Op-Ed Contributors

Sensational session with online 'vulgarity'

By Xu Xiaomin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-10 06:50

I remember during the aesthetics course in Fudan University, we spent the first two classes trying to find a definition of the word "beautiful". Finally, my professor said there was no standard definition for beauty or ugliness, which, he explained, were a matter of subjective judgment. So is vulgarity, I guess.

Edgar Degas' profiles, many of his contemporaries thought, was full of "vulgar colors". But soon his works were recognized as masterpieces.

Opera singers were relegated to the lowest class in ancient times, but some of them are hailed as great artists today. Movies can be classified by measurable criteria, the details of which we have no space to write.

But how do we classify elegance and vulgarity?

Surely, I don't think Feng Jie will ever be elected to the hall of fame. But it is also hard to list her as a representative of vulgarity. All she does is speaking something stupid that makes us laugh and feel good. Just as she said in an interview with the Youth Daily: "I don't think I am vulgar and ugly, I didn't steal and rob."

The spokesman doesn't have the right to put a tag of "vulgarity" on anyone and stop him or her from talking in public. Chinese audiences are not immature anymore. They don't need nannies to take care of them all day long, and tell them what to do and what not to do.

Being vulgar is not horrible. To me, the most horrible thing to do is to take advantage of power and use the pretext of morals to judge someone or something for society. According to a Chinese saying, men of honor would stay away from the kitchen. But even if they do so, they won't order others to stay away despite thinking kitchens to be lowly places.

xuxiaomin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/10/2010 page5)