Face saving measures for Chairman Mao souvenirs
- Source: Global Times
- [00:19 August 11 2009]
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By Deng Jingyin
His portrait adorns the Forbidden City at the heart of China and his face appears on millions of items from bank notes to medallions.
But now the image of Chairman Mao Zedong is to pass through quality control so as to safe guard his looks after complaints from angry tourists who bought defective and fake mementos of the great leader.
Hundreds have complained about the distortion of Mao’s portrait and “disproportions” to his figure, often rendering the revolutionary helmsman unrecognizable on badges and other keepsake items.
“The quality of Mao mementos gets worse and worse. His face is always distorted. Souvenir makers do not respect the history of Chairman Mao,” Yao Hang, a tourist visiting Mao’s birthplace in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, told the Global Times yesterday.
Yang Jie, a worker at a local factory in Shaoshan that makes Chairman Mao souvenirs, admitted that the factory’s production moulds are rented from a State-owned enterprise named Fenyuan Company and were faulty.
“Our poor production process results in low quality mementos. The Chairman’s image is reproduced with a head deformity… We hope the government can strengthen its supervision of Mao souvenir production,” he said.
The complaints have touched a nerve and now an industry standard for the ubiquitous Mao souvenirs is being drafted to improve the quality of the money-spinning memorabilia industry dedicated to immortalizing the leader.
The standard will be implemented by the end of the year, the Hunan Province Quality and Technology Supervision Bureau said. The standard demands an image of Mao must meet quality standards in several ways, including visual effects, materials used, and “robustness”.
In Shaoshan, the tourism market is booming. In 2008, the city received 3.6 million tourists, generating 653 million yuan ($95.6 million). Income from the souvenirs of Chairman Mao, such as popular lapel badges, accounts for 10 percent of local tourism revenue, according to the local Changsha Evening News.
Li Xiaoshu and Li Qian contributed to this story
