“Chinese media needs to improve to compete.” -China Daily headline on an editorial that also appears (in Chinese) in Dongfang Daily

The singularity is forthcoming.

Quoting:

As the missing Malaysia Airlines plane continues to grab the headlines worldwide, the gap between Chinese and Western media in covering the incident has become ever more evident. During the first few days after the aircraft vanished from civilian radars, Chinese media criticized Malaysia Airlines for delaying the release of information, while their Western counterparts began to question the Malaysian government for suppressing crucial facts.

Translation: Chinese media is feckless; they wait like pomeranians to be hand-fed information from their favorite government mouthpiece; they hem and haw and hedge to make sure only non-offensive things are said, are overly sentimental and reliant on anecdotes.

That’s basically what you’re saying, China Daily?

The country’s development of journalist soft power still has a long way to go, so do Chinese journalists, who need to do a better job in ferreting out the truth and informing the public.

Yeah. Basically. Go read the whole thing, because it’s hilarious.

Via @ChinaDailyUSA (h/t Ray Kwong)

If the Exit-Entry Administration General Corps of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau were to team up with China Daily to create a contest, this is exactly how it would be introduced:

The Exit-Entry Administration General Corps of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau has begun a “Beijing is My Home prize contest in collaboration with China Daily as part of a campaign to promote the Exit-Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China, improve awareness of the law among Chinese and foreign residents, and create a harmonious environment in the capital city.

That’s via China Daily, where you can take the quiz. (The contest was publicized on August 28 — it runs until September 28 — but we saw it just now thanks to Gary Chodorow’s U.S. and China Visa Law Blog. Update: they’ll mail it in for you if you fill it out on their website by September 27.) You have to mail in your answer sheet, which is kind of inconvenient, but there are a lot of great* prizes — five first-place prizes, 20 second, 50 third, and 100 consolation.

*The prizes are undisclosed, so it’s possible they’re just used bar mats. 

These sort of Chinese questionaires are always fun**. Some sample questions:

1. On which date was the Exit-Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the law) promulgated?

2. How many articles and chapters are there in the law?

Our favorite:

3. What is the purpose of the law?

A) To maintain sovereignty and order and promote international exchanges
B) To benefit citizens and facilitate application
C) To implement the law in a standardized way and administer in accordance with law
D) To protect the lawful rights of those who exit or enter China

We’d be curious to learn if 175 people mail in answers. If not — prizes for everyone!

**“Fun”

Is that an “I” or are you just happy to see me?

(Via Josh Durham)

Previously: People’s Daily building.

Sometimes newspapers bend the truth, or cast a story in its own editorial light. For examples of this, follow James Fallows’s sporadically updated series about why he reads more than one newspaper.

But then there’s the above. Tens of thousands marched in protest yesterday of Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung and Beijing political influences, but if the only newspaper you read was the China Daily (a hypothetical that applies to no one), you’d be forgiven for thinking all those bodies around Victoria Park were celebrating the 16th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover. The story:

About 225,000 people braved stormy weather on Monday to attend city-wide events marking the 16th anniversary of the establishment of the HKSAR.

The festive activities, including carnivals, folk dancing and open-air concerts, were held at nearly 40 locations across 18 districts.

By the way, Hong Kong is never able to accurately estimate crowd size even when everyone is in the same area. When activities are spread across 18 districts? Let’s just say there are 18 reasons to doubt the 225,000 figure.

That number appears to come from Cheng Yiu-tong, chairman of the Hong Kong Celebrations Association. Police estimated that 1,500 people showed up to Tamar Park, so if the other 17 districts averaged at least 13,147 demonstrators, then yes, 225,000 people.

The above information comes via, of course, South China Morning Post.

(Image via Facebook, h/t Alicia)

Describing it as a “popular Chinese daily newspaper,” Xinhua has announced that the Global Times is now available in the US, in both English and Chinese.

Take that, China Daily!

The Global Times said the U.S. edition would provide readers with sharp reporting and perceptive analysis. It seeks to cover world events from a Chinese perspective, and introduce a dynamic, complex and changing China to the world in vivid, accurate reporting.

The English version apparently runs at 24 pages, while the Chinese version is 16. GT has a circulation of more than 2 million in China. The more you know.

As China now stands under the glare of the global spotlight, the newspaper aims to showcase for a global audience real voices from across a transforming China, guiding it through China’s fast-growing economy and ever-changing society, the newspaper said Friday in a briefing.

The article doesn’t say which cities the paper is available in.

