Towards the end of my term at the PPSUC, it emerged that Xi Jinping had become upset about being likened to Winnie the Pooh on the Internet, which led to the production of the film Winnie the Pooh, about Winnie the Pooh’s creator, A. A. Milne. Goodbye Christopher Robinwhich I was looking forward to seeing in Beijing, has been banned.
China only allows a quota of around 30 foreign films a year, mostly goofy comedies or flashy action films, and doesn’t allow controversial movies. Poor Winnie the Pooh, that fat, rebellious, honey-addicted firebrand, wasn’t accepted. Watch out, Paddington, you’re next, I thought.
As for Chinese cinema, gone are the great art-house films of the late ’90s and early 2000s, directed by Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony director Zhang Yimou and starring his illustrious muse Gong Li. Now, these masterpieces of beauty and pathos have been largely eclipsed by violent, nationalistic wolf warrior movies that make Rambo look like Winnie the Pooh.
With the crackdown on free speech in Hong Kong and the intensifying persecution of ethnic minorities, particularly the Uighurs in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, Ellie and I were beginning to worry that President Xi Jinping was leading our brave new dragon in an evil direction.
Although I enjoyed my time at PPSUC, I knew I wouldn’t be staying for a second year. I liked the students, my colleagues, and the Chinese people in general, but Xi Jinping and his bullies in Beijing were trying to change the China I once loved (going back to my youth when I cycled around China) and turn it into an authoritarian fiefdom.
In the end, I ended up leaving early for unexpected reasons because my father got sick. My bosses were again kind and sympathetic to my need to break the end of my contract term to be with my family. A few months later, after my father passed away, I looked at the map. My eyes fell on Taiwan.
