also in 2008. Over the past three months, Weiwei has been held on what many believe to be spurious-at-best charges of tax evasion. The rest of the world is certain that Weiwei's detention is just a way to silence a prominent critic, and China has been raked over the coals for it.
Well, today Weiwei has been released from his detention. He's not completely free, though. As he put it after his release, "I’m released, I’m home, I’m fine. In legal terms, I’m — how do you say — on bail. So I cannot give any interviews. But I’m fine."
Basically, China gets to monitor him for a year, place restrictions on his behavior, and hang on to his travel documents. Should they deem him to have violated those restrictions, he could be reimprisoned. But, for now, he's out of the hoosegow.
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Political Bee
I've been watching two things of interest on TV lately.
(But wait, there's more!)
The first was Monday's Republican Presidential debate in New Hampshire. In my reasoned and not-at-all-biased mind of a commie pinko socialist liberal who hates America, the thing was frankly a two-hour seven-car train wreck. The consensus "winner" people seem to have decided on is a bit of a split. Some call it for Michelle Bachmann for her command of people's attention. Some call it for Mitt Romney because in a two-hour debate for a nomination that at most one out of the seven people on stage can win, and with Romney the clear front-runner in New Hampshire, the other six were given every opportunity to try to beat on him to drag his numbers down and seemed to actively avoid it as if to concede New Hampshire to Romney straightaway.
Gun to my head, I fall in the Romney camp. Unless the other six are trying to be Romney's running mate, failing to attack him made absolutely no sense. But then, neither did much else on Monday night. From where I sat, everyone was acting as if the general election were a week away and that, aside from whoever happened to be speaking, Barack Obama were the only other one on stage. And also that there was no moderator; anything CNN's John King asked was almost guaranteed to be taken as a suggested topic rather than a direct question to be answered, even if King made an explicit appeal to answer the original question.
No matter what the topic eventually turned out to be, most answers would inevitably end up as either a direct attack on Obama, a proposal to privatize something or other, or both. Newt Gingrich, most bewilderingly, suggested that privatizing NASA after the moon landing in 1969 would have been preferable to what we have actually done since, claiming that if we had privatized after 1969, we would "probably have a permanent station on the moon, three or four permanent stations in space, a new generation of lift vehicles." Romney, who you'll remember I had pegged as the "winner," implied to King if not outright stated that we cannot afford to fund disaster relief efforts. Herman Cain, asked about not being comfortable with having a Muslim in his cabinet, answered that "I would not be comfortable because you have peaceful Muslims and then you have militant Muslims- those that are trying to kill us. And so when I said I wouldn't be comfortable, I was thinking about the ones who are trying to kill us."
I'll spare you the rest. Suffice to say, you wonder just how people like this have been able to penetrate the highest, most important level of debate this nation can offer. You- at this point I am of course brainwashing you to think in a way that lets this article progress smoothly- realize that, with the exception of Cain, the voters at some point allowed all of these people to hold public office at a high level. You wonder if there isn't some way to nip these people in the bud before they get this far. Perhaps one could create an easy-to-understand, generally-acceptable, and above all reliable way to tell who at least knows enough of what they're doing to where they won't completely embarrass themselves.
I have to do everything for you people, don't I?
It so happens that the second TV show of interest was the National Geography Bee, coming fairly on the heels of the National Spelling Bee. In both competitions, you have some of the smartest kids in our elementary and middle schools facing off against each other in those two respective fields until only one remains to claim a big scholarship, among other prizes. Both bees, at their national finals, are full of kids with obviously bright futures ahead of them. After all, they just proved to a nationwide audience that they're smarter than millions of their peers in their age group. That tends to look good on a resume.
So why not make a Political Bee?
A Political Bee, as I imagine it, would consist of the kind of questions that we would expect an elected official to know the answers to. You can do this without being explicitly partisan. You couldn't ask, for example, 'Which economic system is better, that of John Maynard Keynes or that of Adam Smith', but you could ask 'Which economist first described the marketplace as an 'invisible hand'?' (Smith.) The general rule is, if Alex Trebek could use the information in Jeopardy, you could use it here. Remember, this is not a debate. This is a quiz, with explicit right and wrong answers.
