Irony

Today I visited the birthplace of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai. It's a small museum made out of the house where Mao and a bunch of people nobody in the west has heard of gathered to formulate the tenets of the CPC. It was interesting. Actually, it was probably one of the best museums I've seen here so far. You could tell they really brought their "A-game" with this one because there was not one instance of "Chinglish" throughout. One thing that really struck me was that it wasn't particularly down on democracy or even the KMT. It didn't talk in terms of global liberation of the proletariat, rather it framed the CPC as the savior of the Chinese people. In many ways this is true. From the early 1800s up until the mid 20th century China's sovereignty was impinged upon continuously. Yet shortly after the Communists took over the mainland, China was fighting against American troops in Korea and winning. The museum did use some Commie catchphrases ("means of productions", "workers"), but most of the explanations seemed to be measured assessments.

My favorite part though... the gift shop at the end. This is really a beautiful microcosm for the current state of affairs.

How bourgeois!

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