Skeptics Jeer After Chinese Couple Bring Party Into the Bridal Suite

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/world/asia/china-communist-party-constitution-wedding.html

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BEIJING — Usually what newly married couples do on their wedding night needs no elaboration, let alone a pen and paper.

But if the pictures are to be believed, a couple in southeast China spent at least part of the first night of the rest of their lives copying out the Communist Party Constitution. By hand.

“Laying down a sheet of paper and neatly copying out the Party Constitution left blissful memories of their wedding night for these newlyweds,” said an account of the event, first issued online on Monday by their employers, the railway bureau of the city of Nanchang.

It may be hard to believe that the phrase was not a euphemism.

But no. The couple, both rail equipment maintenance staff workers, showed singular devotion to the Communist cause by sitting beside their bed and writing out the stolid lines of the party Constitution, or charter, as part of a study campaign, said the railway bureau, which shared pictures of the occasion that spread online.

One picture showed the bridegroom, Li Yunpeng, copying out the party document while his bride, Chen Xuanchi, looked on, apparently admiring his penmanship. The section he wrote out read:

“The Communist Party of China leads the people in developing an advanced socialist culture. It promotes socialist cultural and ethical progress, and combines the rule of law and the rule of virtue in running the country.”

Needless to say, many people have been agog that the couple took time off from their big night to dwell on the virtues of the party. The Chinese Internet has been alive with debate and skepticism about the photos, as well as some pity for the couple, turned into props for propaganda during their most personal time.

Some, tongue in cheek, praised their political fortitude.

“On the wedding night, the bridegroom did not rejoice in his great friendship with the bride and do what we love to do,” wrote one popular commentator, Wang Wusi, in a satirical essay that was widely circulated online.

“Hostile foreign forces will certainly exploit this act of copying out the party Constitution on a wedding night, and they will stir up mockery of it,” he presciently warned. “The broad numbers of party members must make a stand.”

Under President Xi Jinping, the party has ramped up adoring propaganda about itself (and Mr. Xi). But even state-run news outlets said Mr. Li and Ms. Chen should have taken the night off and focused on each other. People’s Daily, the party’s chief newspaper, weighed in with a commentary on its website.

“It is very necessary for party members to study the party Constitution,” said the commentary, which did not appear to have satirical intent. “However, party members are also ordinary people, and they will also experience the pull of romantic love and the gamut of emotions and desires.”

Inevitably, too, there have been doubts that the couple happened to find a photographer in their wedding chamber while they happened to be writing down the party charter.

Amateur detectives have pointed out that the bridegroom was wearing an expensive-looking watch in some pictures, but not in another. The bride’s nail polish also seems to disappear in one shot.

The Nanchang railway bureau insisted that the event truly happened and was the voluntary doing of the couple, said a report on Sohu, a Chinese news website. Party organizations have been encouraging members and others to join a 100-day campaign to write out the party Constitution.

Already, though, the phrase “copying out the party Constitution” is catching on in Chinese popular culture in ways that propaganda officials did not conceive.