Walking the Wall

And the meaning of this is what?

A few days after we posted our first story on this website, our friend Andy McEwen wrote in asking us to “take some pictures of any dull or interesting Chinese slogans” while we walked. We had no idea what he was talking about.

So we asked. Here is Andy’s story:

I began collecting slogans while hiking with Ed Jocelyn on the New Long March, our 6000 kilometre walk following the route of the Red Army’s epic escape from Chiang Kai’Shek’s Nationalist forces in 1934-35. (Note from e&b: Andy and Ed have published two books on their trek; for more info, see the bottom of this post.)

I got the idea from our friend Lu Sitao when he marched with us in Jiangxi province, at the beginning of the New Long March. One day near the village of Xinfeng, he suddenly bent over double and started giggling like a madman. Sitao has a great eye for the weird, but I couldn’t see what was so funny about yet another “planned birth” slogan. He pointed out a slogan daubed on the white wall of a house:

“Growing oranges is more important than having children.”

In this orange-growing area it perhaps didn’t seem so funny, but taken out
of context we found this entertained all the folks back in Beijing.

Political slogans have played an important role in modern Chinese history from the May Fourth movement of 1919, through the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, the Cultural Revolution and Democracy Wall movements, and more recently the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Political slogans still fill the walls and skylines of mainland Chinese cities and villages, especially “planned birth” slogans. Most slogans are dreary exhortations for the Chinese people to love the motherland, behave in a more “civilized” (translation: obedient) way and so on.

I have yet to see anyone suggest anything practical such as “Keep China tidy”. It tends to be much more abstract – “Building for a high-tech future”. Maybe it’s a bit like your local council back home spending your tax money on a junk mailing with the words “We are Working for You” up top or something like that.

Our experience has been much like Andy’s. We see slogans everywhere – on schools and billboards, on people’s houses. As Andy says, they are less than inspiring. Mindless patriotism, paeans to education and family planning are the most popular subjects.

But even if they don’t give much insight into what everyday people are thinking about, the slogans do say something about what their rulers in Beijing think they should be thinking about. And we find that in itself interesting, so we thought we’d post a few from time to time.

This first one, from the heart of Hexi Corridor irrigation country, should strike a chord with everyone back in Australia, not only because we’re in the midst of a nationwide drought, but also because you can find our own Australian versions of this slogan on the cover of every government water plan in the last 20 years and in just about any irrigation area. Now if we (those of us in China and Australia) could just figure out how to use less.

Shui shi shengming zhi yuan: Water is the source of life

By the way, the slogan at the top of this post translates to “The Three Represents are the foundation of the (Communist) Party.” Still don’t know what it means? Don’t worry, neither does anyone in China.

Ed Jocelyn and Andy McEwen walked the route of the Long March in 2002 and 2003. They have published two books in English on their journey, The Long March (London: Constable 2006) and Red Road (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press 2005). You can read about the New Long March online at www.newlongmarchers.com.

Ed Jocelyn and a Chinese friend, Yang Xiao, are currently walking the route followed by the little-known Second Red Front Army on the New Long March 2. They are only about 50 days from finishing this year-long trek. You can read about their adventures at www.newlongmarch2.com.