Mao's English Tutor Dies, AP Recounts Softer, Jokey Side of Mass Killer

Zhang Hanzhi, Mao Zedong's English tutor who stopped giving the tyrant lessons in 1964, "as the devastating Cultural Revolution began taking place," eulogizes the AP. The obit is heavy on whimsy:

"Although the Chairman was aging fast, his mind was still quick: when he spoke, he was forceful and witty, full of wisdom and globally strategic insights," Zhang wrote in the Time article. "I listened as he defended his principles, insisting that the Taiwan issue was an internal affair of China's. I also listened to his jokes with (Henry) Kissinger about exporting 10 million female Chinese to the U.S., which stunned the U.S. Secretary of State."

No doubt Kissinger was hoping for a higher number. More "The Lighter Side of Mao" here.

R.J. Rummel does the math on Mao's "democide" and comes up with a round number of 73,000,000.

reason's Jacob Sullum recently thanked Deng Xiaoping for little girls in his stunning, moving analysis of China's one-child policy.

Comments

Mao | January 29, 2008, 8:58am | #

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

How many peasants does it take to change a lightbulb?

A million and one. First, I kill a million peasants to reduce the demand for electricity, and the last guy changes the lightbulb.

I'm here all week.

Fluffy | January 29, 2008, 9:04am | #

No doubt Kissinger was hoping for a higher number.

Thanks for making it impossible to win the thread.

Episiarch | January 29, 2008, 9:21am | #

No doubt Kissinger was hoping for a higher number.

Wait, are you saying Kissinger had a thing for slant slit?

Al Federber | January 29, 2008, 9:43am | #

@ Episiarch --

Very classy remark.

LarryA | January 29, 2008, 9:50am | #

It's a lot easier to admire someone like Mao if you live on the other side of the world.

Seventy three million. Almost as many as there are gun owners in the U.S.

B | January 29, 2008, 9:54am | #

"Wait, are you saying Kissinger had a thing for slant slit?"


Ah, the posters on this site are once again proving they rank right next to those on Democratic Underground as far as class is concerned.
Now all we need is another story about a cop getting killed so that the people on here can claim he deserved it. That would vault you guys right past the people on DU who cheer Tony Snow's cancer and into first place in the "Most Vile pieces of shit who post on a political website" category. Now that I think about it Ron Paul is in fact the perfect fit for this site. His vile bigotry goes well with some of the sentiments expressed on this site. Jolly good show.

dhex | January 29, 2008, 10:01am | #

hey B:

what's the worst thing about raping a two year old?

getting the blood out of your clown suit.


there, happy now?

Mao | January 29, 2008, 10:04am | #

Yow! Tough room.

12 months in the re-education camp will fix that.

mickeymao | January 29, 2008, 10:05am | #

"It's a lot easier to admire someone like Mao if you live on the other side of the world."

You'd be surprised. Mao is still admired by quite a large number of mainlanders.

"Slant slit"
Groan


"That would vault *you guys*..."
Everybody drink!

Episiarch | January 29, 2008, 10:09am | #

Hey B, Ron Paul is a doctor. He could probably remove that stick you have lodged up your ass without a lot of trouble.

"What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?"

"Nothing, you already told her twice."

chthus | January 29, 2008, 10:14am | #

What's worse:

1) Making an off color comment.

2) Getting more worked up about an off color comment than the topic of a man responsible for the untimely deaths of 73mil people.

If yuo're going to get your panties in a not about something...

David | January 29, 2008, 10:19am | #

A false choice... There's really no excuse for "slant slit," no matter what the topic of the thread is.

Fuck the First Amendment | January 29, 2008, 10:28am | #

There's really no excuse for "slant slit,"

Apparently Mao thought the same thing.

Zzzzz | January 29, 2008, 10:31am | #

Hey everybody! Look how good my racism detector works!!

Episiarch | January 29, 2008, 10:34am | #

There's really no excuse for "slant slit," no matter what the topic of the thread is.

Why are you so sensitive? Not down with the swirl?

koolai | January 29, 2008, 10:35am | #

Yep, Maozie was the worst. Still, that doesn't mean that the Episiarchs of the world aren't total dicks. Unless of course they're just doing parody, ala Archie Bunker.

joe | January 29, 2008, 10:36am | #

He's not.

