by design or not, i would say Peng's publicity and elegance contributed significantly to Xi gaining the congenial nick name of "Da Da". no recent senior leader has such a wildly recognized, positive connotated nick name. not to mention Da Da is traditionally only a northern China term, southern China used the term Bo Bo (伯伯）while some others used Da Ye.
during the early days, on Xi's foreign visits, they used to wear matching colors. the color of his tied matched her dress or scarf. no other senior political couples demonstrated such aesthetic and affinity sense. it left a deep impression.
"The fallacy of the Chinese distaste for women in politics is that the problem isn’t women in politics, it is wives in politics."
For all of Chinese history until the 1950s there were no women in politics who were not wives.
This is historical misogyny common in virtually all societies to a greater or lesser degree. Let's just call it that and be done with it.
There's no reason to construct this bizarre excuse that the Chinese don't really hate women in power they only hate wives in power. Wives are women and hate is hate. End of story.
Good piece. I never quite understood how 三八 could also mean “bitch”, the same way I don’t understand how certain slang is used in English. ( i.e. “this is sooo sick”! “You killed it!” as an expression of praise. Your language can be so violent haha) Also, on 第一夫人 ( First Lady), that was such a Western concept. I had never heard of it in Chinese until I started learning English. Yes, some Chinese media have used that title to describe Peng but most ordinary Chinese think of her ( as you pointed out ) as Xi’s wife, no more.
I would note that the Soviet Union and Russia today are rather similar to China in this way: women do well in all kinds of fields, but they are almost completely absent from politics. I also can't think of any officially communist country that has had a female leader in history. I wonder if there's something about Soviet-style one-party rule that explains this.
Good question. I wondered about that as I was writing. The irony of course is that women were very active in the early stages of both the Russian and the Chinese Communist Revolutions. But perhaps the wars that followed shifted the balance towards an all-male, military hierarchy?
I’ve heard two hypotheses from Chinese today. One is that the ridiculous number of long meetings at unpredictable hours convened by the CCP makes it impossible to care for a family. The other is that “guanxi-building” activities at unsavory places lock women out of a critical step in building the personal connections needed to rise above a certain level.
I assume it's also turned into an attitude: above a certain level of politics, a woman just won't be taken seriously or seen as an asset by those around her.
by design or not, i would say Peng's publicity and elegance contributed significantly to Xi gaining the congenial nick name of "Da Da". no recent senior leader has such a wildly recognized, positive connotated nick name. not to mention Da Da is traditionally only a northern China term, southern China used the term Bo Bo (伯伯）while some others used Da Ye.
during the early days, on Xi's foreign visits, they used to wear matching colors. the color of his tied matched her dress or scarf. no other senior political couples demonstrated such aesthetic and affinity sense. it left a deep impression.
I agree she did a lot for his style! Probably more than we realize. She seems genuinely popular too for her elegance.
Don’t know who came up with the “Da Da” idea. It always seemed quite awkward to me. Did many Chinese like the nickname?
It's certainly an uncommon term, not all families have a dada, but somehow it stuck. More or less made him look more familial.
This is a good piece but this quote is nonsense:
"The fallacy of the Chinese distaste for women in politics is that the problem isn’t women in politics, it is wives in politics."
For all of Chinese history until the 1950s there were no women in politics who were not wives.
This is historical misogyny common in virtually all societies to a greater or lesser degree. Let's just call it that and be done with it.
There's no reason to construct this bizarre excuse that the Chinese don't really hate women in power they only hate wives in power. Wives are women and hate is hate. End of story.
Good piece. I never quite understood how 三八 could also mean “bitch”, the same way I don’t understand how certain slang is used in English. ( i.e. “this is sooo sick”! “You killed it!” as an expression of praise. Your language can be so violent haha) Also, on 第一夫人 ( First Lady), that was such a Western concept. I had never heard of it in Chinese until I started learning English. Yes, some Chinese media have used that title to describe Peng but most ordinary Chinese think of her ( as you pointed out ) as Xi’s wife, no more.
Interesting, thanks! That explains why the “First Lady” role is almost purely an international one.
三八 is indeed a word for bitch. But honestly I don’t think people ever used this word since at least a decade. A word for an era
Interesting post!
I would note that the Soviet Union and Russia today are rather similar to China in this way: women do well in all kinds of fields, but they are almost completely absent from politics. I also can't think of any officially communist country that has had a female leader in history. I wonder if there's something about Soviet-style one-party rule that explains this.
Good question. I wondered about that as I was writing. The irony of course is that women were very active in the early stages of both the Russian and the Chinese Communist Revolutions. But perhaps the wars that followed shifted the balance towards an all-male, military hierarchy?
I’ve heard two hypotheses from Chinese today. One is that the ridiculous number of long meetings at unpredictable hours convened by the CCP makes it impossible to care for a family. The other is that “guanxi-building” activities at unsavory places lock women out of a critical step in building the personal connections needed to rise above a certain level.
I assume it's also turned into an attitude: above a certain level of politics, a woman just won't be taken seriously or seen as an asset by those around her.
True. Or else everyone spends a lot of time speculating whose mistress she is, which is demeaning.