In the 60's and early 70's China was experiencing a 'Cultural Revolution' around the teachings of it's Chairman Mao Zedong. A photojournalist, Li Zhensheng according to the May issue of SMITHSONIAN magazine took many pictures of the events surrounding this event.
In the article entitled "Dancing For Mao' was a picture of a 5-year old girl named Kang Wenjie who was performing a so-called 'loyalty dance' on the last day of a 23-day gathering of a Mao 'teach-in'.
Along with the dance she was singing: 'No matter how close our parents are to us, they are not as close as our relationship with Mao...' How absurb, thought Li, who thought to himself that this worship was to the excess and the zeal very discomforting. In the cult of Mao, everyone was expected to perform the 'loyalty dance'!
Kang (46) today is grown and married. When Li hunted her down she commented the same as Li, 'absurb'! I was merely a naive child who knew nothing, and didn't even know that the dance she was photographed even had a name.
I immediately made the connection with 'Organization' worship as practiced by Jehovah's Witnesses, namely 'No matter how close our parents are to us, they are nat as close as our relationship with 'the Governing Body' (Mao). And like Kang many do not even know what they are doing!
How sad!
Outaservice