Al Federber | January 29, 2008, 10:45am | #

This forum is becoming more like Free Republic every day. Assholes.

Episiarch | January 29, 2008, 10:49am | #

He's not.

Not down with the swirl? But you must be, joe--you're a progressive.

Joe Allen | January 29, 2008, 10:53am | #

Nicky G, by his own admission "covers politics as cock fighting or wrestling."

It's kind of hard to work up much of a credible righteous indignation from that perch.

Kolohe | January 29, 2008, 11:02am | #

his jokes with (Henry) Kissinger about exporting 10 million female Chinese

John Derbyshire approves.

BTW, anyone actually know what the jokes actually were? For the purposes of historical research, and all that.

Nick | January 29, 2008, 11:03am | #

What ever happened to people's senses of humor? If you just laughed and realized it was a joke we'd be past it by now and commenting on how 73 million is a lot of dead chinks.

hatter | January 29, 2008, 11:04am | #

"This forum is becoming more like Free Republic every day. Assholes."

I'm drunk already and it's not even noon.

Mao | January 29, 2008, 11:12am | #

BTW, anyone actually know what the jokes actually were? For the purposes of historical research, and all that.

Did you ever notice that after you kill a few million chinese, two hours later you just want to kill a few million more. What's the deal with that?

Hey, I've got a new solution to the surplus female population my ill-concieved one-child policy created. It's called Woody Allen.

Tip your waiters!

docket | January 29, 2008, 11:13am | #

Well, my sense of humor was still giggling over the remark that Kissinger was hoping for a higher number. Everything after that was just unsubtle, low-brow, Don Rickle's type jokes. But there's no accounting for taste...or is there?

dhex | January 29, 2008, 11:22am | #

This forum is becoming more like Free Republic every day.

that's not true. the people here can read. also, soap is frequently spelled correctly, if not used correctly.


for my edification: what's "down with the swirl" mean?

David | January 29, 2008, 11:23am | #

Hey Episarch, if you're going to "work blue," at least be funny. You'd have more success if your "wit" came from actual thought instead of from urbandictionary.com. Or maybe not.

joe | January 29, 2008, 11:24am | #

No, Episiarch, I meant you're not doing parody.

Episiarch | January 29, 2008, 11:25am | #

what's "down with the swirl" mean?

Here you go.

Episiarch | January 29, 2008, 11:28am | #

No, Episiarch, I meant you're not doing parody.

Really joe? I so totally didn't get that. Man, you are even more humor-impaired than ever today. Seriously, you aren't a better person because you frown at offensive jokes. You're just a self-righteous prig with no sense of humor.

joe | January 29, 2008, 11:31am | #

Yes, Episiarch, it's a character flaw not to find it funny to see Chinese people called "slanted slit."

It's the same flaw that causes me not to giggle when you whisper "poor" under the monkeybars.

My, you get emotional when I don't react the way you wish, don't you?

joe | January 29, 2008, 11:32am | #

Or even, when you whisper "poop."

Dirty Commie Apologist | January 29, 2008, 11:33am | #

Obligatory disclaimer: Mao was an awful guy, communism was and is horrible, etc., etc. That being said, R.J. Rummel's democide numbers are really, really unreliable. The last time I read his website, he claimed that he originally had Mao's number at around 30 mil., but revised to 73 mil. after reading an anecdote from "Mao: The Unknown Story." That was his methodology - read one anecdote from a 'popular history' book, and the number of deaths shoots up by forty million.

Of course it's difficult to settle what the "correct" number should be (i.e., most of the death estimates from the Great Leap Forward have to be derived from census numbers), and to a large extent the exact number just doesn't matter, except to people who want to argue the "worst dictator" question: Mao was a bad guy whether he was responsible for thirty million deaths or seventy million. Still, there should be some standards...

joe | January 29, 2008, 11:33am | #

Seriously, you aren't a better person because you frown at offensive jokes.

No, the way it works is, I frown at offensive jokes because I'm a better person. You've got it backwards.

David | January 29, 2008, 11:35am | #

Episarch:

Really joe? I so totally didn't get that. Man, you are I am even more humor-impaired than ever today. Seriously, you aren't are a better person because you frown at offensive jokes misogyny. You're I'm just a self-righteous prig with no sense of humor.

