CCTV recently published an article called “Tips for Chinese choosing an English name,” which is frankly exactly the type of piece I think CCTV should be publishing more of. It features delightful sentences such as, “Many Chinese like to pick names that are in fact, not names,” and, “Meanwhile, Dong and Wang is used as slang for male genitalia. So avoid anything like ‘Bunny Wang’ at all times.” It got us thinking: what are the best Chinese-chosen English names we know?

My favorite has, since the beginning, been “Refrigerator.” I don’t even remember the story anymore, but the name itself has branded itself into my brain. I will carry Refrigerator, capital R, to my grave, long after I’ve forgotten my first love or the smell of bacon or any number of actually worthwhile things.

I canvassed a few other BJC contributors, and here’s what they had to say:

Fish was called Fish because her Cantonese name sounded like Fish. Which happens to sound like “bruise,” and she played rugby and always got bruises so she thought Fish would be appropriate. She captained one of the rugby teams in HK.

Laughter I met once through a friend. Didn’t speak English very well, went to local high school in HK, kind of just putzed around and worked odd jobs. But she said she liked to laugh and make people laugh.

Success was a fat Chinese man who carried around an umbrella and we all thought he resembled the Penguin from Batman.

Bamboo was a bao’an for my old neighborhood. Then he texted me sexual messages.

Rambo. Not much of a story, just met a kid named Rambo… never learned why. Then there was…

Salad. Don’t know there either, was a one-time class I taught. Oh, and there was…

Titanic. Ha. You can probably guess why on that one.

What are your favorite English names chosen by non-native English speakers? Sound off in the comments below. We’ll bump our favorites up here.

Update: Vitiligo, n.: a skin disorder characterized by smooth, white patches on various parts of the body, caused by the loss of the natural pigment.

Plus Whiskey and Trouble, yet another Fish, etc. Scroll down for more.

As a twentysomething American, I take my Facebook newsfeed for granted.

The fact that one friend can link to an article criticizing US drone use in the Middle East below another friend’s posting of cats in costume below another’s picture of Hong Kong blanketed by protesters seems completely unremarkable.

But living in China can give you a new perspective on the things you take for granted.

~

I work for a sub-branch of CCTV geared toward international video news, and we have several TV screens in the office that run 24-hour feeds of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Al Jazeera and others – ostensibly to keep up with the competition. But I returned from our canteen this past Sunday evening to find six or seven of my Chinese colleagues glued to a screen showing a live-feed from CNN.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Something is happening in Hong Kong,” said one of my colleagues, a 25-year-old Chinese woman who studied English at a university in Wuhan.

Normally, my office mates, to put it politely, less than enthusiastic about keeping up with international news. Few scour the Internet during work hours to cross-check stories against international outlets, and even fewer read the news in their free time. So to see my friends avidly watching CNN while on the clock was decidedly out of the ordinary.

“You mean about the protests?” I replied.

“What protests?” called another Chinese colleague who wasn’t watching.

“Yeah, come see,” said the first girl.

A CNN reporter stood live from Central Square in Hong Kong amid a sea of students wearing plastic coverings over their eyes and mouths. I had kept up with the story, having seen pictures like this on my Facebook newsfeed for the past several days, mostly from Hong Kong friends who were proud of the protesters and shocked at the sudden intensity of the police response. But I realized this must have been the first time many of my colleagues had seen these images.

The CNN reporter then said, “Now we’ll turn to an elderly resident of Hong Kong who says that the movement reminds him of the deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing…”

Suddenly, the screen went blank.

My colleagues and I blinked at one another. We all instinctively looked over our shoulders, toward the doorway, into the corners of the newsroom. Was somebody from the inner government here – inside the offices of our state-run enterprise – cutting off the feed?

Moments later, the picture returned. It was that same CNN reporter in Central, but clearly waiting in the silence that comes after a live interview has finished.

One of my other colleagues, a 70-year-old veteran journalist who was among the first Chinese to be sent abroad to study, a man who cut his journo teeth on assignments across Africa in the ’60s, said, “Headquarters! CCTV headquarters must be watching the channel, and they cut the feed as soon as Tiananmen was mentioned…”

After that, everyone became noticeably less engaged in the story. We had all been reminded that, despite the routine and normalcy of our daily work, the unspoken but widely understood guidelines as to what to write and what not to, we were still newswriting in a society where information can be dangerous, and something as innocuous as a TV interview can carry far-reaching consequences.

