The U.S. Senate has approved a resolution apologizing for the nation’s past discriminatory laws that targeted Chinese immigrants, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

- Los Angeles Times

Well it’s about fucking time. Gee it only took you, what, 129 years? Okay, it’s ancient history, just tell me where I line up for my 40 acres and mule. What? Farmland is in a bubble and there’s too many Chinese people and not enough mules? What do you mean, too many Chinese people? That’s right, you’d better rephrase it. You know, maybe what you’re really afraid of is you won’t be able to tell all of us apart, you racist fuck.

Whatever, just give me some money and I’ll leave my shoe on my foot instead of up your ass. What? There’s no monetary reparations in this resolution? What exactly does it resolve then? It sure as fuck won’t resolve the money I owe my daughter’s piano tutor, or her future student loans for Princeton law. (Ann, I’m not going to have this discussion right now!)

You know what? Fuck your resolution. You owe us Chinese-Americans way more than some half-assed, century-late apology. Especially us first-generation Chinese-Americans. What the fuck did you just say? You don’t owe me anything because I only came to this country 20 years ago? Guess again fuckwad. Unlike Chinese-Americans who were grandfathered in, I had to scratch and claw my way to this country. I had to lie to my government and pretend I was going back after my Master’s in electrical engineering. Oh, and one small thing: I had to live through something called THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION. Umm, maybe you’ve heard of it. If not, here’s the Cliff’s Notes: it made Japanese occupation look like A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

If my family had been allowed to enter your precious little country at the turn of the century to build railroads or pan gold, I wouldn’t have to be subjected to taunts about my fobby accent every fucking day. If my grandfather had been allowed to demean himself a century ago, meet my grandmother in a Chinatown brothel, my mother could have been a waitress, working two jobs to send me to college. And I, I would own a software company and my son would be the Secretary of Energy by now, not some gang banger who races his riced-out Civic every night. That’s a joke but you laughed, didn’t you? I DON’T EVEN HAVE A SON YOU FUCKING RACIST.

Let’s face facts: 130 years ago, Chinese people were one-tenth of California’s population. If this abominable law had not been passed, Chinese-Americans could have taken over all of California by now, not just Berkeley. If you really want to make this right, you need to make someone Chinese the governor of California. He can still be a movie star. How about John Cho? I DON’T CARE, HE LOOKS CHINESE.

In addition to this, I want Panda Express to be rebranded as a legitimate and respectable Chinese dining establishment and all Amy Tan novels banned from public libraries. Chinese culture has been reduced to kitschy, Orientalist caricature for long enough.

I want the unfair portrayal of Chinese people in mass media to stop. All Chinese characters in movies or TV should either have a huge penis or drive well. They can be poor at math if it is integral to the story.

Lastly, I want a blanket apology for all of it. Everything. I want an apology for slavery (fuck it, why not?), Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and white people thinking Joe Wong is funny.

And I want it now. Unless you’re considering the money. Really, I’d settle for the money.

“It’s niiice, very nice.” (In what I assume was an imitation of Borat’s voice.)

Ok then. Thinking that it was over, I ventured to ask about our mutual friend. But no sooner had I begun talking than I was interrupted with—

“60 percent of the time, it works every time.”

… I’d been hit again. I let the conversation end there, as it was unlikely that anything resembling an original thought was going to come out of this person. I wondered: just how often had this situation happened to me? And how many minutes of my life had I lost to overused and poorly-reenacted movie quotes, taken completely out of context and dropped into a dialogue in which they had no place and made no sense?

—

We’ve all been there, in more or less the same scenario, with the substitution of one over-quoted catchphrase for another. It seems that any movie that is slightly funny is doomed to join the ranks of comedically abused films. The misuse of famous lines from these films causes everyone but the unfunny to lose interest in the movie, as all the humor has been violently beaten out of every word by sheer overuse—a comedic tragedy of the commons. Overzealous fans of these flicks can be heard chanting their battle cry of “I’m kind of a big deal.”

No, not really. You’re not kind of anything, except a god damn over-quoter.

