If this article is to be believed, “are you a Party member?” is in danger of becoming the latest internet meme. Our loose, partial translation is below.
Translation
On November 6th, Xinhua reported: is the common-sounding phrases “are you a Party member?” becoming the next popular internet phrase? The past two days, the phrase has been heating up among netizens and city people. Why is this?
Incident: a reporter is questioned “are you a Party member?”
This incident must be explained through news reports.
It’s said on November 4th a Zhengzhou reporter was investigating a story (“‘Dog adoption workers’* are told to only care about money”) and in the article the reporter was questions where 12,000,000 RMB [about 1.7 million USD] in adoption fees went. He interviewed the responsible person in Zhengzhou, Wang Ping, who, wanting to be sure the correct numbers were published, told him to directly ask the Bureau of Finance.
The reporter got in touch with [the relevant] department head at the Bureau of Finance, Wang Guanqi. “Are you a Party member?” Wang Guanqi asked the reporter. “If you want to ask about this expenditure, you need the approval of our Party committee and the department news spokesperson. The office allowing you to interview me directly is a violation of regulations!”
As soon as this story was reported to the public, the question “Are you a Party member?” has unexpectedly shown up over and over again on the internet. Using Google search for this sentence, the article and comments on it come up, [but also] 90 other instances of the sentence in blog posts and comments. This “shocking language” has thoroughly “bowled over” the public.
Our Thoughts
There’s more to the article, but it’s not all that interesting. It seems like as good a new meme as any. For the record, there already over two million results for the sentence on Google, and nearly 5,000 on Baidu (anyone else find that discrepancy a bit weird?). What do you think? 10 points to the first commenter to use it well.
Reminds me of Zhou Jihong’s response to a reporter about China’s 11th National Games, “Which work unit are you from?/你是哪个单位的?”
Media can not be respected until it is given a free reign in China, but that’s not going to happen as long as embarrassing stories like these are so prevalent, which is not going to change because without a free media, no one can scrutinize the corrupt bureaucracy. For now zit faced Chinese teenagers trolling the internet will have to hold the flashlight that illuminates the absurdities of Chinese officialdom.
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Isn’t offering points on an internet blog like explaining the plot of a porno? Nobody cares.
@ whichone: Good point. And re: the “points”, you should turn up your sarcasm detector a little…
o haha, *looks around embarrassed* hmm ok
It’s cool. But yeah, we don’t have a points system here or anything.
You guys got the city wrong. It’s Zhengzhou, not Guangzhou!!
So we did. Thanks! For some reason I have a weird dyslexia when it comes to Chinese names and place names. This one is particularly shameful though, because I’ve stayed in Zhengzhou before.
Here is what I am curious about FREE media :
In Mumbai, India, a billionaire built a 2 billion dollar home in a city that had millions of people living in slums, no FREE media (and no politicians) came out.
In Taiwan, Chen ShuiBian took in tens of millions of dollars. Common sense tells you that those who bribed Chen benefitted ten times more. but no FREE media (and no politicians) went after those riches.
In New york, during the campaign for Mayor, Bill Thompson was exposed having given billions of dollars of contracts to those who had donated money for him. Strange enough, no FREE media has done any investigation, but the FREE media was so enthusiastic in eliot spitzer’s case ( in case you dont know, eliot spitzer was the most hated person on wall street)
Strange ? I guess that bashing government puts media on morally high grount, doesnt it ?
Wahaha, are you a party member?
You can deposit my 10 points at the Bank of Communications.
Stefan,
I understand THE FACT I mentioned sounds normal to you.
Was it Xinhua’s intrepid muckracking that “exposed” the information about Bill Thompson, Wahaha? Or are you suggesting that the Village Voice and the New York Post, which investigated the story, do not belong to the “FREE media”?
JD,
New york post ? haha, where was NY daily, where was NYT, where was WSJ ?
Where was the following report in NY Post ? NY post was for M bloomberg, hence using this to attack Bill thompson. why didnt they investigate further ?
I guess billions of dollars is too small an amount to waste time.
Wahaha,
The “FREE Media” is not perfect, no one is denying that.
But you have to admit it is a far better alternative than the current state of the press in China.