Xiao, Deng

By Tony Kornheiser

Sunday, February 23 1997; Page F01
The Washington Post 

Let us today reflect solemnly upon the death of Deng Xiaoping. All lives are significant, and all
deaths diminish us. But Deng Xiaoping was the leader of a quarter of the world's population,
a man of enormous power and influence. And so from his death -- and from his life -- we can
learn many, many important lessons. Such as:

Smoking is okay.

Look, Deng lived to be 92. And in every photograph I've seen of him, Deng Xiaoping is
smoking a cigarette. Plus, it's no sissy cigarette. It's, like, an unfiltered Pall Mall. Brown &
Williamson should come up with a new character to compete with Joe Camel. It should be a
waddling guy in a Mao suit named Joe Ping. 

What a guy Deng was. Every day of his life he smoked cigarettes and ate Chinese food. I do
that and they call me a slacker. He does that, and they plaster his obituary all over the front
page. (Honestly, weren't the encomiums delivered by world leaders just a little over the top?
This was a guy who used a steamroller for crowd control.) 

Another important lesson we learn from Deng Xiaoping is that size doesn't matter. Have you
seen pictures of Deng standing next to other dignitaries? He looks like Grumpy, or maybe
Bashful. Stories from the 1970s report that he was "barely five feet tall." And that was when
he was still robust. At death, he couldn't have been more than 4 feet 2. (And I thought my
father was shrinking.) Nobody is sure exactly how tall Deng was, but let me put it this way: If
he goes to Disneyland, HE CAN'T RIDE! 

You have to go way back in time to find any world leader as short as Deng Xiaoping.
Napoleon was taller. Alexander the Great was taller. You'd probably have to go back to
somebody named Ogg, who lived in a cave and wore monkey fur.

Excuse me, Tony, but we're talking about a world leader of epic significance. And all you can
do is make half-witted jokes about his name and physical features. You, a fat, bald stooge
named Anthony Irwin Kornheiser. Ha ha ha. Hey. That's kind of fun. You're so bald, when
you die they're going to recycle your head as a bowling ball. God, I'm good! You're so bald .
. . 

What is this, amateur night at Grossinger's? Get your own column.

To me, the most amazing fact in all the stories I read about Deng was that although he was the
Maximum Leader of all of China, he hadn't been seen in public in three years. How is it
possible that a political leader could disappear like that? Come to think of it, maybe like our
own fabulous mayor's well-publicized hiatus, he was, uh, away. 

Three years without any public exposure, though, for Mr. Deng. Who is he, Arsenio Hall?

Deng was famous for modernizing China, opening it to the West, but modernization is relative.
I was in China once, after the Seoul Olympics in 1988. (I climbed the Great Wall. My heart
was beating like a rabbit's when I got to the top. The steps are very, very steep, sometimes as
tall as, well, Mr. Deng!) At that time Beijing was being hailed as a progressive, modern city, a
city that was considered as important to the world as Moscow and Washington. But you saw
donkey carts in the streets of Beijing. In the countryside it was the 12th century. I actually
saw large white chickens roosting in trees. (Perhaps hiding from Gen. Tsao.)

So, on this solemn occasion, we must all reach within ourselves and ask, what is the legacy of
this great man? On the one hand, he was a ruthless oppressor of a billion souls. On the other
hand, he made China safe for Jiffy Lube and Boston Market Extreme Carver Sandwiches.

The most enduring image of Deng's political tenure, of course, is that indelible photograph of
an anonymous young man, with a lunch bag in his hand, standing in the middle of a boulevard,
defiantly, in front of a phalanx of tanks, bringing them to a standstill. 

Around the world it was interpreted as a symbol of the indomitable human spirit, courage in
the face of overwhelming totalitarian power. And it was. But I don't remember what
happened to that guy. He's probably hanging by his thumbs in Zienshin Province, being fed
Taco Bell Mexi-Melts. 

You know why Deng's death has inspired so much commentary on radio and television, don't
you? It's because of his comical name. In print it doesn't look funny. But the TV and radio
guys love to say it, straight-faced:

"Mister Dung."

That is so cool. It is like saying a naughty word and getting away with it. Imagine how much
fun the TV guys would have if the president of the United States were named Rutherford B.
Dewdie? 

And it's not just Deng's family name. My friend Tracee offered this: 

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Deng Xiaoping.

Deng Xiaoping who?

Deng Xiaoping at Macy's. Now I'm going to start xiaoping at Hecht's.


© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company