An over-quoter, or O.Q., is one who grossly overuses movie and/or TV show dialogue as a means of communication. In my experience, the lines that are most grossly overused are plucked from famous comedies. These lines are used by the over-quoter in lieu of any original punch lines in an attempt to inject humor into a conversation. The O.Q. then leaves it to you to make the transitive connection: this movie is funny; I like this movie; therefore, I am funny. The more dedicated O.Q.’s will assume the role of the character being quoted; they will force you to stand through entire monologues as they imitate voices and facial expressions while you struggle to keep smiling and feign laughter.

One symptom that the most egregious over-quoters seem to share is a disconnect between their internal monologue and the reality of the situation, such as not knowing their audience but finding their quoting to be relevant and funny regardless of the reaction it gets. Sure, sometimes a germane and well-timed quote can enhance an anecdote or enrich a conversation. But the failure on the part of the O.Q. occurs in the use of quotes as a replacement for, rather than an accessory to, any original humor. The most embarrassing situation (embarrassing for the listener, because the speaker is too disconnected from reality to tell) follows when an O.Q. drops a quote that no one understands, often from a movie or show that the audience hasn’t even seen. This leads to even more time being held hostage by an explanation of the scene(s) in the movie/TV show leading up to the quote. Here the O.Q. unknowingly works against himself by breaking yet another rule of humor: if you have to explain why something is funny, it probably never was.

This type of discourse has become so prevalent in the English language that it even exists in other forms. The first cousin of the over-quoter, equally obnoxious but less offensive in that it doesn’t consume entire portions of conversations, is the one-liner. The culprit here clings desperately to the phrase-of-the-day that has gone mainstream and interjects it into conversations to fill a silence. Some of the most infamous include, “bad news bears,” “FAIL,” and this year’s champion: “epic.” These phrases differ from their movie quote brethren in that one-liners, much like a criminal record, were never funny in the first place and yet refuse to go away.

So what are we to do with the over-quoters of the world? Why is it that some are driven to abuse lines previously delivered (more successfully) by others? I suppose there are many reasons, but what I find apparent in most of these individuals is the burning desire to be the comedian of the group. There is a difference between being a person who happens to be funny, and being a comedian. O.Q.’s, I beseech you: Do not try to be a comedian. It reeks of trying too hard.

Granted, everyone caves to the pressures of society; we change the way they dress or act depending on how we think others will perceive us. There’s no crime in that. But at some point we all have to say, “Damn the man,” (quote!) and do what we do in our own unusual way. Humor is no exception. While we may connect with people who share our sense of humor, the way we each express ourselves and our personal take on humor is unique and can’t, and shouldn’t, be copied.

Some of the most entertaining people to talk with are those who are self-admittedly “not funny.” These sorts of people tend to be genuine in their own, sometimes awkward way, providing a kind of natural humor that proves you don’t need to dominate the conversation as the “funny guy” in order to be funny. Everyone has something to bring to the table, and a natural dialogue in which people’s strengths are inherently displayed is far superior to the tension of a group of individuals with something to prove. So maybe you’re not the funniest person in the bunch—so what? Perhaps you have some interesting facts or anecdotes to offer. Or maybe you’re a great listener with the ability to put others at ease. Or, if you answered “no” to all of the above, then I hope you’re at least attractive.

Editor’s Note: This article is the second of three responses to David Sedaris’ piece on Chinese food in The Guardian. The other two are a rebuttal and a defense.

—

China is Icky
by David Sedaris

Before I went to China, I made sure to know nothing about it. No books, no movies, not even the lottery numbers inside fortune cookies. The only thing I knew about China was that my rosewood end table and Zen-chic Roman shades were manufactured there. It was a conscious decision, because I wanted to hate the country and the people as much as possible, and I was afraid that if I weren’t completely ignorant going in, I might accidentally gain perspective and unwittingly feel empathy, which, let me tell you, isn’t very funny. So it was for humor that I endeavored to be as prejudiced and anal retentive as possible during my trip, to see how much of a spoiled dandy I could be if I really worked hard at it.

