The Revolution is still a long way off

A few days ago, I passed a young Chinese guy on the streets of Beijing wearing this t-shirt.

I hope he didn't encounter any policemen who can speak/read English (rare, but they do exist), or he could have been in a lot of trouble.

Now, this appears to be a very common t-shirt slogan in America these days, and I suspect this guy's shirt was a genuine import rather than one of the cheap local knock-offs that just appropriate such slogans from the Internet without any concern for what they mean (or generate them randomly by cutting & pasting, or using a machine-translator). Nevertheless, the fact that the slogan may have been coherent and meaningful to its creator, and perhaps even to its seller, does not guarantee that it was to its wearer. Most young Chinese people think English writing - or Chinglish gibberish, most of the time - on clothing is COOL, and will buy items like this without reference to the meaning. (Lately, there seem to have been rather more of these it-actually-makes-sense-and-is-appropriate t-shirts appearing here. I spotted a girl on the subway a few weeks back wearing one that said I'm not easy, but we can talk about it. I really think she had no idea what it meant.)

I find it rather depressing that this government goes to such great lengths to suppress 'unharmonious' ideas, and yet the only real subversion here is mostly being expressed by accident.