Anti-corruption mural
A wall mural on Baita road, Kunming.
Each of the cartoons is about a metre high, a series of public information posters aimed at government officials. My translation is very loose, and I’ve added bits to make the meaning clearer.
The key character not shown below but written repeatedly on the wall around the posters is “廉” lian2, which means integrity, honesty, incorruptibility.
With bribes of gifts in his house he felt uneasy,
so he sought advice from Zhuge Liang
who gave him a wise answer.
He opened the scroll and the message read: Confess!
Don’t accept dinner invitations as a bribe, nor dine out using public funds
Don’t take monetary bribes
Don’t indulge in vice, don’t visit houses of ill repute
Assess yourself often using the Three Represents as your yardstick
“Your exemplary leadership is important!” says the boy with the People’s democracy t-shirt to the boy with the Party democracy t-shirt (meaning that first democracy should be established within the party then used as an example to be followed by the People).
This poster is aimed at the wife of the official (the bit after the “=” is my own interpretation to make it clearer):
Be considerate = Take care of your husband at home, he works hard as an official.
Be charitable = Donate to worthy causes
Be patient… “As an official you should stay on the right track.” [The characters in white say “The Virtuous Wife.”]
Be tough… “Don’t you come in this house [with your dirty money]” = Help your husband to resist bribes
Above door: Govern for the People
Left door: Supervise public opinion
Right door: Supervise the media
White characters: Meet [the People] with total sincerity and honesty
Next to these cartoons is a long poster with an image of a cormorant, a lake and a snow capped mountain. Over this image is a large amount of text with stories of righteous officials from different dynasties, and how they dealt with bribery and corruption. The stories range from Southern and Northern dynasties (5th – 6th century AD) up to the Qing. It strikes me as odd that they use examples from imperial Chinese history as models of good government, but when I asked Chinese friends about it they didn’t see anything strange.