The first thing you notice about China is the people. All the people, people here, people there, people just walking, walking on the street like cavemen waiting for the wheel to be invented. It certainly didn’t help that I had just come from Japan where no one walks—a civilized country where people take cabs or feel each other up in crowded trains instead of lumbering around like ambulatory automatons.

Come to think of it, Japan is better than China in every conceivable way. I lost track of how many times I wished, standing amidst a herd of sweaty Chinamen, that the Japanese had finished taking over the country when they had the chance because I am sick and tired of having no place to hang my umbrella when I go to the bathroom. In addition to the lack of umbrella hangers, there was not a bidet in sight. In Japan, my hand never got within a foot of my own rectum but in China, not only is there no toilet paper in the stall, but you have to wipe your ass… by yourself. I’m sorry, I’m a clean freak so the only time I touch my own asshole is when I’m enjoying a lazy Saturday night in bed with Amelie and an anal bleaching kit.

Don't believe Chinese people eat shit? Then why are dumplings so popular?

What’s more, In Japan, no one looks like a peasant. I was at dinner one night and this beast of a woman whom I was pretending to enjoy the company of took the liberty of ordering for me. When the food came, I asked the question no else dared: “How are you supposed to eat these rabbit heads?” She looked at me as if I were some uptight twat and said, “Use your hands.” My hands? But I just moisturized.

Anyway, it was one of these “authentic” countryside restaurants, which basically meant that it was in the middle of nowhere and inhabited by dark-skinned, wrinkly animals, I mean poor people. In Japan, there are no poor people. Everyone is well-dressed and professional. But in this restaurant there were so many mismatched outfits—Mao suit with sneakers, hello?—it was almost as if 15.9% of the population were living on less than a dollar a half a day.

The food was so terrible I didn’t eat anything. Literally. I didn’t have a single bite but I know the food was terrible because it looked terrible. And luckily I write books about my own myopic opinions and shallow experiences so I don’t have to justify them in any rational or factual way. It’s also fun being a famous writer because I can make fun of anyone and they can’t fight back unless they have a book deal. But I doubt that fat whore who ordered the rabbit’s head knows anyone at Random House. By the way, if you’re reading this: you’re fat, stop pretending it’s a thyroid problem.

Some of you might find this offensive but remember: this is all just my witty and incisive opinion. I take no responsibility for anything I write or say because I am a caricature of myself. I shield myself from criticism by hiding behind nonchalance and self-deprecation.

The next morning, with a different group—people kept making excuses to get away from me for some reason—I fed my masochism and ventured into another restaurant. But here our tour guides—two harpies from England whom I fantasized about decapitating with my scrapbooking scissors—insisted that we use chopsticks, which are like the official Chinese utensil or something. Did the fork never make it over here? If I had a time machine, I’d go back and hand Marco Polo a set of cutlery before he set off for the Orient.

I don’t get why Chinese people can’t act like civilized people, like Westerners. I don’t mean to be racist here, but what are they, retarded or something? They spit on the street and don’t use diapers and piss in sinks. I mean, I might be able to accept that if their per capita GDP were six times less than America’s. Or if their traditional culture and beliefs had been beaten out of them by 30 years of deleterious class struggle, but—and I haven’t read any books or anything—I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen.

I guess what I don’t like about China is that the people there are poor and dirty. But that’s just between you and me LiveJournal.

People waiting expectantly for their turn to get colossally fucked.

Disclaimer: The following attempt at humor should not, under any circumstances, be taken seriously.

Celebrations are being held all over China today to mark 90 years of the Communist Party completely fucking up their citizens’ lives. In towns and villages across the country, odes to the absolute ineptitude of the CCP are being sung in praise of nearly a century of near-constant mismanagement and disaster.

In a buoyant press conference, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Xiaoming said, “It is amazing to consider the number of lives we have utterly destroyed or shattered beyond repair, and all in under a century.” He paused to wipe tears from his eyes. “We are proud to have so consistently and unrelentingly buttfucked the Chinese people.”

