Long live the toad: Jiang Zemin in China's pop culture

In recent years, Jiang Zemin has achieved cult status, especially among China's young internet users. The toad, as they affectionately call him, represents a self-ironic, cosmopolitan China that was lost under his successors Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping.

In China’s social media world, Jiang Zemin has Cult status Thousands of stickers, GIFs and memes with the former head of state's likeness are circulating on WeChat and other channels: Jiang yawning, grinning mischievously, playing the flute like a Pied Piper or detonating a nuclear bomb with just the touch of a finger. Even the most ridiculous of them are not censored, on the contrary. In China, Jiang Zemin is an important part of pop culture.

The two nicknames that young Internet users in particular have given him oscillate between admiration and affectionate mockery: Jiang Zemin, “the elder” 长者 or, because of supposed external similarities, simply 蛤, "the toad". A name has even been established for the Jiang worship on China's Internet: 膜蛤 – "Toad worship"The toad fans 蛤丝 or toad magicians "膜法师", as they also call themselves, are considered to be an elite circle: They are patriotic, well-versed in the recent history and foreign policy of the People's Republic. At the same time, they are not blind supporters of everything the party does. The comic exaggeration of Jiang Zemin can thus also be seen as ironic breaking of the political personality cult which is experiencing a rebirth under Xi Jinping.

The gruff grandpa in the spotlight

Jiang's political legacy plays no important role in the toad worship. For the predominantly young fans, who only experienced his reign as children, Jiang's sometimes gruff and sometimes jovial style evokes a diffuse nostalgia for a somehow more relaxed China Jiang is the indestructible grandfather who, without batting an eyelid, comments on the food at the Spring Festival with dry humor or bursts into loud laughter when his granddaughter shows off her new hairstyle.

In real life, Jiang never shied away from making a big impression. He was not afraid to improvise in front of the eyes of the world. On a trip to the USA in 1997 he played “Aloha Hawaii” on a local instrument in HonoluluDuring a state visit to France in 1999, he dared to dance with the then First Lady Bernadette Chirac.

Jiang's successors remain colorless

In contrast to Jiang, Xi Jinping's every appearance is planned down to the last detail. The last thing China's strongman wants is to publicly expose himself, like Jonny Erling aptly wrote in his column on China.Table a few weeks ago. Jiang's successors can therefore only appear colourless in the eyes of Jiang's admirersIf Jiang Zemin had been escorted out of the party congress this year as undignified as Hu, the outcry in China would certainly have been much greater.

For his fans Jiang also represented a certain cosmopolitanism, which was lost under his successors. The widely travelled leader gave interviews to foreign journalists and sometimes even spoke English. In a interview In 2000, Jiang quoted from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in an interview with the US star reporter Mike Wallace. Jiang's self-confident approach to the press is generally admired in China. For example, he once dismissed the well-known Hong Kong journalist Sharon Cheung in English with the words, dThe press in the former crown colony is “too young, too simple, sometimes naive”. This sentence has become a catchphrase not only among toad worshippers to discredit someone.

Now, after his death on Wednesday, the Chinese are mourning as expected by Memes share. One shows the square glasses of the deceased, including a quote from him that is often used in messengers when one wants to give wise advice to friends: 一点人生的经验 – “A little bit of life experience”.