Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Distractions

Pay no attention to those beggars on the sidewalk or to those poor peasants in the countryside. Maybe if you offer shiny gold and jewels, people won't remember his ideas.

Mao’s Birth Commemorated in Gold and Gem-Encrusted Statue
Mao Zedong, the Communist revolutionary who rhapsodized the Chinese people as “poor and blank” has received the birthday present he probably never dreamed of. He has been commemorated in a manner befitting the excesses of modern-day capitalist China: a statue covered in gold and inlaid with gems that is said to be worth about 100 million renminbi, or $16.5 million…

[A]pparently China’s foremost revolutionary can be a spectacle of bling. The statue of a seated Mao went on display on Friday in Shenzhen, a commercial city in southern China better known for its raucous nightlife than its spartan revolutionary spirit.

China National Radio said on its website that the figure of Mao — appearing unnervingly slim — was covered in gold, jade and other gemstones, and was the work of more than 20 master craftsmen over eight months…

The statue went on display at an art and handicrafts show in Shenzhen, but will find a permanent home in Mao’s birthplace, Shaoshan, in Hunan Province.

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