I went home decidedly fazed. Pulling up my Facebook feed and looking at pictures of the latest round of umbrella-carrying students ducking through tear gas, I felt slightly sickened — not just by what was going on, but by the very fact that I could see it, follow it, and form opinions about it. Every day, I consume vast amounts of information and knowledge with little thought that, in some parts of the world, information is as rare and precious a commodity as water in the Sahara.

J. Stevens is a philosophically-minded journalist in Beijing searching for glimpses of Daoism in the cracks of modern Chinese society. He lives in Beijing.

The finger is now being pointed at Rui Chenggang

The arrest of another journalist in China is normally cause for concern: as the news is shared across social networks, tweets of sympathy accumulate, human rights groups and lawyers protest, and diplomats may even issue statements of public concern.

But the detention of economics anchor Rui Chenggang (pictured), reportedly “dragged” from his offices by investigators just hours before his show was due to go live, has prompted almost the opposite – the overwhelming response, as the NY Times’s Ed Wong noted, has been one of schadenfreude (xingzai lehuo, “feel happy about someone’s disaster”). In a rare show of alliance, Western journalists and Chinese state media have instead issued a steady drip of allegations and gloating commentaries about Rui’s supposed misdeeds.

“It’s just breathtaking how many people feel disgusted or offended when he’s mentioned,” tweeted anti-censorship commentator Michael Anti while neatly skewering China’s own public-relations problem: “Such a classic example of negative PR, and yet Rui’s hailed as some icon of the nation’s soft power. There you have it, China’s rise.”

If a man is judged by the company he keeps, Rui was always keen to share his circle with the world. On his blogs, acquaintanceships with the likes of Bill Gates and Kevin Rudd were dropped with the frequency of one who has something to prove; his conversation is said to be similarly peppered with, “As Bill [Clinton] once told me…” or “As I said to Henry [Kissinger]…”

“[He’s] the biggest name-dropper I know,” said a former colleague at state mouthpiece CCTV, where he was a frequent presenter of Economics News Broadcast. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the colleague described her former peer in none-too-impressed terms: “Arrogant. Snobby. Climber.” And then there are his close relationships with many who have already fallen victim to the purge that is scything through Chinese society under the banner of a corruption crackdown (Rui is said to have boasted, for example, about his friendship with Bo Guagua, at least before the senior Bo was charged with corruption).

Still, none of this behavior qualifies as criminal – merely distasteful. Under the microscope, though, are apparent financial transgressions formerly considered de rigeur in Chinese media circles.

According to financial records reviewed last week by Tencent Finance, Rui helped set up a PR company called Pegasus and owned 30% of the firm. Pegasus later made the “Top 1o Chinese PR Firms” list compiled by the China International Public Relations Association and, since 2009, numbered among its clients — perhaps unsurprisingly —  Rui’s employer, CCTV Finance Channel for its Davos coverage (cutting Rui loose on LinkedIn, the WEF’s managing director had this to say on the matter).

Alan VanderMolen: issued denial

Edelman’s owners, via DJE vice-chairman Alan VanderMolen (who inked the purchase of Pegasus while running the firm’s Asia-Pacific operations), later confirmed to PR industry publication the Holmes Report that “Pegasus was engaged by corporate sponsors involved in underwriting CCTV’s presence” at Davos in 2009 and 2010. VanderMolen declined to identify the sponsors and added that there was no commercial relationship between CCTV and Pegasus “to my knowledge.”

Also taken away that fateful day was Li Yong, the Deputy Director of the Finance Channel, where Rui had worked since 2003, bringing the total of those at CCTV under investigation to nine – including its director Guo Zhenxi, producer Tian Liwu, and now its youngest presenter, the once-fragrant female anchor Ouyang Zhiwei.

Rui may have named his company Pegasus, the mythological wingéd horse, but a more apt classical analogy might be Icarus, the youthful highflier doomed by arrogance.

The well-connected 37-year-old presenter, who has been a regular at Davos World Economic Forum since he was 22, did not appear to envisage his own downfall, which was so sudden that his chair and microphone were still in place, awaiting him. In the event, the show aired at 20:30 on July 11, with his co-host taking on sole presenting duties.

Equally ignorant, apparently, were his colleagues: “We kept phoning him before the programme aired, but the calls never went through,” a CCTV staffer told Thepaper. “That’s why we didn’t even take down his mic.”

