Half-loves ...

A thousand half-loves 

must be forsaken to take

one whole heart home.

- Rumi

The Greatest Pirate Who Ever Lived

In 1801, a pirate named Zheng Yi was busy raiding Canton. Aside from the prerequisite plundering and rum-drinking, he had given his men one specific order: to break into a local brothel and bring him the prostitute Zheng Yi Sao (郑一嫂), or “Zheng Yi’s wife”.

One might expect a sinister fate to have awaited Zheng Yi Sao upon her deliverance to the pirate captain (rape, swiftly followed by murder, being the most obvious). In actuality, Zheng Yi’s intentions were considerably more gentlemanly. He intended to marry her. And recognizing that her current future prospects were rather limited, Zheng Yi Sao accepted.

But Zheng Yi Sao didn’t intend on spending the rest of her days as some plunder-hungry pirate’s eye candy. She wanted to become a pirate as well, and she did – one of the greatest pirates to have ever lived. Right from the get-go, Zheng Yi Sao displayed a staggering degree of cunning. She happily accepted Zheng Yi’s proposal, but only on the condition that he share his wealth and power with her, equally. 

Then, while her new husband went about his pirate duties – further plunder and rum-drinking, presumably – she focused on the business side of things. The result was that in six years, she had engineered an alliance between Zheng Yi and his former pirate rivals, amassed a force of some 1500 ships (called the Red Flag Fleet) and created a swashbuckling empire that extended all the way from Korea to Malaysia. Zheng Yi certainly knew how to pick ‘em.

Unfortunately, Zheng Yi was killed in 1807 after a misunderstanding with a typhoon. Unfortunate for him, but extremely fortunate for Zheng Yi Sao. Refusing to step aside like a good, diligent widow, Zheng Yi Sao took charge of the Red Flag Fleet, convinced her late husband’s First Mate to support her and swiftly set about making herself the most respected and/or feared individual in all the East.

If films/books/video games have taught us anything, it’s that pirates were a rowdy bunch at the best of times, and their attitudes towards women were…less than progressive.

 Zheng Yi Sao, of course, was having none of that and quickly established a new pirate code to keep her peg-legged men in line. Anyone who looted a town that had already paid tribute had their head cut off and was dumped in the ocean. Anyone caught, or even suspected, of stealing from the treasury had their head cut off and was dumped in the ocean. Anyone who raped a female prisoner had their head cut off and was dumped in the ocean (there’s a pattern there somewhere).

Needless to say, Zheng Yi Sao was not messing around. Not all her laws were quite so decapitation-happy, though. Ugly female prisoners were to be set free, and when a crewmember purchased one of the prettier captives, he had no choice but to marry her. But if he was unfaithful…head cut off, dumped in the ocean.

After just one year leading her pirate hegemony, Zheng Yi Sao had formed one of the largest navies on the planet, with some 17,000 men under her command. Extorted tributes from merchants across the Chinese seas and from the coastal towns between Macau and Canton swelled her treasury to staggering levels, and her power was so great that she became the de facto government of the region. No longer was she merely a pirate; she was an entire political entity.

Quite understandably, the reigning Qing Emperor wasn’t too thrilled with Zheng Yi Sao’s ability to supplant his divine authority, so he commissioned an Imperial Navy to put an end to her eye-patched enterprises. Zheng Yi Sao won hands down. Not only did she defeat the emperor’s forces, but she captured 63 of his ships and persuaded many of his men to join her. How did she persuade them? They were given a choice: join her crew and enjoy the complimentary rum, or be tied to the deck and be beaten to death. It was (assumedly) an easy decision to make.

Over the next two years, the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911) kept up its offensive, even going so far as to hire the British and Portuguese navies to see her off. Those two nations were the superpowers of the time – totally unparalleled in their sea-faring prowess – and Zheng Yi Sao crushed them both. There was literally no stopping her.

