Two pages from a full-color 1972 Chinese children's book. It's all in Chinese but it seems to be the story of a Vietnamese boy whose village comes to be occupied by American soldiers. Some of the soldiers get blown up by a mine, and the soldiers torture some of the village residents to try to find out who is responsible. They offer the boy candy and sodapop but he rejects their bribe to the cheers of the village. The pictures don't explain how he comes to be holding the American soldier's helmet as a souvenir. They must have given it to him, right?
Did this all start with the Chinese poster in our bathroom in Chicago?
ReplyDeleteActually I was already damaged by then! When I lived in Evanston in Junior High I used to go this Chinese propaganda bookstore serving Northwestern students. I got completely hooked on the imagery then.
ReplyDeleteMy living room which many friends find quite disconcerting is done up entirely in Mao propaganda. My explanation is complicated, since his historical legacy is deservedly not kind. THere's a subject for a future post!