Make Hay While Flags Burn

The marauding Chinese economic juggernaut is showing signs of slowing down, but one sector seems to be quite literally keeping the flag flying. These are units located in many of China's small towns and metro outskirts. They manufacture flags and now seem to be a beehive of activity with even round the clock shifts not being able to cope with the huge demand. Right now in China, only factories manufacturing fake i-Phone 5 have such schedules.

Chen Qiang, who used to be a Communist party official during the Deng Xiao Peng era now runs one such unit. He started off with making flags for Chinese Communist party, but has now acquired a global footprint. He said, "Nowadays the demand is mainly from overseas - countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and some Arab countries, whose names I don't remember."

Though the spurt in demand has made Qiang happy, there is a sense of disquiet. He said with a knitted brow, "The strange part is that the orders are not for flags of their own countries; but for US flags. I am really surprised by this new found love for peddlers of junk food, colas and recession."

According to Qiang the demand last week was so high that they even approached the local prison to get the work done. "The prisoners did a major goof up in the flag design - instead of 50 stars in the US flag some had only 45. We decided to hold payment and were worried that we may face outright rejection and loss of face. But our customers took the delivery and hardly noticed the error. Though relieved, I had a niggling worry that they may find it later," he said.

"Though in business I strictly follow comrade Deng's principle - 'the colour of the cat doesn’t matter as long as it can catch mice'. But still, curiosity got better of me," Qiang said with resignation.

The other day when he met his old client Shanawaz Ali from Pakistan, he decided to broach the issue of obsession with US flag. After all he had been a frequent visitor and was instrumental in bringing other Arab clients to Qiang.

Ali, who stays in a Pakistani town close to Chinese border, said, "I keep getting phone calls from Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar about US flags. Looks like there are some anti-US protests going on and people are burning flags. Some Amreekan guy had made a film insulting our beloved Prophet and people are livid about it."

A visibly relieved Qiang said, "Oh, so all these flags were meant to be burnt", and secretly thanked his luck that the '45-star glitch' was of no consequence.

Ali then asked, "Do you have the design of French flag." "No", replied Qiang. "Try to get one, we may soon require that also," Ali said and took leave.

(A work of off-the-tangent imagination)

Also Read: Bangalore Beat