{"id":80694,"date":"2018-02-05T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T14:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=80694 "},"modified":"2018-02-05T14:04:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T14:04:00","slug":"80694-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=80694","title":{"rendered":"China Bans Online Parodies of \u2018Red Classics,\u2019 Revolutionary Heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2018-02-05<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2018\/5\/201825image.jpg\" alt=\"201825image.jpg (620&#215;349)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A Chinese choir group parodies the revolutionary-themed Yellow River Cantata in an undated photo.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Social Media<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">China<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8217;s culture ministry has launched a crackdown on the spoofing of its revolutionary culture and its heroes, ordering the deletion of thousands of online videos for parodying popular &#8220;red classics and heroes.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The ministry said it has taken immediate action to investigate and remove spoof videos from online sites following recent media attention given to the spoofing of the communist-era choral classic Yellow River Cantata.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">In one spoof video available via Hong Kong&#8217;s Cable TV News channel, a choir of angelic children sing the cantata wearing panda hats, while the conductor wears panda paws.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The choir sing out &#8220;We are crying out for our year-end bonuses!&#8221; instead of a stirring description of the Yellow River&#8217;s roar and the howling wind as a symbol of Chinese resistance. &#8220;The wife needs a new handbag and I have to put my kid down for a good school!&#8221; they lament.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">In another, the conductor and other performers make exaggerated, jerky movements in an apparent parody of the highly stylized depictions of revolutionary martyrs and heroes favored by Mao-era performers, while a long piece of cloth labeled &#8220;The Yellow River&#8221; is flapped up and down in front of the singers to imitate water.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Much displeased, the culture ministry has called on government departments and internet service providers to crack down on such spoofs, and encourage respect for China&#8217;s revolutionary history and culture.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Internet and cultural agencies are required to conscientiously push back against spoof versions of revolutionary classics and heroes to ensure the dissemination of advanced socialist culture,&#8221; the ministry said in a statement on its official website.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Thousands of videos removed<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">At the end of January, culture ministry officials hauled in 17 major service providers including Youku Tudou, Tencent, Iqiyi, Baidu, and Sina to &#8220;rectify their work,&#8221; the statement said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">As of Jan. 30, service providers had removed 3,898 offending videos of &#8220;pranksters&#8221; spoofing revolutionary songs, it said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The ministry said it would revise its guidelines to internet service providers to require them to &#8220;take seriously classic revolutionary themes and cultural works, respect history, respect the classics and praise their heroes.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The Yellow River Cantata, written in 1939 during the Chinese People&#8217;s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-1945), depicts the heroic spirit of the Chinese people during the war,&#8221; state news agency Xinhua said in its report on the crackdown.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Online activist Wu Bin, known by his internet nickname Xiucai Jianghu, said the ruling Chinese Communist Party requires that only its own version of history is respected.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Many people see these so-called heroes and martyrs and historical figures differently, but their version of history shouldn&#8217;t be regarded as the only version, just on account of their power,&#8221; Wu said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">They don&#8217;t want people to say anything or to do anything. This isn&#8217;t based on the law; it&#8217;s based on coercion, so it can&#8217;t be relied on,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It smacks of the absurdity of a society based on the rule of officials.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8216;Thought control&#8217;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Hong Kong political commentator Cai Yongmei said the government&#8217;s move is part of a much broader range of measures being rolled out under President Xi Jinping, harking back to the ideological controls of the Mao-era Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Lately, Xi Jinping has enforced a whole series of measures, the most serious since the Cultural Revolution,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;An example is the ban on spoofs of the Yellow River Cantata. I hardly think those people are engaged in a serious challenge to Communist Party culture.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">They think this ideology is a bit dull, and they think it&#8217;s a bit of fun [to parody it],&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;But things are regressing now to the point where nobody is allowed to doubt any of the Communist Party&#8217;s previous ideology, nor its distorted view of history.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">We are back to the thought control of the Mao era.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">China&#8217;s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People&#8217;s Congress (NPC), is currently considering criminalizing anyone deemed to have smeared the &#8220;reputation and honor&#8221; of the ruling party&#8217;s canon of heroes and martyrs, official media reported last December.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Departments including public security, culture, press and cyberspace have a responsibility to protect the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs in their supervision,&#8221; state news agency Xinhua quoted the text of a new draft law as saying.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">If passed, the new law would also ban the &#8220;illicit appropriation&#8221; of land and facilities near memorials of heroes and martyrs, as well as any damage to such memorials, Xinhua said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Those who appropriate, damage or contaminate memorials, and insult or slander heroes and martyrs, may receive administrative penalties from public security or even criminal sanctions,&#8221; it quoted the draft law as saying.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p>  <p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/parodies-02052018104104.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The ministry said it has taken immediate action to investigate and remove spoof videos from online sites following recent media attention given to the spoofing of the communist-era choral classic Yellow River Cantata.&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}