But his boss, Guo, had been detained on June 1 – a sure sign, at least, that trouble was imminent. Ever the showman, Rui batted off the rumors, issuing a denial through his assistant while taking to Weibo to quote a conversation between two ancient Zen masters (thus, of course, alluding to his own wisdom): “Hanshan asks Shide, ‘People libel me, bully me, insult me, trick me and neglect me. What should I do?’ Shide laughs: ‘Bear with them, avoid them, tolerate them, respect them and ignore them. Give it a few years, and let’s see.’”

In fact, Rui was only given a few weeks. Meanwhile, he was, at least, wise enough to hedge: his wife and child left for the US in June, according to elite gossip, and are not expected to return.

Fellow anchor Ouyang Zhiwei, led away by prosecutors in June, also appears to be in the soup

 ~

It should not be surprising that his career has almost certainly peaked at the comparatively early age of 36. Rui Chenggang was always an early developer. Born in 1977, he began learning English when he was 10, and according to his own claims, was reading English-language books, including Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by the time he reached middle school.

The top gaokao (university entrance exam) scorer in Hefei, his hometown, Rui entered the Foreign Affairs University in Beijing in 1995, where he had a chance to see the world through an international debate contest. He was, he says, shocked to find how Western youth were educated to express their opinions freely, and told Southern People Weekly he felt like an idiot

In 1999, Rui graduated and, turning down offers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bank of China, chose to work at an emerging arm of the state-owned CCTV: the English Channel.

A former colleague there, according to the same article, recalls a man “extremely good at the language [English] and quite smart. He… often said things like he ‘wanted to become the bridge of communication between the East and the West.’” Rui was also an avid self-promoter, says the colleague. When interviewing, he’d hand out copies of his book, urge them to watch his programmes and collect photographs of himself with foreign luminaries.

Four years after Rui began at CCTV English, he was talent-spotted by Finance Channel producer Wang Lifen to host Global News Bulletin, a new current-affairs show. He quickly made a name for himself, scrutinizing the scripts and frequently digressing from them, a practice all but unheard-of among Chinese anchors. A pattern in his work behavior began to emerge: superiors such as producer Qian Xi, who has worked with Rui since 2003, called him “the symbol of the Finance Channel’s internationalization,” even while colleagues and underlings recalled an aloof, distant figure.

“He gets close to the leaders, but stays very distant from common coworkers, barely even saying ‘hello’ to them,” said one peer, who asked not to be named because he still works for the channel.

With a 200- to 300-million-strong audience, Rui’s domestic admiration mostly stemmed from public associating himself with world elites at Davos in 2008;  he enjoyed almost rock-star status among younger viewers. But Rui’s link to Davos wasn’t limited to a role in front of the cameras. By then, Pegasus – the firm he still held a 36% share of – had become the executive service provider for CCTV, reportedly finding a studio for the station a mere 200 metres from the main venue in Switzerland. Tony Blair (pictured) apparently called it “the most cozy and comfortable studio in all of Davos,” according to Tencent. Rui reportedly only sold his Pegasus shares in 2010.

British ex-PM Tony Blair with former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, recently acquitted of phone hacking

Sources in CCTV also told thepaper.cn that Rui’s family set up their own PR firm, with the sole purpose of commercializing Rui’s interview subjects, their schedules and campaign content. Certainly, he is believed to enjoy a close personal friendship with politician Ling Jinhua’s family that has been subject to longstanding rumors.

Such conflicts of interest appear at odds with his role as a journalist, at least in foreign eyes – but then Chinese media is saturated with such misbehavior. Is it against the law? Even the Global Times wondered. “Did [Rui] know that such behavior was illegal?” asked an unsigned editorial on Tuesday. “Perhaps he believed he was in a gray area where some seek personal gains by exploiting their positions. But the anti-corruption campaign not only targets ‘black holes,’ but also gray areas.”

~

Advertising and public relations (gonggong guanxi) is one of the murkiest industries in China (and also, to be fair, elsewhere). The word guanxi implies connections, the ability to enjoy a string-pulling reach that bests rivals: How many journalists and celebrities can you guarantee at a product launch? Which newspapers can be bought off to stay quiet about a scandal?

Ding Shumiao, for instance, the Shanxi businesswoman accused of colluding with the disgraced railways chief Liu Zhijun over projects worth 180 billion yuan (HK$226 billion), reportedly collected nearly 4 billion yuan securing contracts for the high-speed network with Liu’s help. Her company, founded in 2008, became practically the exclusive advertisement agency for high-speed rail, reaped 120 million RMB in 2010 alone from state-owned companies attending the seventh World Congress on High Speed Rail in Beijing, all thanks to Liu.

