Beijing Newspeak

I thought this would be a good time for some unadulterated advertising for my nearest and dearest given this will be my last post for a couple of weeks.

Shameless Plug No. 1: Beijing Playhouse is putting on a production of Guys and Dolls every Friday, Saturday and Sunday September 7-30. Actually Xinhua and Beijing Playhouse have enjoyed sound bilateral relations and a healthy strategic partnership of cooperation in recent months. A former polishing comrade of mine played Scrooge in A Christmas Carol last year, which enabled the rest of us to enjoy a lot more night shifts in his absence. We received free tickets in return and I’m still wondering if we were robbed. Amusingly, the Ghost of Christmas Future from the same production came for an interview at Xinhua a couple of months ago to replace Scrooge. Well, this time I also have a free ticket because my girlfriend Nina is playing one of the lead roles - a “mission doll” called Sarah, who falls for gambler Skye Masterson, played by Marlon Brando in the film version. This means I have to watch Nina kissing another man on stage - three times. Actually the jealousy has subsided. She has already kissed him 85 times in rehearsals and he doesn’t look like Marlon Brando. Ticket details are on the website if anyone is interested.

Shameless Plug No. 2: Asia Weekly magazine. There are reasons why I am recommending the purchase of this publication other than the fact my housemate, and friend since school days, writes for it. Er … Living or traveling in Asia? Asia Weekly briefs you on everything you need to know, from politics to property, in a concise and easy read. Ok, that was just lifted from their website. Seriously though, this magazine is a damn good read, a slick round-up of all the goings-on in East Asia from the previous week. It is based very closely on the British current affairs magazine The Week and brings together all the opinions from English-language media on the main issues in Asia. It even quotes Xinhua sometimes so you can’t knock its pledge to be unbiased. Apparently you can order three free copies by going here. Even better, stop by Bayley & Jackson Medical Center, where my girlfriend works - apparently their coffee tables are buried in copies of the magazine. My god, I think that counts as a third shameless plug.

Sometimes the cyclical hopelessness in the way Xinhua operates just rears up and flicks you in that tender bit between your two nostrils (nasal septum for those who want to take away one piece of useful information from this blog). After reaching the year-and-a-half-mark, the order of the general chaos has become relatively clear.

The end of July to August, for example, is intern month. There must be at least ten in Dui Wai Bu at the moment and during the day, I’m sure they add up to more than a third of the writing workforce. It reminds me of a work experience placement I once did at the travel desk of the Independent newspaper. At one point, there were three of us lost-looking work experience pups working with a permament team of five. Given the newspaper’s financial woes, they were happy to rely on free labour, we were happy to slap it on our CVs. I enjoy working with the interns at Xinhua. Free from quota pressures, some are receptive to using that old journalistic tool, the telephone. Last year, one outstanding student from Shanghai’s top university wrote about 30 stories in two weeks, a third of which were picked up by foreign news agencies. Actually, her performance served to embarrass several of her senior colleagues and showed what could be done. However, she was an exception. Many interns at Xinhua have never written a news story before but are asked to write about important topics designed for the consumption of the international media. Not surprisingly, it is an impossible task. They are supposed to receive guidance from the more senior members of the department they refer to as “teacher”. But these journalists are asked to help three or four interns at one time and have their own quota to worry about.

In September, the interns will depart, leaving us with the realisation that the new graduate employees who joined the department in July as soon as their final exams were over need a lot of training to write stories in English. Around next year’s Spring Festival, the 2006 intake, who spent six months in Dui Wai Bu learning to write English news stories last year before being posted to provincial bureaus, will return to the Beijing headquarters. They will have hardly written any stories in English for ten months and will need a few months to get back up to standard. In March, the 2007 intake will be posted to local bureaus just as they reach a decent level of news-writing for ten months of English-language deprivation. In July, the new graduates will arrive just before the Olympics. During the Olympics, Xinhua will be a sea of interns …

Within this wheel of inefficiency comes sporadic incidents in which mistakes are repeated at an almost comic level. Their occurrence highlights the fact that, for all the obvious improvement in Xinhua’s English-language service over the last 10 or 15 years, the line of progress has now plateaued and shows little sign of tilting permanently upwards in the near future.

These ramblings were prompted by a particular piece of self-censorship last Friday. The State Council’s White Paper on food safety was given to Xinhua and embargoed until 3pm. As always, Reuters managed to obtain a copy and was able to release it at the same time. The headline of the first story I received forced me emit a nasal snort. “State Council: 85.1% food products qualified in first half”. Memories of a similar story released at the beginning of the month immediately came to mind, which I blogged about here. On that occasion I changed the angle of the story from 80 percent of products made in China for domestic consumption good to 20 percent bad. It was changed back at the whim of a releaser. So here it was again. Was there any point changing the angle only to see my words deleted once more? I suspected not but I thought I would ask anyway.

I approached the senior releaser who happens to be blessed with a lot of common sense. No problem, he said, change it however you like (a sign of progress in itself I suppose). The story was edited with gusto and it became “15% of food products in China fail quality checks”. It wasn’t written in gloating fashion I might add - hard facts were sufficient.

But the first two paragraphs of the released version went like this:

BEIJING, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) — A white paper issued on Friday by the Information Office of China’s State Council revealed that 85.1 percent of the country’s food products passed quality checks in the first half of the year.

The paper emphasized the proportion of Chinese food products that passed quality inspections had risen steadily in recent years, rising from 77.9 percent in 2006 to the current figure of 85.1 percent.

At the same time, Reuters released its version:

BEIJING (Reuters) - Nearly 15 percent of Chinese food products failed a recent quality check, the government said on Friday in a report that nonetheless sought to reassure rattled consumers that tainted products are disappearing from shelves.

