Shoe Thrown At Wen Jiabao, Chinese Reactions

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1. mtm

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 8:27 am

   @Kai or Fauna
   Hey, can the mods delete the last 3 lines on my previous post? Or just switch “Matt” for “fcuk da lu ren” will be even better.

   Reply
2. mtm

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 8:44 am

   洋鬼子 (洋= foreign, distant etc; 鬼子= devil, ghost)

   In a babelfish straight out of a dictionary translation, I would expect it to be render as “Foreign Devil” but I think there is an even better English equivalent that conveys the concept of 洋鬼子 much better than it’s commonly used clumsy babelspeak derivative: “Alien”.
   And apparently, Americans feel it is acceptable term to for foreigners.

   Reply
3. mtm

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 9:08 am

   Matt said
   “Call me names all you want. Must kill you to leave your rock and see all those foreign devil goods that people want everywhere.”

   Look cretin, what actually irritates me, is your arrogant presumption where you attributed China’s current progress to foreigners. You just seem to have overlooked the factory workers who actually did the fcuking work. Also explain why this growth is happening faster in China than other 3rd world countries. There are plenty of English speaking 3rd world sh!tholes out there with rule of law and democratic election too, but they are still sh!tholes. So why oh why do “foreigners” insist of bestowing their investment in Communist China?

   Answer: (drum roll) Because they make more fcuking money in China, thats why. Why else do you think Mr “fcuk da luo ren” tortures himself everyday breathing our polluted Chinese air for??? You think he rubs shoulders with SARS infected “Chimatrons” for fun?

   Reply
4. mtm

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 9:16 am

   ps, ML China’s most important source of “foreign” investors during the 90s was easily HongKong and other Chinese “foreigners”.

   Reply
5. mtm

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 9:37 am

   dace said:
   “Guess what? When you’re in the UK, you, the Chinese, are the foreigners you dumb fuck. I usually don’t get annoyed about this sort of stuff but being back in Australia last year with my wife and having all the Chinese we met there referring to me and other locals as foreigners really got me steamed up. WTF does this plonker know about Cambridge or anyone who studies there anyway? Fuckwits the lot of them.”

   Strong words, sir. I assume you speak Chinese, right? Why don’t you suggest an alternative Chinese term that covers the same meaning and is sufficiently politically correct for your oh-so delicate fragile sensibilities?

   I mean you surely wouldn’t want someone on some Chinese BBS snickering at your post with something like:
   “Wow, those over-the-top whingeywhitefag netizens are really funny – in a pathetic sort of way. So sensitive! So full of themselves! What wankers!”

   In my humble experience, Westerners dish out criticisms a lot better than they can take it.

   Reply
6. Peteryang

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 9:51 am

   since china has a market economy now, and we ain’t part of the powerful elite bunch, and we ain’t running charity house, there’s really no “contributors” or “losers” here.

   suffice to say, foreign investments can always have HUGE return from china, the kind of return unimaginable in their home country, thanks to preferential tax rate, cheap labors and government’s unqie love for foreign enterprises. they sold a big share of Hainan Airline to Soros for like a free gift, and foreign hot money, with the help of our corrupt and incompetent regulators, has literally robbed domestic investors. and when the US found it slightly difficult to pay back debts, they devalued the bucks. and of course the chinese government is equally blamable, they shouldn’t have purchased too much US debts in the first place, and the people’s hard-earned wealth should have been redistributed back to society instead of being used like a toycar.

   I suppose Matt now has a basic overview of how things work in china, yes foreigners took a significant part in china’s accomplishment, but in doing so they also got their share of profit, a share thats probably never accessible to people like me or say a poor peasant.

   so I particularly dislike crediting our nation’s achivement to certain group, there are idiots who think “every chinese owes their life to the chinese government because it single-handedly created the reform so they can enjoy the life they live today” — quote from his comment. and there is Matt who is at the other end. its the work of 1.3 billion people.

   Reply
7. Matt

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 12:16 pm

   MTM,

   Ill just ignore the name calling and actually try to pay attention to what you are trying to say.

   Do I think that only foreigners are responsible for where China is today? Of course not. I don’t know where people got that idea from. Read my post before this. Credit also goes to Deng for making the decision to open up and of course, like you said, the workers for working in poor conditions in these foreign factories.

   It actually good to see somebody care about them instead of saying “They chose to work there because its better than working on the farm.” I never overlooked them.

