The news here is not that People’s Daily did something ridiculous, because they do that all the time. It’s the netizen response.
But before we get there, let’s set the scene first with People’s Daily’s ridiculousness:
The Dishonest Americans Series
Solid start.
From editor: Most Chinese people think that Americans are honest, reliable, and righteous. But once you live in the country for a while, you may discover the descriptions above are a bit misleading. Today’s topic, “The Dishonest Americans Series”, does not refer to all Americans. We want to unveil some incidents and Americans we have encountered, so to provide a more objective picture of what the US and Americans are really like.
It “does not refer to all Americans,” says People’s Daily, which is good because we would never expect such generalizations and generally shoddy work from China’s state media.
By the way, have you seen the related links on the “Dishonest Americans” articles?
People’s Daily only wants to “provide a more objective picture of what the US and Americans are really like.” That’s good. Objectivity is definitely the forte of articles such as this one:
“I am tremendously distressed and disappointed by United Airlines. Over the several rounds of back and forth communications with them, I can now see clearly how unreasonable this airline is!” said Mr. Liu, a Chinese passenger who got insulted by UA staffs. He was still indignant when recounting the incident to People’s Daily Online reporter.
And this, about ADP:
Are you considering of using ADP’s services?
Actually, I’m not really, so….
Hold on for a second. Let’s read on before making your decision.
Alright, we’ll humor ya, PD. What you got?
ADP is one of the largest global outsourcing agencies that provide human capital management solutions for businesses. We have been using its services since 2010.
Really, since 2010? So it must be a pretty helpful service if you’ve been…
But ADP is not helpful, at all.
Huh.
During this period, we have spent countless hours trying to contact the appropriate person in ADP who could answer our inquires.
But… since 2010?
Frustration is the word that best describes our experience.
A good word. Frustration. It’s what I feel, often, when my VPN cuts out, or my IP is killed because my Google Image search turns up a hit from Blogspot, or when I try to use Gmail. I know exactly what you mean.
Every time, we may either get transferred to several agents, but none of them could provide us the correct answer.
However, since I’ve personally have never had any problems with customer service anywhere, you’re on your own there.
And the time that we were put on hold was ridiculous. At the end, we would look at the clock and realize we had been on this call for 2 hours or more but still couldn’t get the answers. A complete waste of time.
You get the picture.
SCMP reports that the series, in Chinese, is titled “Immoral and Dishonest Americans.” We don’t know why “immoral” was taken out in the English version, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not like “dishonest” describes the scenarios above much better.
With three articles published from March to May, the series remained largely unnoticed until earlier this week, when a huge debate began online after several prominent Chinese media outlets reported the column.
The “debate” mostly consists of readers lambasting People’s Daily.
“Why do our officials keep sending their wives and sons to this immoral and dishonest country?,” asked many.
“There are immoral and dishonest people in every country, ” said Wu Zuolai, a Beijing scholar, “But we all know how many immoral and dishonest governments there are in the world – and we don’t need a column to tell us.”
But keep trying, state media. One of these days, you’ll get it — or do you not read the advice you solicit?
Outrage after People’s Daily’s ‘Dishonest Americans’ column goes vi[r]al (SCMP)
*gasp* people dishonest? No. No one on this planet could possible be dishonest!
Newsflash: Chinese slowly discover all the bullshit in the US that is far more frustrating than anything experienced in China.
Yeah, I know exactly what you’re saying – like that time I was handed a guide on arriving in the country telling me not to rape women, or the AIDS test and ultra-sound I had to take just to get a work visa, or the three days I had to spend at the bank just to carry out a simple transfer, or the ceaseless jeering and insults you get on the street, or the fact that the police are literally useless, or the fact that many popular websites which are useful in everyday life are blocked there, or the time the country was in a lock-down with testing on all the main transport links into and out of every main city . . .
. . . . oh wait, all that shit happened to me in China.
“Hey, we want to be objective, so here are a bunch of biased accounts basd on personal, subjective experiences.” ROFL
Well done People’s Daily. China needs to expose what mass murdering despotic regime the United States really is. America is a tyrannical fascist regime run by thugs where they have no morals. America has the worst human rights abuse, highest teen pregnancy rate, highest divorce rate, highest rape rate, highest crime rate and highest gun violence rate.
Americans are a bunch of racist white goons.
Anyone that disagree with the People’s Daily is a CIA agent that should be arrested, torrured and executed.
You are aware this is just Chinese propaganda aimed at counteracting American propaganda, similar to what is being seen with the recent Chinese diplomatic visits. The only problem is China is not that good at it, or at least not as good as RT, or even Press TV, especially in their Print media as CCTV tends to take a less critical approach to U.S diplomacy unlike Peoples Daily, or Xinhuanet.