Among the things that would work in a Political Bee:
*Knowledge of various issues important to the catchment area of the participants (the scope of questions would be scaled up or down depending on the level of competition; more on this in a bit)
*General and political history of the catchment area
*Electoral maps of previous elections
*How specific people in a particular legislative body voted on a certain major bill in the past (this wouldn't necessarily have to be recent- don't think TARP, think the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution)
*How a particular person voted over time on a variety of bills
*The rules and procedures of the political process relevant to the catchment area
*An ethics round- various ethical dilemmas are presented, a solution provided, and the question is, do the rules say that was an appropriate solution
Questions would be scaled depending on the level of competition- at the local level, the school level (or sponsor level depending on how you conduct the preliminaries), kids would be asked local-level questions. In the written test to qualify for state, they get bumped up to county- and district-level matters. At the state level, they get asked questions about the entire state. Only in the national finals do questions about foreign policy, Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidency come into play. Why is this? Because not every politician is going to make it to the federal level. There are state legislators, mayors and city aldermen all over the place, though. Each level of the bee would be designed to test your capability to lead at that specific level. As you progress further into the bee, you get tested for bigger and bigger offices. Ideally, the last few standing would be kids fit to run for Congress.
These kids, and all others who had any sort of a showing in the bee, could then, ideally, use their bee performance as part of a campaign resume, should they decide to pursue politics. Voters would know just how far they got, and therefore, what level we could be reasonably certain they'd be fit for. If you won at school level, you proved you would be a good local official.
This has historical precedent. As we noted here back in April, China had for 1,300 years the Imperial Examination system, in which you essentially tested into the ability to hold high-level government jobs, and could make multiple attempts at it. In fact, the more I look at it, the more the Political Bee starts to resemble the exams themselves- different levels of exams for different levels of service; the ability to just brush yourself off after failing and try again next year; the general principle that anyone from any corner of the country, provided they test well enough, can prove themselves capable of leading at the highest levels.
There were two main problems with the exam system, aside from the emphasis on rote learning, but the bee can fix them easily enough. The first was corruption and cheating- some Chinese emperors cancelled exams and simply sold the political positions- but unless students are buying answers to questions, that won't be much of a concern. (And if it does get out that a participant in a Political Bee cheated, that's the kind of problem the voters can fix in a heartbeat when that person tries to run for office later.) The second is cost- studying for the exams was sometimes so expensive that only the elite could afford to do so. In this day and age, however, that's less of a concern than ever. Anyone with access to a computer or a library or even City Hall can study for a Political Bee. The only real issue is finding schools and/or sponsors willing to host the preliminaries.
Whether the eventual products of the Political Bee eventually use those smarts to do good or harm is ultimately up to them. But at the very least, we know those smarts will exist.
(But wait, there's more!)
The first was Monday's Republican Presidential debate in New Hampshire. In my reasoned and not-at-all-biased mind of a commie pinko socialist liberal who hates America, the thing was frankly a two-hour seven-car train wreck. The consensus "winner" people seem to have decided on is a bit of a split. Some call it for Michelle Bachmann for her command of people's attention. Some call it for Mitt Romney because in a two-hour debate for a nomination that at most one out of the seven people on stage can win, and with Romney the clear front-runner in New Hampshire, the other six were given every opportunity to try to beat on him to drag his numbers down and seemed to actively avoid it as if to concede New Hampshire to Romney straightaway.
Gun to my head, I fall in the Romney camp. Unless the other six are trying to be Romney's running mate, failing to attack him made absolutely no sense. But then, neither did much else on Monday night. From where I sat, everyone was acting as if the general election were a week away and that, aside from whoever happened to be speaking, Barack Obama were the only other one on stage. And also that there was no moderator; anything CNN's John King asked was almost guaranteed to be taken as a suggested topic rather than a direct question to be answered, even if King made an explicit appeal to answer the original question.