I actually saw a China Daily in New York being sold next to prominent subway stations. Those of you in America: if you see a Global Times anywhere, please, let us know.

In March, the e-commerce site Living Social found that Chinese tourists were the second-worst in the world, behind only Americans. While these surveys are usually hopelessly flawed — does any country produce good tourists? — China Daily ran a cover story yesterday on this subject, specifically how various organizations are trying to “instill better behavior among Chinese tourists.” It’s a fine Sunday read, serving to highlight major differences between Chinese and non-Chinese culture. (“Jaywalking is the rule, rather than the exception. Drivers are prone to speeding and swerving. Cars park in bike lanes,” etc. Okay, a few more: “During rush hour, commuters jostle their way onto buses or subway carriages. Screaming matches between bus drivers and passengers are common. Orderly, single-file lines are a rarity.”)

The best part, however, is undoubtedly the illustration accompanying the article — laid out above and below the fold on the front page — featuring 15 rules for proper behavior. It’s an excellent, if not perfect, list for a scavenger hunt. How many instances of, for instance, littering in public places or not flushing the toilet after use can you find? A tougher one is “polish[ing] your shoes with bed linen or hotel towels,” so maybe a bonus point for teams that find that one. If you organize this scavenger hunt, remember that you heard the idea here first — and let us know! The complete list:

• Don’t litter in public places
• Don’t spit in public
• Take your turn in line
• Don’t take pictures when a sign says “no photography”
• Don’t talk too loud
• Contain your temper and don’t curse
• Don’t smoke in non-smoking areas
• Don’t force foreigners to pose for pictures
• Wear proper attire
• Eat quietly
• Don’t polish your shoes with bed linen or hotel towels
• Observe the “ladies first” rule
• (Uncaptioned, but it appears to have something to do with pole dancing in the subway)
• Flush the toilet after use
• Don’t remove shoes and socks in public

Feel free to play this game in foreign tourist hotspots as well. You have months — nay, years — as it doesn’t seem like we’ll see change anytime soon. China Daily’s conclusion:

Ultimately, the person we are at home is the person we bring to foreign lands. And in 2006, when the tourist manuals were issued, experts did say it may take several generations to nurture the correct behavior and create a positive image of Chinese tourists.

(H/T Tom Lasseter)

In answer to DM I just got re: whether those pics were “for real.” Yes. twitter.com/TomLasseter/st…

— Tom Lasseter (@TomLasseter) November 19, 2012

We haven’t talked about China Daily in a while. The November 16-22 issue of its European Weekly marked the 100th issue of the periodical, and it wanted to publicize this milestone via a small graphic on the front page. This is acceptable, of course, and not just relative to China Daily’s previously egregious front-page decisions. But as Sam Geall, a China lecturer at the University of Oxford and executive director of China Dialogue, pointed out on Twitter, the graphic just had to have a typo, didn’t it?

Oh lord fucksticks.

Could the Internet be totally free and should it be? The recent turmoil in the Arab world caused by a contentious video denigrating Prophet Muhammad shows the United States, which is busy promoting global Internet freedom, has paid a huge price with the lives of its diplomats.

That’s the first paragraph from this China Daily column today by Andre Vltchek, identified as an “American novelist, documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist,” which makes him a stooge of the professional variety.

A sometimes-columnist for China Daily — who has, strangely enough, been profiled by China Daily – Vltchek is your classic sociopolitical myopic who sees the world in blocs: West, China, Everyone Else. He’s an anachronism, a Cold War ideologue whose head would explode if he heard the Carly Rae Jepsen-PSY mashup. In elementary school, he’s the kid holding a copy of Mein Kampf just to be “different,” and running for class president. In middle school, he’s the bearded loner in the dark corner of the fall ball. In college, he’s the leering drunk who shoots ping pong balls five feet off the table and stares at girls’ elbows to make sure they don’t go over the plane. And as an adult, he’s exactly the type who would say (as he does in the above link), “The West has absolutely no interest in human rights in China or anywhere else. How could it, considering that it is violating them on basically all continents, worldwide?” Yes, how could THE WEST, considering THE WEST violates human WEST on WEST all WEST, WEST?

What a neat trick. Turn the argument into WEST and WESTERN, and why WEST WEST?

Unfortunately, it’s the only trick in Vltchek’s saddle. Incredibly, in the 745-word column, “When will West ever learn history lesson,” he manages to use “West” or “Western” 21 times. There’s also “West caught in the Net of double standard,” and “China offers vital alternative to West,” and “Irony of Western human rights agenda.” There’s no need to link any of these — the message is the same, which you can guess.

