We love ourselves a good zinger. Via China Digital Times’s “NetEase News Calls Out Global Times,” we’re introduced to the image of the fleabane, which CDT explains is “known as qiangtoucao (墙头草) or ‘wall-top grass’ in Chinese. Qiangtoucao also means ‘fence-sitter,’ someone who bends to the prevailing political or social winds to stay rooted.”
Who could that possibly be applied to?
NetEaseNewsClient: The wheel of history rolls forward. Only the grass that is adept at adjusting its direction can keep sticking to the front of the car. @HuXijin @GlobalTimes
Of course: Hu Xijin, Global Times editor-in-chief, one of our favorite people in the world. You’ll remember that after Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Hu’s public sentiment transformed from “keep a ‘calm heart’” to “China’s mainstream cannot be rejected for much longer.” (TAR got really upset at that line.)
We’re far from calling Hu unprincipled, however. It’s just a different set of principles, requiring a different type of man; one made of straw, presumably.
