China's president Xi Jinping was in Venezuela yesterday to sign a series of multi-million-dollar oil and mineral deals, the latest stop in his post-World Cup Latin America tour. Last week the president was in Brazil, where vowed to "smash Western domination," according this not-at-all-histrionic Xinhua tweet.
As the delegation was welcomed at Simón Bolívar International Airport, Xi traipsed down the steps and was greeted by an ear-wrenching, mind-bogglingly, stomach-churningly awful rendition of the Chinese national anthem that's had netizens in stitches.
March of the Volunteers was a popular resistance song amongst both Communists and Nationalists during the war against Japanese aggression (1937-45) but later became the first national anthem of the People's Republic of China in 1949. During the Cultural Revolution, the song's lyricist, Tian Han, was imprisoned, and what was still the official national anthem became banned. Until the Cultural Revolution was rescinded, March of the Volunteers was replaced by The East is Red, an ode to the personality cult of Chairman Mao set to a tune stolen from another Nationalist resistance song.
0 User Comments