Today is a day of great foreboding. For tomorrow the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded.  Which means that for one day too many in the year we must pay a moment's attention to Norway. Last year at this time we did a war dance on the head of Norway, its king ("Harald"), its culture, its latitude, even its women (we ran out of subjects) on the occasion of the award of the Peace Prize to President Obama. We called the Nobel Committee something like a group of  "twee, cloistered, clueless, politically correct elites," (we ran out of adjectives) completely out of touch with reality.

Fortunately, no American that we know of (but then nobody knew President Obama was on the Nobel committee's radar last year either) is anywhere near the top of the list for this year's award. A Chinese is. Today a betting man (Here!) would put down his money that tomorrow the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident. In a preemptive strike against this hostile action the government of the People's Republic of China has informed the government of King Harald that awarding the prize to Liu would, and we quote The New York Times here, "pull the wrong strings in relations between Norway and China."

Every time one thinks one has reached the bottom of all that is dark about the soul of China, there's another trap door leading further down. Chinese are a pain-ridden people, but (or and) a people who are afraid of their own shadow. They are at the same time a vain, xenophobic, people. And a cruel (or a tolerant of the cruel) people. And it is this fear, bed-rocked on their pain, that explains this boorish reaction to the Nobel. Think about this: China is afraid of Norway. Only in China, could there be fear of Norway. Only in China could a website written by an idiot blogger in America be blocked from that government's people. Only in China would there be such misplaced, undeserved, vanity as to presume to tell another government that the award of a prize could harm relations between the two governments. "Pull the wrong strings," huh.  

I missed this year's October day anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic. In past years I have posted something on the occasion.  If memory serves, last year I wrote, near the beginning of the attempt to "seek the soul of China," that China, as it has for 5,000 years "continues to degrade" the best that is in man's soul. There is much good (I think) in China's soul, certainly in the souls of individual Chinese but as a generalization of the entire history of this one-quarter of mankind, I stand by that judgment.

Liu Xiabao, a Chinese, is deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. China does not deserve to have one of its citizens, make that imprisoned subjects, so-honored.

An Open Letter to the Countries of the World

                                                              

Dear Countries,

How are you I am fine.

Have you ever taken a good look at your flags?  Put aside familiarity and national pride, look at them objectively as artistic symbols of who you are.  Do that, and you will see that your flags suck.

Flags are the symbols of your nations and since, collectively, you are mankind you are revealing mankind to be an ugly, unimaginative species with florid, psychotic ideation. The flag at top is not the product of my own florid, psychotic ideation. That's a real flag, of the Isle of Man.

Now, I'll start off with mine:



Most Americans get a tear in their eye seeing the "stars and stripes."  The last time I got a tear in my eye was when the rewind button on my VCR went on the blink during the flashing scene in Basic Instinct but I do love my flag. Viewed objectively though, it's...busy. Too busy.  If someone walked into court dressed in this many stripes and stars the judge would order a psych eval. Plus we have an unsingable national anthem. "And the rockets red glare:"  Only a eunuch can sing that part.

So having established my objectivity let's move on. Below we have, what, a TV test pattern?  No.  It's the flag of Macedonia.

                                                          


Let's do these by group.  Group one will be called UNIMAGINATIVE.

Okay,okay,okay. You like red, white, and blue. Fine. I like them too. They are what are called primary colors. The kind kindergarten children use.  Most people, when they grow up to be countries, branch out a little bit.  Below is what is called a "spectrum,"  ALL the colors, NOT just rouge, blanc, and bleu.  Aren't some of them nice, too?  You ever think of using any of them?

SPECTRUM

                                  BORING FLAGS

Wait, wait, don't tell me.  It's the cross!  Yes, it is, it's the cross in different colors. :)  Oh, that's so nice. Sideways too, huh?   Left to right we have Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and Denmark. Not that we could ever tell you people apart anyway.  Let me guess, and you're all blonde, right?


Group Two is called CONFUSING.

Confusing can have disastrous consequences. At left is the flag of Italy.  Next to it is Bulgaria. Now,... if you think...that Italians and Bulgarians...can easily distinguish between their two flags,...you're NUTS!  If these two great peoples ever got into a war, they'd be shooting their own great peoples.

Same with Iran and Tajikistan...but that would be okay.



Guess whose flag this is?

Give up?

GREENLAND.  Green-friggin-land!  Where's the green?  What does this design mean?  Greenland, you're done, get outta here. You're no longer a country.  Enough.


Group Three. Some flags are easily RECOGNIZABLE.




