This interesting post shows many different depicitons of cats in Chinese culture, mainly from the pre-Communist era. Now, a little linguistic note: 貓 (māo) means ‘cat’, 毛 (máo) means ‘hairy’, ‘fur’, or ‘coarse’, and also Mao as in Chairman Mao. Note the tone marks attached to the middle vowels: ‘māo’ is not pronounced the same as ‘máo’ and the Chinese, therefore, did not really have a Chairman Cat. They had a Chairman Hairy, instead, and weren’t they just wild about him.
Of course, since when do linguistic niceties deter an artist?
And then we have the promised strange doings on the RMB, via Reddit. (In case you don’t know, RMB is Renminbi, the currency of Mainland (or Red) China, which is now a light pink at best.) This image is NSFW if you can see the ‘sex’ in the Ritz cracker and similar shenaningans.