Fixed that for you.

Shem | January 29, 2008, 11:39am | #

I know this is going to piss people off, but the number 73 million is wildly exaggerated. The biography that he gets it from has been dismissed by most serious scholars of Chinese history as being unreliable due to it's use of circumstantial evidence and assumptions about the man and his mindset. They also don't provide any real evidence for the numbers that they come up with beyond interviews with people who lived in a dictatorship and who therefore could not be seen as the most reliable sources of information.

J sub D | January 29, 2008, 11:41am | #

While I'm not very polically correct, IMHO "slanted slit" is tacky, boorish, and yes, racist.

Yes, there are people who carry an offensive language detector around with a low detection threshold. Mine is in the garage, turned off. It still went off.

Classless, Episiarch. Just classless.

joe | January 29, 2008, 11:41am | #

Funny, four comments before mine calling you out for exactly the same thing, but it's only mine that gets you worked up.

I know this matters a great deal more to you than to me, so go ahead and get the last word in.

Episiarch | January 29, 2008, 11:43am | #

You should be thanking me, joe, for giving you another chance to masturbate to the picture in your head of how holy you are...because you think offensive jokes are bad. You are a true superhero.

David | January 29, 2008, 11:47am | #

Episarch, you're still calling it a "joke." That's where you're wrong.

David | January 29, 2008, 11:59am | #

Shem, so what is the number then? I've seen lots of estimates and while 73 million is the upper end of the range, the lower end is usually 30+ million. My feeling is it should always be quoted as a range.

Shem | January 29, 2008, 12:09pm | #

David-you're right about it needing to be a range. Nobody will ever know the true number, because nobody even knows what the population was when the Communists came to power. The last point where there was reliable census data was way back before the Qing started having problems in the late 1800s. To my thinking, 30-40 million is a good range, as it takes into account the demographic trauma that was inflicted as a result of the Japanese occupation and the Nationalist wars, neither of which can be lain at the feet of the Communists exclusively. I could see it going as high as perhaps 45 million, but only if somebody could point me to evidence that wasn't widely known at this point.

highnumber | January 29, 2008, 12:46pm | #

I will side with the slant remark being in poor taste.

Mao's routine, on the other hand, is hilarious.

Will Allen | January 29, 2008, 12:55pm | #

Episarch, what happens within your skull to make you believe that what you have written is a joke, when no person reading it finds any humor in it? Are you too stupid to grasp that a joke is supposed to be funny to other people?

atrevete | January 29, 2008, 12:58pm | #

In his studies, Rummel usually uses a range in his estimates, for the very reason that especially in totalitarian countries, during genocides, nobody is really counting. If whole villages are wiped out, possibly there is no one left to report friends and relatives missing.

The original estimate of 35 million was made around 1987, when his Death by Government was published. He also estimated the "democide" at the hands of the Nationalists to be about 10 million, and that of the Japanese to be around 5 million (though this figure was spread throughout Asia). Other information has emerged since these estimates, obviously, since the end of the Cold War.

joe | January 29, 2008, 12:58pm | #

Wait a second, you mean invoking the magical words "oversensitive," "sense of humor," and "PC" doesn't automatically make any statement with a racial connotation morally commendable?

Gee, you don't say...

David | January 29, 2008, 1:00pm | #

There's another Mao number, in the hundreds, maybe thousands. That would be the number of teenage girls he had his people procure from the countryside to sleep with him. According to his personal physician he had VD which he never treated and so presumably infected all those girls. Also, he never brushed his teeth; he just swished with tea.

Rhywun | January 29, 2008, 1:05pm | #

I just can't get worked up over "shock" humor. It's obviously not intended as harmful,

PS. Nick @ 11:03, I burst out laughing. Shame on me.

Rhywun | January 29, 2008, 1:17pm | #

PPS. As for offense, there's a difference between a casual, throw-away remark (Episiarch) and a consistent history of belittling with the intent to bring scorn upon and to weaken (Ron Paul's newsletters).

Brandybuck | January 29, 2008, 1:26pm | #

Wow. To think this is the same site that routinely bashes Ron Paul for ancient insensitive newsletters.

