Filed under: Comment
So over the last couple of weeks, there has been a lot of international press coverage about the tragic – and quite simply horrific – story of a little girl who was run over in a Chinese city and then ignored by multiple passers-by, despite writhing in agony and suffering from obvious serious injury.
Quite rightly, the press has been scathing about the people who didn’t run to her aid … it’s a disgraceful and unfathomable thing … however rather than report the situation neutrally, I can’t help but feel the press have extended their judgement of who is to blame to more than just the people involved in the incident, but to China as a whole.
Almost every report reads like China is full of cold and heartless bastards … a bunch of unemotional, uneducated, unsophisticated savages who care for nothing other than their own well being.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a total and utter tragedy and there’s no excuse for it whatsoever – a view, I should add, that is shared by all of China as well – however I can’t help but feel the way the international press have latched on to this incident with such vengeance highlights how scared the West is of China’s growing wealth and influence when they should be promoting how we should/could be working closer together.
China is a lot of things … good, bad, ugly and weird … but to imply over a billion people are heartless and cruel is unbelievably heartless and cruel.
And wrong. Very, very, very wrong.
But the thing that really fucks me off is how the international press are basically acting like all their own examples of social disgrace didn’t exist.
In the last few years both the UK and the US have had episodes that have been equally – if not more so – horrific and yet there’s this “tone” being presented in the media that the West is civilised society and China is this raw and ugly beast that cannot be trusted.
Please don’t think I am trying to make an excuse for the horror that happened last week – I’m not and neither is anyone in China – but I still find it incredibly hypocritical and disgraceful that the foreign press are acting as if their own society is perfect.
What they’re doing is basically stoking up the fires of prejudice and if that means exploiting a horrible and tragic act to justify it, so be it. The absolute total bastards.
I hope people are smarter than to believe all they read in the press, however judging by the comments I follow on the articles being written, it would appear that there’s quite a lot that do.
This is the shame we should also be highlighting.
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people should believe fucking adland before they believe the fucking press.
Comment by andy@cynic November 1, 2011 @ 6:33 amThat’s how bad it’s got.
Comment by Rob November 1, 2011 @ 8:58 amfor an attempt at being serious this is a half fucking decent attempt. the commies will keep you around for a whole longer.
Comment by andy@cynic November 1, 2011 @ 6:34 amdo you think i should believe kim kardashian is really divorcing or not? i dont give a fuck, its just what all the wanker press are saying. of course they should be saying what a useless pair of big fucking tits she is, but they sell papers almost as well as fucking hyping up how evil the commie chinese are.
Comment by andy@cynic November 1, 2011 @ 6:40 amI am impressed and alarmed at how much trash you know …
Comment by Rob November 1, 2011 @ 10:29 amCan’t add much except to say well said and well written.
Comment by Pete November 1, 2011 @ 7:00 amThis post renews my faith in “musings” ( I know you have been flailing around trying to find a way to do that!!!). There was a wonderful quote on one of the “occupy” posts/videos that said ” Hypocracy has its own elegant symmetry.” It is amazing what
Comment by Ciaran McCabe November 1, 2011 @ 7:16 amthey get away with but I think the game is almost up. I’m certainly hoping it is.
i fucking like that ciaran. fucking like it a lot.
Comment by andy@cynic November 1, 2011 @ 7:53 amI like that quote … but I don’t know if the game is up, and if it is, they’ll just invent a new one, or at least a new rule. Makes me sick.
Comment by Rob November 1, 2011 @ 8:59 amI’ve been told I am not allowed to take the piss on pain of death so I won’t be saying anything more.
Comment by Billy Whizz November 1, 2011 @ 7:40 amTake the piss out of Rob, not the shit that happened in China. I’m not that fucked up.
Comment by Billy Whizz November 1, 2011 @ 7:41 amfuck me billy, youre maturing. slower than a fucking tortoise but still fucking maturing,
Comment by andy@cynic November 1, 2011 @ 7:55 amohh, I remember that case where the vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. the photographer waited for 20 minutes to take that image.
http://bit.ly/vEZhhD
same shit including a nobel prize.
Comment by thevulture November 1, 2011 @ 9:32 amOf course the photographer in question later killed himself over the guilt and despair of all the suffering he captured.
Comment by Rob Mortimer November 1, 2011 @ 8:47 pmDon’t mean to sound heartless myself, but in a country without a well-established western judicial tradition of “innocent until proven guilty,” why would you EVER want to be within a few meters of any injured person, ever?
It’s a battle between human sympathy and human self-preservation. The self-preservation in this case is trained by culture to prevail with the notion of “if i mind my own business i won’t get fucked over.” I don’t think western media really gets that part.
Comment by jaredadler November 1, 2011 @ 10:15 amWestern media has the same sort of approach as George W Bush had with his foreign policy … when it’s convenient to partner, they do – but when there’s an opportunity to look dominant, they embrace it with even more relish.
Comment by Rob November 1, 2011 @ 11:41 amI got marginally interested in a level headed article around a claimed Chinese cultural trait to look after friends and family but ignore strangers – alledgedly dampened by communism but coming back and even exacerbated by capitalism (or China’s version of it)
Comment by northern November 1, 2011 @ 6:06 pmIt seemed like quite a sweeping statement and I smelt ever so slightly of ‘our culture is better than yours’
I’d like to know it was credible or not.
Family is everything in China. Everything.
That doesn’t mean strangers are ignored – but there’s no comparison to how people act towards their relatives, though that is evolving due to social and economic reasons.
That said, there are claims that the woman who eventually helped the girl was exposed to people shouting abuse at her, claiming she was only doing it because she wanted to be ‘famous’.
As I said, the people involved in this situation are a disgrace, but to claim over a billion people all think and act in this way is as stupid as claiming all Americans are fat, obnoxious and stupid bastards who haven’t got a passport, let alone traveled.
Comment by Rob November 1, 2011 @ 6:20 pmthey fucking wouldnt be if they were married to my ex wives and their half wit fucking parasite relations.
Comment by andy@cynic November 2, 2011 @ 12:00 am[…] Campbell wrote a great post about the Chinese story that makes its rounds around the world: A little girl who was run over in […]
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