I am assuming China is just counteracting Chinese bad press, to all Chinese who may bipass the ‘Great Firewall,’ which I am assuming like the majority of American propaganda did its job. As far as the ‘South China Morning Post’ goes, even though its a good newspaper, being its 60% run by News Corps I would only trust it as much as the Peoples Daily when criticizing any article that criticizes America.
Counteracting American propaganda? Of course some exists, but let’s not go and believe that every article mentioning any problem in China is propaganda. Indeed they are apples and oranges: China has multiple organizations designed to create propaganda on a daily basis, hide info that is not pro-party, and even make up false information if they think they can get away with it. In the US, not so much. Just when the CIA wants to help start a war or something.
And even then you have to ask whether the story is basically true, propaganda or not. Some people want to describe the CGC story as propaganda, but its a real story about Chinese government brutality, and it didn’t make waves in the US until he had been illegally detained in his home for over a year (not to mention the prior years of repression against him including prison on trumped-up charges and so on). Its a real story, and calling it propaganda is meaningless, unless you can also call the story false.
If China was serious about it they could lay out some decent propaganda about the US, but they are jokers who aren’t serious about anything besides wasting the public’s money. Plus the reputation of these organizations is so bad they can’t be believed at all, at any time.
News Corp is awful of course and its embarrassing and a bit shocking how bad their right-wing propaganda is in the US. But trust it to the same extent as PD? Come on, get a sense of perspective, pls.
“some exists”, how brainwashed are you exactly? the us government sends over their version of reality to their media guys and they print it up with their own names. any corporation with a stake in the us media companies does the exact same as well. A vast majority of us “news” is nothing more than propaganda. Soft and hard propaganda alike, it is everywhere and the pathetic thing is that people like you can’t even see it for what it is.
Ha yeah right every day the CIA is busy planting stories throughout western media about China haha. Sure, they have nothing else to do but find new stories of abuse and repression in China constantly, nothing else important for them to do.
Indeed, every story is probably fake, right? Except the Chinese media is apparently so bad at proving the stories are fake, too bad Chinese media is famous for being censored and making up stories when needed and so has no credibility. But its certainly true that every mass incident in China is caused by foreign forces and splittists, why that’s for sure. Couldn’t be because of government policy or government thievery in China, no that would be impossible.
But really too bad that most if not all of the stories are true. China does torture dissidents just for saying party rule is not a great system, does illegally detain people in their own homes for months or years at a time, does throw people into black jails, does steal the land of the people for pennies on the dollar, and then sells it to rich developers, also for a cheap price but they do get some corruption money out of it.
China’s party did have a purge in Chongqing recently, with hundreds tortured, imprisoned and many rich people had their property stolen by Bo and his henchmen. But every story which mentions anything bad about China in the western media is propaganda, I tell you!
Sigh. Please be better at your job or go away. Or just, go away.
“In the US, not so much. Just when the CIA wants to help start a war or something.”
…and? It cannot be argued that the US does not engage in propaganda, and its sad that the media is dominated by these big companies with no social conscience. I remember Judith Miller very well, thanks.
What I was saying to Matt was that the Chinese propaganda is not to counter US propaganda at all, but to do its job of managing opinions in China, and perhaps make money at the same time, or at least get hits so the bosses can justify their salaries. There are not two similar sides in this media battle.
If everything is US propaganda, then where are the false stories planted in the media about China? When someone argues that a story is propaganda, what they are really trying to do is avoid discussing why the situation happens and what should be done about it. Because that is verboten.
Selective reporting, predetermined narratives and “details” which are flat out lies but go along with the established narrative. Entirely fake stories are far too old-school.
The trick to pulling it off is to ignore any and all debate on the credibility of the reporting, and then throw it to the pundits to clamor on 24/7 bashing it into everyone’s skulls. Any positive stories must always have the pre-determined irrelevant reference points and phrases mixed in, and if worse comes to worse, you buffer it with anything negative that can be found no matter how unrelated it is. This can be furthered by misreporting, and then silently issuing a retraction which goes unnoticed.
In the case of China, it is par for the course to report on anything anti-government regardless, link it to 64, link it to any buzz words in the public mentality to convey that negative view. And of course, never mention anything about investigation results or resolutions.
And before you go and say anything starting even remotely with “but, china”, know that you will lose that argument immediately.
Yeah that narrative of arrogant, greedy leftists imprisoning, torturing and murdering people in order to keep their corrupt power and line their pockets with billions is a pesky thing, isn’t it? Too bad there is all sorts of evidence to support it.