   That being said, many of these workers are working in foreign companies. You make it seem like foreigners are forcing Chinese to let them do business in China. It was China who set up this situation. China is supposed to take care of its own people. If they wanted to, they could make a law to improve working conditions. Why after 30 years are conditions for workers still so bad? Not foreigners fault. They are obeying Chinese rules.

   Foreigners are drawn to China because of the virtually limitless workforce and less rules and regulations then in their home countries. Businessmen couldnt care less about trivial things like air or government, as long as they are getting rich. Just like you said. So, whats your point? Getting rich is glorious.

   Reply
8. Kai

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 1:29 pm

   @ Matt:

   Word. There are legions of Chinese idiots who don’t understand how the world works and delight in blaming their problems on others rather than trying to figure them out. They’re really not too different from American idiots who blame outsourcing for losing jobs yet demand lower prices at WalMart that can only be achieved by outsourcing. People want to have their cake and eat it too. Idiocy is idiocy and the sheer size of China’s population just makes Chinese idiocy all the more difficult to bear.

   @ dude8:

   If he is German, you shouldn’t have to apologize for him but everyone does appreciate your gesture just as the Korean community didn’t have to apologize for the Virginia Tech murderer but did anyway or Americans who routinely hang their head in shame when the topic of Bush comes up abroad. I’m pretty sure a seasoned diplomat like Wen knows this comes with the territory. Its the peons who don’t.

   @ mtm:

   I’m not a moderator (but oh how I wish I could be). You’ll have to ask Fauna yourself. She’ll probably do it since she does seem to read the comments or you can e-mail her at fauna@chinasmack.com.

   BTW, to be fair, the vast majority of China is probably still rather “shitholey.” But absolutely, China HAS done an enviable job relative to many other aspiring developing countries with their modern economic development and growth. There’s still much to go, but at least China has come this far, which is more than can be said for others.

   To corroborate the example you alluded to, many Westerners often do compare authoritarian China to democratic India. While India hasn’t done too shabbily for itself with high rates of English literacy and proficiency (well, that may be a bit subjective) and is on the receiving end of a lot of outsourced customer service and tech sector jobs, India arguably still envies China’s stats even as both places still have high levels of abject poverty.

   But yes, as much as I’ve come to like FDLR because I know he’s actually kinda squishy deep down inside, your retort putting his presence (and by extension the involvement of foreigners) here in China was pretty damn hilarious. LoL.

   @ mtm re: dace:

   LoL, funny response but come on, you yourself must be at least a wee bit sympathetic with how “laowai” etc. is used by Chinese irrespective of where they actually are. It does convey a bit of Sino-centricism that can grate just as much as Chinese people grate at examples of US-centrism or Euro-centricism. It’s actually quite similar to non-US Americans being annoyed with Americans always being associated with people from the United States. Minor thing, but understandable.

   Reply
9. rajesh george

   Friday, February 6, 2009 at 5:14 pm

   who the hell they (whites) thinks they are. they can do any dirty thing and declares that they are the high class society in the world( culture). fuck ur culture.
   we have different cultures in asia like INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION, MONGOLIAN, MESOPOTAMIAN, HISTORY OF CHINESE…etc.
   pls tell me the ORIGIN OF THESE PEOPLE, ENGLAND,AMERICA..ETC. they don’t know their origin. in short they don’t know their father… “REAL BASTARDS”

   Reply
10. zipper

    Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 4:03 am

    See the thrown here.
    footage video!

    Reply
11. hey

    Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 5:00 am

    mtm:

    “Why else do you think Mr “fcuk da luo ren” tortures himself everyday breathing our polluted Chinese air for??? You think he rubs shoulders with SARS infected “Chimatrons” for fun?”

    This is way too funny!! ahhahaah… :)

    Reply
12. Benjie

    Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 6:03 am

    This explains why English people are so bad at cricket.

    Reply
13. action figures star wars

    Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 9:18 pm

    wen jiabao doesn’t deserve to be thrown shoes at but these other chinese morons who laughs the loudest (and most irritatingly) when it was the previous president bush’s turn to be thrown shoes at.

    i just can’t figure out how these chinese (i believe not all of them) react so negatively to the point of making it a “big” racial issue when their name got involve with some ruckus and yet they were the biggest racist in the entire universe.

    oh and yes, maybe it’s because racist hates to who dare “out-racist” them. hahaha. so not funny, i could simply puke in their faces.

