Beijing Newspeak

I would equate the enjoyment experienced by a Xinhua journalist tasked with writing a story relating to Tiananmen Square 1989 to biting into a hollow baozi. Staring into a situation with the neon words “NO WIN” looming large, the writer has to craft the story without stringing the numbers 1, 9, 8 and 9 together, making sure he goes light on the implication; just a sprinkle to prove the subject hasn’t flown over his head, but not so much that his pay check is chopped in half at the end of the month.

And so it played out on Friday with news that Peking University had removed public notice boards at the centre of the campus to the annoyance of many students. The boards were mainly used to advertise apartments for rent or for job hunting so the act of demolition came as a great inconvenience, especially as the students were apparently not told of the removal. The trouble with this piece of news is that it was a local issue at best - certainly front-page student rag material - but hardly worthy of international attention. What’s that? The boards have a political history, you say? Oh dear.

The boards served as the hub of student discontent during the Tiananmen democracy protests, displaying poetry and slogans denouncing the government. This of course was the main reason why this story was worth writing. Time to take the highly entertaining self-censorship game to a new level.

We came up with this lead paragraph:

Peking University officials have sparked controversy by removing public notice boards from the center of the university campus that were formerly used by students to express their political, cultural and academic opinions.

Personally, I thought this was fair enough. Clearly, after nearly two years at Xinhua, I am still drowning in naiviety. The published version:

Peking University officials have sparked controversy by removing public notice boards from the center of the university campus that were formerly used by students to get various informations and express opinions.

And that’s the risk you take. Push the political limits and the lead paragraph ends up being clumsy and grammatically incorrect. I had gone easy later on in the story and my wishy-washy paragraph remained intact:

In the 1980s and 1990s, students published their poems, essays and other thoughts on a wide range of social issues on the notice boards and reading the posters at Sanjiaodi became part of daily life.

Overall, given the restraints were tighter than King Kong’s (even they snapped eventually I suppose), the Xinhua effort was as good as can be expected and included this attribution to the Nanfang Daily:

A Southern Metropolis Daily report said the university had demolished the boards in order to earn good marks in the upcoming inspection by the Ministry of Education later this month.

I should mention the headline though, for which I take full responsibility. I came up with the rather embarrassing: “Peking University prompts debate by removing notice boards with political history”. In hindsight, I should have a cone stuck on my head and be hoisted up the flagpole on Tiananmen Square at sunrise. The amended version was the amusingly awkward: “Peking University prompts debate by removing notice boards for trim campus”.

The next day Xu Zhiyong, president of Peking University, made an announcement, reported by Xinhua and picked up by Associated Press.

President Xu Zhiyong was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency on Saturday as saying the recent demolition of “Sanjiaodi,” a triangular plaza in the center of the campus featuring the boards, was needed to maintain order.

“No university in the world has a place in such disorder,” Xu was quoted as saying, adding that the boards had been used for advertising space by exam cheats and companies selling shoddy products.

He has a point of course. Ministry of Education inspectors do not like mess. I saw a photograph of the area under debate and around the triangular lawn, leaning against the fence, were rows of fluorescent advertisement boards. They were indeed creating a major eyesore. I’m not sure why these weren’t just removed, leaving the permanent boards intact.

I have had only one pathetic triumph regarding the insertion of “1989″ into Xinhua copy. In September last year, Chinese film director Lou Ye was banned from making films for five years for submitting his film Summer Palace to the Cannes Film Festival without government approval. The film featured scenes from the Tiananmen 1989 demonstrations. Xinhua’s policy appears to involve referring to anything untoward that happened in 1989 as occurring in the 1990s. After some pesky polishing:

“Summer Palace”, the only Asian film in the main competition of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, features a young Chinese couple’s erotic and complex relationship against a backdrop of civil unrest in Beijing in 1989.

I did this not out of mischief but because it was fact. But, yes, a Xinhua polisher does lead a petty life. And is immune to editorial fines.