No matter what the topic eventually turned out to be, most answers would inevitably end up as either a direct attack on Obama, a proposal to privatize something or other, or both. Newt Gingrich, most bewilderingly, suggested that privatizing NASA after the moon landing in 1969 would have been preferable to what we have actually done since, claiming that if we had privatized after 1969, we would "probably have a permanent station on the moon, three or four permanent stations in space, a new generation of lift vehicles." Romney, who you'll remember I had pegged as the "winner," implied to King if not outright stated that we cannot afford to fund disaster relief efforts. Herman Cain, asked about not being comfortable with having a Muslim in his cabinet, answered that "I would not be comfortable because you have peaceful Muslims and then you have militant Muslims- those that are trying to kill us. And so when I said I wouldn't be comfortable, I was thinking about the ones who are trying to kill us."
I'll spare you the rest. Suffice to say, you wonder just how people like this have been able to penetrate the highest, most important level of debate this nation can offer. You- at this point I am of course brainwashing you to think in a way that lets this article progress smoothly- realize that, with the exception of Cain, the voters at some point allowed all of these people to hold public office at a high level. You wonder if there isn't some way to nip these people in the bud before they get this far. Perhaps one could create an easy-to-understand, generally-acceptable, and above all reliable way to tell who at least knows enough of what they're doing to where they won't completely embarrass themselves.
I have to do everything for you people, don't I?
It so happens that the second TV show of interest was the National Geography Bee, coming fairly on the heels of the National Spelling Bee. In both competitions, you have some of the smartest kids in our elementary and middle schools facing off against each other in those two respective fields until only one remains to claim a big scholarship, among other prizes. Both bees, at their national finals, are full of kids with obviously bright futures ahead of them. After all, they just proved to a nationwide audience that they're smarter than millions of their peers in their age group. That tends to look good on a resume.
So why not make a Political Bee?
A Political Bee, as I imagine it, would consist of the kind of questions that we would expect an elected official to know the answers to. You can do this without being explicitly partisan. You couldn't ask, for example, 'Which economic system is better, that of John Maynard Keynes or that of Adam Smith', but you could ask 'Which economist first described the marketplace as an 'invisible hand'?' (Smith.) The general rule is, if Alex Trebek could use the information in Jeopardy, you could use it here. Remember, this is not a debate. This is a quiz, with explicit right and wrong answers.
Among the things that would work in a Political Bee:
*Knowledge of various issues important to the catchment area of the participants (the scope of questions would be scaled up or down depending on the level of competition; more on this in a bit)
*General and political history of the catchment area
*Electoral maps of previous elections
*How specific people in a particular legislative body voted on a certain major bill in the past (this wouldn't necessarily have to be recent- don't think TARP, think the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution)
*How a particular person voted over time on a variety of bills
*The rules and procedures of the political process relevant to the catchment area
*An ethics round- various ethical dilemmas are presented, a solution provided, and the question is, do the rules say that was an appropriate solution
Questions would be scaled depending on the level of competition- at the local level, the school level (or sponsor level depending on how you conduct the preliminaries), kids would be asked local-level questions. In the written test to qualify for state, they get bumped up to county- and district-level matters. At the state level, they get asked questions about the entire state. Only in the national finals do questions about foreign policy, Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidency come into play. Why is this? Because not every politician is going to make it to the federal level. There are state legislators, mayors and city aldermen all over the place, though. Each level of the bee would be designed to test your capability to lead at that specific level. As you progress further into the bee, you get tested for bigger and bigger offices. Ideally, the last few standing would be kids fit to run for Congress.
These kids, and all others who had any sort of a showing in the bee, could then, ideally, use their bee performance as part of a campaign resume, should they decide to pursue politics. Voters would know just how far they got, and therefore, what level we could be reasonably certain they'd be fit for. If you won at school level, you proved you would be a good local official.
This has historical precedent. As we noted here back in April, China had for 1,300 years the Imperial Examination system, in which you essentially tested into the ability to hold high-level government jobs, and could make multiple attempts at it. In fact, the more I look at it, the more the Political Bee starts to resemble the exams themselves- different levels of exams for different levels of service; the ability to just brush yourself off after failing and try again next year; the general principle that anyone from any corner of the country, provided they test well enough, can prove themselves capable of leading at the highest levels.
