I have some questions about the “funny memes” about President Xi as Winnie the Pooh or Chairman Mao as a cat (I’m sure there are many more, for example I heard some people call President Xi an “accelerator in chief”, a very narrow minded and rude term in my opinion).
I basically only know the western narrative about those memes, I want to learn about how they are regarded in China, if they are actually illegal and/or “censored” and why, what their origins are, what they mean (I know from my scarce knowledge of Hanyu that Mao also means cat for example), and who made them.
I am trying to “de-propagandize” my mind, since I grew up only being taught the opposing side’s narrative. I don’t want to be disrespectful, and if I am please tell me, it is not my goal to be rude.
I know the Winnie the Poo one was racism mixed with “communism is when government bans things” propaganda.
Winnie the Poo is not banned in China, nor was it ever (to my knowledge). The entire meme of it came from people (mostly white racists) claiming that Xi Jinping looked like the character on sites like Reddit and 4Chan, then on the same sites they claimed the meme was banned in China and was being suppressed by Reddit’s moderation (it wasn’t). Thus creating an urban myth that not only was the meme of Xi photoshopped next to Winnie banned, but Winnie the Poo as a character was also banned.
This whole thing comes down to Sinophobia, and the racist desire to believe anything that’s being said about China.
In case anyone does try to tell you Winnie the Pooh is banned, just ask them to look no further than Disneyland Shanghai
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There are Chinese memes of Mao being depicted as a cat as well because his name is actually very close in spelling to the Chinese word for cat, Māo. No one would actually mistake “Mao” and “Māo” in conversation.
The Winnie the Pooh meme actually came from China, probably with a different connotation to them.
The Winnie the Poo thing was never even actually banned, mao does mena cat, so I guess depends on how you represent him. It could be a cute
That’s not actually true, Mao is different from Māo. They’re spelled nearly the same but mean different things.
Ah, I thought it was the same character, but you are right. Mao is Máo (毛) and cat is Māo (猫).
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The original Winnie the Pooh thing if I remember right is some Chinese netizen making this comparison in a positive light. Online racists decided to say Xi looks like Winnie the Pooh “because he’s round and yellow” and also a Winnie the Pooh movie was not brought to China because they only bring so many foreign movies in any year, and that’s where the anti-China meme came from.
It has never occurred to me that this comparison is racist, i don’t think anyone makes the comparison because winni de pooh is yellow, i think it’s just because they have similar facial features.
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I think it is a good exercise to de-propagandize yourself to just select a single widely reported news story, and just spend a long time trying to find its sources and properly understanding it. Eventually you’ll find out that a lot of it is just 10th hand reporting, with kilogramme of intentional or foolish mistranslation, mixed with severe incuriosity and self-righteousness. You might also learn a lot about certain countries are portrayed in the global English-speaking newscorps and their transnational branches and how that differs from the local realities.
As a good practical example with the “Winnie the Pooh” ban rumour, I once tried to source this article and its many clones that popped up. After a lot of searching, it turns out it was actually just an edit made by a small Chinese video game website on Weibo and that the bear didn’t actually have an aura of white surrounding it in-game as many “Westerners” reported. If you google “Winnie the pooh kingdom hearts banned” you will see only those exact same pictures. Nevermind how blatantly racist this caricature is and how none of the news articles most propped up ever bother to give their sources, this fake story has escalated so far that lots of “westerners” will just straight up believe that Pooh was a white blob in a Japanese video game that doesn’t even seem to even have an exclusively Chinese version.
