Chinese propaganda posters

May Day, as in Labor Day, is a statutory holiday here in China. I think the "labor" aspect of the holiday is about as significant in China today as it is in our country. This is now a day off, a day for shopping and going to the movies, which is what I'm going to do.

This is the kind of propaganda poster we're familiar with from the good ol' days -- sturdy, apple-cheeked workers, filled with zeal and joy, gazing into the socialist utopian future and waving the Little Red Book.

I've always had a soft spot for propaganda posters, and the old ones have become collectors' items. There was a bit of a kerfuffle when it was learned that former press secretary Jay Carney had two Soviet propaganda posters hanging in his home...

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I also had a Chinese poster in my kitchen. Mine promoted the importance of regular tractor maintenance and featured, as does the poster at right, a sturdy Chinese girl. I doubt Carney is a closet Marxist, and like me, he displayed the poster half-ironically and half because the posters are a witness to history and, if you can detach them from history (and I do understand if some people can't or won't), they are attractive in their own right.

Does the Chinese government still put out propaganda like this?  Yes and no....  
As part of its theme of "Chinese Dream," (as opposed to, say, "the American Dream,") the government has commissioned dozens of artists to produce posters which are used everywhere -- here at the campus, on the sides of buses and at bus shelters, on the walls around construction sites.

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Many posters celebrate an idealized vision of the countryside, the world that the Chinese are leaving behind in their millions in search of work in the cities. Or they show groups of children playing, or people engaged in traditional activities or crafts. Ian Johnson, writing in the New York Review of Books,  made a significant point about these China Dream posters: "The difference is that while the old posters touted Communist values, the new ones largely replace them with pre-Communist Chinese traditions—drawing on traditional folk art like paper cutouts, woodblock prints, and clay figurines to illustrate their message....  Almost all the art used in the posters, with its depictions of traditional dress and poses, used to be derided by the Party as belonging to China’s backward, pre-Communist past; now, these aesthetic traditions are a bulwark used to legitimize the Party as a guardian and creator of the country’s hopes and aspirations."

Above we see a poster reminding everyone that the rice in their bowl is the product of a lot of hard work, so respect every grain. Can't argue with that.  The people below left are harvesting red peppers. 

In fact, during the Cultural Revolution, Mao -- far from being the guardian of China's culture -- tried to wipe out everything old and traditional and create a Year Zero country. I've written about the Cultural Revolution before and I'll continue banging on about it, in my coming blog posts about our travels in Shandong Province.

Meanwhile, this is me wondering about stealing a poster from the streets because it would be nice to have some art on the walls at the apartment.

We have actually managed to decorate our walls very inexpensively with large wall calendars with nice classical Chinese paintings on them. But I like these fish pictures, too, and the pictures of the countryside.

Below, two posters that stress filial piety. You can see more of the contemporary posters here at the Ministry of Propaganda website.

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