To the 90 million or so members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has a message: Don’t call me president. Don’t call me party secretary. Call me “comrade.”
There is just one problem. In recent decades, the once ubiquitous term for communist cadres and leaders has been embraced and popularized by a different group: homosexuals.
The term tongzhi (同志) or “comrade” was a nearly universal form of address in China well into the 1980s, but as Mao jackets gave way to Western-style suits and ties, it fell out of favor among Chinese officials.
However, among gay men tongzhi became a term of solidarity and eventually a catchall label.
Fan Popo (范坡坡), a filmmaker based in Beijing, said that there had been episodes in which Chinese have criticized homosexuals for appropriating the term.
However, for some younger Chinese the word “comrade” offered a source of comfort for those who felt too ashamed to use the term tongxinglian (同性戀), or homosexual, Fan said.
“People have really gotten used to it,” he said. “Even the ticket-takers on the bus — the people who you would not really expect to know the modern lingo — don’t say ‘comrade’ anymore because they know what it means among young people.”
In a commentary published last year, Study Times, a weekly party journal, railed against modern designations like “deputy secretary,” “boss” and “CEO.”
“These terms have not only destroyed the seriousness of democratic relations within the party, but they have also affected the relationship between the party and the masses as well as the overall image of the party,” the commentary read.
After a meeting last month of the CCP’s Central Committee, leaders issued a directive urging party members to eschew titles and honorifics in favor of the revolutionary throwback.
The directive said that “party members must call each other ‘comrades.’”
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