Fuck it. The editor in question wasn’t aware of my previous conversation and thought it was better to put the story in a positive light. “Xinhua is the government mouthpiece,” she kindly informed me as if the involvement of the government in Xinhua’s work would be a revelation to me.

This incident demonstrates perfectly how censorship works in my department. There is no overall standard. Yes, the Publicity Department releases statements calling on Xinhua to “promote a good atmosphere” for the NPC congress in October. But, the English service has more freedom and doesn’t have to toe this line with every story. In the case of the White Paper it came down to the individual and her beliefs, which contradicted those of her superior. Another editor would have passed the original story through and all the other state English-language media would probably have followed with “15 percent bad”. I was interested to hear recently that someone had suggested to the releasers they should read this blog to be aware of a few censorship issues. I think this might have backfired. After all, no one wants to be preached to by a 26-year-old English bloke with a few years’ journalistic experience.

Oh well, I can’t say I didn’t chuckle. Does it really matter? Well, actually, from a state media credibility point of view, I believe it does. Particularly when my colleagues from the economics desk were also swearing at their computer screens when White Paper ”stories” began to trickle through from the Domestic News Desk. Unlike them I can take the easy way out and go on holiday - I am going back to the UK until the beginning of September. Consumer warning: there is only one polisher for 50 or 60 Xinhua stories each day in my absence. Donations welcome. 

We are all aware that the air pollution in Beijing often makes a dirty weekend away in a Shanxi coke plant seem like a tempter but I’m struggling to take the World Health Organization’s recent warnings to Olympic spectators seriously. I say that, of course, with zero medical evidence to back up my scepticism.

As reported in the Daily Telegraph:

High levels of air pollution in Beijing could damage the health of many spectators at next years Olympic Games, a leading World Health Organisation expert has warned.

Dr Michal Krzyzanowski, said that air quality was so bad in the Chinese capital that those with a history of heart problems and those suffering from asthma should be aware they could be harmed.

And in response to the four-day car removal project:

However, Dr Krzyzanowski, an expert in air quality, doubted the measures would be effective in the long term and said the WHO still feared for the health of many of those planning to attend the Games.

“I’d be amazed if substantial progress is made in the next 12 months,” he said, pointing out that Beijing’s problems are not just created locally.

“It’s possible the beneficial effect of cutting the traffic in the city will be compensated by the transport of pollution from other parts of China.”

“Even by the standards of Asia, Chinese cities are pretty highly polluted,” he said.

“Those who come with asthma may suffer attacks. I would be concerned for those who have some cardiac condition,” he added.

“This might be more serious as it requires a much more specialised medical response.”

Presumably, these warnings are applicable to all tourists with asthma and heart problems who choose to visit Beijing over the next year and not just those who decide to sit in Olympic venues for a few days in August. So should we expect general travel warnings to be issued by the WHO about the dangers of visiting Beijing (when all the cars will be on the roads) and indeed other grubby capital cities like Mexico City?

Asthmatic spectators watching beach volleyball in Chaoyang Park can console themselves by remembering that British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe, herself an asthma sufferer, will be running 26 miles and 385 yards through the streets of Beijing. As relayed in the Scotsman, she is taking it all in her stride:

Radcliffe, who famously broke down during the marathon at the last Games in Athens, is leaving nothing to chance in her bid for her first Olympic gold medal.

The 33-year-old suffers from exercise-induced asthma, and Lough admits that she may have to switch the medicine she takes because of the pollution in Beijing.

“She may have to adapt her doses or medication - but as long as we’ve done enough research and thought about it, we hope it won’t be an issue,” he said.

“There’s no point in us being especially concerned, because pollution’s not really something you can control.”

Lough added: “We’ve known about this issue for a while, and it hasn’t influenced Paula’s decision to compete in the marathon at all. You should respect conditions - whether it’s hot, cold or polluted - but never fear them.

Fine advice for beach volleyball fans.

Limited access to the South China Morning Post’s website often means many stories slip by unnoticed - well in my case anyway. This is regrettable given the range of some of its news coverage, much of which you can’t find anywhere else. On Wednesday, Stephen Chen reported for the SCMP (no web link for the above reason) on a protest outside Xinhua’s Sichuan headquarters in Chengdu.

More than 50 villagers protested outside Xinhua’s Sichuan headquarters in Chengdu yesterday, saying the official news agency had faked a news report about job creation.

The protesters, mostly women from Wenjiang and Chenghua districts, massed in front of the Xinhua building at about 2pm with a petition demanding the agency correct a news report about district government successes in creating jobs for dispossessed villagers, witness Huang Qi said.

Mr Huang said a Xinhua official accepted the letter but told villagers that agency leaders and journalists who wrote the article were not in the office, and so no decision about a correction could be made any time soon.

Xinhua reported that 70 per cent of landless villagers were employed, thanks to the efforts of the Wenjiang district government leadership.

“We, 200,000 landless villagers in Wenjiang have never seen you reporters,” the petition says. “The fact is most of us are jobless, hungry and homeless.

“We have been arrested, beaten up and robbed by local officials. But you never listened to us.”

Wenjiang villager Li Chunfeng said the highest payout to a family for their land was 8,000 yuan, plus a 100 yuan monthly subsidy.

“Many villagers remain unemployed seven years after the government took their land. No men went to the protest today, because they are afraid of being arrested,” she said.

Calls to Xinhua’s Chengdu office went unanswered yesterday.

Apart from the obvious, one of the most worrying aspects of this story is that no one deigns to pick up the phone at one of the main bureaus of a news agency. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone in the Chengdu bureau and given the view tentatively put forward recently that this blog might be losing the agency too much face, I think that is probably the last we will hear of it. Still, I shall recall this particular incident when I next edit stories about fake news hotlines or laudations of the wealth of employment opportunities open to untrained hersdmen from Xinjiang/Tibet/Inner Mongolia that seem to have increased in recent months.