There were two main problems with the exam system, aside from the emphasis on rote learning, but the bee can fix them easily enough. The first was corruption and cheating- some Chinese emperors cancelled exams and simply sold the political positions- but unless students are buying answers to questions, that won't be much of a concern. (And if it does get out that a participant in a Political Bee cheated, that's the kind of problem the voters can fix in a heartbeat when that person tries to run for office later.) The second is cost- studying for the exams was sometimes so expensive that only the elite could afford to do so. In this day and age, however, that's less of a concern than ever. Anyone with access to a computer or a library or even City Hall can study for a Political Bee. The only real issue is finding schools and/or sponsors willing to host the preliminaries.
Whether the eventual products of the Political Bee eventually use those smarts to do good or harm is ultimately up to them. But at the very least, we know those smarts will exist.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Eats, Shoots And Leaves
When Americans go out for Chinese food, one of the items they are most often going to see is General Tso's chicken. (Actual Chinese people, not so much. Anyone that's ever seen a travel or food show that's visited China will know that American Chinese food and actual Chinese food are two completely different worlds. If you go to China, General Tso's chicken in all likelihood won't be on any menu.)
You, however, have probably wondered at some point just who General Tso is and why does he have chicken named after him.
Well, isn't this your lucky day. Assuming your lucky day wasn't when Salon answered the question, or NPR, or the Washington Post, whose direct link is wonky but it was reprinted elsewhere so here. It's new to you, right?
General Tso is Zuo Zongtang, born in Hunan province in 1812. He was planning on a career in civil service, but in Imperial China, he needed to pass an exam in order to enter civil service, and he failed seven times.
That wasn't actually particularly embarrassing as far as the Imperial examination system went. China's bureaucracy is historically where everyone wanted to be; that's where the political power and perks have always been. There was no stigma in failing, even in failing repeatedly, so as not to discourage anyone from keeping interest and trying again later on. It was tough to get into the bureaucracy; it was supposed to be. Only 5% of exam-takers passed.
After seven times, though, Zuo called it quits and headed back home to farm silkworms, and was living quietly when the Taiping Rebellion erupted in 1850.
What's the Taiping Rebellion? In brief, it was a huge civil war from 1860-1864, that pitted the ruling Qing dynasty against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was led by Hong Xiuquan, who had failed the exams four times himself. After his last failure, he found Christianity. In fact, he found that he was Jesus' younger brother. He found followers, two of which claimed to be channeling Jesus himself, as well as God, and as such they tried to usurp authority from a mere younger sibling of Jesus. This of course led to Jesus' younger brother killing God in 1856.
Bet that's the first time you've ever read that sentence.
Hong and what was left of his followers found a Confucianist government in charge, and decided China needed to be a Christian nation. An eye-popping 20 million dead people later, he and the movement found their grave. (He also, in all likelihood, found a very sad Jesus asking him how 20 million deaths could get brought on by someone claiming to be the younger brother of a guy known for loving everyone.)
Zuo's part in this was to, over the course of the war, march into the Taiping capital of Nanjing and assist in dethroning the second and final Taiping leader, Hong Tianguifu, who was handed the reins after Xiuquan's death and thus subsequently executed at age 16 despite by all appearances having absolutely no idea what was going on at any point in the proceedings.
Taiping started Zuo up the Chinese military ranks. He would be called upon in three more conflicts: the Nien Rebellion in 1868, the Dungan Revolt lasting from 1862-77, and the Sino-French War in 1884-85.
Nien, by the way, is notable as it stemmed from men who turned to banditry because there were not enough women to go around and single men- 'bare branches' had a much harder time sustaining themselves economically. In 2007, China's one-child policy had led to families preferring sons that could support them in their old age, leading to an imbalance of 119 men for every 100 women. In 1850, pre-dating the one-child policy (and the Nien Rebellion, but not the Niens), the ratio was 129:100. Not only was there an economic incentive, it was exacerbated by a famine, meaning not only was a girl less valuable in the long term, in the short term a girl was just another mouth that families could not afford to feed.
But back to the main question. Why does Zuo- or Tso- have a chicken dish named after him, and why is it not an actual Chinese dish? There are two possible origins. One has Zuo's wife making him the dish one day, but that's the less likely origin. The much more likely origin is that during the Communist revolution that put Mao Zedong into power, one person, Peng Changkuei, fled China, settled in New York, and invented the dish there. It was a toned-down dish, replacing spicy Hunan elements with sweeter Cantonese elements to appeal to a larger Cantonese community in New York. It became popular because Henry Kissinger was in the neighborhood a lot, ate at Peng's restaurant all the time, liked the chicken, and spread the word.
