Here’s one tweet (translated) from the China official state media’s version of a PBS talking head:
The Public Security Bureau wants to clean out the foreign trash: To arrest foreign thugs and protect innocent girls, they need to concentrate on the disaster zones in [student district] Wudaokou and [drinking district] Sanlitun. Cut off the foreign snake heads. People who can’t find jobs in the U.S. and Europe come to China to grab our money, engage in human trafficking and spread deceitful lies to encourage emigration. Foreign spies seek out Chinese girls to mask their espionage and pretend to be tourists while compiling maps and GPS data for Japan, Korea and the West. We kicked out that foreign bitch and closed Al-Jazeera’s Beijing bureau. We should shut up those who demonize China and send them packing.
This is from the guy who does English-language broadcasts for the outside world to show the softer, more reflective side of China.
mellowjohn
sounds like a natural for faux news.
Culture of Truth
I had no idea Pat Buchanan moved to China.
c u n d gulag
Are you sure that wasn’t China’s ‘Rushba the Hut,’ or ‘uni-brow’ Hannity?
Villago Delenda Est
Are we sure this isn’t Joe Arpaio doing his Charlie Chan impersonation?
dr. bloor
How are all those Messicans getting into China? Build a wall, I say.
Flying fox
The really funny thing is, this level of vitriol and hostility isn’t supposed to be public. I’m curious how the masters will handle this
Linda Featheringill
The people of Chines descent that I’ve met were about as reflective as the rest of the world. Lots of variation there.
That being said, I find it understandable that some folks in China would have a protectionist stance. It is a world economy and downturns in one part of the world affects us all. Also, China hasn’t really had an intimate, integrated relationship with the world for a long time.
The Chinese guy did remind me of Pat Robinson, though.
ETA:
Pat Robertson? The Ninety and Nine Club.
jrg
It sounds better in the original Arizonian.
PeakVT
140 characters isn’t quite as limiting in Chinese, but that didn’t help Rui.
cathyx
Can tweets be that many words?
amk
Fucking teabaggers everywhere.
Joey Maloney
@jrg: No more calls please, we have a winner.
Dr. Squid
@cathyx: 140 Chinese characters? Hell yeah.
Citizen_X
Wait, so China is being overrun by unemployed Americans? FINISH THE DANGED WALL.
Frankensteinbeck
@cathyx:
If they allow old fashioned Chinese characters, they’re – holy smokes, they do. I just looked it up. Each character is potentially an entire word.
jrg
@Dr. Squid: Kind of begs the question: “what does a Chinese keyboard look like”? I wonder how many times you have to press the number “4” on a Chinese phone to hit the letter for “snake head”.
Todd
Lou Dobbs was the name that came to my mind while reading that.
cathyx
This tweet should then be translated to other languages. Kind of like the game ‘telephone’. I bet the outcome would be even funnier.
PeakVT
@PeakVT: It’s only 70 characters since the message is 140 bytes long (or 160, depending on implementation). That’s still more words than the 20 or so words that somebody using an alphabet-based script might squeeze in.
Egg Berry
I’m just glad 140 characters is so short here in the English-language world. Imagine those possibilities! (shudder)
Omnes Omnibus
I bet they go to museums and eat the food too. Sneaky bastards.
Frankensteinbeck
I’m not completely surprised by the content of the tweet. The disgusting racism that’s rearing its head in America today is the norm worldwide. Humans are just naturally tribal and xenophobic. I did think China’s government preferred their public face to encourage Western money of all kinds.
jeffreyw
Still waiting for my HOT ASIAN GIRLS banner ad.
Amir Khalid
Shrug. Chinese exceptionalism existed centuries before there was ever an America.
@jrg:
Keyboards on Chinese (and Korean, and Japanese) computers and phones have the same number of keys/buttons as those used elsewhere. They use double-byte character sets to represent all those extra characters. If they were to use one key per character, a computer keyboard would need to be about twice as big as a ping-pong table.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Middle Kingdom and all that, right?
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, they’ve long considered themselves to be the center of the universe.
They’ve learned little, it seems, from the humiliation they were dealt in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ja, genau. Or as we say in Malaysia, tepat sekali.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: German seems an odd language for a response by a Malaysian to a comment by an American about China. Balloon Juice is weird.
gene108
@Frankensteinbeck:
gene108
Should read the links and not just the tweet. Seems response hasn’t been positive and he’s had to walk back his statement.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Amir Khalid:
I can’t remember exactly what Korean keyboards look like, but the Korean alphabet is about the same size as English and doesn’t use stylized characters like Chinese or Japanese.
handsmile
Tangential to this thread admittedly, but Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese human rights activist whose fate was a topic of concern here recently, was discharged from hospital earlier today and is now on a flight to the United States (Newark, NJ in fact.) Reportedly, he is accompanied by his wife and two children. Chen will begin studies at New York University’s US-Asia Law Institute.
