SPEAKING
FREELY Admen turn China's
pearls into sows' ears By Daymon Macmillan
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
TIANJIN - At one of
China's many Wal-Mart stores stands a life-sized
cardboard image of Sun Wukong (the Monkey King
from the novel Journey to the West). In one
hand, Wukong balances his jing gubang
(magic staff); in the other, a can of mosquito
repellent purporting to "slay all monsters" that
may come one's way. Is this
the
fate of all warrior kings, sages and poets in
China?
With spending disposable income
gradually becoming an affordable pastime for the
more economically fortunate in China, the
competition to grab both the attention of
consumers and their yuan has become fierce and at
times culturally enhancing or blasphemous
(depending on whose comments you read). In one
recent instance of a marriage between culture and
consumerism, a sacred and lofty figure of China's
history and literary world got fed to the pigs.
Qu Yuan, a Warring States Period
politician and patriotic poet (340-278 BC) - the
romantic embodiment of Chinese patriotism - has
become the brand name for a pig-feed company, and
right in his very own home town, Zi Gui, Hubei
province.
Local residents have taken great
umbrage with their local hero's name being
slobbered over by thousands of swine across the
province. One resident went so far as to write in
the daily paper that people had "suffered a
cultural wound".
The factory responsible
for associating a great poet's name with hungry
piglet squeals said it had legally secured the use
of "Qu Yuan" for its product, and that it had
committed no crime. Though thoughtless, as a
lawyer later commented, labeling bags of pig feed
with one of China's well-known literary and
cultural figures is not illegal.
A number
of people continue to express concern via the
Internet about the "pollution" of traditional
culture through Qu Yuan's name becoming attached
to farm feed. "The embodiment of the spirit of the
Chinese people should not be associated with a
pig," wrote one critic of the pig-feed company.
"Pigs are dirty, and used to insult people - not
praise them." An iconographic war has erupted in
the factories and supermarket aisles of China.
Comments on the Qingdao Business Web
ranged from muted fury to casual acceptance. One
local of Qu Yuan's home town said that were the
town's historical hero to have his image and name
used for cigarette advertising or fertilizer,
residents would have no objection. "But the word
'pig' is used to insult and ridicule others [in
the local dialect]. A figure as loved and revered
as Qu Yu deserves much better." Pride in Qu Yu is
untarnished even if one's teeth are
nicotine-stained. But feed the poet-politician's
name to the pigs: that is just unacceptable.
A poster on the the bulletin board "Clear
Heaven" wrote that he or she saw nothing
resembling damage being done to Qu Yuan's good
name, and was surprised about all the hoopla
surrounding the legal use of Qu Yuan. As the law
indirectly states, the poster continued, once
you're dead, and dead a long time, your name is
fair game. The poster went on to elaborate how
borrowing Qu Yuan's fame to label bags of pig feed
was in fact showing respect to the
poet-politician, and aided in the spread of "Qu
Yuan culture". "Also," the poster explained, "the
company used the familiarity of Qu Yuan to seek
greater profits ... Who would dare say that this
is abnormal behavior?"
A contrary view was
aired by blogger Wei Zu Wei. In his post on the Qu
Yuan pig-feed debate, Wei expressed pathos for Qu
Yuan and the poet's current relabeling, writing
that the patriotic hero of Chinese history has
been resurrected in pig-grub promotions and profit
margins after having waited 2,000 years for his
place in modern society. Wei ascribed the harsh
treatment of the literary hero to the current
economic free-for-all in China. Mao Zedong on the
yuan note appears to be the sole sacred icon of
the country.
Many in China have written
that as the naming is not illegal, the fuss
surrounding the entire Qu Yuan pig-feed matter
ought to be dropped. Others, however, have
expressed dismay at the "swinification" of one of
the country's most beloved patriots. Some have
gone further to view Qu Yuan pig feed as
symptomatic of a society where consumerism is
rapidly gaining importance over cultural
appreciation and preservation.
When a
former empress advertising shampoo or The Sage
posing on cigarette cartons rarely elicits a
response from the average shopper, a sense of
one's culture and history as separate from today's
bargains is woefully missing. Confucius smoked is
not Confucius read, criticized or understood, but
rather only Confucius experienced in a fluffy,
carcinogenic sort of way.
In the midst of
the name-use abuse, Qu Yuan himself obviously
remains silent. Followers of the branding battle
have claimed that with Qu Yuan's name being used
for promotional purposes, the man's memory and
respect will continue to live while some in
China's cyberland instead see a trend of applying
important cultural figures' names to toothpaste
and ballpoint pens as defamation rather than
admiration.
Qu Yuan's life ended when he
committed suicide by drowning. This was the
alternative to ceding loyalty to his homeland to
invaders. Mourners threw zongzi (glutinous
rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaf) into the river
to prevent the fish and crabs from consuming Qu
Yuan's corpse. More than 2,000 years later, a
rabid consumer advertising industry cannot be
distracted by zongzi, and instead uses the
reputation, and image, of Qu Yuan to fatten up
farm animals.
Should you become a symbol
of loyalty and sacrifice, it remains possible that
an empty square on some box just might appropriate
your name some day. And whether generations hence
will remember your behavior and achievements, or
contribution to pork dinners, is a future that
remains to be seen.
Daymon
Macmillan is an educator in Tianjin,
China.
(Copyright 2007 Daymon
Macmillan.)
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
