erik lundegaard

 RSS
ARCHIVES
LINKS

Wednesday May 09, 2018

Lancelot Links Asks What's on Weibo?

  • Via What's on Weibo: Best 30 books to explain Modern China. Does not include “Be a China Expert in One Day” ... which I believe is sitting on Donald Trump's bookshelf. If he had a bookshelf.  
  • Last month, Weibo decided to crack down on three things: pornography (sure), “bloody violence” (makes sense) and ... homosexuality? C‘mon, China. It’s 2018. But it led to a trending hashtag, #我是同性恋, or #IAmGay.
  • From last year, and intriguing for its timing: How film-loving Weibo users are tired of “Domestic Film Protection Month,” during which no foreign films, particularly Hollywood films, are allowed to open. What's intriguing about the timing? That piece appeared just when “Wolf Warrior II” was beginning to break all Chinese box-office records ... without Hollywood competition. 
  • A lot of what the Chinese Communist Youth League thinks of the recent US/China trade war/sabre-rattling is pretty much what we think: It's Trump being Trump (sadly); it will backfire on Americans (see: soybean farmers). But comparing it to the Japanese invasion of China? Really? Someone's not reading their history. Also worrisome: They‘re using the same damned Hitler/Chamberlain metaphor that American hawks use to argue against appeasement. That said, the art print being shared on Weibo, of Trump on a tank with a rifle and an eagle and explosions and a big flag, which apparently sells in the U.S. to Trump supporters, is the new nadir of kitsch.
  • A man on a Sichuan bus violently throws down a 7-year old kid (who had been kicking him) and kicks him in the head, and this leads to a discussion of what’s the matter with ... the kid? 
Posted at 07:55 AM on Wednesday May 09, 2018 in category Lancelot Links