In modern times, you need rain or sunshine to add this flourish of authority. Type "holding umbrella" in a Chinese search engine and you'll come up with a slew of illustrations. Take this one, published in June 2006. A bunch of Chongqing district leaders are watching a performance. Most have someone sitting next to them holding umbrellas. Nine 4-year-olds are dancing on a wet carpet, wearing skimpy costumes and not sheltered from the rain by anything. The name of this event was "Caring for our girls". Ironical, perhaps?
Of course most cases are not extreme as this one. An article extolling Zhou Senfeng, supposedly China's youngest mayor, is accompanied by two photographs, each showing the 29 year old protected from the sun's UV by a man holding a brolly. Netizens asked: "Is he too old and fragile to hold his own umbrella?"
One Chinese official, much older than Zhou Senfeng, not only held his own umbrella but was photographed trekking ankle-deep on a muddy road. It was Premier Wen Jiabao. Again, ironically, the local officials who attended to him all had assistants keeping the rain off them.
Now we must put things in cultural context. Confucianism dictates a strict hierarchy. So it does not offend if a 30-year-old man holds the umbrella for a 60 year old, or for that matter, an able-bodied staffer doing it for a senior leader. But, if the umbrella-holder is much older or younger than the beneficiary, it just does not seem right. The photos that incur the most public resentment are those where officials deliver speeches under cover while school children stand in the rain or scorching sun.
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