One of the Finance Channel’s trademark shows, the annual Consumer Rights Gala on March 15, had become another income source for Guo and his gang. Notorious for its toothless exposes of “scandals” usually perpetuated by foreign firms – while ignoring the egregious antics of domestic giants – the show has been widely mocked in recent years for its clumsy nationalism and reporting techniques.

According to Caixin, local governments and companies routinely inquire before annual tapings to see if their products were on the CCTV “blacklist,” and then offer to pay a gagging fee. Other programmes, such as the praise-singing Economic Figures of the Year, are essentially paid services available to the highest bidder. One website operator told Caixin that Guo had often used his influence to ask portals to delete critical posts about companies that had approached him, or other presenters familiar with him, for help (a practice known in China as “black” PR).

The downfall of Rui and his mentor, Guo, can be seen as part of the aftermath of Li Dongsheng’s arrest and, behind that, ex-Politburo security czar Zhou Yongkang’s own (still unofficial) downfall. Li had worked at CCTV for 21 years, since 1978, and eventually became the vice chief of the state channel. He took off quickly from there and moved on to state censors, the then-SARFT, and the Ministry of Propaganda.

It was in 2007, says Caixin (in an article already deleted), that Li hoped to join the Central Standing Committee of the Communist Party, but was hindered by his rivals, who tipped off ministers that his daughter was studying in the UK thanks to illicit “sponsorship” and his brother, who was running an advertising agency, was also benefiting from his positions.

Li’s trouble, however, was “handled, thanks to a senior leader’s help,” according to a source of Caixin. This “senior leader” is now believed to be none other than Zhou Yongkang, once henchman-in-chief of China’s sprawling security apparatus, and whose power network has been steadily eroded since retirement via a series of arrests and investigations (Zhou himself has not been seen in public since December).

Zhou Yongkang and Bo Xilai – two ex-Politburo heavyweights, now tainting anyone in their midst

The source, however, could not confirm how close exactly the two were, nor the validity of the rumor that Li introduced Jia Xiaoye, the then-CCTV Finance Channel producer, to Zhou, 28 years her senior; the pair later married.

On June 14, just three days after the capture of Rui Chenggang, Li was announced together with Jiang Jiemin and Wang Yongchun, two former chiefs from the CNPC, as being formally investigated. Both had worked for many years with Zhou.

~

While at Yale for a year in 2005 – he is still a World Fellow – Rui was remembered as a self-styled fenqing (“angry youth”), promoting and defending the motherland on a personal mission, whenever he heard “anti-China” voices. He took one law professor to task for calling China “not a democratic country”; Rui argued “Americans always think there’s only one type of democracy, which is the American kind. But democracy has different meanings and different stages.”

On his popular blog, a large part of which is devoted to conversations and photos with his star-studded Rolodex, Rui’s best-known piece is still the one published in 2007, calling for Starbucks to be ejected from the Forbidden City. (That didn’t prevent Rui from having his cake while eating it, boasting of email exchanges with Jim Donald, the coffee chain’s new CEO, as if the pair were close friends.)

Indeed, according to one guest who shared a banqueting table with Rui, the host frequently referred to former US President Bill Clinton as “a very good friend of mine.” Like most of his associates, which once included Kevin Rudd, George W. Bush and Warren Buffet, Clinton seems unlikely to come to the defense of his “friend” in his hour of need.

Former Rui associates include Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Rupert Murdoch and Henry Kissinger

Question marks even surround the true extent of Rui’s wealth. The TV star, who purportedly enjoys an official salary of around 150,000 RMB a year, is known for his cost-cutting ways. At the aforementioned banquet, a well-lubricated Rui is said to have finished two bottles of wine before a Sinopec executive at the table that he could polish off a third. The stake Rui demanded? A Sinopec card, so he could fill up for free in perpetuity.

If that seems grasping for someone who famously drives a foreign-made Jaguar, it may be worth noting that surface is very often illusory, especially in China. One user of Zhihu – a kind of Chinese Quora – claims his client was constantly being hassled to lend his car, a Land Rover, to a wealthy neighbor: one Rui Chenggan.

And perhaps due to his domestic celebrity, Rui sometimes over-estimated his influence abroad. A hotel management student at the University of Nevada recalled that, when Rui stayed at the Las Vegas hotel where she was interning, he made an indecent proposal. When she declined Rui’s offer, the host allegedly became incensed at what he inferred as the suggestion he couldn’t afford the asking price.

