I go shopping for movies and kung fu stuff in Chinatown all the time, probably once a week. One thing I’ve noticed that kind of perplexes me is all the Mao stuff. Not that someone can’t be a communist if they want, but didn’t alot of the people in Chinatown leave China to come to the US because of communism?? and considering the overwelmingly negative effect the communists had on martial arts, isn’t it sort of wrong to have them in the same place??
It’s a source of nostalgia. People somtimes like to look back to the simpler and more “equal” times of Mao. Sure people were poor, but they were all equally poor.
Besides, most Chinese ( especially youth ) could care less about politics these days, and the Mao stuff can be “cool” in a perverted retro kind of way, since they have never grew up in that kind of enviroment.
My parents grew up with the little red book and everything, and my dad dislikes the communists, but even they like to reminiscent about the “good old times” sometimes.
Also, nobody really cares about “the overwelmingly negative effect the communists had on martial arts”, most Chinese people are very ignorant of martial arts.
It’s all part of Chinese culture now, like it or not.
VAAASTLY fewer people left China because of communism.
They mostly left because they want to be rich Americans.
What I find wierd is that you have a Chinatown apparently full of mainland Chinese. Most Chinese emmigrate to American from either Taiwan or Hong Kong. Chinatown is usually filled with the ones from Hong Kong or at least Guangzhou. If the Mao stuff is selling I’m guessing more from Guangzhou. The Taiwanese seldom make it into Chinatown because they tend to be wealthier and more educated. Not so many economic refugees.
But I’ll give you a little clue…you have eaten at least as much propoganda as they have. We both do it. Despite what you may have heard, Mao, to this day, is regarded as a hero and national savior on the Mainland. It’s mainly Chinese from Taiwan who hate him. Mao Tze Dong is their George Washington. The poplar image of Mao is a friendly one. The basic perception is that he was down in the trenches with the troops and was a real man of the people. Chang OTOH was smeared as an Aristocrat and the popular image is of him at a table with all his underlings nervously sweating it out hoping not to offend him or make some mistake of ettiquette.
True or not, that’s the image.
The other thing that I find interesting is that today’s youth kind of chuckle if you bring up Mao but they tend to be real honest fans of Deng Xiao Ping. My GF likes to read his essays and transcriptions of his speeches and many Chinese have shared humourous anecdotes about him.
My Shifu wears a Mao pin on his lapel even though HIS Shifu fought for the KMT.
In China,
Liking Mao = patriotic.
Think less about the idea of “communism” and more about “new China” and it makes sense.
Originally posted by gfx
My parents grew up with the little red book and everything, and my dad dislikes the communists, but even they like to reminiscent about the “good old times” sometimes.
You posted while I was writing.
I just recently found out that many of the teachers at my school actually reminisce about the late 80’s!?!
The irony…
They talk about how easy it was to get a job and support your family then (comparitively speaking) and the amount of economic optimism they had. Their country has continued to develop economically but prices have also risin and they general pessimism about govt. corruption seems to have gone up.
omar- your sig explains your demented answer. talk about propaganda!
The guy I know is from kwantung
Originally posted by jun_erh
omar- your sig explains your demented answer. talk about propaganda!
demented?
Are you implying that I have been brainwashed?
And if so, can you point to a specific view I have that seems to be the result of said brainwashing?
Is your survey sample of Chinese attitudes towards Mao any bigger than the one guy you know?
My little red book
The little red book is required reading for anyone seriously studying China so naturally I have one in my library. I even bought it in a used bookstore on Haight street in SF - more more left can you get, eh? 
Anyway, my kid (age 5) loves that book. I’m not sure why. Maybe its the size, just right for little hands. Maybe it’s the color. Red is so bright. Maybe it’s the plastic cover reminicent of other children’s books. Maybe its because the man in the picture is named Mao and that means “cat”. My kid frequently takes that book off the shelf and moves it, so I find it lying around in odd places. Mao’s ghost. It haunts all Chinese.
general concensus is:
These are the good old days.
Originally posted by omarthefish
[B]You posted while I was writing.
I just recently found out that many of the teachers at my school actually reminisce about the late 80’s!?!
The irony…
They talk about how easy it was to get a job and support your family then (comparitively speaking) and the amount of economic optimism they had. Their country has continued to develop economically but prices have also risin and they general pessimism about govt. corruption seems to have gone up. [/B]
yeah, not to mention the decline of morals in society, and the rising unemployment and crime. The social class rift is quite large now as well. No wonder there’s a lot more unhappy Chinese now than there were before.
Mao was from a farmer family.
Even today, Mao is supported by the farmers. Farmers constitute close to 90% of Chinese population.
The people in power in CCP are more pragmatists nowadays.
Deng was a pragmatist.
His famous saying is that Black cat, or white cat. As long as it catches a rat, it is a good cat.
Yes, economic boom brought alone corruptions at all levels.
The corruptions are at their worst.
Mao’s mistakes in great leap forward and culture revolution are hushed by CCP.
Because, the support for Mao translated into the support for CCP.
Culture revolution was oked by Mao. The little red guards sort of ran out of controls. Even Mao may not turn them off.
Yes, in the beginning of PRC in the 50’s, there are few crimes and few or non corruptions. Every body was geared to build a New China on a socialist path.
In other words, Mao is the right thing to believe as long as CCP is in power.
On the other hand;
There were more people died of hunger in Cultural revolution than those during the 8 years of Japanese invasion.
NO one and no one else may whip so many people in one direction or the other EVER.
Funny how even now, in a country like the US, Mao can still be a hot button…
Mao’s biggest mistakes - The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
The Great Leap…probably looked good on paper…but in practice…bringing industrialization and modern methods to a country of billions in a few short years…even with major support from a world bank this would be next to impossible.
