Great job with the chicken! Enjoy NextMedia's animation of China's faux Nobel as, in a light moment, China's Nobel prize flopped this week as winner Lien Chan didn't show up to collect the prize and the awesome $15,000 US sweetener. NYT reported on the Chinese attitude:
Tan Changliu, chairman of the committee, made every attempt to steer the conversation away from that subject. In a page seemingly taken from the Harry Potter books, he tried to avoid referring to Mr. Liu by name, instead calling him the man “with the three-character name.”Chinese speakers have a habit of saying things like "your country is small so STFU" out loud.
Mr. Tan said the prize was meant to give “a Chinese perspective on peace.” When pressed on its relation to the Norwegian prize, he said that China had had a longer history with peace. He added, “Did the Nobel Peace Prize influence Confucius, or did Confucius influence the Nobel Peace Prize?”
The panel distributed a booklet that opened with a paragraph saying the 1.3-billion-strong nation of China “should have a greater voice on the issue of world peace” and that “Norway is only a small country with scarce land area and population.”
_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Next Media animation is amazing. The company is originally from Hong Kong, yes, but the 3D graphics talent is in Taiwan, and the freedom of speech, diverse topics, and tabloid precedent is what makes it possible. Actually, the editorial team is Taiwanese American too.
ReplyDeleteThis stuff is going worldwide because of the internet. Michael, 5 years ago, would you have ever thought one of Taiwan's exports to the US would be news-fo-tainment? Kind of like, Revenge of the Taiwanese English Buxiban Student or something.
Here the Chinese edition. There are some differences. No chicken. And no Lien Chan doing the hābāgǒu on the ground.
ReplyDeleteSo ...
ReplyDelete... you can guest star in those animations?
It kind of astonishes me that they would nominate Lien in the first place. He is a panda hugger certainly, but did the Chinese honestly think he would allow himself to be roped into a propaganda minefield? He would be the laughing stock of every human rights org and a goldmine of pan-green criticism.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, Beijing shows it's lack of understanding of how politics is done elsewhere.
@Thomas. Not at all. I think the Chinese Peace Prize is aimed more at a domestic audience than anything else, and while it would have been good footage for domestic TV for Lien to accept it, it doesn't matter too much that he didn't. Even if he'd rejected the prize (which he hasn't), the Chinese public would never hear about it.
ReplyDeleteAs to perceptions in Taiwan, the CCP seems pretty confident that KMT is going to keep pushing it's annexation agenda forward regardless of public opinion. The public has been laughing at Lien's lapdog antics and howling about his under-table dealings for years, but has that stopped him? Quite the opposite it seems.
les has a good point. While we look from the outside in will be shocked or laugh at how immature Chinese government is, the Chinese inside China could have a drastically different perspective. Remember, the media in China is very tightly controlled, even the Internet has been well censored by China. It is the same thing when we laugh at North Korea, but a lot of North Korean seriously think that Kim is a demigod.
ReplyDelete