According to a PR manager for Emirates Airline, Rui purchased an economy-class ticket to visit Brazil but demanded a free upgrade to first class. Unsurprisingly, he was rejected, but took his grievance to Weibo (writing that “Emirates’s A380 feels really so-so. Although the plane is a bit bigger and looks new, there’s no enhancement to comfort and the space division makes one feel suppressed… Emirates’ trademark fake-mahogany interior feels like only faux luxury”).

Li Yong, the deputy director also arrested, never even made it to Brazil: he was reportedly stopped at customs en route to report on the BRICS summit, though it’s not clear what exactly for. The local rumor mill suggests his arrest may actually be unrelated to Guo’s; the two are said to dislike one another.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” was one of several Shakespeare quotations Rui was fond of tossing into speeches. (In his autobiography, Rui professes to be able to recite entire sections of Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and Bertrand Russell). Alas, it seems that Rui has now exited the stage, apparently pursued by a bear even he can’t tame.

Follow Valentina @valentinaluo (H/T RFH)

We’re not sure whether Liu Yuxi is a certified reporter, but she’s been assigned to CCTV studio commentary for this year’s World Cup, and judging by her Sina Weibo account, she appears to be a huge homer for front-runners and generally popular teams such as Portugal, Brazil, and Argentina (Messi, specifically). But Ms. Liu saves her true passion for Italy, which we know because — donning the Azzurri blue — she broke down and sobbed on live television tonight following Italy’s 1-0 loss to Uruguay.

Italy is out of the World Cup while Luis Suarez’s team advances. Yeah, yeah, it hardly seems fair. Still, sports journalism has surely seen better moments:

Unlike English football fans, we take no particular joy in watching the suffering of others. We’re just shocked that Liu’s sports-watching heart hasn’t already been hardened to the cycle of hope and heartbreak that is sports in general and soccer in particular.

The worst part about the above segment, by the way, was her male colleague attributing her emotional outburst to being a “female.” I don’t have the exact quote at this moment, but he said something along the lines of, “That’s the female disposition for you.”

Hopefully we can update with video when it becomes available.

UPDATE, 12:43 pm: Video is below. That music, by the way, was not added by some cheeky uploader; CCTV cued it up mere minutes after the game ended. It featured lots of violins.

We should point out that the Chinese — and much of Asia, actually — have a long history of rooting for Italy, likely attributed to how well many Serie A club teams have marketed themselves in this market.

And eight years ago, we saw a similar incident of a Chinese journalist openly rooting for Italy in the World Cup. Here’s Jeremy Goldkorn writing in Danwei in 2006:

During last night’s live broadcast of the Italy – Australia football World Cup game, CCTV’s announcer Huang Jianxiang (黄健翔) got rather excited, and took sides with the Italians, saying things like “Don’t give the Australians any chances!” and after Italy won, “Long live Italy!”

There’s a video of that, too.

Today Chinese blogs are castigating Huang, accusing him of gravely insulting Australia and being a disgrace to Chinese football fans.

We wonder if fans will be more forgiving to Liu Yuxi because, you know, of the female disposition and all.

Either Tim Duncan’s got his game face on or he’s been flash-frozen inside a TV graphic and desperately needs your help.

The Spurs are up 1-0 in their best-of-seven series against the Heat. CCTV-5 will continue to carry every game of the series; the next one is Monday morning at 8 am China time.

No, Game 2 is not tape delayed; the NBA really has put two full rest days between the first and second games.

Those ever-vigilant consumer-rights watchdogs over at China Central Television were at it again this week, directing the full fury of their state-backed bite against Starbucks in a seven-minute hit piece on October 20. What got CCTV’s proverbial underpants in such a bunch?

Starbucks dares to charge 27 yuan for a latte.

So what of it, consumers? How angry are you that you can enjoy the same latte for several cents less in London, Chicago, or New York?

@令人无语: The same reinforced concrete, so why is China’s housing prices so expensive?

Hey now, don’t try to turn things on us…

@北京厨子 said: “To show my support, I will go to Starbucks for the entire week next week.”

Wha–? But… lattes… so… expensive.

@王强_99: Thank you CCTV for finally standing up for everyone’s human rights!

The above quotes are via chinaSMACK, Offbeat China, and Jing Daily. And judging by the Twitter activity from this morning and afternoon, I think it’s safe to say that people are opinionated when it comes to coffee, and their opinion is that CCTV can go to hell.