The Party has spared no expense in informing the Chinese people just how terribly they have been reamed. The CCP has produced over 30 television shows that dramatize their myriad failed policies, false promises, and brutal purges: from the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the six weeks during which citizens were encouraged to criticize the Party only to be jailed or sent to labor camps when they voiced their opinion, to Mao’s policy of establishing backyard furnaces in communes, where peasants melted household metal in order to manufacture steel. The resulting steel was useless and the diversion of resources and labor caused crop failures and the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese.

According to Xie Bin, a Chinese history professor at Fudan University and lifelong CCP member, “the Communist Party of China was founded almost a century ago with the expressed purpose to bufu the Chinese people into poverty. First, we fucked them into actual poverty, now we have fucked them into spiritual poverty. It has been a long and arduous road.”

Indeed, in recent years the Party’s track record has been impeccable. Endemic corruption, increasing racial tensions, tightening restrictions on the Internet and free speech, a widening income gap, lack of health care coverage, and spiraling inflation are just some of the miseries the Party has utilized to emotionally rape its citizens.

“From building the Three Gorges Dam, which displaced over 1.2 million people, to the poor construction of schools, which killed thousands of children during the Wenchuan Earthquake, we have worked tirelessly to wreck and abruptly end Chinese lives,” Politburo member Liu Wenjian said in a speech. “But there are just so damn many of them even if we had a thousand milk powder scandals we couldn’t kill everyone.”

The Party never rests when there are lives to destroy.

To keep track of how badly they are porking the population, giant screens have been set up in government offices, displaying the number of lives irreparably destroyed so far this year. “Every time one of our policies causes someone to lose their livelihood or immolate themselves, we increase the tally by one. We were afraid we weren’t going to get to one million before the big day,” said an official with the Central Organization Department. “So we went out and bulldozed a couple of houses. Now we have over a million.”

Political parties ranging from incompetent to downright evil lauded the CCP on the continual mistreatment of their own people. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad expressed their admiration for the Chinese regime, saying the willingness to indiscriminately kill your own citizens is a must when it comes to terrible leadership. For his part, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner gave a teary-eyed speech on the House floor in which he eulogized the CCP’s “unparalleled ability to ruin people’s lives on an unprecedented scale while still somehow enjoying their support.” Boehner expressed hope that his own party might one day, God willing, outdo the CCP.

In a customary flourish, the Party has coincided the release of artist and activist Ai Weiwei with the anniversary. An official close to the case said, “First we throw him in prison for 81 days without charges, now we release him and ask for 12 million yuan in back taxes and fines. That makes 1,000,047.” He sighed wistfully, “I almost want to go up to him and say, ‘We’re just fuckin’ with ya. Literally.’ ”

Although they have perfected the art of heartlessly sodomizing swaths of their own population, the Party is not letting its guard down. ”In the following years we vow to increase the arbitrariness of the legal system, make it so that no one except the CEOs of state-owned enterprises can afford housing, and induce environmental devastation on a scale that will make Fukushima look like Arbor Day,” spokesman Wang said. “There’s still a lot of fucking left to do. It’s been a good 90 years. Here’s to 90 more.”

A recording purported to have been made by Osama Bin Laden shortly before he died has been released by al-Qaeda.

- BBC

Album cover for the multi-platinum CD.

The music world was jolted alive this week when the late Osama bin Laden, hailed as the father of militant Islamic rap, released his first posthumous album, The Qur’an-icle, just one month after his death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs. Bin Laden was known best for his nihilistic Islamic ideology and global campaign of terror, but music fans knew him as one of the most seminal rappers in the Middle East.

Bin Laden delves into a wide range of issues in his fifth and, what some are calling his greatest, album. Many tracks (“Jihadi 4 Life,” “I’m So Haram (feat. KSM & T-Pain),” “More Wives than Goats”) are the usual fare about what the rapper himself dubs “riyals, rupees, and rims”; but in “Virgins All Around,” a frenetic rap number that effortlessly blends samples from Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, bin Laden explores his haunting conception of the afterlife; while “Fuck the ISI,” proves bin Laden hasn’t forgotten his hip-hop mujahedeen roots, and settles, once and for all, that the terrorist leader was definitely not on friendly terms with the Pakistani intelligence agency.