Surely, Xinjiang and Tibet are truly happy places where the people love all the party has done for them, the proof of that is the classes the party makes people take about why they should love the party. If it wasn’t for the CIAs meddling everything would just be grand!
Wow, the western media is so unfair to China. Why, they focus on all the people who die in police custody and never mention the many who don’t die is police custody! They talk every day about China torturing lawyers and dissidents in prison, and never mention that 90% of the days they feed the prisoners! What selective reporting!!
Fred, you really should read this to know how your glorious leftists go about their business:
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/27/186457528/targets-of-disgraced-bo-xilai-still-languish-in-jail
What they don’t mention is that other national leaders were scared of Bo during this time and dared not to challenge his ‘singing red’ campaign, even though they knew it was just cover for his political purge and his theft of the assets of the people he imprisoned or had murdered. In fact many went to Chongqing to praise him during that time.
How precious. The People’s Daily presumes to arbitrate on the subject of honesty.
I thought mind-altering drugs were banned in China?
That’s for sure that not every Americans go deprived, as Chinese media in 1960s said
But you could not disagree that racial discrimination, drug abuse, gun control…… are tough problems in US as well.
Basically, this report is a response to some Irresponsible report by Netease and Southern Weekend. I will pick up some topics found in Netease.
“America—The only hope of human kinds.”
“Americans should rule China”
“Why Americans are far prior to Chinese”
“Is Mao a goat?”
”Sichuan people are doomed to die in the earthquake, they deserve it”
………….
Wow! And some Comments
“If Obama was to be born in China, his family would be fined and his mother would be forced to have abortion.”
“What is Chinese Dream? Maybe immigrate to America”
How fabulous these trash is!
In reality, some Chinese guy are not mature enough to judge right and wrong, and these trash would lead them to think the their motherland is a sh*t. And it does take effects. Young generations(although i am part of it ) tend to complain about EVERYTHING in China, and, on the opposite, America is a faultless country, although it does make faults sometimes.
People, especially young people always talk some garbage. But what you are saying is we should forbid them from saying that, forbid those newspapers from printing that. Do you think that people will like the government more if the government forbids them from saying bad things about it? Actually they will hate the government more for controlling them. And it means that the government is not listening to people, just ordering them to think the ‘right’ way.
And if the government must order everyone not to complain, how good could that government be? Will a good government that does its job and doesn’t make people angry need to do that? How long can the government tell everyone how great they are while all the officials are sending their children outside? But if I am an official I will definitely do that, because the future is too uncertain and even in the party its dangerous, you might find you lost everything one day, even your life. Better to get ready at least.
These days, the price of the house is crazy expensive, actually everything is expensive. That’s why young people are angry, and they have good reasons for it. The government is responsible for the house price and the rich connected people made lots of money on that already. Actually these markets take money out of the people’s hands and give it to the government, its a real problem.
And the government just tells everyone to shut up or you might be punished. Its not a good way at all.
Yes, there are always countless obstacles waiting for the young. To be honest, I still a student, so I might be a little naive facing the difficulties that I’m going to go through, On this point, I do agree with you. China is now suffering in a stage where social justice is nowhere to be found.
When it comes to social justice, things get more clear. The main resource of the complaints is unfairness. Unfairness in finding jobs, getting education, and most importantly, the income. In my aspect, at least education is unfair.
So at present, there’s no opportunity for me to send myself to America……..Sigh…..
But keeps a positive attitude will make us feel better.
It’s a kind of A Q spirit(self-comfort spirit) .I acknowledge.
By the way, I really appreciate your way of taking. Very objective.
People, especially young people always talk some garbage. But what you are saying is we should forbid them from saying that, forbid those newspapers from printing that. Do you think that people will like the government more if the government forbids them from saying bad things about it? Actually they will hate the government more for controlling them. And it means that the government is not listening to people, just ordering them to think the ‘right’ way.
And if the government must order everyone not to complain, how good could that government be? Will a good government that does its job and doesn’t make people angry need to do that? How long can the government tell everyone how great they are while all the officials are sending their children outside? But if I am an official I will definitely do that, because the future is too uncertain and even in the party its dangerous, you might find you lost everything one day, even your life. Better to get ready at least.
These days, the price of the house is crazy expensive, actually everything is expensive. That’s why young people are angry, and they have good reasons for it. The government is responsible for the house price and the rich connected people made lots of money on that already. Actually these markets take money out of the people’s hands and give it to the government, its a real problem.
And the government just tells everyone to shut up or you might be punished. Its not a good way at all.
Note that all the incidents mentioned by People’s Daily involve American corporations, not people.
Most Americans (myself included) loathe American corporations for the exact same reasons (i.e. horrible customer service)….