Over the weekend, state broadcaster CCTV aired a segment titled “Beginner’s Mind: the Liangjiahe Chapters,”<\/a> the latest installment in a\u00a0spirited\u00a0presidential image-crafting campaign that has followed Xi closely through\u00a0his five-year tenure<\/a>. The seven-minute video compiles photos of a youthful Xi with audio clips of the president describing his seven years\u00a0as a “sent-down youth<\/a>” \u00a0(\u4e0b\u653e\u9752\u5e74) in the northern Shaanxi village of Liangjiahe<\/a>\u00a0during the Cultural Revolution. The segment opens with a mashup of early Xi media interviews describing the impact of his time toiling in the rural landscape and living in a\u00a0yaodong<\/em> cave-dwelling<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n
Those seven years living with the community in Shanbei left me with a very mysterious, almost a divine feeling. \u00a0Since then we\u2019ve had all types of challenges\u2014tests, or when beginning new jobs\u2014but our minds always return to the Shanbei plateau, to those elders overseeing the ox-tilling or the Shaanxi folk tunes. <\/span>In the rainy wind I\u2019d be in the <\/span>yaodong <\/span><\/em>(cave-dwelling) with the cut grass, at night I\u2019d go to see the animals and follow them to tend the sheep. No matter the job I\u2019d do it. I\u2019d carry 200 jin<\/em><\/a>\u00a0of wheat on a ten <\/strong><\/span>li<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>mountain road without even switching shoulders<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0[…]\u00a0<\/span> [Chinese<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
200 jin <\/em>is a massive load (about 243 pounds), and ten\u00a0li\u00a0<\/em>a fair distance (just over 3 miles).\u00a0Easily bearing one over the other would be almost as impressive as Mao Zedong’s Olympic-beating Yangtze swim in 1966<\/a>. After watching the CCTV segment, CDT resident cartoonist Badiucao (\u5df4\u4e22\u8349)\u00a0<\/strong>offered illustrated homage to President Xi’s fabled strength, and a theory on how he might have accomplished such a\u00a0feat:<\/p>\n