Why it got named for him, though, is hard to peg. Maybe it was just named after a big name in Hunan history, as Peng was Hunan. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was a new dish and Peng wanted some sort of unique name to be able to advertise with. Maybe it was a bit of gallows humor. General Tso's chicken is chopped, and General Tso chopped up a lot of his enemies- they still used swords in China during the Taiping Rebellion- and so perhaps the chicken got his name that way.
Coming soon: how Happy Family traces its origins to the movie Soylent Green. Or not.
You, however, have probably wondered at some point just who General Tso is and why does he have chicken named after him.
Well, isn't this your lucky day. Assuming your lucky day wasn't when Salon answered the question, or NPR, or the Washington Post, whose direct link is wonky but it was reprinted elsewhere so here. It's new to you, right?
General Tso is Zuo Zongtang, born in Hunan province in 1812. He was planning on a career in civil service, but in Imperial China, he needed to pass an exam in order to enter civil service, and he failed seven times.
That wasn't actually particularly embarrassing as far as the Imperial examination system went. China's bureaucracy is historically where everyone wanted to be; that's where the political power and perks have always been. There was no stigma in failing, even in failing repeatedly, so as not to discourage anyone from keeping interest and trying again later on. It was tough to get into the bureaucracy; it was supposed to be. Only 5% of exam-takers passed.
After seven times, though, Zuo called it quits and headed back home to farm silkworms, and was living quietly when the Taiping Rebellion erupted in 1850.
What's the Taiping Rebellion? In brief, it was a huge civil war from 1860-1864, that pitted the ruling Qing dynasty against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was led by Hong Xiuquan, who had failed the exams four times himself. After his last failure, he found Christianity. In fact, he found that he was Jesus' younger brother. He found followers, two of which claimed to be channeling Jesus himself, as well as God, and as such they tried to usurp authority from a mere younger sibling of Jesus. This of course led to Jesus' younger brother killing God in 1856.
Bet that's the first time you've ever read that sentence.
Hong and what was left of his followers found a Confucianist government in charge, and decided China needed to be a Christian nation. An eye-popping 20 million dead people later, he and the movement found their grave. (He also, in all likelihood, found a very sad Jesus asking him how 20 million deaths could get brought on by someone claiming to be the younger brother of a guy known for loving everyone.)
Zuo's part in this was to, over the course of the war, march into the Taiping capital of Nanjing and assist in dethroning the second and final Taiping leader, Hong Tianguifu, who was handed the reins after Xiuquan's death and thus subsequently executed at age 16 despite by all appearances having absolutely no idea what was going on at any point in the proceedings.
Taiping started Zuo up the Chinese military ranks. He would be called upon in three more conflicts: the Nien Rebellion in 1868, the Dungan Revolt lasting from 1862-77, and the Sino-French War in 1884-85.
Nien, by the way, is notable as it stemmed from men who turned to banditry because there were not enough women to go around and single men- 'bare branches' had a much harder time sustaining themselves economically. In 2007, China's one-child policy had led to families preferring sons that could support them in their old age, leading to an imbalance of 119 men for every 100 women. In 1850, pre-dating the one-child policy (and the Nien Rebellion, but not the Niens), the ratio was 129:100. Not only was there an economic incentive, it was exacerbated by a famine, meaning not only was a girl less valuable in the long term, in the short term a girl was just another mouth that families could not afford to feed.
But back to the main question. Why does Zuo- or Tso- have a chicken dish named after him, and why is it not an actual Chinese dish? There are two possible origins. One has Zuo's wife making him the dish one day, but that's the less likely origin. The much more likely origin is that during the Communist revolution that put Mao Zedong into power, one person, Peng Changkuei, fled China, settled in New York, and invented the dish there. It was a toned-down dish, replacing spicy Hunan elements with sweeter Cantonese elements to appeal to a larger Cantonese community in New York. It became popular because Henry Kissinger was in the neighborhood a lot, ate at Peng's restaurant all the time, liked the chicken, and spread the word.