Here’s Tea Leaf Nation with a summary:

On CCTV’s official account on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, the post on Starbucks’ alleged profiteering practices had over 63,000 retweets and over 28,000 comments, most decrying CCTV’s coverage as unfair and unnecessary. “If you buy the goods it means that you have the ability and will to pay the price, and you think that the price for Starbucks coffee is right,” wrote one Weibo user from the wealthy city of Qingdao. “No one forced you to buy it. A poor guy like me would be very content with a cup of Nestle that costs $0.30!”

You shouldn’t play the lute for a cow, nor should you speak common sense to it. CCTV, every few months, will unfurl one of these “investigations” to remind its viewers that we live in a world of haves and have-nots. Yes, Starbucks coffee is expensive. Yes, so are Apple products (CCTV went after Apple in March, even eliciting an apology). And what of it? It’s market economics, the same calculated, cold type that Deng Xiaoping enacted and that businessmen and politicians have been exploiting for decades to make themselves wealthy. But heavens forbid CCTV try to talk — or tweet — about that.

Starbucks has not apologized, but did issue a statement to Reuters:

Each Starbucks market is unique and has different operating costs, so it would be inaccurate to draw conclusions about one market based on the prices in a different market.

Common sense. Meanwhile, the bovine continues to blink and munch, thinking only of the next foreign conglomerate at which to direct its shit.

“Targeted” is the new “hacked,” thanks to CCTV News, which issued this statement via Twitter at 9:33 this morning:

The CCTVNEWS Twitter account was targeted on Oct. 21st and used illegally to post incorrect information copied from other sources. The unauthorized information was deleted.

CCTV News is referring to this tweet sent yesterday evening about Zhou Yongkang, a former Standing Committee member believed to be under investigation for corruption. The “other sources,” presumably, is SCMP, which ran an article — accuracy unverified, considering its unnamed sources, etc. — stating Xi Jinping has set up a “special unit” to carry out its Zhou probe.

There’s a lot going on in the latest CCTV News tweet, so let’s parse a little.

The reason so many people — celebrities and athletes and politicians, mostly — say they were “hacked” is because hacked is such a vague term that it covers all scenarios, from a friend snatching your phone and sending a tweet to an actual hacker breaking into your account (the latter rarely happens; at best, fools get phished). But “targeted”? Sounds outright conspiratorial. Devious agents slink betwixt cubicle shadows in CCTV’s office.

“Used illegally” also raises some eyebrows. It’s gratutious phrasing, isn’t it? After all, we all know that spreading incorrect information on social media equals JAIL TIME. Anyway, if you offend official state media, of course you’re breaking the law as well, which everyone knows.

Finally, it’s so like state media to use the term “unauthorized information.” There are no universal truths in the world they live in, no “facts.” There is only that which is authorized — a reality forged by the sheer will of propagandists and harmony architects — and that which is not. God have mercy on those who insist on believing the latter.

As reported last month, former security chief Zhou Yongkang, now retired, has been the target of high-level corruption probes since at least late August. “How far and high is [Xi Jinping] willing to go to clean up China’s political elite?” the New York Times’s Chris Buckley asked in a September 25 article.

Now we kind of know. The South China Morning Post reported today, citing unnamed sources, that Xi Jinping is overseeing a “special unit” to investigate Zhou, “bypassing the Communist Party’s internal disciplinary apparatus.”

Beijing police chief Fu Zhenghua will report directly to Xi, according to police and graft watchdog sources. Fu is the first person in the party’s history to also hold the concurrent posts of head of Beijing’s armed police, the Standing Committee member of the party’s Beijing municipal committee and deputy minister of public security.

This news was partially confirmed by none other than CCTV News’s Twitter account at around 5:30 pm.

RT @cctvnews: President Xi Jinping has set up a special unit to investigate corruption allegations against the retired leader Zhou Yongkang.

— tania branigan (@taniabranigan) October 21, 2013

And then, predictably, it was unconfirmed, as the tweet was deleted — just as Western journalists were spitting out Coca-Colas* en masse onto their keyboards.

Now you see it, now you don't: @cctvnews has deleted Zhou tweet

— tania branigan (@taniabranigan) October 21, 2013

*We figure 5:30 is pretty late for coffee or tea.

“Why deletion?” is probably the less interesting of the two questions we can ask. There seem to be many good ways to break a story about an unprecedented investigative unit for a former Chinese leader who happened to be of the most powerful and divisive figures on the Politburo Standing Committee; Twitter is not one of them.

How did the tweet ever get sent?