But Zheng Yi Sao didn’t let her achievements go to her head. Sick and tired of constant defeat, in 1810 the Qing Emperor offered an amnesty for all pirates – if Zheng Yi Sao would agree to make peace. Recognizing that her good fortune would not last forever, Zheng Yi Sao went willingly to the negotiations table. She showed up unannounced at the home of the Governor-general of Canton, convinced him to treat with her despite her gender and secured quite possibly the most generous pension-deal ever.

Not only did she get her pardon, and a pardon for the majority of her men, but she kept ownership of all her treasure. Docking her ship for the last time, she promptly married her former husband’s First Mate and, at the age of 35, retired to a life on the mainland, where she opened a gambling den and brothel.

She ran her new, less pirate-y business for the rest of her life, and by the time she died at the ripe old age of 69 (this was the 19th century. 69 was seriously good) she had become not only a living legend, but a mother and a grandmother too. No doubt she had some interesting bedtime stories to tell her kids.

Joe Doran, Illustration courtesy of Huang Shuo

Wednesday, 13 June 2012 

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2012/06/the-greatest-pirate-who-ever-lived/

Subvertising

24 International artists create the 

UK’s largest 

subvertising campaign

We got sent a press release last week which seemed to be burning a hole in my inbox having seen it pop up on various sites in quick succession. Having had a chance to look through the release and the images that coincide with it, I’m now glad I didn’t bury this at the bottom of the pile.
Brandalism is the work of 24 International artists who have completed the world’s first collaborative ‘subvertising’ campaign on outdoor billboards across the UK. The aim of this project is to challenge the destructive impacts of the advertising industy.
Big players including Ron English, Robert Montgomery, Broken Fingaz, Know Hope and Paul Insect have all contributed their skills and art works, with the series of works installed by a guerilla team. All of this, just a fortnight before the London 2012 Olympic Games. The total of 35 anti-advertising artworks were installed in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and London.
Touching on a slew of social issues including debt, the environment, body image, consumerism, cultural values and last summer’s riots, the artworks are a response to government reports and the recent think tank reports that have opened the ethical debate regarding advertising and it’s inherent, detrimental impact on our cultural values.
One of the installers of the artworks, Robert Graysford, 27, said:
“We’ve taken over these billboards because the advertising industry takes no responsibility for the messages they force-feed us every day. They claim to give us choice but we have no choice to ‘opt out’ from these intrusions into our public and personal spaces.”
“We’re lab rats for ad execs who exploit our fears and insecurities through consumerism. I’m a human being, not a consumer. So by taking these billboards, we are taking these spaces back. If Sao Paolo in Brazil can ban all outdoor advertising, so can we”.
Here at UKSA, we agree with the guys that the strict enforcement of the branding regulations for the forthcoming Olympic Games, mainly for the commercial interest of each particular brand, led to a lot of the responsed-based artwork you see here.
Bill Posters, who subverted a famous Nike advert of Wayne Rooney clutching shopping bags with the tagline, ‘Just Loot It’ said:
“The ad industry creates pressure when they manipulate our needs and desires. Pressure to have the latest gear, clothes and phones. This pressure erupted when kids took to the streets across the country to claim what they had been told that they needed.”
All the artworks can be seen on the Brandalism website at www.brandalism.org.uk

http://www.ukstreetart.co.uk/brandalism-24-international-artists-create-the-uks-largest-subvertising-campaign (July 21, 2012)

 

Eid Mubaruk From All Of Them ...

 Syrian, Libyan, Roma,

Kashmiri, Hazara, Refugees in Kenya

Afghani, Palestinian, Malian, Rohingyan

As we launch into a food holocaust this weekend to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr and quickly forget the lessons that Ramadan hoped to teach us... like solidarity.

Let us spare a moment, while we sip our fancy drinks, to remember the millions who have no access to clean water and all those who cannot afford new clothes, or the 20 million who will starve to death by the end of this year in the Horn of Africa. And those who will not get a moment of silence from the gun fire and bombing and those who won't get any rest because they have to keep running for their lives.

From All of them and the many others that I have not mentioned...

Eid Mubaruk to you and yours.