But the aging rapper saves his most sophisticated rhymes for the diss track “Osama > Obama,” continuing the rap battle between bin Laden and the U.S. President. In it, bin Laden raps about shooting down Air Force One with a shoulder-mounted RPG and insinuates that he has had intercourse with the First Lady. Overall, The Qur’an-icle confirms that bin Laden, even deceased, is still the most controversial rapper in the game.

Not surprisingly, the reviews have been unfailingly positive. Rolling Stone called it “revelatory” and “a celebration of life, death, and everything in between,” while Pitchfork’s Mike Lowell called it, “divinely inspired… Mohammad who? It’s Osama who’s getting his verses straight from Allah.”

The fan reaction to the album, however, has not been so positive. Some lifelong fans feel cheated because some tracks are just rehashes of bin Laden’s old hits, including “Jihad-knock Life (Allahu Akbar remix)” and “Carmen Sandiego (remix feat. Hennaman & The Tora Bora Boyz).” Others were previously leaked on bin Laden’s last mixtape, The Laden III.

But perhaps the most exciting track on The Qur’an-icle is “I’m Tha Bomb” (to be released as the second single), in which bin Laden raps from the point of view of a suicide bomber and delivers brilliantly on the double entendre of the title by contrasting the explosive power of the charge strapped to his chest with the fecklessness of impoverished Arab youth. The resulting track—part recruiting anthem for al-Qaeda (bin Laden’s rap label), part meditation on the roots of Islamic terrorism—is exultant and could prove to be the surprise hit of the summer.

Before his untimely death, even bin Laden’s loudest critics recognized him as a rapper at the top of his game and praised his courage to rap about issues others wouldn’t dare to. In “Turbans in the Air,” bin Laden criticizes how “tolerant” and “pussy” Islam has gotten and calls for a return to fundamentalism. While in “Abottabadass,” bin Laden blatantly taunts his American foes and ridicules their inability to locate him. He defiantly raps, “You call that shit intelligence? You infidel scum / Where I’m at ya’ll don’t got a clue, Professor Plum,” over the simmering chorus, “Shi’ites gonna hate / Fuck ‘em, my mansion’s got a gate / I’m an Abottabadass.”

Though bin Laden’s demise has hit the militant Islamic rap industry hard, an A&R from al-Qaeda Records said that bin Laden was prolific in his writing.  “Bin Laden knew this day was coming,” he said. “He had a studio full of unreleased tracks. Like any great rapper, death won’t stop him from dropping albums.”

Worried shoppers stripped stores of salt in Beijing, Shanghai and other parts of China on Thursday in the false belief it can guard against radiation exposure, even though any fallout from a crippled Japanese nuclear power plant is unlikely to reach the country.

The Guardian

BEIJING, China – Amid growing concerns about radiation leakage from the Fukushima Daiichi plant spreading to China, pencil sales in the nation have skyrocketed following false rumors that pencil lead could be used to protect against radiation.

In Beijing, residents rushed into stationery stores, snatching pencils and refillable lead off the shelves after receiving forwarded text messages that read, in part:

BUY PENCILS! They are your only salvation from a slow, torturous, radioactive death.

- Best wishes from the Lianbi Pencil Company Co. Ltd.

Liu Shuai was one of the lucky ones. Clutching a wholesale box of number two pencils, she admitted triumphantly that she had “elbowed a child in the face for these.” When asked how pencils could prevent against neutrons traveling at 6 percent the speed of light, or beta decay within the body after unwittingly ingesting radioactive isotopes, Liu was at a loss.

Classes in many small cities have been cancelled due to a “lack of writing implements,” an education ministry official said. The official urged teachers nationwide to move away from bubble-in multiple choice tests until pencil stocks re-stabilized.

