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How Mao Became a Hipster Icon
New York Times ^ | April 20, 2012 | Anand Giridharadas

Posted on 04/21/2012 3:36:37 PM PDT by nickcarraway

The D.J. with the bob haircut and sparkling leggings considers the question. Smoke from her waifish cigarette curls skyward. It’s shortly after 2 p.m., and she has only recently awoken. She is explaining why, in addition to disco music and vintage clothes, she counts herself a fan of the long-departed Chairman Mao.

“Some people say Mao was a punk,” Sun Peipei finally offers. She intends this as a compliment. She’s a punk, too.

She hunts for words. “He’s more edgy in his thoughts, and he puts his thoughts into actions very outrageously.” Well, yes, in a way. “He’s really different.” True, but. … She tries again: “The Red Guards greeting Mao in Tiananmen Square is like fans greeting a rock star.”

Finally, Ms. Sun, a 29-year-old fixture of Beijing’s alternative scene, comes to her idea: “Mao has done something that normal, sane people wouldn’t do. He was on the frontier of things.”

China can seem of many minds about Chairman Mao, who oversaw a period of mass famine and persecution. His portrait still adorns the money and still hangs exaltedly on the gates to the Forbidden City. But officially, at least, China has tried to tamp down enthusiasm for his ideas. Just a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao referred to the Cultural Revolution as a “historical tragedy” and a “mistake” that ought not be repeated.

But amid the dizzying changes and surging consumerism of modern China, whose temples are Louis Vuitton boutiques, a different view of Mao can be found among many young people of Ms. Sun’s ilk — young, cool, weird, out of sync with their Burberry-chasing peers. Mao, chided by his own successors in power, becomes for these hipsters an imaginary figure who stands for equality, authenticity and a higher purpose —

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: china; mao
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1 posted on 04/21/2012 3:36:37 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

These people are utter morons. I’m ashamed to be of the same generation.


2 posted on 04/21/2012 3:49:37 PM PDT by zoso82t
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To: nickcarraway

He sure was on the frontier of things...he murdered more of his own people than Hitler and Stalin combined. What a tremendous accomplishment, don’t you think? Idiots.


3 posted on 04/21/2012 3:50:11 PM PDT by john drake (Roman military maxim; "oderint dum metuant," i.e., "let them hate, as long as they fear.")
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To: nickcarraway

It sounds like Ms. Sun is basically the equivalent of the twits over here who walk around wearing Che Gueverra (sp?) T-shirts. Too young and too full of poseur nonsense to remember or understand the true monstrous nature of these butchers.


4 posted on 04/21/2012 3:51:20 PM PDT by DemforBush (A Repo man is *always* intense!)
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To: zoso82t

Ditto-but you really can’t blame the fools, they have been taught this by a marxist educational system, and their own foolish sin nature mixed with immaturity=idiocy!


5 posted on 04/21/2012 3:51:36 PM PDT by JSDude1
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To: JSDude1

The idocy isn’t new. A religion professor at Kansas University used to proudly wear a Mao cap with a red star on it.


6 posted on 04/21/2012 3:55:48 PM PDT by Kanzan
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To: nickcarraway

I think it was an attempt to be “cutting edge”. Like in the 60’s when “everyone” was digging the Beatles it was a bit outre to be into the Stones. Or when Rap came along Hip Hop was soon to follow for the super cool set.

Back in the day the conventional brand of communism was Russian through and through. By self-identifying with Mao (or Che) you could be that much more avant garde. Also both Mao and Che had iconic portraits that helped with their branding.

Basically what I’m saying is that it wasn’t based on anything other than a sense of wearing Lee Jeans instead of Levis.


7 posted on 04/21/2012 4:00:30 PM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: nickcarraway

I don’t know what’s sicker: these morons’ worship of a violet, mass-murdering, leftist thug or the New York Times’ giddy reporting of it.

Colonel West was right.


8 posted on 04/21/2012 4:00:42 PM PDT by WeatherGuy
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: nickcarraway

10 posted on 04/21/2012 4:35:32 PM PDT by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both)
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To: zoso82t

11 posted on 04/21/2012 4:37:53 PM PDT by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both)
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To: nickcarraway; PhilDragoo

12 posted on 04/21/2012 5:11:51 PM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: nickcarraway
Mao has done something that normal, sane people wouldn’t do.

True... He was quite probably the greatest mass murderer in human history, greater than Hitler and Stalin combined.

Mark

13 posted on 04/21/2012 5:42:34 PM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: nickcarraway

I have an old Guiness Book of World Records somewhere. It lists the world’s number one murderer.

And the winner is: Chairman Mao with 60,000,000 to his credit. I think Stalin was in second place with only 35,000,000.


14 posted on 04/21/2012 5:45:28 PM PDT by yarddog
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To: nickcarraway

I made a promise to myself a long time ago;anyone wearing a Che t-shirt who got in my face would get the beat-down of their misspent life.Well,add Mao to the list.


15 posted on 04/21/2012 5:47:00 PM PDT by Farmer Dean (stop worrying about what they want to do to you,start thinking about what you want to do to them)
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To: BenLurkin
The numbers I've read are a bit different... Mao responsible for roughly 70 million murders, Stalin for about 55 million, and Hitler, being a piker, at only about 12 million.

Either way, it's mind boggling that anyone would say anything good about them, like that Booger Eating Moron in the Obama administration who said that Mao was one of her favorite philosophers.

Mark

16 posted on 04/21/2012 5:47:40 PM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: nickcarraway

“Smoke from her waifish cigarette curls skyward.”

What makes this commie slut think that her cigarette smoke is “waifish?’

Personally, I think the commie whore needs to experience ducking rounds from a Marine platoon.


17 posted on 04/21/2012 5:56:56 PM PDT by sergeantdave
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To: yarddog

I don’t give Mao too much credit for the record though. He obviously had a much larger pool of victims with the population China had than Stalin or Hitler. I think given the opportunity almost all totalitarians could kill in huge numbers like Mao. I think as a percentage of population Pol Pot might be number 1 in the genocide sweepstakes.


18 posted on 04/21/2012 6:09:45 PM PDT by xp38
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All contributions are for the Current Quarter Expenses.



Click the link. The Republic you save may be your own.

19 posted on 04/21/2012 6:15:58 PM PDT by RedMDer (https://support.woundedwarriorproject.org/default.aspx?tsid=93)
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To: john drake

Ayers thinks their revolutionaries would have to take out 25 million die hard capitalists that cannot be ‘reeducated’ here.
“Mao’s Great Famine: A History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe”, and its author is the scholar Frank Dikotter, of Hong Kong University.
(Author Interview here)
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s3020355.htm


20 posted on 04/21/2012 6:34:28 PM PDT by griswold3 (Big Government does not tolerate rivals.)
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