{"id":165036,"date":"2013-11-05T22:01:33","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T06:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=165036"},"modified":"2021-09-14T21:47:25","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T04:47:25","slug":"restaurants-serve-cultural-revolution-nostalgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/11\/restaurants-serve-cultural-revolution-nostalgia\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurants Serve Cultural Revolution Nostalgia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Century at The Atlantic looks at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/china\/archive\/2013\/11\/chongqing-restaurants-serve-cultural-revolution-nostalgia\/281100\/\"><strong>Chongqing&#8217;s\u00a0red restaurant\u00a0phenomenon\u00a0in which eateries take on Cultural Revolution-era themes to attract customers<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/adam-century\/\" rel=\"author\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The walls of Old Base (<em>laojidi<\/em>), a bustling hot pot restaurant in downtown Chongqing, China looks like a Communist Hall of Fame: Karl Marx\u2019s stern portrait, which hangs from a central pillar, faces blown-up head shots of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, two of the masterminds behind the Cultural Revolution. Zhou Enlai and Vladimir Lenin make frequent appearances, and, of course, Mao Zedong himself fixes customers with his pensive gaze, even peering out from above the bathroom urinals. Under the watchful eyes of China\u2019s Communist forefathers, teenage waiters donning Red Guard outfits serve up Chongqing\u2019s distinctive, spicy hot pot.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]\u00a0Underlying the novelty and kitsch of Old Base is that contemporary Chinese characteristic: the place turns a profit. \u201cServe the People,\u201d a core Communist slogan that dates back to a 1944 Mao speech and is plastered all over the restaurant, now serves as a marketing ploy, emphasizing the waiters\u2019 dedication to service. It\u2019s as if today\u2019s version of the slogan has been revised with the caveat, \u201cServe the People \u2026 who have disposable income.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The nostalgia served up by Old Base is by no means an isolated phenomenon. Under the leadership of now-imprisoned Party leader Bo Xilai, Chongqing garnered international attention for its promotion and re-popularization of red songs, a genre of Communist, pro-Party folk songs that were forcibly and feverishly embraced under Mao. In October 2011, more than 100,000 city residents reportedly congregated in Chongqing\u2019s Olympic Park to bellow the familiar tunes, marking the peak of Bo\u2019s popularity and, for many, recalling scenes from the Cultural Revolution. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/china\/archive\/2013\/11\/chongqing-restaurants-serve-cultural-revolution-nostalgia\/281100\/\"><strong>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Meanwhile, in another throwback to revolutionary days, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china-insider\/article\/1347317\/chinese-olympic-champion-hurdler-liu-xiang-mocked-dressing-red\"><strong>photos of\u00a0Olympic hurdler Liu Xiang in a\u00a0Red Army uniform at Jinggangshan have attracted online criticism and ridicule<\/strong><\/a>. From South China Morning Post:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The photos, which made newspaper front pages and were widely circulated on the internet, show coaches and members of the Chinese national track team on Sunday at a motivational meeting for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic games in Jinggangshan, a remote mountain area in Jiangxi province and the birth place of China\u2019s communist revolution.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]\u00a0\u201cPutting athletes in Red Army uniforms and making them vow to strive hard is a bad move. Sports events ought not to be politicised,\u201d one online user commented.<\/p>\n<p>Other internet user accused the athletes of acting as propaganda tools of the Communist Party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you are vowing in the name of athletic spirit, you have my support. But if you are vowing because officials told you, then you are fooling the public,\u201d another said. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china-insider\/article\/1347317\/chinese-olympic-champion-hurdler-liu-xiang-mocked-dressing-red\"><strong>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Century at The Atlantic looks at\u00a0Chongqing&#8217;s\u00a0red restaurant\u00a0phenomenon\u00a0in which eateries take on Cultural Revolution-era themes to attract customers.\u00a0 The walls of Old Base (laojidi), a bustling hot pot restaurant in downtown Chongqing, China looks like a Communist Hall of Fame: Karl Marx\u2019s stern portrait, which hangs from a central pillar, faces blown-up head shots of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1088,"featured_media":165039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,14744,14745,14746,5],"tags":[5941,4955,15185,4667,15164,3094],"class_list":["post-165036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-society","tag-cultural-revolution","tag-liu-xiang","tag-mao-era","tag-online-public-opinion","tag-red-culture","tag-red-guards","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Restaurants Serve Cultural 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