Winnie-the-Pooh, Coronavirus Lockdown Enforcers: Chinese Mock Communists with Halloween Costumes

Halloween in Shanghai was interesting this year, as a fair number of young people chose to wear costumes that delivered not-very-subtle insults to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, including dictator Xi Jinping. 

Xi’s old nemesis Winnie-the-Pooh was spotted roaming the streets of Shanghai, for example, even though Chinese censors banned the cartoon bear six years ago because he appeared in memes mocking the pudgy dictator for his girth. 

Radio Free Asia (RFA) spotted other politically provocative Halloween costumes on social media, including “ghosts and Chinese-style corpse brides” — the Chinese Communist Party banned ghosts in popular media because spirits are seen as metaphors for corrupt officials in Chinese culture — and the infamous health enforcers from the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic, who terrorized citizens while clad in white hazmat suits.

Shanghai’s lockdown was especially brutal, including some scuffles between stressed-out citizens and the white-suited enforcers.

“Another person came as beauty influencer Austin Li, asking onlookers why everything was so expensive, while another dressed as Taiwan’s cat-loving president, Tsai Ing-wen, who has vowed to defend the island’s democratic way of life from infiltration or invasion by Beijing,” RFA reported.

RFA’s contacts in Shanghai said the costume choices were clearly political statements.

“These are people who have always wanted to express themselves, so now they are making a political point through Halloween. They are making their voices heard without crossing the government’s red lines,” one Halloween partygoer explained.

“It’s a form of political deconstruction. It’s a bit like toad worship,” said another. “Things are so tense in China right now. In Taiwan, politicians all appear on talk shows, but in China, we have to rely on such things for our deconstruction.”

“Toad worship” refers to fans of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who had a predilection for wearing huge, black-rimmed glasses and pants hoisted high above his waist, leading to his playful caricature as a cartoon toad. 

Passing around toad memes of Jiang is a tricky bank shot of criticizing current dictator Xi without running afoul of China’s massive state censorship operation. As with the outpouring of fond farewells for former premier Li Keqiang, who was cremated on Thursday after dying last week of an alleged heart attack at age 68, fanboy squealing over Jiang is a form of nostalgia for the road not taken, diminishing Xi by measuring him against presumably better leaders.

In fact, the late Li Keqiang actually made an appearance at the Halloween party in Shanghai:

上海万圣节 pic.twitter.com/kDVvu6kCJe

— 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) October 31, 2023

The sign held by this reveler is a reference to one of Li’s most famous quotes, “The Yangtze and Yellow rivers won’t flow backwards,” by which he meant progress toward a more open society and economy was irreversible. Repeating this particular aphorism is currently frowned upon by the regime because it is seen as implying Xi is not as wise or forward-looking as Li was.

Everyone who spoke with RFA about the Halloween costumes insisted on anonymity, as they feared reprisals from their authoritarian government if they went on the record. One former resident suggested this year’s Halloween costume festivals were especially provocative because so many young people who left Shanghai for school or business have returned to find it more oppressive than they remembered.

The far-left New York Times (NYT) hailed Shanghai Halloween as “a colorful burst of pent-up energy and emotion” after the pandemic lockdowns, giving Chinese subjects a chance to “vent in style.”

“For some in Shanghai, Halloween is a time for safe LGBT expression – one of the few remaining in a country where discrimination based on sexual orientation is common,” the NYT added.

Some of the politicized costumes poked fun at China’s moribund economy, especially the lousy job market for young people. One of the revelers was a woman wearing a sign that said “Liberal Arts Majors Graduate” and carrying a beggar’s bowl. Another covered her body with blank sheets of white paper, a reference to the “White Paper” uprising against China’s economy-crushing lockdowns.

Shanghai’s Halloween 2023 was generally portrayed as a merry affair, although the UK Guardian noticed some social media videos that showed “police shepherding away people with particularly subversive costumes.”