{"id":11904,"date":"2012-01-07T01:01:32","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T01:01:32","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-01-07T01:01:32","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T01:01:32","slug":"Dragon-on-stamp--too-fierce-","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=11904","title":{"rendered":"Dragon on stamp &#8220;too fierce&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A Chinese postage stamp depicting a dragon with its fangs and claws bared has drawn sharp criticism on the nation&#8217;s microblogs, with many saying it puts too frightening a face on their rising country.  The commemorative stamp went on sale Thursday ahead of the new Chinese Year of the Dragon, which begins on January 23, in keeping with a tradition of issuing stamps featuring the zodiac animal linked to the coming lunar year.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last year&#8217;s rabbit stamp attracted little attention, but by Friday, the new dragon version had sparked a vibrant online debate.  <strong>&#8220;The Chinese dragon should be an adorable mascot. Why has it been made so fierce?&#8221; wrote one microblogger under the name &#8220;YFY Laoyu&#8221;, saying he changed his mind about buying the stamp after seeing the fierce design.<\/strong>  Chinese historian Zhang Yihe, whose books are banned by Beijing, wrote on her microblog that she was &#8220;almost scared to death&#8221; by the stamp, while another blogger said it was &#8220;hard to know if it will bring good luck or prove ominous&#8221;.  But others dismissed the criticisms. &#8220;There have been many dragons, some majestic and solemn, others lively and interesting. Come on, it&#8217;s just a stamp,&#8221; wrote microblogger Zhen Wu.  <strong>The dragon, one of the 12 signs in the traditional Chinese zodiac, has long been thought to bring power, wealth and luck.<\/strong>  T<\/p>\n<p><strong>The stamp&#8217;s designer Chen Shaohua defended his work, explaining on his blog that he had revived an 1878 stamp design inspired by the robes worn by the emperor.<\/strong> &#8220;<strong>The dragon is the god of the zodiac and the god can&#8217;t be changed easily. Dragons can drive out evil spirits and avoid disasters. We need a tough image to express this,&#8221; he wrote.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>In my humble opinion, I think that the stamp is both strong and adorable at the same time and I would love some!<br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/stories\/featurenews\/view\/1175190\/1\/.html\">SOURCE<\/a><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Chinese postage stamp depicting a dragon with its fangs and claws bared has drawn sharp criticism on the nation&#8217;s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"A Chinese postage stamp depicting a dragon with its fangs and claws bared has drawn sharp criticism on the nation&#8217;s","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":146,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1\">News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}