China

China’s mass cult of the Mango

The cultural revolution, even today, for many Chinese, a traumatic time. Chaos gripped the country. The engine-strange flowers: the Mango was temporarily a quasi-religious cult object.

At the end of 1967 the Chinese raged
To get cultural revolution already in the second year, and threatened to completely out of control. The Red guards had fallen, with the approval of Mao Zedong, the country into Chaos. Now various factions of the militant students fought for Power. Civil war-like conditions were the result. The “Great Chairman” changed its strategy: The Red guards were ousted from power, instead, now called the workers Propaganda teams should be under the leadership of the army, the new support for Mao’s cultural revolution.

The gift of Mao Zedong provoked great enthusiasm in the population

An exotic gift

In the summer of 1968, the dictator sent some 30,000 workers, only with the Mao-Bible armed in the meantime, the Red guards held in Tsinghua University in Beijing. Five workers were killed, several hundred were injured, but the sheer mass of people made sure that the students had to give up soon.

It was a coincidence that a week after the storm, on the University of the Pakistani foreign Minister was in Beijing to guest. As a gift he handed over to the big chair with a box of yellow mangoes. Since Mao came up with an idea that should prove to be a – probably unintended – Propagandacoup. He sent about 40 of the in China is largely unknown fruits to the workers, who had just conquered the Tsinghua University.

“This crate of mangoes arrived in the University and the people has been incredibly enthusiastic,” says Alexandra of Przychowski, curator of the arts of China and the Himalayan Region at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich. “With Mango, the idea was that a change in culture had taken place revolution and that the workers had taken over the leadership of the cultural revolution,” says of Przychowski. The gift was divided, mangoes were sent to each big factory in Beijing.

Mao and the Mango: the cult of The “Great Chairman” was transferred soon to the exotic fruit

From the enthusiasm of a cult is

Li Zhisui, the personal physician of Mao Zedong, was at that time in a textile factory in Beijing. “The workers in the factory held a big ceremony rich in recitations of Mao’s words -to celebrate the arrival of the Mango,” writes Li in his memoirs. “Then the fruit was sealed in wax, in the hope to preserve it for posterity. The Mangos were the Holy relics, objects of worship.”

However, after a few days, the wax is inserted on an Altar opposite the Mango began to rot, recalls Li. “The revolutionary Committee of the factory took the Mango, peeled and cooked them.” A ceremony was held and everyone got a spoon with the water to drink, in which the sacred Mango is cooked. “As I told Mao of the veneration of his Mango, he began to laugh,” writes Li. “He had no Problem with the worship of the Mango, and seemed to enjoy the story.”

Beijing conquered the mango, the whole country is a cult. Like here in Harbin wax mangoes in processions were carried through the streets

In other factories the mangoes in Formaldehyt were inserted or plaster were made imprints of the fruit. This wax replicas were created. To send one of the fruits of the Comrades to Shanghai, was specially chartered a plane. It didn’t take long, and the Mango-cult covered the whole of the country. Everywhere quasi-religious ceremonies have been held: In processions mangoes in small glass shrines through the streets of borne. Workers bowed down to the fruit, which lay on an Altar. Religious artifacts were destroyed during the cultural revolution, the religious feelings of the people would not be so easy to eradicate.

Mango Dishes, Mango-Cigarettes, Mango-Linen

Liu Yongsheng was at that time a technician in the machine tool factory no 1 in Beijing. He had the honour of a Mango to take home. There, you got a place of honor on the family altar. “In my Situation at the time, the gift of the Mango was a huge thing for me,” says Liu. “I had no way more.” Liu’s father was exposed as a land owner and thus a threat to the Revolution. “So my family background was poor and I felt pretty inferior. Much I did not trust me. That I now had at home a Mango that showed that I was kind of okay.”

The Mango made it also in the production: to see Mango dishes, Mango linen and – as in the picture – Mango-cigarettes have been manufactured

Soon the fruit became the production: There was Mango enamel dishes, Mango-Blankets or cigarettes with Mango flavor. Also, the state Propaganda sprang up soon on the cult. In a poem in the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the party, it was said:

To see the Golden Mango
Was seen as the great Chairman Mao!
To stand in front of the Golden Mango
Was like before the great Chairman Mao!
To touch again and again the Golden Mango
The Golden Mango was so warm!
Again and again the Mango smell
The Golden Mango was so fragrant!

“The Mango was also the great Symbol of the national day parade on 1. October,” says Alexandra of Przychowski. “It’s huge mangoes were built from papier-mâché, which were then driven through the streets, always with the Slogan: ‘The workers, assumes leadership in the cultural revolution’.”

The fruit in the center of the Propaganda: The state jumped to soon on the mango cult

At the end of a candle

After a little more than a year, the cult was the Mango slowly. At some point were no longer awake used mangoes as a candle, the fruits were sacred. As Mao was seriously ill on his death bed, tried to his wife, Jiang Qing, the mango cult, once again, to revive: she gave the Film “Song of a Mango”. But even before the Film was finished, Mao died. In the week of the Premiere, Jiang was arrested and the Film withdrawn from circulation. The cultural revolution, the Mao and the mango cult were finally over.