Why it got named for him, though, is hard to peg. Maybe it was just named after a big name in Hunan history, as Peng was Hunan. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was a new dish and Peng wanted some sort of unique name to be able to advertise with. Maybe it was a bit of gallows humor. General Tso's chicken is chopped, and General Tso chopped up a lot of his enemies- they still used swords in China during the Taiping Rebellion- and so perhaps the chicken got his name that way.
Coming soon: how Happy Family traces its origins to the movie Soylent Green. Or not.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sanmao
Many if not most countries have their share of long-running pop culture icons. They might wax and wane in popularity, but they always seem to stick around, often reaching a point where they remain alive, in one form or another, partially because of tradition. Canada has Hockey Night in Canada. The United Kingdom has Doctor Who. The United States has Bugs Bunny, Superman, Batman, Saturday Night Live, a number of others. Europe in general has Eurovision. For much of the Latin world, it's Sabado Gigante. Japan has, among others, Ultraman, Gundam and Lupin III.
China has Sanmao.
Sanmao ("three hairs", as that's all he's got) is an unusual kind of pop culture icon. He spent his formative years as a homeless orphan, barely able to feed himself. But through the power of reader sympathy, Sanmao has lasted as long as anyone, being a part of the Chinese pop culture universe since 1935.
Shanghai-based Zhang Leping in part was drawing what he knew; he grew up poor as well. He got into drawing after being encouraged to go to art school, found he liked making comics, and came up with Sanmao. It wasn't total sympathy that got Sanmao over- humor helped- but what really did it was when Japan invaded China in 1937 in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which would ultimately be rolled into World War 2. (If you need your memory refreshed, the Rape of Nanking also happened in 1937. It wasn't the start of the conflict, but it wasn't long after it.) Zhang was recruited by the government to draw up propaganda posters for the war effort, and he made Sanmao part of some of them.
At the close of the war in 1945, Zhang went back to working on Sanmao, starting by telling the story of Sanmao's war experience in a series called 'Sanmao Joins The Army'. The humor began to fade, though there was still a place for it in the same way there was a place for army humor in Bugs Bunny wartime cartoons. By the end of it, he wasn't just a pop-culture hit, he was a Chinese hero. But at the end of the series, when Sanmao leaves the army, he is faced with a choice: go back to the country where he came from, or move to Shanghai. In both directions, there were graves everywhere.
He chose Shanghai. At this point, things turned dark. According to the linked article from The World of Chinese...
Zhang incorporated it into Sanmao's next series, 'The Wanderings of Sanmao'. Sanmao would survive, of course, but not without immense difficulty and hardship, in a postwar city filled with them. Now Sanmao wasn't just a Chinese hero. Now he was a Chinese hero that needed love and support.
He had plenty of places from which to receive it. Sanmao has been an easy comic to follow, because it doesn't use words if at all possible. The aim with Zhang was always ease of reading by anyone, even an illiterate, which has been an important factor if it was actually to be seen by China's impoverished. As Zhang's son, Zhang Rongrong, explained to China Daily in 2005, upon Sanmao's 70th anniversary, "Sanmao was created for all the people, including the poor and the illiterate... Every time when my father finished a cartoon, he always showed it to us first to see whether we could understand - if we couldn't, he would restart."
Zhang took heat from the Central Daily, a paper run by the ruling Nationalist government, but that was rather the point. Zhang was going after them for corruption and for creating too much of a rich-poor gap in Chinese society. Sanmao wasn't really for them anyway, and besides, Zhang's hometown was attacked by the Nationalists in 1927. Sanmao was for the masses. Sanmao was, it would happen, for the Communists. And when the Communists took power, Sanmao took part in the celebration.
Given his 1935 start, you may have asked, how did Sanmao survive, oh, say, the Cultural Revolution where so much of Chinese culture did not? That's why. Sanmao may have been an impoverished orphan, but he knew the right people to get in with. Sanmao would never be quite such a picture of desperation again, and for his fans, it came as a joyous relief. He'd suffered enough. Today, Sanmao is healthy, well-educated, and most importantly, no longer homeless. But to his fans, he will always be the poor, starving orphan boy.
Zhang died in 1991, but as in so many comics in America, the mantle was passed on, specifically to Zhang Rongrong, who has put his energies into placing Sanmao into other forms of media.