If I may continue my tribute to the SCMP … Also on Wednesday was a story by Bill Savadove comparing the media coverage of the Hunan bridge disaster to the way the collapse of the Minneapolis bridge was reported in the United States. It drew attention to a story on the front page of the China Daily that appears to have less taste than Xinhua canteen’s head chef and also mentioned Homer Simpson’s brain for good measure.

Even as state media was updating the death toll from the fatal bridge collapse in Hunan province , readers of China Daily saw the front-page headline: “Thousands of unsafe bridges to be fixed.”

Was it simply tragic irony? Or an attempt at a pre-emptive propaganda strike against bad news to come? Regardless, it could be embarrassing for the central government’s English-language mouthpiece, which has sought to become more appealing.

“The collapse of the 40-year-old Minneapolis bridge in the United States on August 1 also highlighted the need to fix decaying public infrastructure before it is too late,” the article said.

The mainland had more than 6,000 damaged or dangerous bridges which needed to be fixed or rebuilt, a government ministry said. No mention was made of the Hunan disaster.

Xinhua reported the collapse of the bridge in Fenghuang county at 10.27pm on Monday, six hours after it occurred.

Coverage of the two incidents is a study in contrasts between US media and the mainland’s state-controlled media, which is still struggling with a fabricated television report about dumplings stuffed with cardboard and the use of a Homer Simpson image to illustrate a Xinhua story about multiple sclerosis.

US broadcaster CNN quickly went live with news of the Minnesota bridge collapse, taking witnesses’ calls and showing viewers’ photographs. Mainland reporters were told to use Xinhua reports for the Hunan case.

The mainland has recorded several bridge failures, often blamed on shoddy building or corruption, which prompts builders to cut corners. Two months ago, a bridge in Guangdong province collapsed when a sand barge hit it. Nine people were killed.

In 1999, the then-premier Zhu Rongji complained about “tofu construction” after a bridge in Sichuan province collapsed, killing more than 40 people.

In 1998, a scandal hit Ningbo when a 2,500-metre bridge at the mouth of the Yong River cracked a month before it was to open and the two ends did not meet in the middle. A further three years was needed to rebuild the bridge, and 40 officials were said to have lost their jobs.

This article mentions “mainland reporters were told to use Xinhua reports for the Hunan case”, which is clearly a major problem. As I have said before, some Xinhua local bureau reporters go out of their way to find the facts behind disasters in very difficult situations and others would rather wait for the information to come in the form of a local government statement. In the case of the Hunan bridge, it appears the Beijing Times is finding out its own information, as shown in this report by Reuters via the Sydney Morning Herald.

“The ruptured parts of the bridge show broken stones; also, it was a clean break. It’s obvious the quality was too poor,” the Beijing News quoted an architecture expert as saying.

Xinhua reporters can also come up with a crucial quote but often it just touches upon a huge issue and leaves you dangling. Take this line from an unnamed local official, that inspired the Reuters story linked above (this quote was Xinhua’s not China Daily’s).

“While the cause of the collapse is still unknown, a local official at the scene said that a ‘traditional-and-risky’ model of bridge, made of stone and concrete, had been chosen over a steel structure to ensure it remained ‘in harmony with the natural environment’,” the China Daily said.

When I received the quote in its original form, it made little sense. Something about how concrete complemented nature. On asking for clarification, the key points about harmonious environment and the absence of steel emerged but the official remained unnamed. I later found out he was the deputy director of the communications department and a “bridge expert”, whatever that means. I asked my colleague to call the local reporter and ask him or her to try and interview the official again for some more detail as it seemed the official was willing to talk to Xinhua about an issue in which he claimed to have expertise. Ask someone to ask someone else to ask someone else. That is the frustrating level of efficiency at work in the office. The reporter was unavailable and the opportunity was gone, once again leaving us with fragments of information and the overall picture unexplained.

It is a governmental masterstroke. After two years or so, the phrase “harmonious society” is about as a fresh as a shrivelled daisy. When things go wrong these days, the sardonic line “so much for a harmonious society” is a common display of disappointment. Well I have heard it a lot at work anyway. A new promotional method is needed and it doesn’t involve printing more wallet-friendly cards carrying the “Ba Rong, Ba Chi” or releasing more stories through Xinhua.

Get the people to spread the word. Just ask the general public to celebrate all things harmonious (that’s the third time I have used “harmonious” already - it is in no way linked to a pathetic desire to see this blog flagged up on google following the input of the search words “harmonious society”) through a writing competition and offer an attractive cash prize.

The full Xinhua report is here:

Chinese Internet operators are working to promote the political philosophy of “harmonious society”.

They are running an online competition under the banner “Building a harmonious society guided by the scientific thinking on development” in which members of the public are invited to submit articles, photographs and video clips related to harmonious society, however tenuous, for a top prize of 5,000 yuan.

The competition is being co-sponsored by all 188 Chinese news and entertainment portal sites licensed by the State Council to publish news, including sina.com and tom.com, and will run from August 3 to September 20.

There are no restrictions to the age, region or nationality of the participants and both individuals and groups can take part in the competition, an official with the organizing committee said.

According to the organizing committee, many works including articles and photos have been uploaded to the portals already.

“Social development can be perceived from details of people’s lives displayed in their photos and written articles,” the official said.

An indicator of the heart-warming nature of the competition could be seen in a series of photos entitled “Love sent her back to school” displayed at www.tom.com. They tell the story of a student named Li Dongmei who has recovered from disease with assistance from her classmates and donations from society.

According to President Hu Jintao’s New Year speech, 2007 is an important year in building a socialist harmonious society under the guidance of the scientific thinking on development advocated by the Chinese central leadership.

