Brothel bust: Comrades "go deeply into the areas … to understand the situation"
There’s got to be a new internet meme in here somewhere. From Donald Clarke’s Chinese Law Professor blog:
“Before closing the brothels, the Beijing municipal [Party] committee and municipal government did a great deal of investigation and research. Peng Zhen, who at the time was secretary of the municipal Party committee, personally led responsible comrades from the municipal Party committee and the municipal government to go deeply into the areas of south Beijing and the “Eight Major Hutongs” outside of Qian Men in order to understand the situation.” (在封闭妓院之前，北京市委市政府也做了大量的调查研究工作。时任中共北京市委书记彭真曾亲自率领市委市政府负责同志深入前门外“八大胡同”、南城一带了解情况。)
Emphasis is mine. The writers of the news article he quotes from apparently got to do their own archival research and came up with this photo.
I’d have to imagine that searching for a more modern snap would incur the wrath of Nanny.
They’re…reading???
They read these days too. At least when no one’s there. Of course it’s probably not the same content.
@Kellen: your comment, we can assume, comes from deep investigation?
This reminds me of the “progressive sex education” meme that went around in 2006 after Hu Jintao spoke about the need for “先进性教育,” which everybody promptly parsed as “先进 | 性教育.” This was mildly funny on its own, but then the requirements for 先进性教育 were formulated: 要深入，要持久，and then something I think about the need to address the needs of both 上 and 下.
@Brendan: the parsing mistake is pretty cool. It could all be made up quotes by bored news writers, but I wonder if it’s also possible that Hu came out with it while speaking, in which case the intonation would make it perfectly clear which parsing was intended, without him thinking how it would be abused later on. I’ve always thought that Mandarin (esp BJ?) prosody is an fascinating and too-often neglected beast…
I love that the 深入 meme has resurfaced this time.
@Syz I used to live in the pink light district. Always just passing by. Not my fault if I notice them putting down magazines as they make an attempt to lure passers-by in for a massagey.