{"id":1368,"date":"2018-05-03T05:35:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T21:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/2018\/05\/03\/today-is-lei-feng-day-learn-about-a-chinese-icon\/"},"modified":"2024-12-27T01:35:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T17:35:21","slug":"today-is-lei-feng-day-learn-about-a-chinese-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/today-is-lei-feng-day-learn-about-a-chinese-icon\/","title":{"rendered":"Today is Lei Feng Day! Learn About a Chinese Icon"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>March 5 is Lei Feng Day in China! This man is seen as an icon of selflessness and patriotism. During the 1960&#8217;s, Lei Feng was featured on countless propaganda posters. China used his image to promote devotion to one&#8217;s country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>March 5 is Lei Feng Day in China! This man is seen as an icon of <a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/dictionary\/english\/selflessness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">selflessness<\/a> and patriotism. During the 1960&#8217;s, Lei Feng was featured on countless propaganda posters. China used his image to promote devotion to one&#8217;s country.<\/p>\n<p>Read about Lei Feng below!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mmbiz.qpic.cn\/mmbiz_jpg\/NNiciceLCGqo3qNk84nakvz1evMEBjsIoGRiavia9My9x9rDZfEa6CAfQXXNkFiaGB6ia61Xzniaoy0NzKKH4jGBQDiarA\/640?wx_fmt=jpeg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mmbiz.qpic.cn\/mmbiz_jpg\/NNiciceLCGqo3qNk84nakvz1evMEBjsIoG8mOibtSEq9FiapgtYKFfSs7QbHXJ58OykErDFFo8GeJyC8b36vUIZwsw\/640?wx_fmt=jpeg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Originally called Lei Zhengxing, the former People&#8217;s Liberation Army soldier was born on Dec 18, 1940, to a farming family in Wangcheng, Central China&#8217;s Hunan province.<\/p>\n<p>He was killed in 1962, while directing a truck as it backed up. A pole struck him on the head. Lei had a habit of keeping a diary to detail his deeds and experiences, which was published after his death and became one of the bestsellers of the time.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mmbiz.qpic.cn\/mmbiz_jpg\/NNiciceLCGqo3qNk84nakvz1evMEBjsIoGA7iaiaMicSUadRf7fcUdaBoLZGv4nuzZT4h9dcXsmzJollEyQ3SBbQdYQ\/640?wx_fmt=jpeg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mmbiz.qpic.cn\/mmbiz_jpg\/NNiciceLCGqo3qNk84nakvz1evMEBjsIoGGDnsBJndwv5RYfX81UDu3pg3DX4oe5I5K8CXsXvg3kE6trC5eh3JlA\/640?wx_fmt=jpeg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Many people in the West or China would take it for granted that Mao Zedong handpicked Lei Feng to be a role model devoted to the Communist Party and the people of China by <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/writing\/\" title=\"View all posts in writing\">writing<\/a>, &#8220;Learn from Comrade Lei Feng,&#8221; launching a nationwide propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>Lei Feng&#8217;s rise from respected soldier to cultural icon that still matters to China&#8217;s social values today seems to be less politically charged than was assumed. According to Lin Ke, a secretary in Mao&#8217;s office, China Youth magazine approached Mao in February 1963 to write an epigraph for their special coverage on the influences of Lei Feng. After repeated requests, Mao wrote, &#8220;Learn from Comrade Lei Feng&#8221; in the traditional calligraphy.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mmbiz.qpic.cn\/mmbiz_jpg\/NNiciceLCGqo3qNk84nakvz1evMEBjsIoGibOibquREXCu6vbuefuNz4qL7HibNhzX3uE3rPW8wUWRxEOOjYibSYZYww\/640?wx_fmt=jpeg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>China Youth magazine published Mao&#8217;s writing on March 2, 1963. Two days later, it was republished by People&#8217;s Daily, Daily of People&#8217;s Liberation Army, China Youth Daily and Guangming Daily. The <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/news\/\" title=\"View all posts in news\">news<\/a> media later published handwritten epigraphs by Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping and other state leaders, finally immortalizing the solider as an emblem of selflessness and devotion.<\/p>\n<p>The posthumous campaign, whether you like it or not, could not deny that Lei Feng was a man of integrity, responsibility, and love by today&#8217;s standards. Lei Feng had already built up a reputation thanks to media coverage, long before Mao&#8217;s call. The soldier was characterized by millions as a selfless person who devoted his entire life to helping others. On Jan 7, 1963, the Defense Ministry named a <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/transport\/\" title=\"View all posts in transport\">transport<\/a>ation unit where Lei Feng once worked as the &#8220;Lei Feng Squad.&#8221; The glory of Lei Feng extended from the military to other industries.<\/p>\n<p>Sources: China Posters, CCTV<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you think about Lei Feng? Who are some national icons in your home country? Let us know by commenting below!!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 5 is Lei Feng Day in China! This man is seen as an icon of selflessness and patriotism. During the 1960&#8217;s, Lei Feng was featured on countless propaganda posters. &#8230;","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,41],"tags":[60,353,306,34,27,3524,1782,3205,1318],"class_list":["post-1368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pro-tips","category-china-jobs","tag-china","tag-e-china-cities","tag-hiredchina","tag-jobs-in-china","tag-news","tag-today-is-lei-feng-day-learn-about-a-chinese-icon","tag-transport","tag-transportation","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25363,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions\/25363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}