It would be slightly misleading to attribute the idea of the competition to “Chinese Internet operators”. You would think the Publicity Department would be proud to claim this particular piece of PR as its own. I had a look at two of the major news portals - www.tom.com and www.sina.com - and there is a link to the competition buried in their homepages. The actual competition pages are here and here, both with individual designs for the banners at the top, which read “Building a harmonious society guided by the concept of scientific development” and, as a sub-banner, “I build, I witness, I record”.

The current story on Tom’s competition page, I am told, is extolling the virtues of email, a revolutionary form of communication which is apparently pushing conventional letter-writing into the shade. I suppose that’s the scientific development link although the internet as a tool to promote harmonious society rather being seen as a possible threat by the Party is a tad far-fetched.

Anyway, seeing as the competition is open to all nationalities, and Hu Jintao is committed to building a harmonious world, it would be nice to see a global response. Cash prizes down to fourth place by the way.

It is annoying to be ill and confined to my apartment on what appears to be the finest blue-sky day for a good few weeks. I barely made it through my midnight shift yesterday. Sentences were blurred and I was only able to muster enough energy to make some token grammatical changes. There are times when you are drawn into a world of Special English where, after seeing 25 stories on 25 different topics, it is no longer possible to realise many of the stories just don’t read very well. The world’s eyes were on the Olympic countdown gala on Tiananmen Square but all Olympic-related stories were dealt with by the sports department. I was instead gazing vacantly at empty official words on the 60th anniversary of Inner Mongolia which stretched out like a bunch of rubber bands way over their elastic limits. So, because my head is too fuzzy to attempt logic, I think I’ll mention a few points rather than focus on one topic.

1) A fortnight ago, following the cardboard baozi mystery, China’s press watchdog set up a hotline so the public could phone up and accuse stories in the Chinese media of being fake,

If a member of the public believes he has sniffed out a rat, he or she can call 8610-65212787 or 65212824, directly contact the news organization concerned, report to GAPP’s press office by telephone or by clicking onto http://press.gapp.gov.cn, GAPP said in a notice.

Don’t ask me why I added in the rat line although I suspect boredom would be high up on the list of reasons. Incidentally, I would like to take credit for the immortal line that is now repeated in every state media English-language report when conveying the Chinese government’s feelings about the existence of fake news reports:

In the notice, the press watchdog reiterated that “authenticity was the lifeblood of journalism”

I can’t remember the original translation (similar meaning I might add) but I thought “lifeblood” was a suitably dramatic word the government wanted to use in this context and I would like to think it will be quoted down the ages.

I asked an intern to phone up the hotline to try and dig out some interesting “fake” stories that had been reported since the operation’s inception. The operator wasn’t keen to discuss specific cases and admitted that his phone had sat in a great deal of silence. It seems such a shame that the government’s good intentions are going to waste so if anyone has a spare minute please keep an eye out for some suspicious looking stories. Maybe just type in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region into Google News. And pick up the phone. They even included the international dialling code which was nice. 8610-65212787 or 65212824.

2) If I was ever worthy of an obituary from Xinhua (there can’t be many more unlikely things in this world), the fear of the final article would probably be enough to send me into an interminable sleep. Renowned Chinese scientist Tu Guangchi died at the age of 88 on July 31. A former student of the University of Minnesota, he sounds an impressive individual judging by the university’s comments about him in 1999:

After graduating from the University, Professor Tu returned to China and went on to become the most outstanding and recognizable figure in the geologic community in China. He is credited with establishing the field of geochemistry in China and has helped to develop the world-renowned Institute for Geochemistry in Guiyang. He has also served as its Director and played a leadership role in the development of ore-deposits research and environmental sciences, both of which have had a tangible effect on mineral and water resources in China.

On August 3, the Chinese Academy of Sciences paid their respects in a simple statement on their website, summarizing Tu’s contributions to geochemistry in China.

What follows is pretty much a literal translation of the statement in Chinese released by Xinhua a full four days later, which was no doubt just a word-for-word statement from a government department.

President condolent to death of renowned scientist

State-President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Hu Jintao has showed condolence to the death of Tu Guangchi, a renowned geochemist and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who died of illness on July 31 at the age of 88.

Other leaders or former leaders who have showed their sympathy in various ways include Jiang Zemin, Wen Jiabao, Zeng Qinghong, Wu Guanzheng, Zhang Lichang, He Guoqiang, Zeng Peiyan, Wang Gang, Li Peng, Zhu Rongji, Li Lanqing, Lu Yongxiang, Han Qide, Chen Zhili, Zhou Guangzhao, and Zhu Guangya.

Tu, a native of Huangpi, in central China’s Hubei Province, joined the CPC-led revolution in 1938. He studied at the University of Minnesota between 1946-49 and he joined the CPC in New York in August of 1949.

Between 1966 and 2007, Tu was a researcher, president and honorary president of the Geochemistry Institute of the CAS. In 1978, he founded the Chinese Society for Mineralogy, Petrology and Geochemistry. In 1980, he became a member of the CAS.

Tu was also a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Third World Academy of Sciences.

He was a deputy of the Fifth and Sixth National People’s Congresses, and a vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People’s Congress of Guizhou Province, in southwest China.

I should have left it as it was but it didn’t seem fair on Tu Guangchi so I just switched the emphasis from Party members saying sorry to the fact the man had died. Hu Jintao enjoys hailing the importance of science and innovation but when it comes to obituaries, Party etiquette is a more pressing priority.

3) Shanghai Daily has 12 foreign polishers. Xinhua, because of my temporary demise, currently has one and the recruitment process for finding more is as efficient as China’s food and drug supervision system. China Daily, it seems, doesn’t know what to do with all their’s. This is an extract from Canadian journalist - and China Daily employee - Mitch Moxley’s blog. The whole post is here.

Now, as far as I know - and I should emphasize that I do not know much about what goes on here - I am in both business and features. But even if I were definitely assigned to either section, I still wouldn’t be sure what, exactly, I am supposed to be doing.

