Tricks to Persuade the Audience, ChinaDaily

Reading the Chinese state mouthpiece news media ChinaDaily has always been among the most unappetizing but funny. For real, the bland blue and grey sans font, the messy layout that leaves an entire right section blank (I thought you at least have the sanity to maintain your site well for oversea access instead of having the right part en blanco ey?) with China-US, China, US taking up three columns alone just shows how desperate you are. It really doesn’t make China great as well when “China” and “US” are put side by side. 

Yet today, as I finally stumped foot on a visually appealing article while reading through ChinaDaily, the extent of propaganda, ideological reinforcement and positive embellishment is quite chilly. The article “Xi’s vision of media: Responsible, innovative, global” captured my eyes, and I have to admit there is a slight hope I had there with the impossible.  The article is made of a single jpeg file that looks back on the principles with the role of media in China, established by President Xi Jinping during his visit to various flagship news outlet in February 2016. Check it out below in the slideshow.

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It thoroughly relieves me that there are Chinese graphic designers out there that understand well the principles of visual appeals and how they enhance the meaning or desirability of a text. Let’s see how much they stand.

Debunk #1 All bullshit to Look Good

Loyalty to the Party

A. It’s logical that if A is run by B, A should respect B’s will and leadership.

• Except since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, almost all media outlets in Mainland China were state-run. Even as independent outlets emerged in the 80s, state-run media outlets such as Xinhua, CCTV, and ChinaDaily continue to hold significant market share and kicking others’ butt at getting advertisement, readership and funding.
• The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), continue to set strict regulations on subjects considered taboo by the government. You have to be very careful writing on anything vaguely relevant to the legitimacy of the Communist Party, Tibet-and-Xinjiang-related issues (although pornography is also in there, which I think is quite funny because that only helped thriving torrents providers and Japanese economy with its booming porn industry).

I understand your urge to use the Party as much as possible. You even capitalized it. But enough is enough, and you’ve even used Party fourth, one more than the Rule of Three. I therefore strongly recommend simply stating “media outlets in China” to avoid the setback and possible confusion that there are independent free media in China.

B. Guide the Public

Nice slogan. Good use of a light bulb, appealing to the idea of enlightenment. However, how can the “enlightened” guide anyone if they are pressured to bow to ever growing governmental control over what they could do, slowly made to become mindless mouthpiece of some PARTY(I choose to further the capitalization, of course as a purpose to elevate its status and credibility).

C. Serve the Country’s Overall interests

Are you confusing “country” and “nation” and “government”? I suggest you study Political Science 101 in any university first year course again.

D. Unite the General Public

Yeah, right. Damn the enemy who are also part of the public.

Oh, I am tired with this one. Moving on and see if I’ve got any more surprise.

The Chinese Dream

“Guide” is a really modest word here to use, a brilliant tribute to the Chinese much valued virtue of modesty. You know, technically you are supposed to say “I did ok” when you are confident of getting 98%, so now you know what this “guide” mean.

“Rejuvenation of the nation”. What is that supposed to mean? Some kind of imaginary epic come-back at the west when we create a utopia of China ruling the world? Very appealing. Beautifully practical.

Public supervision here implies a paternalistic perspective of guiding the “masses” to go on the right track of opinions. Like nobody else has brains.

Positive publicity. Of course it would make sense to forcibly have Southern Weekly changing its defense of individual freedoms into a piece on the government’s achievements. By the way, I still haven’t read or studied the Chinese Constitution as a Chinese student because those rights promised won’t be put into practice anyway.

Activists, intellectuals and rights advocates are dismissed, detained, and rendered docile. Activist Liu Xiaobo imprisoned; protest artist Ai Weiwei “disappeared”, tortured and passports taken away; The “Feminist Five” detained arbitrarily for performance art protesting domestic violence; Senior editor Yu Shaolei, after nearly 16 years with at Southern Metropolis Daily, one of China’s leading commercial newspapers, decided to quit once and for all the struggle to border the boundary of free speech. Thanks to technology we have sites as freeweibo that hold information deleted due to “sensitivity” issues.

 

Connecting China and the World

I invite you to analyze this third principle in the context I have provided. Consider it a fun exercise to train the critical thinking skill that is malnourished by the lack of critical textual analysis related to “context” in our lovely educational system.

Farewell. Hope to see you at another chance of debunking, or even better, you debunking those text while you are reading them.

 

 

A Spontaneous Reaction to Unperceived Ignorance

It is always paradoxical. Singularity gives prominence to plurality; loneliness contrasts togetherness;  complete isolation and forgotten-hood brings out the sense of self and awareness of what surrounds us the most.

At the edge of the world, secluded, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island lies a Pearson College that conspired with my Utopian vision of living in a wonderland where possibilities are limitless and new paths are to be explored. I am very fortunate to have been there and have been thereof grateful for its presence in my life.

The idea of “alternation” comes naturally and is not completely unexpected.

While at Pearson, one of the things I greatly appreciate is how much diversity is respected and emphasized – in other words, as for a single individual instead of a collective of student body, how an “alternate” reality is permitted and encouraged to stand strong on its own.

That put me into this never-ending mode of self-discovery and exploration – How much of myself that I have always regarded as normal is not necessarily universal? How much I have not known about the world?

It is precisely that thought, which have been wondering for quite a long time and eventually come into form of a blog. Quite shamefully, I have not yet found time to take the action until today – but it is never too late to start and carry on. It is going to be a personal dialogue when I estrange myself and create an audience (or maybe I will have an audience, if you are seeing this) to narrate my genuine thoughts.

Alternation could be many things. It will not become a personal rambling blog – I tell myself here firmly and will keep it an oath – nor a simple recording of daily consumption that would not be missed whatsoever. Alternation is a change of mindset – to document what I have witnessed from my experience, catered to my interests in art, culture, or the creative aspect of society in general. Meanwhile, I find in the recent time, with the eyes that crave for pondering, I have discovered so much more.

Whether I am physically on a foreign land, as I am right now, or mentally bumped into intriguing matters related to aesthetics, culture, society that contemplation can take place and thoughts can be rethought – alternated is an absolute result in forms of reversion or modification – I will be here.

It is only through making meaning out of what comes to us that we find the complexity of the beauty that we previously ignored.

Light’s on.