The Guardian-Halloween costumes in Shanghai poke fun at Chinese authorities
November 1, 2023 3 min 472 words
这则报道反映了上海的万圣节庆祝活动中的创意与幽默，穿着防护服、监控摄像头和中国股市下跌等主题的服装，明显地拿中国当局开涮。这种创意让人不禁思考中国社会和政治的现实。其中，一位以鲁迅为代表的中国作家的扮演者更是引人关注，他的标语“学医不能救中国”以及“有本事的干活，有本事的说话”的引用，显然传达出对社会问题的讽刺。而去年因“零COVID政策”而爆发的示威活动对这次庆祝活动也产生了影响，这表明了中国社会对政策的不满。 这些创意服装虽然幽默，但也表达了一种不满情绪。中国政府一贯对异议表达采取强硬态度，因此在社交媒体上传播这些图像可能带来一定风险。这一现象引发了对中国社会言论自由和政治开放度的思考，以及对领导人习近平的嘲讽，这在社交媒体上受到审查。 总的来说，这次庆祝活动既有趣又具有深层次的政治寓意，反映了社会中不同声音的存在。然而，这也显示出言论自由和政治多样性在中国仍然受到限制，表达异议仍然是一项具有风险的行为。
Halloween revellers in Shanghai have poked fun at the Chinese authorities with their costumes, with people dressing up as Covid prevention workers, surveillance cameras and China’s falling stock market.
Videos posted on social media showed police shepherding away people with particularly subversive costumes on Tuesday night, including one person dressed as Lu Xun, a Chinese writer from the early 20th century whose fable about a useless scholar has become a meme for China’s unemployed youth.
The Lu Xun impersonator carried a sign that said: “Studying medicine cannot save the Chinese” – a Lu Xun quote – and recited one of the author’s famous sayings: “Those who can do things, do things. Those who can speak out, speak out.” Police appear to move him off the street shortly afterwards. The Guardian was unable to verify the date of the video but the impersonator is standing in front of a car with a Shanghai licence plate.
This year’s Halloween festivities were the largest gathering of people on the streets of Shanghai since thousands of people in cities across China demonstrated against China’s harsh zero-Covid regime in November last year. Those protests are seen as one of the reasons that Beijing decided to abandon the restrictions shortly afterwards.
Shanghai had suffered a particularly severe lockdown, with millions of residents largely confined to their homes for three months in 2022. Many vented their frustrations on social media before taking to the streets in November, in a show of dissent the likes of which have not been seen in China for several decades.
Other tongue-in-cheek costumes posted to social media include a person dressed as Winnie the Pooh – a mocking reference to Xi Jinping, China’s leader, often censored on social media – and several people dressed as Covid protection workers, who wore white hazmat suits during the pandemic.
上海万圣节 pic.twitter.com/kDVvu6kCJe
— 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) October 31, 2023
Another photograph, which was described as coming from Shanghai, showed a person holding a sign with the slogan: “It is forbidden to flow backwards.” The sign depicts a graphic of a man surfing a wave on a yellow background.
The costume appeared to be an oblique reference to Li Keqiang, China’s former premier who died on Friday. Li was seen as an economic liberaliser who pledged that China’s reform and opening-up would never stop, saying: “The Yellow River and Yangtze River will not flow backwards.” Public mourning of Li has been strictly controlled, as authorities fear an outpouring of grief for the man seen to represent an alternative vision for China that that has failed to materialise as Xi has tightened the Communist party’s grip on the country.