An evening in Laos with Chinese tourists and the forbidden teddy bear.
by Massimo Introvigne
Bitter Winter has followed for several years the curious ban in China against Winnie the Pooh, the beloved teddy bear created by British author Alan Alexander Milne (1882–1956) and made even more famous by the 1966 Disney version. The reason of the ban is a 2013 joke implying that President Xi Jinping looks like Winnie the Pooh.
Last month, I happened to be in Laos, a beautiful country that has among its tourist attractions a famous night market in the ancient capital of Luang Prabang. Visiting the market, my attention was attracted by a smiling vendor selling Winnie the Pooh merchandise—mostly, or perhaps only, to Chinese tourists. There were Westerners too, but they probably understood that the Disney image of Winnie was not legally licensed, and these were counterfeit products just as the fake Gucci or Prada bags also available in the market (not a reason not to go there: to start with, the food is delicious).
If this was a single seller, the event would not have been specially remarkable. But then I saw a second one. And a third. And a fourth. And more. Winnie the Pooh was a best seller there—to Chinese. This was not surprising, much less for a sociologist. More than one century ago, German sociologist Georg Simmel had already explained that declaring a certain product forbidden is one of the best ways of creating a demand for it. People would buy it clandestinely—or abroad, although in this case what will happen to those purchasing Winnie products in Laos if they are caught taking the merchandise back with them to China is unclear.
Chinese are deadly serious about Winnie the Pooh. They have even banned the 2023 horror movie “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” where Winnie is a bloodthirsty monster. The producers knew they could not use the Disney image for copyright reasons—with the unintended side result that the horror version of Winnie is less reminiscent of Xi Jinping. To no avail: even the initially programmed release in Hong Kong and Macau had to be cancelled.
The real horror movie is China with its censorship. Perhaps without fully realizing it, the Chinese tourists who buy Winnie the Pooh merchandise in Laos perform a genuinely revolutionary act. We can only wish them safe travel back home.
