Winnie the Pooh in China

Big Frank has been communicating off and on with a Chinese academic who writes about Emily Dickinson, often doing so from a Buddhist or Daoist perspective. Big Frank even published a couple of academic papers on Emily Dickinson and Daoism. The two of them are probably the only two in the world reading Emily Dickinson from a Daoist perspective.

Recently, their exchange of messages has taken a more political bent following the the tense confrontation Taiwan faced from China for hosting Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Big Franks's friend indicated that many in China were advocating that Pelosi's plane should be shot down! This was accompanied in her message with deprecating remarks about our president calling him "Sleepy Joe."

Big Frank recently replied to her on this noting the pervasive censoring of many digital platforms (gmail, Youtube, and Twitter). And Big Frank did a small experiment in sending her a message that included a reference to their President as Winnie the Pooh. The image when meant to refer to Xi Jinping is banned in China. There is an interesting array of such images that have been used in the past. Here are a few.

This is a good place to start. You can see below Xi Jinping and Obama and their counterparts Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

The next one below show Xi Jinping with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as Eeyore; particularly apt in both regards to capturing something of each leader.

The last image (see below) is noted on some news sites as the most widely censored photo of 2015: Xi Jinping during a parade and a children's toy car with Winnie the Pooh popping out on top.