hjah15 on "China’s political colours: from monochrome to palette"

hjah15 — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:05:49 +0100

Hey Professor Wasserstrom,

My name is Jonathan; I was in your history class in Spring of 2007. I'm currently at Peking University and I can see how colors are instrumental in how the government is promoting the Olympics. The background of the Olympic logo is often blue as the government is attempting to connect with the international community. China's attempt to blend the different elements of traditionalism, nationalism, and communist ideology often results in bizarre contradictions. But it still mixes somehow.

China’s political colours: from monochrome to palette, Jeffrey N Wasserstrom

opendemocracy — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:30:40 +0100

A dramatic but largely unacknowledged shift has recently taken place in how the past is understood in China. One way to think about this Chinese transformation is to see it as a sort of "colour revolution" - albeit one very different from the associations this term has with the popular upheavals in Georgia or Ukraine.

Jeffrey N Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. His most recent book is China's Brave New World-And Other Tales for Global Times (Indiana University Press, 2007), and his next will be Global Shanghai, 1850-2010 (Routledge, forthcoming).

He writes for a wide range of academic and general interest periodicals and is a founding member of a new group blog on Chinese issues, The China Beat: Blogging How the East Is Read

Also by Jeffrey N Wasserstrom in openDemocracy:

"One, two or many Chinas?"
(15 February 2008)

"The perils of forced modernity: China-Tibet, America-Iraq"
(27 March 2008)Within a few years of Mao Zedong taking power after the communist victory of October 1949, a colour-scheme took shape in which the only parts of the past which could be celebrated were those considered to be completely “red” - that is, tied to the revolution and useful in adding to its lustre. But more than three decades after Mao’s death, China is making room for parts of its past that fall into two other colour-coded categories. It is no longer off-limits to praise things associated with the colour “blue” - which in China has sometimes been linked to the sea, and by extension objects and fashions coming from the west. The fall of another taboo is reflected in favourable comment about historical artefacts or figures regarded as “yellow” - which, in addition to certain sexual and pornographic connotations, conjures up traditional modes of thought and imperial rule.

The crowds that have attended this very Chinese “colour revolution” are gazing at tourist sites, not protesting in city-centre squares. True, even in the newest of new China, it remains acceptable to visit and take pride in the classic “red” locales, such as places where Mao himself fought battles or held meetings. Indeed, 2005 was even declared a year of “red tourism”, marked by the publication of books about specific cities and provinces where sites with sacred revolutionary significance could be found.

But it has also become acceptable to revel in aspects of China’s past that are “blue”, in the sense of symbolising the country’s ties to international currents that have more to do with consumption and capitalism than to radical action. The refurbished neo-classical structures that line Shanghai’s waterfront Bund are an example. In a sign of just how far things have moved on from the days when these buildings were disparaged as symbols of “bourgeois decadent” lifestyles, some Shanghai residents clamour to see them become China’s latest addition to the United Nations list of world heritage sites.

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hjah15 on "China’s political colours: from monochrome to palette"

China’s political colours: from monochrome to palette, Jeffrey N Wasserstrom