In a vain attempt to control the panic, spokesman Wang Xiaoming said in a press conference this morning, “I cannot state this clearly enough: there is and never was any lead in pencils. It is a misnomer; the so-called lead is actually an allotrope of carbon called graphite. I know we lie a lot, but this is actually true.”

But Lanzhou native Xie Minfeng is not listening. “I don’t trust the government. They just want all the pencils for themselves.” Xie had ransacked his daughter’s primary school in search of the poor metal and was in the middle of smelting the pencil cores in order to coat his house and clothes with the molten lead.

Wealthier citizens are trying to replicate the safety mechanisms of the plant itself. Eccentric millionaire Chen Xiaobai had a replica of a spent fuel pool built beneath his mansion in the Beijing suburbs. Encased in 6 feet of water Chen gurgled, “I heard spent nuclear fuel is deposited under 6 feet of water for 1 to 3 years in order to prevent neutron radiation. I’m not taking any chances. See you in 2014.”

Other citizens, fearful of an economic collapse, are snatching up Japanese exports while they still can. Long lines have been reported outside sushi restaurants and adult DVD stores. 27-year-old Zhao Yuan, who has scoured his neighborhood for pornography, was very concerned. “We don’t know how this catastrophe will affect the Japanese adult entertainment industry. Will these actresses want to be with their families during this tragedy? Will they still be in the mood to be tied up and banged in the back of a van? The future is uncertain.”

—

HENAN – Archaeologists excavating at a site near Yinxu, the capital of the Shang Dynasty (1766-1050 BC) made a startling discovery this week when they uncovered what seemed to be fossilized remains of Chinese citizens in the form of a line.

Wang Guwei, a senior paleontologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences says that the discovery represents “a paradigm shift in the understanding of Chinese people.” He continued, “The scientific community has long believed that Chinese people were genetically unable to stand in a line to wait for something.”

Indeed, years and years of sociological and medical research have reinforced this conclusion. In 1994, Tsinghua University performed the famous “Bus Stop” experiment where students were led to a fake bus and told to remain in single-file as the bus pulled in. Researchers then watched as the students pushed, jostled, and trampled each other to get on the bus, even though it was empty and had more than enough seats for everyone.

Wang mused, “To think, perhaps as recently as 3,000 years ago, Chinese people possessed the ability to align themselves directly behind another human being. In modern times, Chinese people are only ever seen in a linear formation during military processions and firing squads.”

The discovery is being hailed as a milestone in anthropology, tantamount to the Java Man and the Chauvet cave paintings, and could force researchers in other areas of Sinology to rethink their theories about Chinese people and their queuing ability.

But there is hardly consensus among academics about what the find means. “I don’t think we can rush to conclusions here,” says Beijing Normal University professor Gu Weibo. “There must be some explanation. Maybe they were performing a dance, or playing some sort of practical joke, we don’t know.” Gu is the author of seven books and has studied Chinese society and ethics for most of his life. “I cannot believe that any reasonable, sane Chinese person would choose to purposefully increase the time he or she spends waiting out of deference to someone else. It just doesn’t make sense.”

[The Norwegian Nobel Committee] said in a statement that the envoys of Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco would miss the [Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony] “for various reasons.”

Meanwhile Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that more than 100 countries supported Beijing.

- BBC

Speaking in front of a large gathering of reporters, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Xiaoming urged the disreputable and untrustworthy countries of the world to join together in symbolically boycotting the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony.  Wang welcomed “illegitimate dictatorships, autocratic regimes, drug-fueled banana republics, corrupt theocracies, war-torn hellholes, and all-around shitty countries” to “march with us in solidarity against openness, tolerance, and equality.”

Almost immediately, sheisty nations around the world including Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Colombia, Iran, Pakistan, and Serbia responded that they too would boycott the ceremony.

Less openly reprobate countries had to be goaded into not attending.  In a later press conference, Wang argued, “If you attend this ceremony, it is saying, ‘Please, give dissidents in our country awards to highlight how corrupt and illegitimate our rule is.’  Then you’ll have to censor websites, throw peaceful protesters in jail, wage a PR war that ultimately makes you look like an ass, and maybe even kill a few innocent people.  Save yourself the trouble.”