The Star of David=Jews=Israel. Easy. Simple, clean, design. Nice.



Red. Blood Red. China. Perfect.




Amtrak.  No! Oh my God, it's South Africa. My mistake.



"Space:  The Final Frawn-tier. These are the voyages of the nation St. Lucia."  





Group four is PUZZLING.

     



There's some weird sideways triangle thing going on here. Maybe everybody who went to flag design school had to pass "sideways triangles" class or something.

 

On the left, Qatar. On the right, Bahrain. Why I don't know.


Finally, group five is BIZARRE and is led off with the flag of the Isle of No-Man on the header.




"Meet George Jetson. dah-dah-dah dah-dah-dah-dah. Jane his wife. dah-dah-dah, dad-dah-dah-dah. Brazil his country."





Brazil's illegitimate stepchild.

I forget whose flag this is. Could it be anymore busy? Couldn't you guys fit in one or two more symbols there?



British Indian Ocean Territories. It looks British alright, it looks like what a Limey sailor would see when he's had a few too many pints.

What is this, mold?  No, Libya. 

This is vaguely reminiscent of a hockey team uniform. Maybe it's the combination of a Swedish-like blue and yellow and the stars. I don't know.



This is vaguely reminiscent of the vomit of the NBC peacock.



Oh my God.

So countries, there you have it. It's back to the drawing board time, literally.  I am never one however to make a criticism without proposing a solution and in a future post I will give you some ideas for the perfect symbols for who you are. Because clearly you are in need of ideas.

Seeking the Soul of China: The Great Leap Forward

                                                                          

Received Professor Frank Dikotter's Mao's Great Famine yesterday, the first comprehensive scholarly work on the GLF since Jaspar Becker's Hungry Ghosts.  Professor Dikotter estimates that 48,000,000 were killed.  That is far higher than previous estimates, e.g. Chang and Halliday's 30,000,000.  At numbers like that though, the mind (my mind anyway) has trouble comprehending.

The Chinese government has officially decreed the Cultural Revolution the greatest catastrophe to hit the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party since the founding of the People's Republic. The CR was the biggest hit the CCP ever took but it's not even close in comparison to what the GLF did to the Chinese people.

Nine hundred million of China's one billion four hundred million people are peasants. GLF misery was concentrated on that larger two-thirds.  Chinese in the cities noticed some shortages of food but they didn't starve. And they had no idea what was happening in the countryside. Not even the leadership of the CCP knew. The GLF was Mao's creation and he would not hear of failure so only falsified reports on the catastrophe made their way to the Center. Marshal Peng Deuhai was the first to confront Mao over the GLF, at Lushan in 1959.  Marshal Peng was purged.  It was only in 1961 when leaders went to the countryside to check on conditions for themselves that the madness was stopped, by Liu Shaoqi. At the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in 1962 Liu (in indirect Chinese terms) blamed Mao for the catastrophe. Mao seemingly stepped aside and President Liu became the day-to-day head of state. But Mao only seemed to step aside. In reality he was plotting his revenge on Liu and those who supported Liu. Mao's revenge was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Liu Shaoqi was its main and one of its first prominent targets.

The Cultural Revolution played out mainly in the cities of China. Scholarly access to CR history therefore is infinitely greater than is GLF history. The educated were among the CR's first victims. It is natural then that far more writing has been done on the CR than on the GLF. The educated can write, the peasants cannot. But the Cultural Revolution grew directly out of the Great Leap, the one inevitably following the other for Mao Zedong, and for China. It is for all of these reasons that Professor Dikotter's book is so important.

China's Great Firewall.

Received the following email on September 28 from Mr. Chang Mu, the author of "The Cultural Revolution as a Series of Coups," published here on September 24.

Hello, Ben:

I am happy that you published my article, in fact my original English writing is bad, I am sure that you use a lot of time to make it into fluent English, so I thank you very much. I hope to see the Articles published what it was like. I search on the Internet, just get the following result:

PUBLIC OCCURRENCES

... of Silence: "The Cultural Revolution as a Series of Coups," by Chang Mu. ... that he wrote the essay "to introduce Chinese Cultural Revolution to the world." ... to go to Shanghai and ask Zhang ...

publicoccurrenc.blogspot.com - Cached

But I cannot open it to see the full text, I do not know why?  May be the "Internet police", the internet control or blockade and so on reason.  If you have time, please send me email  the article published. Thank you again!

With best regards

Chang Mu

He's going to be hurt and I'm going to feel bad and my...pique...at China's fascist government will become more peaked.