Lin Min

    TO welcome the Year of the Dragon, China Post last week issued a stamp featuring an image of the mythical creature. However, the design by Shenzhen-based Chen Shaohua has triggered controversy as some have criticized the dragon on the stamp for appearing too ferocious and potentially damaging China’s image abroad.

    In China, the dragon is a symbol of power and majesty. However, the beast is usually depicted as malevolent in the West. In the New Testament, the Devil takes the form of a red dragon with seven heads and 10 horns in his war against Archangel Michael.

    Chen’s rendition features a dragon roaring with eyes and mouth wide-open and claws stretching as if ready to strike. Writer Zhang Yiyi attacked Chen’s design, saying it showed ignorance of how the dragon is seen in other cultures.

    Some microbloggers said the “sinister-looking” animal made them uncomfortable. Some called for modifications to the design to make the dragon appear more placid. Zhang even urged China Post to “recall” the stamp, which went on sale last week.

    Behind the dust-up is the traditional worship of the dragon as a totem of the Chinese nation. A popular song praises the Chinese people as “descendents of the dragon.” This explains why the design has drawn extreme interpretations and caused a stir.

    Issuing zodiac stamps is a yearly routine for China Post, and the designs of the 12 animals are not supposed to carry any political message. Nor should collectors judge these stamps from political perspectives. Any controversies surrounding the stamp designs should be a storm in a teacup.

    The trouble, however, is that Chen, a master of graphic design, himself added too many messages to his design. In a response to the criticism, he told Shenzhen Special Zone Daily last week that he hoped his dragon would help exorcise evil spirits of 2012 and protect China’s economy at a time of global financial turmoil. This is fine particularly at this time when seasonal wishes are welcome. However, he continued to expound on his design, saying it symbolized a rising China and the world should listen to the Chinese nation. Depicting China in this way is troubling and carries negative connotations.

    Chen’s dragon, if used as a symbol of a rising China, would do much disservice to the country’s ongoing overseas publicity campaign which presents itself as a country that seeks peaceful development and harmony with the outside world.

    What Chen said surely reflects only his point of view. There is no reason to suspect his political message for the design has had official endorsement. The dragon stamp should be treated simply as a piece of cultural design that carries the traditional wishes for auspice and prosperity.

    The controversy, however, reminds us that it’s time to stop rendering the dragon as the totem of the Chinese nation. For thousands of years, the dragon was the symbol of imperial rule, with emperors decorating their clothes and dwellings with dragons to demonstrate their absolute, formidable power. China, last year celebrating the 100th anniversary of the end of 2,400 years of imperial rule, needs a new symbol when it engages with the outside world.

    (The author is editor of the Shenzhen Daily News Desk.)