Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (91 page)

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Authors: Geremie Barme

Tags: #History, #Asia, #China, #Literary Criticism, #Asian, #Chinese, #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, #World, #General, #test

BOOK: Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader
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Page 282
Musical Chairmen:
Anonymous
Rather than leave the reader with the impression that the MaoCraze produced only hagiographic works related to the Great Leader, I choose to end this work with two punning rhymes and a quotation from an itinerant worker.
The first was common in China after 1989. In six lines it sums up the dilemmas of the Chinese leadership and the feeling among average Chinese people that, apart from occasional private satire, they are powerless in the face of the political musical chairs played by their rulers.
Zhou sile esi zhu
zhu sile meiyou mao
mei mao hua yige
hua buhao hu yige
hu buxiang zhao yige
zhao bucheng jiangjiuzhe
The congee [zhou = Zhou Enlai] goes and the pig [zhu = Zhu De] starves to death
With the pig dead its hair [mao = Mao Zedong] will go
[It's useless] without hair so draw [hua = Hua Guofeng] one instead
If that's no good, paste [hu = Hu Yaobang] one together
If it doesn't look right take a photo [zhao = Zhao Ziyang]

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