David | January 29, 2008, 1:29pm | #

Yeah, well there's also a difference between saying something's not funny and in poor taste, and getting "worked up." The only one who got worked up was Episarch, in his own ineffective defense.

jackanapestarian | January 29, 2008, 1:31pm | #

Well he caught his first whiff in the jungles of 'Nam.
That slant-eyed catfish tasted better than mom.
Now every single night she drops her big bomb.
Cause he’s a bamboo bimbo.
-DEVO, "Bamboo Bimbo"

Racism can be funny satire when you do it right.
Someone will always be offended, and that's the point.

Stevo Darkly | January 29, 2008, 1:43pm | #

Racism is kinda icky.

I would like to demonstrate that I, personally, am free from any taint of racism whatsoever by remarking that Asian chicks are way hot.

Sicko | January 29, 2008, 2:17pm | #

Anybody know where I can get a Mao t-shirt?

joe | January 29, 2008, 2:27pm | #

Racism can be funny satire when you do it right.

"Do it right" means "make the racism itself, or the racists," the object of your satire.

The Wine Commonsewer | January 29, 2008, 2:32pm | #

Jacob Sullum recently thanked Deng Xiaoping for little girls in his stunning, moving analysis of China's one-child policy.

Amen to that, if you haven't read it, you should. I've read it twice.

JW | January 29, 2008, 2:34pm | #

"Do it right" means "make the racism itself, or the racists," the object of your satire.

Only if self-parody counts. The Klan is the single funniest performance art group to come along in decades. I just wish they'd tour more often.

Also, comedic irony, while not making fun of neither racism or racists, can be funny. Ex: see Barbara Billingsly speaking "jive" in Airplane.

The Wine Commonsewer | January 29, 2008, 2:37pm | #

Nothing, you already told her twice.

Now, THAT, was funny.

JW | January 29, 2008, 2:39pm | #

Oh and Epi...Slant slit=Teh funny? Not so much. Really, not at all.

Now go call the Asian equivalent of Jesse Jackson and begin your apology tour.

The Wine Commonsewer | January 29, 2008, 2:39pm | #

Jesus Chrysler, dhex, I was just starting to feel bad about dissing NYC on the other thread and then I saw THAT clown suit thing.........

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Daze | January 29, 2008, 2:46pm | #

Shouldn't that be "the AP eulogizes Zhang Hanzhi", not "Zhang Hanzhi eulogizes the AP"?

Stevo Darkly | January 29, 2008, 2:49pm | #

The Klan is the single funniest performance art group to come along in decades. I just wish they'd tour more often.

I would pay to see "the Klan on ice." Er, call it "The Whitescapades."

And maybe The White Man Group.

The Wine Commonsewer | January 29, 2008, 2:50pm | #

Stevo, Hank, and Epi,

Go Here

NSFW!

In English, the link is not work or kid safe

Paul | January 29, 2008, 3:00pm | #

"Do it right" means "make the racism itself, or the racists," the object of your satire.

Unless you're a "person of color" and you're making fun of your own people...I think.

Or not.

JW | January 29, 2008, 3:31pm | #

Unless you're a "person of color" and you're making fun of your own people...I think.

Nah. Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, to name a few, riffing on the white man. Good stuff! Even to a honkey like me.

Taint of racism | January 29, 2008, 3:31pm | #

Now that's a slippery slope.

David | January 29, 2008, 3:52pm | #

Well done.

JW | January 29, 2008, 11:40pm | #

Go Here

NSFW!

God bless you Mr. Snell, God bless you.

I had to wait until I got home to look. I was defeated by the very web filter that *I* installed on our .org's firewall a few days ago! Curse these hands!

rob | January 30, 2008, 11:32am | #

"No, the way it works is, I frown at offensive jokes because I'm a better person. You've got it backwards." - joe

joe wins the self-parody award on this thread, for sure! Watching joe play the "I'm more racially sensitive than thou" card gives me a similar sensation of disbelief I would imagine one would experience if the Klan endorsed Obama for President.

How are joe and Obama similar? Well, Obama is "like the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty rolled into one," while joe is also like the Grand Canyon - he's been here forever, goes lower than you'd imagine, and was formed by something similar to water torture.

Sorry, best I could do with the material at hand...