“Du Fu is Busy” soon caught on among China’s social networks. Busy with what? To change his roles as the artists give him different images in the free-for-all.

Graffiti of Du Fu circulating on China’s Weibo

“The graffiti, in effect, are not targeted at Du Fu, but the professionals in the educational and cultural field. Is it that the adults always use the image of Du Fu to express their voices and degenerate his personality as thin as a piece of paper?” said a comment on the newspaper People’s Daily on March 27. It urged the adults, especially those educational professionals, to set store by the phenomenon and think why the children were fond of such acts of graffiti and look inside their inner demands and emotions.

In the cyber community, the Du Fu is Busy trend has aroused several remarks, and many Weibo users seem obsessed with the hilarious and incessantly updated pictures, while few focus on its justifiability and the standards of public morality.

Graffiti of Du Fu circulating on China’s Weibo

User 围脖经典语录 wrote: A reporter is interviewing Du Fu. “It is said that you are quite busy these days.”Du:”Can I shout abuse as a response? ””I am afraid you can’t….”“No? Then I am speechless.”

User 都市观察 wrote：#Du Fu is Busy#”….the event now is considered immoral and monstrous, some even view the event in earnest and denounce it. I think we don’t have to be aflame with indignation as the old fogy. The trend is a mirror of culture and a modern construction of traditional culture.”

User dannelcp wrote：”Du Fu today is time-traveled to the present world and busies himself with being spoofed. The spoofers, without scruple, trample upon the poet we all respect and esteem. The really busy people are those drawers, who have lost their respect to the ancestors.”

User 司溟幽 wrote：”Don’t always give Du Fu a hard time. Two pages back in the textbook, there is a Li Shangyin.”

By Xu Xinlei