Subversive pandas are back

When last seen, two months ago, the ambiguously subversive pandas of Sichuan Province's tourism-promotion campaign were talking about.... something, as a way of encouraging Chinese travelers to come see them in their western homeland.

 

Discussion of what "More Freedom, More Happiness" might and might not mean here and here.

In the last two or three days, the Tourist Promotion Pandas of Sichuan have come back -- I've seen four or five different posters in subway stations. All similar in look and typeface, different in slogan. Only this evening did I have a camera on hand to record one of them. The message this time (Jianguomen station) is more straightforward -- and, according to me, is just about the same in English and Chinese. But the panda on the bottom right still has that strange, unreadable, possibly-menacing expression as in the original poster.



It's been a very long and very cold day. More in the future on other poster pandas -- and probably tomorrow on the startling development of China showing a surge in its trade surplus just as all of its customer-economies are collapsing.