But we digress — amazed that a man like Vltchek exists, and can be allowed to publish words in a newspaper. (The China Daily, of course.) Let us help this old chap rewrite his first paragraph, shall we?

An offensive picture was posted on the Internet, and people across an ocean saw it. We should regulate the Internet. With a regulated Internet, nothing bad will ever happen. Because with an unregulated Internet, bad things did happen. That’s the West for you. Always letting bad things happen, because the Internet is unregulated. Oh, the West. Oh, you.

Journalists are fed a lot of crap by the world. Specifically by public relations flacks and sources, but really, the world at large, because we’re surrounded by crap, by fetid logs of horse and other rancid mammalian shit dripping with stupidity and awfulness.

It takes a decent journalist to filter that shit and present it in a way that is digestible to a halfway intelligent and educated human being. It means processing a piece of information in such a way that gives everyone else a little credit for not living in a cave of fecal stalactites.

Well, here’s China Daily, specifically its full story about American judo fighter Nick Delpopolo’s expulsion from the Games for a positive drug test:

HEADLINE: US judo fighter expelled for doping

Nick Delpopolo, 23, is the first of the 10,500 games Olympic athletes to fail an in-competition doping test.

His case is the fifth positive test for a banned substance reported by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) since its official London Games testing period began in mid-July.

The other four athletes were caught before competing.

Gee, what awful banned substance did he take? Androstenedione? Epitestosterone? He’s a judo fighter, so maybe dehydroepiandrosterone?

Cannabis.

Huh. You didn’t think that bit of info was relevant, China Daily? Here we have an illustration of a neat trick of journalism, specifically media. You can turn a story about one thing into another simply by withholding information. A story that deserves to be about IOC’s incredibly outdated drug-testing policy that considers cannabis a performance enhancing drug is, on China Daily’s pages, a story about the disgrace of an American Olympian who is only the fifth athlete to test positive for a “banned substance,” and the first since the London Games began.

By contrast, here’s Washington Post’s headline and lead:

Headline: US judo fighter Nick Delpopolo expelled from Olympics for positive test for marijuana

American judo fighter Nick Delpopolo was expelled from the Olympics for doping Monday, saying he unintentionally ate something before the games that had been baked with marijuana.

The incident is such that it’s inspired fresh rounds of debate on whether cannabis should ever even be banned in the first place. Reuters:

And many wonder whether the expensive time and effort of sporting drug testers might be better spent catching serious cheats who top up their blood with EPO or pop anabolic steroids to boost testosterone levels and muscle growth.

“There’s no evidence cannabis is ever performance enhancing in sport, and since its use is legal in a number of countries, there’s no reason for it to be banned by WADA,” said David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London.

“I can’t think of any sport in which it would be an advantage. And it seems ludicrous that someone could quite legally smoke cannabis in Amsterdam in the morning and then come over to London in the afternoon and be banned from competing.”

No, we won’t be finding this kind of rational discussion in China’s leading English-language newspaper.

To be fair to China Daily, I’m sure several small- and medium-market US papers have excised the conversation in the same way, and editors at more than a few publications probably equate marijuana with a performance enhancing drug, or at the very least, a dangerous and illegal drug. It’s these people who stink up the world by living in their holes of poop ejaculate. It’s these people for which China Daily writes.

(H/T Joe P.)

No one would confuse China Daily for a real newspaper — the kind that doesn’t write “A Friend’s Departure” on its front page when North Korea’s leader dies — but the company undoubtedly has real journalists on staff, veteran reporters who quietly toil within China’s noxious media environment to produce respectable work, and it’s those journalists I currently feel for. In yesterday’s edition of China Daily, Louis Vuitton is the front page. Not a story about LV, or a quarter-page ad, or even an ad jacket. Just Louis Vuitton, its address (Plaza 66 Nanjing Xi Road, Shanghai), and the words “Opening July 21.”

Why is this a big deal? Other papers have done this, you say.

Yes, other papers, like Richmond Times-Dispatch. China Daily is China’s top English-language publication, and I doubt it’s hurting for cash, judging by the size of the paper. Quite recently it’s expanded to the US and Europe, and is seeking to launch its African edition. It’s given Louis Vuitton the front page simply because, I’m guessing, Louis Vuitton nuzzled up against its marketing department, charming some pants off. Then LV offered lots of money.

As far as ads go, this one is brilliant. Whatever LV paid, it’s not enough. Because a lot of people — myself, McClatchy Newspapers Beijing bureau chief Tom Lasseter, Danwei — are talking about it, and it’s generating amazing publicity. Reuters even did a story about LV’s nebulous “opening.”

