"Wearing pajamas and shouting Comrade!" Are the Chinese starving?

[chronarchy]

As I sat down at lunch today in front of Baker Systems, I noticed a half-eaten acorn sitting on the bench. Some squirrel had cracked it open, eaten part of it, and threw well over half of it away

Comments

[chronarchy]

Well, I suppose we should be the world leader in *something*.

And I think it's got some staying power, yes. My main question is, where does that staying power come from?

[delphinastar]

Hmmm- maybe because it's half way around the world?
Maybe it started as "You know- half way around the world, someone is starving..."

Just a thought.

[chronarchy]

Could be. I wonder if it is similar to our "digging to China" statement about what happens if you keep digging that mudhole in the back yard? Sufficiently far away and sufficiently exotic makes a good location for you not to want to go.

[smithing_chick]

Well, in that case, China is directly opposite.

The Erie paper once had a cartoon in it that had some Chinese men coming out of a pothole- a statement on the state of our roads at the time. :)

directly opposite

[rfunk]

The Australians might have some thoughts on that matter.

[hearthstone]

I wonder if it dates from back when there were missionaries over there hoping for donations--the idea that the local populace was starving could have inspired churchgoing parents to loosen their pursestrings, and the parents in turn would use the "starving Chinese" line to get their kids to eat.

Or perhaps there was just a notable famine there at some point?

Those are my best guesses. And I know that the "children starving in China" line has been used since at least the mid-20th century, going by old kids' books I've read.

[chronarchy]

I was thinking it might have been the "Great Leap Forward" period, myself. That would combine propaganda and actually starving people along with national pity, perhaps. Dunno.

[smithing_chick]

My folks always said, "There's starving kids in Africa", as did the lunch ladies at school.

Mom stopped saying that when we kids started making elaborate plans to ship our leftovers over to the starving kids.

[chronarchy]

Curious. I don't think my parents ever actually said it to me, honestly and now that I think about it. It just struck me as odd to place it in China.

And I imagine I would have answered similarly: "Well, then we should give it to them!"

[smithing_chick]

Well, at the time, the famine in central Africa was all over the news so Africa made sense.

I told one of the lunch ladies we should send the leftovers to the starving kids & for the first time was told that I was too smart for my own good (which at age 9 made no sense to me)

[tanrinia]

before the one-child policy, the chinese were faced with starvation. not dust-bowl ethiopian starvation (yet), but they were running out of resources nonetheless.

so it still exists in the adage? colloquialism? due to cultural lag.

[chronarchy]

Ah, cultural lag. Lovely thing that is.

I had figured it was something along those lines.