Thing is, China Daily has too many “foreign experts” than it knows what to do with. In an attempt to bolster credibility before the Olympics, somebody up the ladder at some point said, “We need more foreigners!” and so China Daily went out and brought in about two-dozen of us.

In years past, the foreigners here were mostly travellers, students on summer break, or out-right nut jobs. One polisher, whose career at China Daily lasted just a few days, believed in aliens and claimed to have 13 PhDs (14 if you count the one suppressed by the Vatican).

Today, all the ex-pat staff at least have journalism backgrounds, are legally sane, and, to the best of my knowledge, do not believe in aliens. But what does a state-owned Chinese newspaper do with such a distinguished staff of “foreign experts”? The answer: nobody really knows.

And the conclusion:

There are thirty some odd “foreign experts” here so some official can point and say, “Hey, look what we’ve done!” Yet every day I sit at my desk unsure of what, exactly, I’m supposed to be doing. And when I do write something, the boundaries of what I can write are still very, very narrow.

It’s a sugar coat, and I’m beginning to realize I’m just a granule of sugar.

 Oh, the luxury.

4) This isn’t an attempt to bury an apology - I have only just thought about it. It appears I was wrong regarding Homer-gate. I asked four or five people if Xinhuanet had a foreign polisher and they all thought no. But a more senior source has confirmed that there has been an American guy working there for nearly a year. Apologies for the Duff (terrible gag) info. Which brings us on to an important plea. If you are out there, Xinhuanet’s foreign polisher, please tell all! Slap on the wrist for me - how will I ever grow up to be a journalist with such lax fact-checking …

5) Many thanks to everyone who voted for Beijing Newspeak in the China Blog Awards, helping to achieve the monumental travesty of amassing more votes than Imagethief and finishing fourth in the Best News Blog category. But then he didn’t stoop to my level and actually ask for votes. The list of winners is here.

And it was an honour to receive the award for Best Political Post from the Hao Hao Report’s “Zui Hao Report” section for my post on the Chinese media reaction to the Virginia Tech shootings. That post received an incredible amount of coverage and, to be quite honest, I was waiting patiently for the sack. And cheers to China Machete for nominating it in the first place. Ryan, the man behind the Hao Hao Report and about ten other websites it seems, emailed me an icon, or whatever you call it, to display the award on my site. But considering I won with just seven votes - and one of those was from my younger sister - I think that would be too self-congratulatory. Thanks to the Chinalyst and the Hao Hao Report for organizing.

Oh Xinhua, sometimes you look so vulnerable I just want to smother your newly refurbished 25-storey tower (more about this next week) in cotton wool, hide you away from the harsh ridicule of those judgmental outsiders and tell you everything will be alright. But that would be a false promise and it is only right your gaffs are held up for public consumption. What’s that? You don’t care? No, I didn’t think so …

First of all, to answer a couple of suspicious text messages/emails I had nothing to do with an X-ray of Homer Simpson’s peanut brain being placed next to a story about Multiple Sclerosis on Xinhua’s website. Unfortunately the offending picture has now been removed, which I am ashamed to say, was my fault. But thanks to the wonders of screenshot technology, it is still here and here.

In fact, the English-language website is a completely separate department from my home of Dui Wai Bu (Home News for Overseas Service Department), which operates the main news wire, and is even tucked away in a different building somewhere west of Xinhua headquarters. It does not have a foreign polisher and mainly reproduces stories word-for-word from the wire service. Sometimes, it will slap in a China Daily or People’s Daily story for a bit of variety particularly when Duiwaibu has an office party and there are less stories than usual. It will often ignore the more risque (I use that term very lightly) stories and indeed the nauseating statements from the Publicity Department about “mass incidents”. There is always the name of an “editor” at the bottom of each story which is amusing given the vast majority are totally unedited.

So how did Mr Simpson manage to blunder his way onto Xinhua’s website? This afternoon, I thought I might as well phone up and get Xinhuanet’s reaction. I was put through to someone in the English department and the conversation was as follows:

Me: Hello, I work as a foreign polisher in Dui Wai Bu. I wanted to ask about a story on your website that has caused a lot of controversy on the Internet.

Female voice: Umm, what is it?

Me: Type in Multiple Sclerosis in the website’s search function

Female voice: Can you spell that?

Me: M-U-L-T-I-P-L-E-S-C-L-E-R-O-S-I-S

Female voice: It’s not working. S-G..?

Me: S-C

Female voice: Ah yes, ok … is it … Two genes …

Me: Yep, that’s the one. Can you see the story?

Female voice: Yes. So what’s the problem?

Me: The picture.

Female voice: Oh I see … what about it?

Me: Do you know what it is?

Female voice: Yes … er … what is it?

Me: It’s an X-ray of Homer Simpson’s brain.

Female voice: Ah yes.

Me: Do you know who Homer Simpson is?

Female voice: Er …

Me: He is a yellow American cartoon character.

Female voice: Ah.

Me: And he looks odd next to an article about a scientific breakthrough in the research of a serious disease.

Female voice. Ummm … ha ha ha ha … it looks like a pe …(inaudible)

Me: Looks like a what?

Female voice: Nothing, just joking.

Me: (Frustrated silence - would have loved to have heard what she said)

Female voice: Ha ha ha ha, it’s quite funny isn’t it.

Me: Ha ha ha ha. I suppose it is, yes.

Female voice: I think we should probably change it.

Me: (thinking, well you could just leave it ..) I suppose so

Female voice: Ok, thanks.

Me: No problem, bye.

Female voice: Bye

It’s a mystery that is more entertaining left unsolved. I know someone at Xinhuanet is familiar with Homer Simpson because this article about the Simpsons movie’s popularity in the US, dated July 30, 2007, was accompanied by a picture of Homer in his pants and a tiny Superman top. However, the telephone conversation would suggest that the use of the picture was done in inexplicable ignorance.

