When Mango met Mao
I think that most of the people here are not aware of an incident (or a series of events ) regarding the madness about mangoes or the The Mango Fever of China.
In an apparent diplomatic gesture On August 4, 1968, Chairman Mao was presented with some innocent mangoes by the Pakistani foreign minister, Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada.
Although, in Indian subcontinent Mango is considered as king of fruits, it was unknown in most of the china. So the great leader decided to send these mangoes for a long walk. Mao had his aide divide them up and send them to Mao Zedong Propaganda Teams across Beijing, starting with one started at Tsinghua University on August 5. On August 7, an article was published in the People's Daily saying:
In the afternoon of the fifth, when the great happy news of Chairman Mao giving mangoes to the Capital Worker and Peasant Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team reached the Tsinghua University campus, people immediately gathered around the gift given by the Great Leader Chairman Mao. They cried out enthusiastically and sang with wild abandonment. Tears swelled up in their eyes, and they again and again sincerely wished that our most beloved Great Leader lived then thousand years without bounds ... They all made phone calls to their own work units to spread this happy news; and they also organised all kinds of celebratory activities all night long, and arrived at [the national leadership compound] Zhongnanhai despite the rain to report the good news, and to express their loyalty to the Great Leader Chairman Mao.
As the Telgraph has written in an article. Astonished by the miraculous gift, the propaganda team decided to send one mango to each of Beijing's most important factories. The mangoes were held up as a symbol of Chairman Mao's love for the workers and quickly became holy relics themselves. Workers stayed up all night looking at them, smelling them, caressing them, wondering what this magical fruit was.
At the Beijing Textile Factory, "the workers held a huge ceremony ... then sealed it in wax hoping to preserve it for posterity. The wax-covered fruit was placed on an altar and workers lined up to file past it, solemnly bowing as they walked by.
When the mango began to rot, however, it was delicately peeled and then boiled in a huge vat of water. Each worker drank a spoonful of the water in which the sacred mango had been boiled. Meanwhile, the Number One Machine Tool Factory decided to send its mango to its sister factory in Shanghai. They specially chartered an aero plane just for the mango. Plastic, wax and papier mache facsimile mangoes were sent out on special lorries to tour the provinces, while enamel mugs, washbasins and plates were decorated with mangoes. Fake mangoes in glass cases were handed out to thousands of workers in Beijing to display in their homes.
Mango-brand cigarettes were a bestseller, and huge baskets of mangoes were the central floats of the 1968 National Day parade.
One dentist in a small village, who dared to compare a touring mango to a sweet potato was put on trial for malicious slander and executed.
Badges and wall posters featuring the mangoes and Mao were produced in the millions. The fruit was shared among all institutions that had been a part of the propaganda team, and large processions were organised in support of the zhengui lipin("precious gift"), as the mangoes were known as.
A poem in the People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the party, ran: "Seeing that golden mango/Was as if seeing the great leader Chairman Mao ... Again and again touching that golden mango/the golden mango was so warm".
The three articles I used for researching this article are :
Comments
Post a Comment