The Cultural Revolution…probably began as a similar idea. How much control did Mao exert? How much was from the Gang of Four? How much was out of everyone’s control and simply a country and revolution gone mad?
Had it not been for those two items (and they ARE BIG ONES), Mao would have been remembered as the greatest leader China had ever seen.
Whether or not you like him or approve of Communisim in the PRC, he managed to be a pain in the a$$ to the Japanese during WWII, managed to form a coalition between the workers, farmers, and military to defeat Chaing Kaishek…even though Chiang had the backing of a number of western powers, he managed to avoid the trap that Hong fell into 100 years earlier (Hong ran a successful revolution against the Qing emperor and managed to get a number of followers…however, he rushed to establish a government with him at the head BEFORE the fight was won and he allowed his second and third in command to establish themselves as rival rulers…), Mao managed to maintain control (often brutally…but maintained it was), he took China from a beaten starving country to a world power and an entity that even the US feared in a few short years, he managed to get aid and support from the USSR…and then go his own way when they disagreed, and he outlasted a large amount of US hatred to establish relations with the US in the early 1970’s…
Sort of like the Harry Potter quote about “He did Great things…Terrible…but Great…”
I have a copy of Mao’s little red book. Bought it as a joke in Beijing from a street vendor. He was sitting on the sidewalk, exemplifying CAPITALISM, and selling me a copy of the Mao bible…for a fee that was 3 times what it would go for in a state book store… I found the act of buying Mao’s book and getting ripped off in a capitalist way on the streets of Mao’s city too much of a good joke filled with irony to resist.
Originally posted by GLW
[B]Funny how even now, in a country like the US, Mao can still be a hot button…
I had NO idea untill I started posting about him here and there on the boards and was FLAAAAMMMEEEEDDD for not even really saying anything pro-comunist. Just for not villifying him or even pointing out how he is viewed by the locals.
the only thing I have to comment on in your post besides that is that the cultural revolution I think was very different from teh great leap forward. The Great Leap Forward can be seen as a well intentioned PHENOMENAL ****up. But the Cultural Revolution, AFAIK…drifitng away from my area of expertses here…was more of a political play. It was the result of his need to stay the top dog. He stirred up the coutnry in large part to get rid of some political enemies. So I can kind of emphathize with what happened in the Great Leap but not the Cultural Revolution.
They are only very recently starting to teach these subjects in the schools here btw. Most people don’t realize they are taught at all though.
I pretty much agree with your assessment of the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.
Although, in a strict Marxist sense, a continual revolution or a cultural revolution every so many years to make sure that the revolution continues is very much in keeping with the Communist ideals. So, while I am sure that Mao was heavily motiviated to rid himself of some political enemies via the Cultural Revolution, I kind of think that he was also trying to be a good Chinese Marxist at the same time. I am not really sure how functional he was then. Given what was released about the Gang of Four during and after their trial, I wonder if Mao was not suffering from the onset of senile dementia that made this go haywire and allowed for the worst to happen.
He had a history of seeking and retaining power at any cost. But he also had a history of being a nationalist.
Funny…but Chou Enlai is about the only one of that 60’s era group that is unanimously well thought of. Similarly, Deng is the only one in a LONG history (even back into the Dynasties in China) to lose and be purged and come back to lead.
Funny thing about Deng. I tend to get Deng Xiao Ping and Zhou Enlai mixed up in my head. Last week I had a chance to read some transcriptions of some fo his speeches and I was startled how colloquial they were. He even uses a lot of those funny meaningless words that are often put at the end of sentences when you are being cute or talking with close friends like ‘ma’ ‘ya’ and ‘ba’.
The one thing I would say though regarding you post is that the more I learn about China, the more skeptical I become of Mao having any true communist ideals at all. I think he was just being a good strategist. I suspect he spent more time studying the 36 strategies then the works of Marx. This is the part I get flamed for usually…suggesting that he was smart rather than crazy.
Definitely smart…
No one in the history of China (even Deng was not ousted…so he fits into this as well) has ever been overthrown and routed and then come back to regain power.
Chiang was planning on retaking China… that would have been a first - in 3000+ years.
Mao showed that he understood Sun Tzu. He drew the Japanese out and retreated…then cut their lines and used their weapons against them. When that war was over, he did the same thing with Chiang.
Mao understood that China’s strength is in the people..their shear numbers…and so he got the farmers and workers behind him…he already had his part of the military…
Mao came in from the country to isolate the cities and cut them off. Classic strategy. If in retreat, he destroyed his goods rather than leave them for his enemy to find and use. When advancing, he adopted what his enemy left behind and used it.
His political opponents had a habit of dying. Some even having plane crashes…sort of like some democrats and their private planes nowadays 
just kidding…maybe…
He got the Kremlin to back him when he needed it…and then told them that they were NOT China…and he was…when he felt that China was strong enough and that the USSR was entagled enough in the Cold War…
He was smart.
I don’t know how much of a Marxist he was. Strange thing about China is that no matter what the philosophy, when it gets to China, it gets modified to fit China and never the other way around…so was he or wasn’t he…hard to tell.
This is a good thread.
However, there are too many things to cover.
I heard a lot of stories.
I also know a lot of people that survived GLF and CR.
Their personal stories brought a lot of tears.
I heard a lot of stories about the wars in the last century.
I agree with GLW’s assessment.
Mao was very well versed in Chinese history.
He simply did what every dynasty building emperor in Chinese history did. That is eliminating political opponents to stay in power once the government/dynasty is founded.
The whole killing intellictuals to prevent criticisms of the new government is also very classical Chinese.
Mao admired the first emperor, you can find many of his actions mirrored him, except on a much larger scale.