So @cctvnews has deleted and de-confirmed the tweet on Zhou Yongkang being investigated. Was the tweet the mistake of an intern?

— Jeremy Goldkorn 金玉米 (@goldkorn) October 21, 2013

What if @cctvnews was tweeting the Zhou Yongkang info from a 内参?

— Edward Wong (@comradewong) October 21, 2013

(内参 refers to internal — and confidential — government documents.)

It’s unlikely we’ll find out. But this seems like a reasonable bet:

Safe prediction: @cctvnews will be the most aggressively boring twitter account for the foreseeable future.

— Gady Epstein (@gadyepstein) October 21, 2013

Although you should probably start following the Twitter accounts of state media anyway, just in case. There must be a whole bunch of interns there, always a click away from making news.

(Above image via George Chen)

UDPATE, 10/22, 10:09 am: CCTV News says it was “targeted.”

CCTVNEWS Statement pic.twitter.com/B0iinrjXvt

— CCTVNEWS (@cctvnews) October 22, 2013

Check out the bottom message, posted on Sina Weibo just after 8:30 pm, according to SCMP. Pay especially close attention to the final sentence, bolded for emphasis:

“Apple plays so many tricks with their customer service? I feel hurt as an Apple fan. Have you done right by [Steve] Jobs? Have you done right by boys who sell their kidneys [to buy iphones], he asked, adding: “this is an example of big-name shops bullying customers. To publish around 8.20pm.”

We wonder how much CCTV paid him to do this. He has more than 5.4 million Sina Weibo followers, which means he’s particularly adept at spreading messages — even if they aren’t his.

Unsurprisingly, Ho (@herundong) has claimed he was hacked:

Now it’s me in person. Someone stole my Weibo account and posted the previous Weibo. Will someone tell me what’s going on? This is ridiculous!”

But that absolutely is stupid. He’s claiming that a third party hacked his Sina Weibo account and the best thing they thought of doing was ripping on Apple products while planting a clue that CCTV might have been involved?

Why didn’t Ho just say he wrote a reminder-to-self?

(Also, will someone tell him what’s going on?)

This is relevant because CCTV recently published an expose on consumer rights, and took the bold step of criticizing Apple. Met only lukewarmly, CCTV apparently has begun its own viral campaign to make it seem like the public is on their side. But netizens have sniffed it out. Ho’s claim to being hacked has been forwarded more than 100,000 times since he posted it on Friday night, and most of the 17,000 comments are critical of him.

Apple, for its part, hasn’t fashioned much of a response.

On Saturday morning, Apple also posted on Weibo, using the now famous #8.20# hashtag, a comparison of the different return policies of Apple, Samsung, Nokia and Lenovo phones. 

“You can tell the good from the bad easily,” its Weibo post said.

Attacking Apple backfires for CCTV (SCMP, h/t Steven W. )

Ah, live TV. Did magician Lu Chen give the CCTV Spring Festival Gala — the most-watched show on Chinese television every year — its Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” moment?

First, a little background. Top Chinese pianist Li Yundi and Chinese American singer Leehom Wang are best buds who spend so much time together that people openly question the nature of their relationship. (The two have repeatedly said they’re not gay lovers.) It’s kind of a running joke, the sort that feeds gossip mills and keeps tabloids in business.

On Saturday night, Li took the stage in Beijing for a magic act with Lu. The plan was simple: Li would play the piano behind a curtain, and Lu would “disappear” him. Meanwhile, young viewers would swoon, and CCTV would placate critics who call its Spring Festival Gala outmoded.

It didn’t turn out to be so straightforward, however. At the 2:20 mark of the above video, watch as Li stops playing and pokes his head out from behind the curtain. Perhaps this was part of the script. Then again, perhaps it’s here that CCTV producers break into a cold sweat.

Lu goes over, and Li whispers something in the magician’s ear.

“Looking for someone?” Lu asks. “Who?”

More whispering.

“Leehom?!” Lu exclaims.

It takes the audience a second to process the joke, but then the gasps and squeals of delight come cascading down.

Lu breaks into laughter, then says, “Sorry, sorry.” Li retreats back behind the curtain, and the act continues. Lu pulls on a rope, and not only has Li disappeared, but he’s standing in the middle of the audience. Applause all around. “Lu’s joke immediately became a hot topic discussed by netizens across China, with many calling it the best part of the entire gala,” reports SCMP.

You know who hated it, though? China Central Television, which excised the Lu-Li exchange from its reruns.