    Reply
14. mtm

    Sunday, February 8, 2009 at 4:18 am

    action figures star wars said:
    “…biggest racist in the entire universe”

    Oh the inhumanity! How can anyone stand it?!

    http://timesonline.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/charisma_man_strip_3_1.jpg

    Whine whine whine…

    luckily you can take refuge amongst your enlightened liberal minded buddies at Stormfront where they won’t take any sh1t from some uppity yellow bucktoothed slanteyed small pen1s chinky brainwashed chimatron commie drones for sure!
    Yeah, us Chinese are sooo “rayciss”…

    Reply
15. troll

    Sunday, February 8, 2009 at 11:26 pm

    @ kai

    Carry on wishing. You are too anti-Chinese to be a moderator. You can be at best a whinner and at worst a troll.

    India was colonised by the British for 2 centuries, so that’s how they picked up the language, and now they are saying that they speak and write English better than the Brits. By the way, from the way you wrote, you seem to know too little about India.

    Reply
16. SauLaan

    Monday, February 9, 2009 at 1:20 pm

    dude8, “hang their head in shame”?? I think not!! None of us who are against him voted for him; those who voted for him are not of the mentality to “hang their head in shame.” Instead they are in denial and pretend he was right.

    So be careful about over-generalizing . . . your argument is not factual!

    Reply
17. SauLaan

    Monday, February 9, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    As for the Wen Shoe, don’t be so sensitive, please, when it happened to Americans you all jeered and laughed–even Wen and Hu jeered.

    Wen announced 12 million jobless, even tho the previous day Chen Xiwen announced 26 million jobless. Obviously these economics students were upset by the “glossing over.” In these dangerous economic times, we can’t afford the old-style “coverups.”

    Reply
18. Kai

    Monday, February 9, 2009 at 1:43 pm

    @ SayLaan:

    I think you meant to direct that comment at me.

    Saying that Americans hang their head in shame was a generalization in that not all Americans do. Moreover, it was an exaggeration of how some Americans they sometimes feel, because not all of them feel so strongly as to “hang their head.”

    However, my point wasn’t to generalize that all Americans do so or to exaggerate how they feel, but rather to offer an EXAMPLE of how some Americans DO feel embarrassed for something they may helplessly be associated with, whether or not they voted for Bush, similar to how the Korean community felt they would be associated with the Virginia Tech killer or how “nice guy” Wen will invariably be personally targetted by those who are actually protesting against China as a whole.

    I don’t see how this is “not factual.”

    Reply
19. SauLaan

    Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 12:41 am

    Okay Kai, that makes sense

    Reply
20. thesailor

    Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 9:29 am

    I’m often amazed at how respectful of their leaders the Chinese are. Are they really this sheep-like? Western Democracies have no delusions about their leaders, they know that virtually all political leaders are self-aggrandizing narcissists.

    I once employed a young chinese computer programmer. One day at lunch I asked him about the Falun Gong. He immediately blurted out “Falun Gong very very bad”. I suddenly became aware of how programmed by his government he was! In the US, religious and political fringe elements are tolerated and rarely given a second glance. In China, if the Hu or the Wen says “Wut” then everybody says “Where” and “How”?

    Reply
21. BBSguy

    Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    @thesailor Are you seriously equating an anecdote to how a billion people think? You’re on Chinasmack, look around the posts, bashing government is the favourite past time of the people lol. And to be fair “fringe” groups get quite the support, just check out Foxnews. I suggest you try and get a holistic view of your own country before you write another comment.

    Reply
22. fdlr

    Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 11:06 pm

    I have taught and produced multimedia teaching materials at China Central Radio and TV University and Beijing Foreign Studies University (Beiwai) for a total of 10 years.

    Despite these years of experience in the country, I do not regard myself as an expert on China, or “an old China hand”. I am certainly not an apologist for the Chinese government or its policies, though I have enjoyed and reciprocated much friendship and mutual respect here.

    Last summer I was asked if I would join a select group of Chinese and international teachers from Beiwai to teach a group of senior government officials at the China National School of Administration. The course – intensive English training program 3 was an immersion language program designed to assist officials to communicate in English during their representational duties as vice-ministers or vice-governors, first initiated in 2001 by the then vice-premier Li Lanqing, and now continued under the sponsorship of Li Yuanchao, minister of the Party’s organization department.

    If you had asked me before last September whether I would enjoy teaching a group of senior government officials, I would probably have given a guarded answer: “I don’t have to enjoy students. Teaching is my job, and I teach all students with as much professional competence as I possess.” If you had persisted further and asked me whether I thought I would actually respect and like such a group, honesty would have forced me toward skepticism.