What has been an astonishing story of personal courage, leading to a diplomatic imbroglio between the US and China, seems to be resolving happily, and is a considerable success for the State Department and Secretary Clinton.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/19/chen-guangcheng-left-china-us
Villago Delenda Est
@handsmile:
Which means that Faux Noise won’t make note of it.
Amir Khalid
@handsmile:
That’s typical of the Obama administration, showing the Republican party what gittin’er done really looks like. Not of course, that the Republicans failed to insert the usual finger-pointing and hand-wringing over Obama’s “capitulation” to the Chinese, all of it unwarranted and premature.
handsmile
@Villago Delenda Est: . @Amir Khalid:
I realize now that I was premature in labeling this as a “success.”
It’s not one until the Moustache or John McCain/Lindsay Graham says so. Hopefully, they’ll let us know tomorrow morning.
(Alsotoo: Newark, NJ? The man’s a hero, and that’s his welcome to the United States?)
Amir Khalid
@handsmile:
I hear Newark has a mayor with a heroic reputation.
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: I blame Obama.
Linda Featheringill
@Amir Khalid:
Cory B.
I like Cory and I don’t even live in New Jersey. We will probably hear from him again. Good man.
handsmile
@Amir Khalid: (#36)
True, Cory Booker does rescue people from burning buildings, but he’ll need a full array of superpowers to rehabilitate that blighted burg. (Snark aside, he’s demonstrated that he just might have some since being elected Newark’s mayor in 2006.)
On another burning issue, any bets on today’s little kick-around? Myself, I’m going Bavarian.
Jay C
@Villago Delenda Est:
So I’m sure that it won’t be long before some Republican spokescreature, or right-wing blogger, comes along to post angrily about what a horrible cock-up the Administration made of this (if only on “should have done it sooner” grounds) – and how this is one the worst diplomatic failures EVAH!! and how it just “proves” that Obama is a national international embarrassment…
After all, no bombs were dropped, no drone strikes ordered, and, most importantly, no foreigners were overtly insulted. FAIL!
handsmile
Aaarrgghh, moderation limbo!! (A reply to AK.)
I think I may see the trigger: a reference to what is often done in advance of a sporting competition. Could veterans here point me to a list of “WordPress Forbidden Words” or is it just a matter of random mischief?
4tehlulz
No penis; no scandal.
Linda Featheringill
@handsmile:
The problem is Hizzoner’s last name, also meaning one who organizes sporting events or whatever.
We had a discussion of that a few days ago and decided to go with Cory B. The filter doesn’t care and we know who Cory is.
Jay C
Heh – maybe “eclectic” is a better term…
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
Obama negotiates gently and politely, and it WORKS. Being angry and confrontational is antithetical to Getting Shit Done.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
As someone who used to work telephone customer service, I can tell you that a huge number of people are absolutely convinced that the way you solve a problem is to yell and scream as loudly as possible until you get your way.
This, of course, makes the person getting yelled at do the absolute minimum to help you, but apparently since getting that minumum means that yelling and screaming “worked,” people keep doing it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jay C:
The blockquote would be correctly attributed to Handsmile, but I certainly agree with the opinion Handsmile expressed.
Naturally, as you note, the usual suspects will not.
Joel
@Villago Delenda Est: Fallows posted some blog comments referring to the guy as a “Boxer”. Sounds about right (Boxer Rebellion is my guess).
Villago Delenda Est
@Joel:
That’s not a bad characterization, actually, given the attitudes of the original Boxers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay C: That too.
scarshapedstar
Maybe he’s more like their Rush Limbaugh?
Jamey
You should see the rest of the clip. Yang Rui has Conan on as a guest, and they start ragging on Jay Leno….
Also, this, too: http://www.quotefully.com/tvshow/24/Cheng+Zhi
mclaren
Before we go off half-cocked here and conclude this guy refers to all foreigners, it’s my understanding that the term `snake head’ in Chinese has a specific meaning — namely, human trafficker.
I.e., a person who convinces young Chinese girls to emigrate to another country, then confiscates their visa (or smuggles them in without a visa) and forces them into prostitution or virtual slavery piecework.
If these are the people to whom the Chinese official refers, I agree with him. And this problem isn’t confined to China — it occurs in central Europe and many other impoverished regions of the world.