Beijing Newspeak

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.