    Westerners have a generally cynical view of politicians, and here in China sometimes the phrase “officials” is more often described with adjectives like “greedy” and “corrupt” than “sincere” or “diligent” in some newspapers. I did not expect to be touched at the emotional level by a group of trainees at the National School of Administration.

    Three months on and I feel ashamed at my previous cynicism and prejudice. I think I have learned more about China and the Chinese in the last three months than I had in the previous 10 years as a teacher in China.

    When you live and work in close proximity with a group of people, you learn a great deal about them. Sharing three meals a day, teaching and discussing in small groups, holding one-on-one tutorials, attending banquets and cultural events together gives you insights into individuals that normal university lecturing never can.

    It exposes you to the full spectrum of their personalities, and you are able to make judgments about things like honesty and sincerity that you would not be able to make about students that you meet only once or twice a week.

    The group comprised 12 individuals who were as varied and distinct from each other as you would expect from people gathered together from all over China.

    One characteristic that was shared by them all, however, was motivation – enormous, intense, 15-hour-a-day motivation to work hard and learn English.

    And this motivation was itself driven by a genuine desire to develop their language skills not for reasons of personal satisfaction alone but because they sincerely believed it would make them better able to serve the people of their beloved province and enhance the image of the China of which they are so proud. I was not mistaken in this, and I found it admirable.

    I also found myself liking them enormously. When you come to admire people for their working habits and respect them for their moral positions, affection follows closely behind.

    I think my fellow foreign expert and I were privileged to gain an insight into the quality of some of the people who govern China in a way that only a few foreigners share, and that the West in general is completely ignorant of. These were valuable men and women. They were cultivated and honorable, diligent and sincere. They represented truly the ideal of the good public official.

    Furthermore, in being privileged to meet ex-vice-premier Li Lanqing and Minister Li Yuanchao, and to listen to them discuss – in excellent English – the importance of learning a foreign language in order to represent more accurately to the world the true character of China, I came to a closer understanding that this belief in education for its ministers is a central tenet of the Chinese government.

    They demand excellence in their officials, and they are prepared to invest heavily in it. There is no analogue to this practice in Western democracy that I know of. I think China is the stronger for it, and the West the weaker for its absence.

    Indeed, I think China is the more democratic by virtue of this training of its officials, because they have a very real sense of and belief in their role as representatives of the people. The West is skeptical of such beliefs, where it knows of them, but is generally in ignorance of them. The skepticism is a possible weakness in Western understanding, while the ignorance is a possible weakness in Chinese public relations.

    I firmly believe that the communication skills gained by the trainees during the course will contribute to a better understanding of China in the West, and a better understanding of the West in China. I feel honored to have been a very small part in such a momentous process.

    The author is a British teacher living in China

    Reply
23. mtm

    Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 3:09 am

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_%C3%A9coles

    Reply
24. yourmom

    Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    i’m chinese, i think more shoes should be thrown at world leaders

    Reply
    • Yes we did!

      Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 12:39 am

      Here here! At least three times a year. Even the good ones. That should keep them on their toes.

      Reply
25. jan tao

    Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    shoe must have belonged to one of those free xizang idiots. I wonder what would think if Wales decided to become a independent state with a religious government. Probably not too happy, stupid hippy fcuk . . .

    Reply
    • opensights

      Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 8:24 pm

      Do the Chinese people know that the ‘shoe thrower’ was a German citizen a visiting patholgy student! He was not English at all. His act was cowardly insulting and stupid. No true English would agree with this. Wen has a good press here in England!

      Personally, If I ever felt stongly enough that I would want to throw a shoe then it would be a good expensive leather one, not a street market cheap smelly trainer!

      Reply
    • Steven

      Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 9:18 am

      Actually since the UK is a democracy then Wales would have a referendum on independence and if 51% voted yes, then they would do it. Simple as that, the people decide, not the government.

      Reply
26. opensights

    Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 9:46 pm

    jones. in the dark freezing cold of England you gave me the first ‘chuckle’ of the week! Thanks!

    Reply
27. samuel welsh

    Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 1:59 pm

    down the shoe missed
    If he wants respect stop the slave market and crap coming from china

    Reply
28. Fman

    Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 11:23 am

    So big, so powerful but yet unable to see the news…

    Reply
29. pp

    Sunday, November 28, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    Same as BUSH. A cuntface is a cuntface. Same fish in the sea.

    Reply