It’s November, which is one of the worst times to visit Beijing. The other bad times include December, January, Chinese New Years, March, April, May 1st Holiday, June, July, August, the first part of September, and the October 1st holiday.
November is cold, it is gray and dusty, and the city folk are in dark moods as they stack cabbage and coal and prepare to hunker down for five months of winter.
But none of that matters to Barack Obama. And we must thank the president (or so goes the rumor mill in my hutong) for inspiring the Beijing weather gnomes over the past few weeks to cast their spell for early snow and crisp blue skies with a thin dollop of white stuff to cover the usual Beijing beige.
Yesterday, President Obama participated in a “Town Hall meeting” in Shanghai with the youth in Asia. Now I grew up in New Hampshire so I know a thing or two about town hall meetings, but yesterday’s event (highlights here) was so tightly scripted and cautious it made the Republican National Convention look like Burning Man.
Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap offers his thoughts, writing that President Obama’s performance resembled “an overly coached American businessman on his first trip to China, so concerned about what he should or should not say that he forgets what he wanted to say in the first place, and ends up going home with nothing but a hotel bill and empty promises.” Ouch.
I agree though, for the greatest orator of our time you would think President Obama might have been able to come up with a phrase more elegant than “I support non-censorship.”
Well, that’s just great, Barack. Thanks! I personally oppose not getting ice cream for my birthday and I am firmly in support of not-drunk airline pilots.
Not that most “mainstream” Chinese (thank you, Wang Zheng) cared or even noticed, or for that matter had any idea it was happening. Access to the feed was limited (in contrast to past presidential visits) and there was no mention of the event on the 7:00 Evening News.
In the end, Barack Obama’s steadfast support for “non-censorship” was, you guessed it…censored.
Frankly, nothing makes the Chinese government and the CCP look more like a bunch of scared old men than restricting access to information, and there is no greater obstacle to international respectability for the PRC than the continued suppression of dissent. That, and their bizarre fixation on t-shirts.
It’s like the guy who swears his wife and kids love him, but then you find out that he has an anger problem, and that every so often he smacks around the kids and beats his wife. Now…they very well MIGHT love the guy, but you’re always going to have your suspicions otherwise.
(By the way, be sure and read Isaac Mao’s excellent essay on Internet censorship and the recent meeting between US officials and a select group of Chinese bloggers.)
Finally, from the same group that brought you Oba-Mao and flaming statues of the U.S. President…And no, I’m not talking about the Tea Party movement or Michelle Bachmann’s latest fundraiser, I mean the Chinese artistic community…we now have “Doughbama” and a sculpture of Barack made entirely of human hair.
Bundle up.
"Yesterday’s event [Obama's SH town hall] was so tightly scripted and cautious it made the RNC look like Burning Man." http://ow.ly/CUCv
There is no greater obstacle to international respectability for China than the continued suppression of dissent: http://bit.ly/3ZuFF5
[...] highly hyped English corner than a town hall meeting. Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap and Jeremiah at Jottings from the Granite Studio pretty much covered how I felt about the [...]