The howler was first picked by a Danwei reader and then popped up on Computerworld and a couple of other sites. I appreciated Jeremy’s (of Danwei fame) comments carried in the Computerworld article which distanced myself from the incident:

“Despite the foreign-language polishers, the writers and editors who produce English and other foreign-language content for Xinhua and other state-owned media organizations do not have the cultural awareness necessary to avoid errors like the misuse of the Homer Simpson illustration,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, editor of the English-language Chinese media blog Danwei.org. 

In fact, maybe that quote means foreign polishers are inept at making anyone at Xinhua listen to them …

This post at a blog called Harvard Extended took a more detailed look at how this incident further emphasises Xinhua’s poor reputation in the media world and exposes some serious editorial deficiencies.

The New China News Agency (Xinhua, 新華社) has a credibility problem. It’s not just because NCNA is a state-run news agency that publishes propaganda alongside news. It’s also because basic editorial processes are so broken that a “file photo” of Homers Simpson’s brain can show up alongside a serious article about multiple sclerosis, and remain there for days.

Now, you may chuckle at what appears to be a one-off mistake, but it reflects major editorial problems at China’s official news agency. This is not just a harmless error (or prank) by a single employee — it’s very likely that at least two other people were involved, and the editorial processes that are supposed to catch such mistakes either failed to work or are not even in place at Xinhua.

Regular readers of this blog will recognise these points. The entire organisational structure of Xinhua is flawed to the core. Each department within Xinhua exists independently, each scoring performance points for the release of reams of often meaningless words, or losing points for an individual’s mistake eg writing China and Taiwan in a headline. The departments compete with each other to secure as high a place as possible in the end-of-year league table which ensures there is absolutely zero cooperation between them. It is each for himself which means that if Xinhuanet uses a picture of Homer Simpson’s brain to illustrate a MS story, and in doing so tarnishes the reputation of the whole news agency, no one cares. As long as it doesn’t affect our department. Which is why it took a phone call from a foreign polisher, whose pay and reputation is not affected by the points system, to cause the removal of the picture. Many of the Xinhua “leaders” do not read English or simply regard the non-Chinese services as trivial. As a result, Xinhuanet is not really accountable to anyone for inspiring headlines like “Xinhua caught with Homer’s brain”, as on this website.

Nor will Xinhuanet punish the person responsible. The picture has been removed and that is that. No harm done. No point in attracting attention. A departmental performance point may be deducted otherwise. And why did no one from Xinhuanet notice the attention the story received on English-language websites? Because it is no one’s job to check. Pick story off wire. Paste it into software program. Upload to www.chinaview.cn. Why would you need to check any English-language websites? Ian Lamont, of the Harvard Extended blog, asked if anyone at Xinhuanet checked the english@xinhuanet.com inbox. I very much doubt it.

A couple of weeks ago, the Foreign Affairs department requested my company at the Military Museum for a private viewing of the exhibition “Our Troops March Towards The Sun” to mark the 80th anniversary of the PLA. Memories of a disastrous weekend spent in Langfang, a new development zone in Hebei, courtesy of Beijing’s Foreign Expert Department were still fresh. A group of us had been invited to attend the Northeast Asia & Bohai-Rim International Business Festival for which the official reason was the chance for foreigners to experience sustainable urban development first hand. The real reason was a “face job” - look foreign enough to give off the impression that the festival - a confusing collection of automobile and printing press products - was international. It wouldn’t have been so enjoyable if it hadn’t be so tedious.

Standing at the steps of the museum entrance, it was immediately apparent that our small party, made up of a Russian, an Iraqi - part of the team in Baghdad who ensured Xinhua News Agency was the first to break the news of the 2003 invasion of Iraq would you believe -, a Brazilian, a New Zealander and a Brit, was going to look out of place. Streaming up the red carpet were naval officers in white uniform, African generals in army fatigues and berets, whom I was desperately trying not to link unfairly with the Last King of Scotland, and what appeared to be the entire Pakistani armed forces. I later learned, thanks to a story with the headline “PLA show impresses foreigners” in China Daily, which I thought I had given up reading, that military attaches from more than 100 countries were present.

A corridor had been formed in the entrance hall by two rows of female Air Force officers with blue uniforms, dental-advert smiles and enough layers of cosmetics to make a Ryanair employee blush brighter than her or his blusher. I was assured they were genuine members of the Air Force despite the fact that every one of them could have opted for the Vogue career path.  I was directed to one of six leather-bound guestbooks which officers of varying ranks had graced with their autographs. Harmonious Society (pseudonym), Captain, Angola. I obliged with enthusiasm. Christopher O’Brien, polisher, Stansted Mountfichet. A place in PLA history.

Walking into the first section of the exhibition, my leaflet told me I was embarking on “Part One: Strategic Decisions, Brilliant Course”. Small huddles of potentially some of the best “Risk” teams in the world were being given tours. An Air (Force) Stewardess carried a provocative black cane to point at each exhibit. Her smile looked like it hurt. Her well-rehearsed explanations were translated by university students into words that were easy to stop listening to. “To establish a modernized army and to realize the transformation from the single infantry …” I decided to tag on the end of one group as I was attracted to a burly Zimbabwean general who possessed more medals than Carl Lewis and Mark Spitz combined. Unfortunately, his facial expression would barely twitch out of glum for the entire two-hour tour, not once opening up his chops to speak.