Here's a sample of Sanmao comics. You'll note little numbers in the bottom-right corner of each panel; that's the order they're meant to be read in. Left to right, top to bottom, just like you'd expect.
China has Sanmao.
Sanmao ("three hairs", as that's all he's got) is an unusual kind of pop culture icon. He spent his formative years as a homeless orphan, barely able to feed himself. But through the power of reader sympathy, Sanmao has lasted as long as anyone, being a part of the Chinese pop culture universe since 1935.
Shanghai-based Zhang Leping in part was drawing what he knew; he grew up poor as well. He got into drawing after being encouraged to go to art school, found he liked making comics, and came up with Sanmao. It wasn't total sympathy that got Sanmao over- humor helped- but what really did it was when Japan invaded China in 1937 in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which would ultimately be rolled into World War 2. (If you need your memory refreshed, the Rape of Nanking also happened in 1937. It wasn't the start of the conflict, but it wasn't long after it.) Zhang was recruited by the government to draw up propaganda posters for the war effort, and he made Sanmao part of some of them.
At the close of the war in 1945, Zhang went back to working on Sanmao, starting by telling the story of Sanmao's war experience in a series called 'Sanmao Joins The Army'. The humor began to fade, though there was still a place for it in the same way there was a place for army humor in Bugs Bunny wartime cartoons. By the end of it, he wasn't just a pop-culture hit, he was a Chinese hero. But at the end of the series, when Sanmao leaves the army, he is faced with a choice: go back to the country where he came from, or move to Shanghai. In both directions, there were graves everywhere.
He chose Shanghai. At this point, things turned dark. According to the linked article from The World of Chinese...
“On one snowy night, Zhang Leping was walking home from the office,” Hong Peiqi, Zhang’s publisher, remembered. “He passed by an alleyway and saw three street children huddled together. For shirts, they wore used grain sacks. For pants they had old, threadbare trousers. They warmed themselves around a fire. The next morning, when Zhang passed the same alley, he found two of these orphans had died overnight.”
This kind of thing was not uncommon. “Was there really such a child as Sanmao?” Zhang reflected later. “Homeless children were in every street and alley you walked along in Shanghai.”
Zhang incorporated it into Sanmao's next series, 'The Wanderings of Sanmao'. Sanmao would survive, of course, but not without immense difficulty and hardship, in a postwar city filled with them. Now Sanmao wasn't just a Chinese hero. Now he was a Chinese hero that needed love and support.
He had plenty of places from which to receive it. Sanmao has been an easy comic to follow, because it doesn't use words if at all possible. The aim with Zhang was always ease of reading by anyone, even an illiterate, which has been an important factor if it was actually to be seen by China's impoverished. As Zhang's son, Zhang Rongrong, explained to China Daily in 2005, upon Sanmao's 70th anniversary, "Sanmao was created for all the people, including the poor and the illiterate... Every time when my father finished a cartoon, he always showed it to us first to see whether we could understand - if we couldn't, he would restart."
Zhang took heat from the Central Daily, a paper run by the ruling Nationalist government, but that was rather the point. Zhang was going after them for corruption and for creating too much of a rich-poor gap in Chinese society. Sanmao wasn't really for them anyway, and besides, Zhang's hometown was attacked by the Nationalists in 1927. Sanmao was for the masses. Sanmao was, it would happen, for the Communists. And when the Communists took power, Sanmao took part in the celebration.
Given his 1935 start, you may have asked, how did Sanmao survive, oh, say, the Cultural Revolution where so much of Chinese culture did not? That's why. Sanmao may have been an impoverished orphan, but he knew the right people to get in with. Sanmao would never be quite such a picture of desperation again, and for his fans, it came as a joyous relief. He'd suffered enough. Today, Sanmao is healthy, well-educated, and most importantly, no longer homeless. But to his fans, he will always be the poor, starving orphan boy.
Zhang died in 1991, but as in so many comics in America, the mantle was passed on, specifically to Zhang Rongrong, who has put his energies into placing Sanmao into other forms of media.
Here's a sample of Sanmao comics. You'll note little numbers in the bottom-right corner of each panel; that's the order they're meant to be read in. Left to right, top to bottom, just like you'd expect.
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