Local Hero: Ding Cong: Social satirist whose art lies in discretion

Peking - In one of Ding Cong's cartoons, the section chief of a government bureau demands that his new doorbell be fitted at ankle height. "How will guests ring the bell?" asks the puzzled electrician. "My guests all use their foot to ring the doorbell because their hands are always full of gifts for me," explains the corrupt cadre.

Since his political rehabilitation in 1979, it is jokes like this which have made 80-year-old Mr Ding one of China's best-loved cartoonists. In a country where a social satirist must tiptoe through a political minefield, Mr Ding's cartoons manage to convey the various exasperations of modern Chinese life - and still be published. Corruption, bureaucracy and money- fever feature regularly in his work, which appears in newspapers across the country. A recent exhibition in Peking attracted up to 3,000 visitors a day.

"There are a lot of lamentable things and unreasonable things in society," says Mr Ding, who signs his work as Xiao Ding (Little Ding). He pinpoints just those topics that people in the streets are moaning about: "The attitudes of shop assistants, corruption ... inflation, high tuition fees for education ... the huge gap between the rich and the poor ... Right now there are a lot of unreasonable things."

Nor do the remnants of the old China escape his pen. In one cartoon, a lazy apprentice is lounging under a tree counting his money. The team leader, sweating from digging, comes up and asks: "You've just got your bonus, how can you be sitting here like a bump on a log?" The apprentice smiles: "Whether I work or not, I still get the bonus."

Old China was not kind to Mr Ding. Born in Shanghai in 1916, he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his cartoonist father, but had to flee the city when the Japanese invaded in 1937. After the Communist victory in 1949, he edited a magazine until 1957 when, like many artists, he was branded a rightist and banished to the frozen north-east for three years. Back in Peking, he then fell victim to the Cultural Revolution. "For more than 20 years, I had no right to publish cartoons," he says.

"Rehabilitation" came in 1979, with the start of the reform era. "I decided to devote all my remaining years to drawing cartoons, because in the past I had always been craving to draw cartoons, but always had no chance," he says.

But a cartoonist specialising in social criticism must still be very careful. "As a citizen of the People's Republic of China, if you draw a lot of phenomena which expose the ugly side of society, people will criticise you. But on the other hand, I don't want to draw those things which do not touch upon reality."

A cartoonist must be sure-footed enough not to overstep the limits. "It is not allowed to criticise leaders by name. My cartoons are only directed against a phenomenon, not against a specific person, otherwise there will be trouble."

There are still some topics that cannot be touched upon. For instance, no cartoonist would dare to portray the corruption scandal which resulted last year in the sacking of Peking's party chief and the suicide of a deputy mayor. In recent months, party control of the media has even intensified as part of the official campaign for "spiritual civilisation".