We’ll let marketers applaud LV, though. As for China Daily, the newspaper: I suppose it’s easy selling your soul when you never had one.

But frankly, I preferred bumbling, clueless China Daily, following porn sites on Twitter (on an account now deleted, by the way), instead of this current version: a slut for commerce that follows whoever’s willing to throw down the right wad of cash.

In a story about ejaculation — featuring a heavy dose of it as the centerpiece, anyway — China Daily chose to go with the non-descriptive headline “Molesting suspect held by police,” not sure why. (I know why.) The story:

The woman passenger, who was wearing denim shorts, said she suddenly felt something hot falling on her leg when the crowded subway was approaching the People’s Square Station — the city’s central and busiest station — during morning rush hour on Wednesday.

“I first thought that it was someone’s food,” she was quoted as saying by Shanghai Morning Post. She later found that it was the ejaculate from a man about 30 years old standing to her right.

Strange as that is, it’s this line two sentences later that made me go “Huh”:

Police said they are intensifying crackdowns on such incidents, which occur more often in summer.

I know that the writer means police are upping the penalties for such incidents in order to discourage molesters, but the word “crackdown” suddenly has me thinking of chastity belts and other weird shit. Would I ever consent to wearing one? Hmm.

And then: such incidents occur more often in summer? Sure, yes, molestation, since summer clothes are scantier, but perhaps more people ejaculate on strangers during the summer, too. I do wonder.

One last gobbet of humor:

Guangzhou Daily recently launched a survey on its micro blog about the necessity to open women-only compartments after reports of several molestation cases. Around two in three respondents ticked “yes”.

Sounds like a winning survey.

"If you call me, you're gon' have a bad time."

Thanks, China Daily. Thanks for embedding a reporter deep inside the septic tank that is the Sanlitun Police Bureau and telling us it’s a lustrous fishbowl with that most exotic of exotic creatures, the officer who cares.

This piece, in which reporter Cao Yin is allowed to tail “stocky” 44-year-old Zhang Tao, presumably to see how a scanner works and learn the best way to splash water on piss to defuse the stench, begins about the way you’d expect: with a portly officer citing numbers, because he’s memorized them and it’d be a damn shame if he let that memorization go to waste.

“My area has a residential precinct with more than 11,000 people, including 1,100 temporary residents, as well as a bar street and several foreign embassies,” he said as he led me to his office, which is 100 meters away under a large poplar tree.

And what does Officer Zhang do?

“I’m here from 9 am to 9 pm and on 24-hour call two days a week,” he said, adding with a smile: “My personal cell phone number is an open secret around here.”

No, what is it that you do?

At the entrance to Zhang’s office, which he shares with his 52-year-old assistant, Jin Guiqin, are piles of pamphlets in Chinese and English on visa applications, accommodation and general tips for foreign residents. There is a printer and passport scanner, which means expats can register there as soon as they arrive in Beijing.

No, no, you asshole. What do you do other than sit in the office you share with an assistant with a printer and passport scanner?

Posted on one wall is a large color-coded map of the community’s apartment buildings that Zhang made in 2008.

“The colors show me how many people live in an apartment and what nationality they are,” he explained.

You… racially profile?

One particular compound has more than 50 expats, including Norwegians and Italians, and most are managers or owners of bars and restaurants, Zhang said. Their apartments are marked in blue.

You… monitor residents?

“We update the map once a month and often call to confirm how long residents will stay,” he said.

You… color in maps like a four-year-old?

Jin, his assistant, added that he will regularly text foreign residents or post messages on doors to remind them if their visa or accommodation documents are about to expire.

Oh, yeah… that sounds about right. You harass people about their papers.

But working in such a foreigner-heavy area, you at least harass them in English, right?

“I’m not good at English, but I try explaining regulations to foreigners,” he said. “If someone doesn’t understand me, I’ll show them the service guide and turn to pages in English.”

Uh-huh.

To be fair to these chums, it’s not like they don’t get out every once in a while. Oh no. Sometimes, like four years ago, Officer Zhang had to actually chase someone…

He recalled an incident in 2008 when a drunk British man knocked over a rack of CDs in a store and tried to run away. “The owner was furious. I caught the offender and made him apologize, as well as clean up the mess he’d made,” Zhang said.

Great. Meanwhile, in 2012, this happened, a brutal fight, and we’re told you were notified of it. What did you do, other than nothing?

You continued to do nothing.

