This year’s Chinese New Year’s stamp has become an absolute hit after heated online discussions about the striking stamp design.
Every year since 1980, China Post releases official zodiac stamps before the Spring Festival. This year, to celebrate the upcoming Year of the Rabbit, China Post released two stamps: one featuring a blue rabbit with hands holding a pen (a wordplay because ‘blue rabbit’ and ‘blueprint’ sound similar in Chinese), the other showing three rabbits jumping in a circle.
Although the design of the stamps already came out on 26 December, when advance sales commenced, China Post did not officially release the stamps until 5 January.
The blue rabbit design has become a topic of discussion on Chinese social media, where some think the red-eyed blue rabbit looks like a rat. Others think it looks “evil” or “monster-like,” and some even called it “horrific.”
Others wondered if the blue rabbit on the official Spring Festival zodiac stamp looked so wild because it just had Covid.
The stamps were designed by the 99-year-old artist Huang Yongyu (黄永玉), who previously also designed the iconic monkey zodiac stamp in 1980, which was the first year that China Post started issuing its annual zodiac stamps. Huang is therefore also referred to as “the father of the monkey stamp” (猴票之父).
Despite the controversy – or actually because of it – the stamps were reportedly sold out within an hour. The stamp was called “ugly cute” (丑萌 chǒuméng) by some, meaning something can be considered somewhat charming for being so unattractive.
“I first saw it and thought it was ugly, then the more I looked at it, I started to think it was ugly cute and maybe even cute,” one Chongqing-based commenter wrote.
The stamps were sold both online and offline, and some netizens shared photos of people lining up in front of the post office on Thursday. The stamps were completely sold out on Taobao.
Taobao also initiated a ceremony to launch the stamps where the blue rabbit appeared as an actual character. The blue rabbit mascot costume did not actually change public opinion and arguably even made it worse. “The [rabbit] theme itself is so good,” one commenter wrote: “This is just inexcusable.”
One Weibo commenter called old Huang’s artwork “interesting,” saying that “people have different tastes.” Others also expressed their surprise about the stamps being sold out so soon, although they did think the unusual design increases its value as a collectible item.
On January 5th, the designer Huang Yongyu spoke about the stamps in a livestream. The 99-year-old artist claimed he had just drawn the rabbit to make everyone happy and celebrate the new year, also saying: “Painting a rabbit stamp is a happy thing. Everyone could draw my rabbit. It’s not like I’m the only one who can draw this.”
Huang’s response also went viral, with one Weibo hashtag dedicated to the topic receiving over 12 million views (#蓝兔邮票设计者直播回应争议#).
“His original intention was just to make people happy, I don’t know why everyone’s so mean about it,” one popular comment said.
“But it doesn’t make us happy,” some replied.
“Is he 99 or 9 years old?” one person wondered, another wrote: “It’s not cute, it’s bizarre.” Some commenters were really upset about the stamp design, and blamed the artist for purposely making it look ugly.
There were also netizens who defended Huang’s artistic talent. “If you look at his other designs, you can understand his humor,” one person wrote. “Just look him up, he is a painter who has a very strong individual style,” another Weibo user said.
Examples of other works by Huang Yongyu, posted on Weibo.
Chinese blogger Wulongxu (@乌龙徐) also wrote: “I won’t evaluate if Huang Yongyu’s rabbit is ugly or not, but he’s had this painting style all along. He even has an entire series of rabbits. Don’t say he purposely made it look ugly, he’s 99 years old, show some kindness.”
The blue rabbit controversy made some social media commenters draw comparisons to the math schoolbook controversy of 2022. The schoolbook series went trending after some parents complained about the illustrations on social media. People mainly took issue with the teaching material because they thought the illustrations were ugly and overall weird.
In 2016, CCTV launched its mascot ‘Kang Kang’ for the Year of the Monkey. That design was also mocked on social media, as many called Kang Kang ugly and wondered if the two balls near its head were tumors.
People started sympathizing with Kang Kang when he was eliminated from the CCTV Spring Festival Gala after the criticism. “He was just so ugly that he did not dare go on stage,” some wrote, reposting images of a crying Kang Kang.
Crying Kang Kang
Although Huang’s blue rabbit stamp will definitely not be eliminated – au contraire, it’s a collector’s item now – the Guangxi Museum in Nanning where the blue rabbit mascot was prancing around did decide to get rid of it following controversy.
Although some commenters replied that they liked how “wacky” the blue rabbit looked, most people did not agree: “It’s nightmare fuel.”
By Manya Koetse
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