My first piece of shameless eavesdropping picked up a morsel of cynicism from a member of the Pakistani Air Force. Greeting a late arrival - an aimable looking Dutch naval officer well above six foot -, with a handshake he said, “Nine years down, only another 71 to go.” Shame on him. The officers were led along the wall of glass cases, their images being subjected to a merciless molestation by a fashion photographer. He was about 60, sported slicked back, thinning hair and wore a pink short-sleeved shirt, white linen trousers and sandals. He looked like a cross between a Beijing cabbie and a retired Peking Opera performer who hadn’t quite managed to remove all his make-up. He squealed when I strayed into his line of fire. Suddenly, the years had flown by and we were standing in front of a picture of Mao with a rifle. Behind the glass, underneath the picture, was a piece of cloth with a picture of what was supposed to be Chiang Kai-shek’s face. It was the target Mao had aimed at when he visited the firing range of a PLA regiment. In the bottom left hand corner, 30 centimetres away from the adam’s apple, was a bullet hole. A valiant effort.

Next up, a truly cringe-worthy moment in front of the Korean War section. The smiling stewardess gestured to a captured U.S. military crest and a list of debatable figures detailing how many people from each country had died during the conflict. The American naval officer present showed remarkable impassivity when the clumsy translation came lumbering out, “Here, the Chinese army annihilated hundreds of thousands of Americans”. Perhaps the U.S. officer didn’t hear, too busy trying to recall the Department of Defense’s figure of 54,246. It was the kind of classic case of forgetting your audience I see at Xinhua sometimes.

Part Two: Being Competent Militarily, Being the Steely Great Wall. To be honest, I didn’t notice … (sorry I just have to break off to pass on a text message from my polishing comrade currently toiling through the night shift: “Just got a great cover sheet headline: ‘Potato may help China’. Don’t want to open it and destroy the effect.”) … entering part two. I was distracted by a remote control tank that was pulling a few stunts much to the excitement of a giggling Nigerian army officer. I had previously polished a Xinhua story that promised visitors could experience manning a warship. Having to gather in front of a wide screen with 20 others as the front of a ship’s image rocked from left to right was a minor letdown but the novelty was there. The Chinese navyman hogged the controls and we headed towards a distant island, eventually blowing up a piece of rock at the third attempt. A British naval officer filled me with confidence as we walked back into the main room. “That made me feel a bit funny actually.” Nearby, a Pakistani officer was explaining to a Chinese camera crew, at length, why the satellite imagery tool the PLA had designed produced inadequate detail when the zoom function was used. I couldn’t pick up the translator’s response to the camera but it was over ten times quicker than the officer’s critique.

All I remember from Part Three: Consolidating the Army’s Soul, Maintaining the Nature was a picture of Lei Feng. Part Four: To Build the Army with Diligence and Thrift, To Guarantee Adequate Logistical Support was beginning to test the resolve of the Dutch naval officer. The left side of his face was beginning to adopt a “Why are you telling me that?” kind of look. Even the stewardess’ smile was narrowing ever so slightly as she reeled off some stats. “This machine can make five thousand loaves of bread a day”.

Part Five: Independent Innovation, Leapfrog Development. The highlight was a Top Gun style video featuring missiles blasting off various warships and quickly out of shot. Fantastic stuff. The “peaceful rise” PR officers must have had a fit when they went to the premiere. Nearly finished but still time to admire the new “07-style” PLA uniforms up close. There was a touching moment when a Pakistani officer went up to the army jacket and fondled it enviously. It was probably Captain Shahid Baig of China Daily fame.

Captain Shahid Baig, of Pakistani air force, was interested in the PLA’s new uniforms. “I think the new uniforms are very fashionable, modern and special, very different from many other countries’.”

Part Six: To Keep the Aim firmly in Mind, To Build the Country and Part Seven: To Stand Facing The World, To Safeguard the Peace faded into insignificance with the arrival of a raucous bunch of African officers of varying nationalities. The commotion nudged up a notch when they spied a globe dotted with red lights, showing the extent of the PLA’s international influence. My French is rusty but, from what I could work out, a red light that was supposed to be flashing in the Democratic Republic of Congo had gone walkies over the border to the Republic of Congo. Much mockery of the former’s soldiers ensued until they were distracted by the possibility of a photo shoot with a whole brigade of air stewardesses. The ladies adopted suspiciously model-like poses and each soldier took it in turns to recreate the Charlie’s Angels advert.

All that was left to be done was to sign another guestbook, the farewell edition. The Dutch naval officer was asked to convey his feelings in writing. “I don’t think so,” he grinned affably as he strode into the night. The messages were right out of the diplomatic top drawer. “An absolute pleasure to see China’s outstanding development in the military field. Best of luck for the future.” I wrote something about the air stewardess’ nice smiles but was trumped by my colleague. “LOOK OUT TAIWAN!” he scrawled across the middle of the page. We left in a hurry, which was regrettable as I didn’t get to see the reaction of our foreign expert chaperone who was wondering what the immature sniggering was all about. The exhibition runs for another two weeks or so and is well worth a visit, particularly, as a friend pointed out, since it provides an opportunity to buy a genuine PLA 80th anniversary watch which could be worth a bob or two in the future.

And so, finally, it is here. The 80th birthday of China’s People’s Liberation Army. The celebrations started with an “Editor’s Note” on June 8 guaranteed to send the heart of a Xinhua polisher sinking to the bottom of the Mariana trench.

EDITOR’S NOTE: August 1, 2007, is the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Xinhua English service begins releasing a series of special reports on the anniversary from June 8, 2007).

Since then, something like 35 PLA-anniversary-related stories have been released in English - others have been cast out cruelly into the wasteland. The number of Chinese stories is thought to exceed 200. Xinhua hasn’t been taking orders from the PLA to flood their wire services with military tales - the agency’s top bods believe the anniversary is a unique opportunity to report on the inner workings of the notoriously opaque army. In this sense, they are right. But, as is demonstrated day in, day out, quantity does not equate to quality.