Surely this reporter, this Cao Yin, will call you out on your shit, right?

While passing through Nali Patio, I suggested we visit Mosto, an Italian restaurant on the third floor, where we met 48-year-old Luca Fidanza, the assistant manager, who said the owner was unavailable and that he did not speak Chinese.

Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. Was Mosto offering buy-two-get-one on their entrees? Why in any holy or unholy deity’s name would you decide to get into an elevator up to Mosto while making the rounds in Sanlitun? Was there some huge brawl last week caused by a spilt caper-olive tapenade? Was some poor embassy official served ruined mascarpone? Don’t fuck with a man’s yellow fin tuna ceviche, that’s what I’ve always said.

With that, my first tour with the exit-entry administration was over. Zhang said goodbye and headed back toward the bright lights of Sanlitun Village North.

“See, my work is not just about managing foreign residents,” he said before leaving. “I’m also here to serve them.”

After the launch of Beijing’s campaign against the illegal entry and employment of foreigners on May 15, China Daily submitted a request to follow exit-entry officers carrying out their duties in areas with a large presence of expatriates. This is the first in a series of stories on the subject.

Oh FUCK YOU.

Once again, the full quote:

Cut off the foreign snake heads….foreign spies seek out Chinese girls to mask their espionage… that foreign bitch.

Let’s play a guessing game. What kind of website would host a series of pictures such as the above? Cracked.com? (Too classy, probably.) Bro Bible? Frat House Sports? Slingshot? Surely one of those sites with features like “The 50 Bustiest Girls on Facebook” and pop-up video ads. One of those sites in which a new tab opens with every click, leading you on a Möbius strip where dozens of pretty faces beg for further exploration, alongside titillating teasers such as, “5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women,” “4 Things To Stop Doing In Bed,” and “This Woman Cleans Her Kitchen With… WTF?”

What if I told you the website in question — where the above screenshot was taken — belongs to Xinhua News Agency?

That’s right, “Sexy teen models worldwide” — along with “10 graceful ladies in China,” “10 most beautiful eyes,” and “Top 20 of Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 female stars” — is a feature that runs exclusively on none other than the online home of the official press agency of the People’s Republic of China.

Here’s more of the same… on news.xinhuanet.com, in case I haven’t emphasized that enough:

• Top 30 sweet beauties in Hollywood (V) [Ed's note: What does the "V" signify? Part FIVE?]
• Gong Xinliang shows off figure in Dubai desert
• Pole dance club in Mexico [Ed's note: Great job with gender balancing in the selection of this picture; can't just all be half-naked women.]
• Awful Siamese twins around the world [Ed's note: How are they awful? Forgive me for not clicking the link, for I am afraid pop-up windows will crash my computer]

So the Chinese government’s official, official mouthpiece is in the same market for eyeballs as The Smoking Jacket, Heavy.com, Tempe12, and The Chive, et al., yes?

None of this is surprising, I should tell you. Xinhua isn’t the only Chinese portal that panders to the average human male’s tendency to get lost in the cyber morass of the unchaste. And just two days ago, I wrote, “Reality for those of us in China is the other side of the looking glass.” Need we remind you that we live in a country in which its biggest state-sponsored newspaper, China Daily, follows the likes of @sexbases, @DickAmateur, and @slavegirlm with its official Twitter account? That that same paper sends its photojournalists to take pictures of its other photojournalists in the process of taking pictures of its bosses (i.e. government officials)? And that the other state-sponsored paper, Global Times, basically nearly kills one of our columnists every week with blazen stupidity?

So what’s the point of this post?

Oh, I dunno. Maybe I found something interesting about the fact that a “news agency” could run this lead — “The People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC), will carry a commentary on Friday stressing the importance of observing laws and Party disciplines” — and on the very same day give us this wicked come-hither look:

And this:

And this:

Okay, one more:

Are Xinhua’s news and smut departments even in the same building? I wonder.

I also wonder whether there’s anything I wouldn’t believe Xinhua can or might do. If someone told me that it was Xinhua spreading all those coup and Bo Xilai rumors – the latest, by the way, saying that Neil Heywood was banging Bo Guagua (you know I wouldn’t make this up) — I would not bat an eye. You know why? Because it’s not like we live in a reality in which truth matters. It’s not like the government’s official news agency needs to maintain standards. You know how they say the Chinese don’t care about politics? Xinhua — which fashions itself the first and last word in this kingdom — confirms it: the people just want sexy teen models. You know that’s true because Xinhua gives it to them.

[H/T Eric Fish]