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This Chinese article is about a man who has made a living by painting slogans and ads on village walls for thirty years. Some of the slogans are rather bizarre, as may be seen by looking at the many photographs in the article.

The article says it is such a well-paying job that the man was able to buy 6 apartments in his hometown with his earnings. Painting on walls is one of the major ways to advertise or propagate goods and ideas in the countryside.

There are many examples of such signs in the article, but I couldn't understand all of them upon first glance, so I wondered if the country folk would be able to read the signs. I asked a number of my graduate students from China, and they all said, yes, the country folk not only would be able to read them, but would enjoy them and would be motivated to buy the products and services promoted by the signs.

One of my informants opined:

I actually think each of them makes sense. An easier way to be comprehended by the Chinese local peasants. They usually rhyme, in a specific cadence (either penta- or heptasyllabic), or appropriate old, local, vernacular sayings / proverbs to provide a setting for the peasant readers’ comprehension. hahaha! but they are very hilarious!!

Some of the advertisements are closely related to the everyday life of the villagers (such as agricultural products and tools), and some other advertisements and political propaganda markedly influence their lives (such as online shopping, mobile payments, and family planning / childbearing policies).

Nonetheless, I suspect that there is a strong gender bias in these signs, with many of them being directed at men rather than women.  Here's a bit of evidence in support of that impression.

One of the most frequently occurring words on the signs is "lǎopo 老婆", which can mean "old lady / woman", but in these signs it usually has the colloquial meaning of "wife".  This exactly mirrors the usage of "old lady" in colloquial English to mean "wife", even though she might be young.

In this colloquial setting, if you really want to mean "old lady", then you'd say "lǎopór 老婆儿" ("old biddy", "old woman" [with tones of intimacy], though this could still mean "wife") or "lǎopópo 老婆婆" ("old woman", especially as used by children):

1. (childish) granny; old lady
2. (regional, colloquial) husband's mother; mother-in-law
3. (dialectal Gan) great-grandmother

(source)

Another common term for "wife" is "xífù 媳妇" ("son's wife; daughter-in-law; married woman; young woman"), also spoken / written as "xífur 媳妇儿", while  "ér xífù 儿媳妇" is often used for  "daughter-in-law" — from the mother-in-law's point of view.

The following are the signs with "lǎopo 老婆" or “xífù 媳妇” in the article:

Hǎi'ěr kòngtiáo mǎi de duì, lǎopó cáinéng lǒuzhe shuì

海尔空调买的对，老婆才能搂着睡

Once you make the right decision to buy a Haier air conditioner, you can hug your wife to sleep.

Yòng shǒujī xuǎn Píngguǒ iPhone, lǎopó jiārén bèi'er yǒu miànzi

用手机选苹果iPhone， 老婆家人倍儿有面子

If you choose Apple iPhone as your cell, your wife and family will gain a lot of face (be greatly honored).

Dāng Éle me wàimài qíshǒu, lǎopó fángzi zài yě bù chóu

当饿了么外卖骑手，老婆房子再也不愁

If you work as a takeout delivery rider for Ele.me, you will no longer worry about wife and house (getting married and buying a house).

Bìguìyuán fáng mǎi de zǎo, xífù qǔ dé bǐ rén hǎo

碧桂园房买的早，媳妇娶得比人好

If you make an early decision on buying an apartment in Biguiyuan, you will marry a better wife.

Huājiāo zhíbò wán de hǎo, xífù qǔ dé bǐ rén zǎo

花椒直播玩的好，媳妇娶得比人早

If you play Huajiao live streaming well, you can marry a wife earlier than others.

I suppose getting married is the top priority for country lads and their parents, so "lǎopo 老婆" or “xífù 媳妇” often appear on the signs to galvanize them to  believe in the ads.

A diverse assortment of observations from my informants:

1.

I remember that whenever I traveled in Chinese rural areas, especially several years ago when I was a kid, I could always see those handwritten signs painted on the sidewalls of buildings. I think those who painted them were employed to do so as their jobs, and the contents they wrote were assigned by the local governments or businesses. Some were commercial advertising, including agricultural machinery, fertilizer, pesticides, or network operators and banks, among others; and some were slogans used for propaganda purposes, on for example China's Family Planning policy  ("One Child Policy" in previous years, and now the "Three-child Policy" ), and now even on COVID (e.g., mask mandates, travel restrictions, social gathering limits, etc.).

2.

This article mainly focuses on those handwritten commercial advertisements in Chinese rural areas, and how the changing contents reflect the changing situation of Chinese rural economics. Many of these signs seem ridiculous, nonsensical, and sometimes even vulgar, which manifests the limited education level and underdevelopment in rural China to some extent. 

3.

This kind of sign often reminds me of the wall-mounted Big-character Posters during the Cultural Revolution and socialist propaganda.

If one did a study of such signs in the past 30 or 40 years, he might have a clearer vision of what has changed or remained unchanged in the countryside of China.

 

Selected readings

• "The cost of illiteracy in China" (3/31/12)
• "Copying characters" (2/11/13)
• "Taiwanese vs. Mandarin in a village school half a century ago" (8/5/21)
• "Mair on Washington Post on illiteracy in China" (5/1/07)

 

[Thanks to Tong Wang, Shuheng Zhang, Yijie Zhang, Zihan Guo, and  Chenfeng Wang]

August 21, 2021 @ 4:25 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Gender, Language and advertising, Prosody, Proverbs, Signs, Slang, Vernacular, Writing

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