Growing up and being cute easier said than done

Three days before I left for China, a salesperson thought I was 16. I was, actually, a 21-year-old college graduate - no, I was a despondent 21-year-old college graduate.

By that point, I had spent much of my late teens trying to will myself into outgrowing my short height and baby face - without success. But a propaganda sign in Beijing turned my anxiety to joy when I learned that being cute was now a government mandate. "Zuo wei ke'ai de ren," the sign said, "Be a cute person."

In the time it took me to decipher the six characters, my baby face had gone from being a liability to a prerequisite for a model citizen. I was ecstatic to learn that the difference between cute and national hero was all a matter of perspective.

The sign assured me I wasn't a college graduate that looked like a middle schooler; I was a Lei Feng of the new millennium, a citizen upheld by the government as a model for others. Soon there would be sittings for propaganda poster paintings (which would be a breeze with such a cute face), national parades, and stacks upon stacks of royalty checks.

My Chinese friends think it's weird that I stop and read the propaganda signs that dot China, but I think my self-esteem boost proves the signs are worthwhile. To my Chinese friends, the signs are like wallpaper in a house they've grown up in. But if they did pay attention they'd notice that:

Propaganda posters can be startlingly direct and out of date, like a sign I saw in Guizhou province that urged simply: "Comrade, please speak Mandarin."

Propaganda posters can be comically modern, like a sign I saw in the Guangzhou subway that had a dancing person that looked as if it came straight from an iPod ad and a slogan that read: "Mandarin: modern needs, fashionable pursuits."