Kitsch cats
On the centenary of Deng Xiaoping's birth, his famous 'black cat, white cat' pragmatism was celebrated as one of his enduring legacies. Erecting a pair of oversized house cats seemed a fitting way to immortalise this wisdom. The bridge spanning the Gan River in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, is now guarded by the two giant cat statues shaped like traditional Chinese lions. With gazing eyes and pricked ears, the stylised creatures have cloud patterns on their bodies and ringed tails. Sitting on high pedestals, they do not appear to be self-conscious of the fact that they are symbols of the driving spirit of China's capitalist revolution.
According to Deng's theory, it does not matter if a cat is white or black; if it catches a mouse, it is a good cat. Even though they are enjoying the fruits of economic reforms, many people are uneasy about this end-justifies-the-means pragmatism and consider it a moral decline of Chinese society. To them, the hideous statues speak of manipulation and bad taste.
If the colours of the cats suggest right and wrong, this was not what Deng intended. His biography says the first mention of the saying was in 1962 when he spoke to Communist Youth League delegates. Quoting the favourite folksy saying of his fellow Sichuanese, General Liu Bocheng, who defeated Chiang Kai-shek's modern army with his ragtag guerilla fighters, Deng said: 'It does not matter if a cat is yellow or black; if it catches the mouse, it is a good cat.'
Deng was wary of personality cults and shunned the hypocrisy of grand sentimentality. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea. But seven years after his death, his successors are busy manufacturing kitsch in his memory. An elaborate memorial park was built at Guangan, his home town in a poor, remote corner of Sichuan, featuring a fountain with 20-metre-high jets, plus other hi-tech gimmicks.
A statue of Deng sitting snugly in a rattan chair mounted on a marble platform is graced with Jiang Zemin's calligraphy saying: 'The bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping'. Some visitors are puzzled by the mundane inscription. Why not 'Comrade Deng Xiaoping' or 'Reformer Deng Xiaoping'? They figured that it must be the engineering training of Deng's successors that puts the emphasis on function and precision. On the day President Hu Jintao unveiled the statue, Guangan women performed a flower drum dance, shouting the Lunar New Year greeting: 'May you become rich and prosperous'. The best way to remember Deng, according to the local Communist Party secretary, is to wish that everyone would get rich. Did not the old man say that getting rich is glorious?