According to SCMP:

Homosexuality in China remains a sensitive topic in the state media and discussions about it are suppressed. So, it was no surprise that when the Gala was repeated the next day, the scene had been removed.

Anxious to disassociate itself from the joke, the gala’s official weibo account posted a statement saying, “Lu Chen’s joke about Li and Wang was not planned by the producers, but rather an impromptu act by Lu.” The gala’s chief director Ha Wen later confirmed the statement in an interview.

Li also said it was impromptu, but Lu, on his Sina Weibo, refused to play along. “Everything we said on stage was agreed by both parties. Come on! Be honest,” he wrote.

It was rumored that Leehom Wang confronted Lu backstage and slapped him, which seems ridiculous at face value. The two had some fun with this.

Wang wrote on Weibo, “Lu Chen, did anyone assault you? Does that person look like me?” To which Lu replied, “I think I was hit so hard that I lost my memory. I can’t remember this. What should I do?”

Good for everyone involved. In America, after an incident like this, the public would cackle and we’d all await the inevitable commercial or Saturday Night Live sketch involving the three. In China, however… perhaps we’ll not see Lu in another national Spring Festival gala for a while.

Not that that’s a bad thing. Regional Spring Festival galas have risen in visibility (thanks to the Internet) and popularity (thanks to CCTV’s own antiquated show) in recent years, as evidenced this week by the Backstreet Boys on Liaoning TV and PSY on Dragon TV. Meanwhile, CCTV’s production is stuck in the 1990s. “The Spring Festival Gala is a cultural legacy from the colletivism and group identity of socialism after China was liberated,” so goes a Southern Metropolis editorial from 2007, as translated by ESWN. “But following the changes in Chinese society today, this model is increasing[ly] more difficult to realize.”

Performers like Lu, Li, and Wang, with the goal of entertaining – what a revolutionary concept, right? — can help bring back this tradition, if only authorities will let them. There’s nothing wrong with collectivized entertainment, as the Super Bowl teaches us each year. There is something wrong and downright repulsive, however, about an entity imposing its narrow, blinkered idea of collectivism on all of us.

(H/T Alicia)

What Tianjin always looks like

They’re not even trying anymore. Xinhua published a slideshow today of the “Top ten happiest cities in China,” according to a CCTV survey, and the list goes:

1. Lhasa, Tibet
2. Taiyuan, Shanxi
3. Hefei, Anhui
4. Tianjin
5. Changsha, Hunan
6. Hohhot, Inner Mongolia
7. Shijiazhuang, Hebei
8. Jinan, Shandong
9. Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
10. Chongqing

It’s as if this conversation actually happened in a CCTV conference room:

Executive 1: “You know, no one believes anything we say anyway, why don’t we just poop in their mouth?”

Executive 2: “Um. So, fabricate a survey?”

Executive 1: “Top 10 happiest cities in China. Go.”

Executive 2: “Hefei is a real shit-hole. Gu Kailai just got sentenced there, so that’s tourism cha-ching.”

Executive 1: “It’s No. 3. Done.”

Executive 2: “And Taiyuan, in Shanxi. They used to have coal, but even that’s disappearing.”

Executive 1: “I eat pollution and construction cranes for breakfast. We’ll put it No. 2.”

Executive 2: “Changsha is known as one of the hottest cities in China.”

Executive 1: “OK, No. 5. Hey, hasn’t Tianjin been called the smelly armpit of Beijing?”

Executive 2: “No. 4?”

Executive 1: “On the face!”

Executive 2: “Obviously an Inner Mongolia city has to be on the list.”

Executive 1: “Agreed. That province is practically an Oompa Loompa den of happiness.”

Executive 2: “We need a city from Hebei, Shandong, and Henan.”

Executive 1: “That can’t be too hard. Randomly point at something on the map.”

Executive 2: “Jackpot! Shijiazhuang.”

Executive 1: “Melamine capital of the world! Say, shouldn’t we find a really poor place?”

Executive 2: “In Gansu?”

Executive 1: “I don’t mean dirt poor. Like, so poor that no one’s even heard of it.”

Executive 2: “Got it. Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.”

Executive 2: “Brilliant. Now to balance it out with something in the news and violent…”

Executive 1: “Chongqing. Well now, I do believe we have our 10.”

Executive 2: “Wait… we don’t have a No. 1″

The men look at each other and think for a second.

Together: “Lhasa.”

They high-five, throw back sifters of baijiu, lean back and pat their exposed bellies.

(H/T Alicia)