klortho (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} klortho) wrote,@ 2007-07-21 01:25:00 |
|
Cardboard baozi
A couple of weeks ago a big news story came out that there was a maker of steamed stuffed buns (called baozi) in Beijing, who was using cardboard as a substitute for meat in the filling. You can still watch the original report (in Mandarin) on Youtube.
Now, there's been a turn-around, and the Beijing media is saying that the story was faked, and that the freelance reporter, Zi Beijia, hired some migrant workers and staged the story from start to finish.
Hmmm... The thing is, I think the original story about the baozi being filled with cardboard is a lot easier to believe than that the freelance reporter faked the story. One telling clue, in my opinion, is this line from the China Daily story:
How can we believe that he found no problems in two weeks! I find hygiene problems every time I walk down the street! If he was so inept that he couldn't find anything real to report on, then he damn sure couldn't have had the wherewithal to fake the story.
I'm not the only one who has this opinion. I found this amusing blog post .... My Chinese still isn't very good, so reading blogs in Chinese is pretty arduous, but it's good practice, so here's my attempt at a translation (I had some help):
A couple of weeks ago a big news story came out that there was a maker of steamed stuffed buns (called baozi) in Beijing, who was using cardboard as a substitute for meat in the filling. You can still watch the original report (in Mandarin) on Youtube.
Now, there's been a turn-around, and the Beijing media is saying that the story was faked, and that the freelance reporter, Zi Beijia, hired some migrant workers and staged the story from start to finish.
Hmmm... The thing is, I think the original story about the baozi being filled with cardboard is a lot easier to believe than that the freelance reporter faked the story. One telling clue, in my opinion, is this line from the China Daily story:
Zi allegedly offered to do a story about poor hygiene at meat bun stalls but failed to find any problems during two weeks of reporting.
How can we believe that he found no problems in two weeks! I find hygiene problems every time I walk down the street! If he was so inept that he couldn't find anything real to report on, then he damn sure couldn't have had the wherewithal to fake the story.
I'm not the only one who has this opinion. I found this amusing blog post .... My Chinese still isn't very good, so reading blogs in Chinese is pretty arduous, but it's good practice, so here's my attempt at a translation (I had some help):
"Paper baozi" was an item on Beijing TV's news a few days ago. The general idea was that Beijing has a lot of people using cardboard as the filling for baozi, the process it and then mix it with pork, in order to save cost, and the customers can't tell the difference. This afternoon we had our meeting to select stories, and it was suggested to use this as our cover story, I raised both hands in approval. Even though China's food product safety hasn't been an issue (there are too many problems, so it's not an issue), but when I saw this news I was surprised. If you think about this with the four great inventions, so far we have gunpowder mantou [馒头 mántou - steamed buns similar to baozi], paper baozi, we don't know how the compass and the printing press will be creatively harmonized with food products [he uses the word "和谐 héxié - harmony" here, which is amusing, because he's making fun of the government's recent push for a harmonious society]. During our meeting, the paper baozi suddenly made my colleagues have more confidence in our magazine's future -- since people can use corrugated cardboard to make baozi, a patent for food with magazine paper filling can't be far behind. When that happens, newsstands won't care if they can't find this magazine, when our magazine is printed, every day there will be lots of food vendors lining up to buy at a high price [I think this translation is good -- it also doesn't make sense in the original].
When I got home in the evening and saw that the news said the cardboard baozi was a fake story made by a freelance reporter of Beijing TV.
Interesting!
That's fine, let's have a Goldbach's conjecture-style exercise then.
A. Cardboard baozi is really fake news. According to this, that fake-news film used actors and scenes, and shot a file, then did post-production editing, and achieved a realistic result. Apparently, our criticisms of Chinese television is misplaced! In fact, Chinese television's production quality is comparable to high-tech Hollywood! As a Chinese person, today I really feel proud of Chinese TV.
B. The cardboard baozi story is real, and the story saying the cardboard baozi story is fake is fake. That's a little awkward-sounding, but really should make us even happier, because it confirms a truth, an harmonious society requires everybody to work to create it.
I have a suggestion to give the media: hire more freelance workers and trainees, in case of a rainy day.
