Winnie the Pooh and the Unusual Chinese Situation Regarding Him

General news News 07/30/2024

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There’s a bit of a puzzling contradiction about Winnie the Pooh, as he’s in many ways a forbidden character in this country, but somewhere in there he’s still intact.

On Christmas Eve 1925, the London Evening News published the first Winnie the Pooh story by A. A. Milne. The author was inspired by the stuffed animal he had bought for his son, Christopher Robin. Years later, in 1966, Walt Disney created a cartoon of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (his last work before his death), and it was here that the smiling shape of the honey-eating bear became iconic. But not everyone sees him in a positive light, despite the fact that the franchise has now been released in six series and 14 films (not counting Christopher Robin).

In China, Pooh has been banned for seven years, as of July 2017. You have to go back a few years to see that. Xi Jinping became general secretary of the Communist Party of China on November 15, 2012 (and is in his third term, breaking the two-cycle rule), and looks a bit like Milne’s bear. He even became a meme after visiting the then President of the United States, Barack Obama. The authorities, of course, did not take kindly to this, and in a fit of pique banned any reference to him.

Despite this, Winnie the Pooh has been used by many against the Chinese dictatorship (e.g. the logo of a Chinese restaurant in Madrid called Xiongzai), when the censors banned Christopher Robin, the memes were deleted, and even the HBO Chinese app was banned after John Oliver made a joke about it on his show. Even South Park ended up on the banned list after season 23, when Randy Marsh killed Pooh on Mickey Mouse’s advice to open his own shop and distribute marijuana in China. He also appeared in Kingdom Hearts III, where we were able to interact with the honey-soaked teddy bear, but we didn’t get to see his face.

But here’s the weird part. One of the attractions at Disneyland Shanghai is Winnie the Pooh! Young visitors are allowed to take pictures with the character, so the censorship seems to apply only to adults…

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Angyal Anikó

Anikó, our news editor and communication manager, is more interested in the business side of the gaming industry. She worked at banks, and she has a vast knowledge of business life. Still, she likes puzzle and story-oriented games, like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, which is her favourite title. She also played The Sims 3, but after accidentally killing a whole sim family, swore not to play it again. (For our office address, email and phone number check out our IMPRESSUM)