The sheer volume of features filed from barracks all over China serves to give the impression that the PLA is becoming more transparent. Compared to years gone by, it is. Xinhua reporters have never been allowed this level of access before although some reporters had to follow some bizarre procedures to be allowed to interview soliders, none of which I will mention here as they have probably already been classified as state secrets. Unfortunately, many of the features that have crossed my path, many of which I have recommended to be killed, contain glaring trivialities. One report focused on members of the “Blue Army” attacking the “Red Army” in a military exercise, the Blue Army being the PLA’s mock enemy. Here is a teaser:

Major Luo Chuanquan said his 8-year-old son was initially very confused and depressed when he discovered that his father was an “enemy” of the PLA.

“But now he understands and admires what I do,” said Luo, with a beam of pleasure.

Going back to the transparency issue, on Monday, this story was released about the prowess of “China’s third-generation main battle tank” - in fact it is among the most advanced in the world, according to an armoured regiment commander. We weren’t allowed to mention the actual “type” of the tank even though it appears to be common knowledge on the internet - www.sinodefence.com appears to be comprehensive.

Some of the more blatant pieces of propaganda have been enjoyable to deconstruct. One story arrived on Monday, two days before the big day, which told of a detachment of the local Armed Police in Gansu paying a rural Tibetan girl her primary school tuition fees so she wouldn’t have to drop out of school. It began with a tale of hardship before featuring a line from the journalist that signalled a change in tone to one of optimism and that suggested the Party needs to reinforce its atheistic teachings: “But heaven always leaves a door open …”. The main thing that troubled me about this article was the fact that in 2006 Premier Wen Jiabao had announced free compulsory education of nine years in the rural areas. So which was it? The school still charging fees or the local armed police exaggerating?

It turned out to be the latter and the writer, to his credit, immediately acknowledged the article’s flaws rather than arguing its relevance. He had gone to the local branch of the armed police in Lanzhou but the officers weren’t feeling particularly talkative. Instead, they bused in the Tibetan girl - a journey that took her three hours from her home in the middle of nowhere - and asked her to reel off how delighted she was. We finally established the armed police branch gave five girls in the area a total of 200 yuan a year each to help with buying books and clothes. Admirably charitable but hardly worthy of an international boast.

It has been fascinating to observe the whole PLA reporting operation. I sat in my office the other day watching a reporter photocopy reams of PLA-related material, assisted silently by an intern. I considered the huge amount of resources - manpower, money and time - that had gone into writing all these features. I thought about how much of the information would be read or used by other media. The scale of the pointlessness of the task was overwhelming. At best, snippets of features are chopped up and pasted into articles with no mention of Xinhua News Agency, such as in this blog post by Independent correspondent Cliff Coonan. The following paragraph contains the essence of three tedious Xinhua features:

To coincide with the anniversary, local media have been running stories offering an insight into the life of soldiers in the famously secretive army. They are still not allowed to use mobile phones or iPods in many cases, and they still often grow their own food on the grounds of the barracks. Soldiers have found that the introduction of limited internet access on the bases has allowed them to make their voices better heard.

Cliff’s post also included a paragraph from a four-page Xinhua story on how the PLA has developed over 80 years.

“We have no food and uniforms, but enemies will deliver them to us, we have no guns and cannons, but enemies will make them for us,” runs the stirring Song of the Guerilla, which was first written in 1938 and is still a popular marching song today.

Actually, when this feature was injected with an admission that China had received military assistance from the Soviet Union, it was a fairly good read. So if you only read one PLA feature from Xinhua …

The best thing to come out of the military reporting frenzy has been the opportunity for journalists in my department to spend two weeks  at a time staying at barracks in the back of beyond, even if it means, as one reporter had to do, feigning an allergy to alcohol to escape the merciless baijiu drinking competitions. Actually, an interview with the Chinese army’s drinking king would be a good one. One reporter stood with soldiers in Liaoning looking out over the North Korean border at the lights collectively going out early in the evening and the sight of workers going to the fields en masse in the morning. PLA soliders staring quizzically at their curious Communist neighbours. Could make a nice story.

Luckily, there is no danger in me forgetting Xinhua’s PLA coverage over the last few weeks. In fact, plans are afoot to compile all the English stories into a book. I assured the senior editor I wouldn’t be showing it off to my family or future employers. He suggested I tell them that the grammar is mine but not the actual content. Ummm … Although, without wishing to appear like I’m pinning a medal on my own lapel, I do deserve half the credit (the other half to the reporter) for an amusing story on military songs being downloaded to mobile phones despite the releaser slashing a couple of witty paragraphs without remorse.

BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — In an effort to cash in on the 80th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China Unicom, the country’s second largest mobile phone operator, has launched its own military service.

Subscribers will be able to receive military news from the People’s Liberation Army newspaper and download military songs and movies at a cost of between eight and ten yuan a month, or two yuan for each clip or track.

Yu Peng, a senior official with China Unicom, was coy when asked if the service, which has been running for a week, had been in high demand.

“It is too early to say - we are promoting the channel and carrying out market research as well as uploading songs, pictures and movies,” he said.

“I believe it will be popular since we have so many military fans in China. We have more than 300,000 pictures of weapons and military figures in our database along with clips of hundreds of movies, such as Battle for Berlin, Normandy Invasion and Shang Ganling, a movie about the Korean War,” he said.

“I guess I will subscribe to the service when more cool stuff, like the newest jet fighters and nuclear submarines, are added in the channel,” said 28-year-old military nut Yang Yong.

“It’s not just about making money. By doing it, we are celebrating the PLA’s 80th anniversary,” Yu said, “and, in the process, providing more healthy content through mobile phones.”

Rock on, as they say. (If anyone is still interested, “Partying with the PLA - Part 2″ follows tomorrow with a report on an evening spent rubbing shoulders with African generals at the exhibition marking the anniversary. Oh, the perks that come with being classified as a “foreign expert”).