China: New political campaign shows sarcasm is alive and well · Global Voices
A strange custom of every Communist Party of China leader is for them to come up with their own theory or “ism”. <PERSON> and <PERSON> had their own respective variations of Socialist theory. <PERSON> has his Three Represents. And what about the current Chinese president <PERSON>? His, just released earlier this year, is often translated as the Eight Dos and Don'ts, or ‘Eight Honors and Eight Shames,’ and emphasizes the moral education of citizens—particularly the young generation—with the basis of conventional moral values like diligence and patriotism. The weirdest part of this theory is that all the Dos and Don'ts are nothing more than common sense and seem unworthy of the overwhelming propaganda in recent days:
以热爱祖国为荣、以危害祖国为耻，
以服务人民为荣、以背离人民为耻，
以崇尚科学为荣、以愚昧无知为耻，
以辛勤劳动为荣、以好逸恶劳为耻，
以团结互助为荣、以损人利己为耻，
以诚实守信为荣、以见利忘义为耻，
以遵纪守法为荣、以违法乱纪为耻，
以艰苦奋斗为荣、以骄奢淫逸为耻。
Love the motherland, do not harm it
Serve, don't disserve the people
Uphold science, don't be ignorant and unenlightened
Work hard, don't be lazy
Be united and help each other, don't benefit at the expense of others
Be honest, not profit-mongering
Be disciplined and law-abiding, not chaotic and lawless
Know plain living and hard struggle, do not wallow in luxuries.
Even an illiterate child, merely by his living experiences, can recognize them as great virtues. So why does the government need to promote them with their utmost exertion? Nowadays you can see almost every government newspaper attaching this slogan at the end of their propaganda articles. 49
Not to mention online news. A search on Google News shows how many news items are using this slogan to ‘elevate’ their news report. With such a broad definition of moral value, which is somehow universally acknowledged, it can be applied to the acts of all citizens, with all their behaviors judged by the Eight Dos and Don'ts standard.
It seems all students, police and workers have begun guiding their life and work by these principles overnight. Indeed, as these values shift onto the internet, the patriotic nature of the campaign has become increasingly clear with a growing number of websites being closed, BBS posts being deleted and bloggers self-censoring, all in the name of ‘honor’ and from fear of being seen as disobedient of the government.
And are the citizens really listen to such empty talks? Probably not. Mostly they choose to praise it superficially but ignore it practically. A common joke on schoolyards across the nation now is the phrase ‘Hu says eight rules’ (胡说八道), a euphemism for saying something silly or not making sense.
Even the government itself can't obey it. An evidence can be illustrated with photos like these taken from the official press and showing a sharp comparison with the original principle ‘know plain living and hard struggle, do not wallow in luxuries.': the most luxurious district government in the world, in Henan province—one of China's poorest—with a magnificent garden of beautiful scenery and an artificial lake.
Supergirl (超级女声), the Chinese version of American Idol, was recently struck out against quite vocally by <PERSON> (刘忠德), former head of the central government's Department of Culture. 341