this is very odd indeed

December 10, 2001 12:21 AM

this is very odd indeed chinese news media's flash tribute for the WTC tragedy rough translation for the song: elderly american goes to work
was very frightened someone drove a plane into the building and it fell down but he was very fit so he ran down 937 stairs and got away the news people asked him to say a few words that was all he could say he said someone crashed a plane into the building they were terrorists this is bad because it affects ordinary people
posted by quarsan (15 comments total)

nice to see that other people can make light of our national tragedy... remind me to do a lighthearted flash animation the next time the yangzte floods and kills a couple thousand of them.
posted by phalkin at 1:00 AM on December 10, 2001

This piece is in Mandarin and uses traditional characters which means it probably came from Taiwan, not Mainland China.
posted by chinstrap at 1:01 AM on December 10, 2001

Was there just as little punctuation in the song?
posted by eyeballkid at 2:02 AM on December 10, 2001

nice to see that other people can make light of our national tragedy... remind me to do a lighthearted flash animation the next time the yangzte floods and kills a couple thousand of them.

phalkin,

Who's to say that this is a joke? You are jumping to unfair conclusions (unless you can read and speak Chinese). Did you even see the slideshow after the animated portion?
posted by pooldemon at 2:14 AM on December 10, 2001

Phalkin,

You've never, ever seen a joke on TV about, say, starving Ethopians?
posted by vbfg at 2:14 AM on December 10, 2001

i apologise for not punctuating the song correctly - i accidentally hit post.......
the translation is rough, but the final slideshow section reads along the lines of our sympathies are with the people who got hurt in the terrible accident.....

phalkin's mandarin must be better than mine, from his post.
posted by quarsan at 2:22 AM on December 10, 2001

as a matter of fact, i forced my friend hsin-tai to translate for me. he says it's very disrespectfully worded.
posted by phalkin at 2:32 AM on December 10, 2001

See "Chinese Media See Attack on U.S. as Price for Bullying" by Damien McElroy: "The Chinese state-run propaganda machine is cashing in on the terror attacks in New York and Washington, producing books, films and video games glorifying the strikes as a humbling blow against an arrogant nation."
posted by Carol Anne at 4:31 AM on December 10, 2001

remind me to do a lighthearted flash animation the next time the yangzte floods and kills a couple thousand of them.

"them"? Can I remind you that there are a billion chinese, and this is one insensitive animation? You can find some asshole to make fun of any tragedy. I guarantee there are similar bits made by Americans. Just because you happened to come across this doesn't mean it's in any way representative of how the Chinese as a whole view our loss.
posted by jpoulos at 6:43 AM on December 10, 2001

Some of the content were disrespectful, but compared to Howard Stern, it's really nothing. Besides, the song empathizes with the people who died, and its rather harsh words were directed towards the US government. You might notice that if you go to the home site that's it's some kind of computer magazine, is it so outrageous that someone created a piece of animation that's maybe not so politically correct but rather says what the creator feels about the whole situation?

It's a satire, and the song the played at the end reminded me of a song that they played around the time of the Tienenmen Square massacre on the radio or whenever there was a show about it... does anyone else recognize it? It's always possible that I've screwed up my childhood recollection of that event.
posted by margaretlam at 7:47 AM on December 10, 2001

OK, my previous post about this piece probably coming from Taiwan was incorrect (although I still can't figure out why they used the traditional characters which are only used in Taiwan and Hong Kong). The animation is credited to a 51color.net, which, according to a WHOIS search is registered in Shanghai. They appear to be a web design shop/zine. Hardly the 'official' Chinese news media.

I've seen the WTC videos Carol Anne refers to for sale here in Beijing. They are not produced by "the Chinese state-run propaganda machine" as the link she posted suggests. They were slapped together by a bunch a private citizens trying to make a few bucks. The Uyghur Information Agency is extremely anti-Beijing and their editorials reflect that bias.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no big fan of the regime here, but the response of the official Chinese media to the September 11th attacks has been pretty moderate.
posted by chinstrap at 8:16 AM on December 10, 2001

I found it interesting that they included a 'fitness' moral. It was one of the first things I thought when I watched the news of the tragedy. Yet another instance where being fit can help save your life.
posted by srboisvert at 9:44 AM on December 10, 2001

Isn't there a chinese word for "shit"?

Considering how disrespectful many Americans (myself included) have been in the past of other cultures - and we're pretty damn disrespectful to our own too - I see nothing harmful or wrong about this piece. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. We Americans can dish it out and take it. We're arrogant, but we're usually cool about it too. We know we're arrogant. We make no apologies for that. There's things that happen in life which cause one to become humbled, but we don't let it break our stride.

I mean even when there's boneheads out there who claim that the American people specifically deserve this treatment, I think we take all that criticism in stride. Nothing legitimizes the deaths of those people, but we value inalienable rights. If that's how a person feels they should feel free to say it, whether they're under our national banner or not.

It's petty to embrace the ideology of inalienable rights and then get a little upset when someone says stuff that disagrees with one's own opinions.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:06 AM on December 10, 2001

chinstrap: Thanks for your comment on the in-validity of what I linked to.
posted by Carol Anne at 11:42 AM on December 10, 2001

We Americans can dish it out and take it. We know we're arrogant. We make no apologies for that. There's things that happen in life which cause one to become humbled, but we don't let it break our stride.

Enough with the "we" already. I swear, I've been "we"-ed on so many times since this 911 thing I'm losing all sense of identity. Not to mention I need a shower to wash all the "we" off.
posted by Kafkaesque at 12:01 PM on December 10, 2001