Wang expressed surprise that comic dystopias North Korea and Zimbabwe had not yet announced their communion with China but forgave them, saying that they were probably “too busy trying not to starve.”  Wang added that, “My colleague Jiang Yu has just informed me that 812 failed states and 4 intergalactic empires are now with us.”

When asked if, in recognition of their fealty, China planned to support these countries in the future, he laughed.  ”It’s a big world out there with a lot of fucked up countries.  I wouldn’t trust any of them.”

As the Chilean miners dramatically emerged from 69 days of underground imprisonment, their joyous escape was aired non-stop on television stations around the globe.
China’s Xinhua news agency and state television reported from the ground, and popular news portals Sohu and Sina set up special sections on their front pages featuring details on the rescue effort.

- World News Australia

Yesterday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Xiaoming congratulated Chilean president Sebastián Piñera on the overwhelmingly successful rescue operation, calling it “one of the most successful deflections of blame I have ever seen.” He praised the President on miraculously shifting world focus from the deplorable conditions of his country’s mines to the miners’ fight for survival.

Propaganda department official Yang Wei expressed awe at how easily the international media was derailed.  ”The whole world was watching, and yet no one talked about culpability or what criminal negligence led to the situation in the first place. We would really like to tap into that kind of distraction.”

The event made Chinese officials realize that the one thousand plus accidents that occur annually in China were being severely mishandled. Yang said that, with a little work, future mining accidents in China could also be as uplifting.

Provincial officials plan to pour an unprecedented amount of investment into making sure that all of China’s estimated 16,000 coal mines have adequate press centers and can handle journalists from around the world. Shanxi Party secretary Liu Shuai expressed dismay that more than 2,000 people died in poorly publicized mining accidents last year.  ”The best way to prevent these depressing deaths is and has always been to turn them into heroic rescues.”

Wang Zhuchen, a student in international relations at Fudan University, said he was surprised — and also impressed — to hear the U.S. president talk of his family and children. A Chinese leader, he said, would never discuss anything personal in public.

Wang, a Party member, quickly added that this did not reflect badly on Chinese leaders but merely their “different traditions and culture.”

- Washington Post

SHANGHAI – Chinese students in Shanghai were shocked, appalled, incredulous, and generally uncomfortable at President Obama’s town hall meeting yesterday afternoon.

The audience, made up of carefully-screened students from several Shanghai universities, was stunned that a head of state could have a personality and speak to them as if they were real people. “We expected to be addressed en masse like subjects,” said Jiaotong University student Wang Jiabo. “I didn’t think he would look at or acknowledge us. It was incredibly alienating.”

21-year-old electrical engineering student and Communist Party member Liu Huajian was “absolutely mortified” that a head of state would deign to talk about his personal feelings. “I thought he was going to ignore us, plaster on a smile, and remain motionless for the duration of the hour but instead he harangued us endlessly about his feelings. Has he no shame?”

Students exiting the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum where the event was held noted that the American president looked “oddly human” when he took the stage and that Obama appeared comical standing on a low stage holding a microphone while taking questions from the audience. One student wondered, “I don’t understand. He’s the president. Why wasn’t he pontificating from the top of a tall gate erected in his honor or before an over-sized portrait of himself?”

Many were confused as to why a political figure would voluntarily interact with citizens not as part of a PR campaign after a natural disaster or a photo opportunity with children with balloons.

Zhang Yun, a third-year Fudan University student, expressed dismay at how ill-prepared Obama was. “He didn’t even have a sheaf of paper from which he could read from slowly and laboriously in a monotone. It’s like he wasn’t even trying.”

Students were not the only ones disappointed. Xiao Yang, a political commentator on state radio, described the event as “maudlin and unprofessional,” noting the distinct lack of interminable lists and empty platitudes.

In the end, it seemed that Obama was unable to please anyone. Shanghai residents took umbrage that streets around the museum were shut down. Said one local, “Some American decides to have a little show and tell and our streets get shut down. And for what? I couldn’t find coverage of it anywhere.”