By PING’AN JIEDAO
Entertainment Correspondent

Lieutenant Dashan of the Foreign Expert Squad poses for action, as a territorial slap-fight ensues

SHANGHAI (China Daily Show) – The first season of CSI’s much-anticipated ‘Shanghai’ spin-off has been cancelled, after scriptwriters failed to take into account the East Coast city’s complete absence of crime.

Plotlines involving corruption, sexual harassment and high-end ergotou were shelved after quality-control cadres for the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT)  cited an “insufficient suspension of disbelief” for viewers.

The news comes as a blow to fans, who had been hoping for a forensic examination of the infamous metropolis’s seedy underbelly. 

Instead, producers were forced to admit that it doesn’t exist.

Initially, expectations for the China-based crime drama had been high.

A pilot – featuring an arrogant British businessman foolishly attempting to molest a female kung-fu student – won high praise from critics and viewers alike.

“This is essential viewing for young, unemployed men. The exciting plot confronts a serious and very important criminal trend in China today,” wrote the People’s Daily TV critic. “Foreign criminals.”

“I liked the bit where she kicks the foreigner hard in the groin and runs into the arms of a nearby CSI inspector for comfort,” said CSI fan Ma Jingguo, 17. “That was particularly satisfying and realistic.”

The detectives at CSI: Shanghai prepare to investigate a high-level wok theft

Yet SARFT officials later lambasted producers, after details of the second episode – in which a city official forces a subordinate to dine at a Japanese restaurant with him – were leaked on an online BBS forum.

According to an internal SARFT memo, “The opening scene depicts the cadre leaving his duties to answer a personal phone call. He is then shortly after seen at a lunch banquet, drinking a light alcoholic beverage and encouraging his companions to do likewise.

“To depict top leaders’ behavior in such an unrealistic manner is hurtful to the image of the Party and offends the feelings of the Chinese audience,” the memo concluded with quiet fury.

It is believed that angry censors did not even bother viewing the next scene, in which the same Shanghai official sodomizes an unconscious male prostitute, before choking on his own vomit. 

Follow breaking China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By WEI SHENG
Sanitation Correspondent

The film features heroic elements of resistance against the Japanese aggressors, and scenes of a Wuxia nature

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – “Maddening structural problems” in the original cut of foreign sci-fi movie Cloud Atlas have now been thoroughly nixed, representatives for China’s State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) announced yesterday.

The Chinese edition, released Thursday and retitled Clod Atlas, boasts over 45 fewer minutes of running time, SARFT explained.

“Basically, what we did,” spokesman Li Hexie told a press conference Thursday, “was take out the beginning and put it at the end, then removed the end and put it in the middle. As for the middle, that was the easy part – we did not need it at all!”

Cloud Atlas (2012), directed by the Wachowski siblings and Tim Twyker, tells multiple overlapping stories over multiple time periods involving multiple characters, and performed by multiple actors in multiple roles of varying genders and ethnicity.

Clod Atlas (2013), on the other hand, is the moving story of a doomed Cosplay troupe.

“Our film is far more tragic,” promised Li, who is also Clod Atlas’s new co-director, executive producer and principal screenwriter.

Both China’s two voiceover artists, Ting Hao and Hao Ting, dubbed new dialogue for all the characters, including a new scene written by Hao, involving a pair of hapless, travelling, rival salesmen with the exact same name.

“I liked it better because it confused me,” said Wendy Hong, a Chinese screenwriter who has seen both the Western and Chinese versions. “The film’s theme, “Our lives are not our own,’ intrigued me when it was no more than a hazy, optimistic notion. But in the Chinese version, it actually leaves you depressed and pessimistic.”

Li denied that cuts to several scenes, involving nudity and homosexuality, indicated prudishness and homophobia on the part of SARFT.

“It’s simply a question of feasibility,” Hao said. “It’s important to make films that are believable. The transmigration of souls is an ancient Chinese tradition but dudes kissing other dudes? That’s simply unrealistic.”

Indeed, Hao says, proof of the new version’s superior quality can be seen in the critical reaction.

While Cloud Atlas was widely panned by critics and snubbed by the Oscars, Clod Atlas has already been nominated for 16 Golden Cocks.

Film buffs can follow the blossoming Chinese movie scene by following @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By BAIBAI LINGLINGQI
Entertainment Correspondent

As this picture illustrates, James Bond is actually a pretty dull guy who hangs out with cars all day

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – China’s vast array of Party-watchers breathed a collective sigh of relief yesterday, after hearing that the latest Bond film, Skyfall – originally scheduled for release Friday – has been indefinitely postponed.

As the country gears up for the excitement of the 18^th National Party Congress (NPC), starting November 8, few want any other entertainments to distract them from the political hooplah.

“Thank God. I was concerned that the 23rd Bond film, starring Daniel Craig and Javier Barden as villain ‘Silva,’ might possibly overshadow the charisma spectacle that is the 18^th NPC,” said Professor Cao Lu, head of Political Re-Education at the Ningbo Regular University of Angling.

“Fortunately, that’s not going to be the case. They just canceled Skyfall instead.”

Admitting that the intriguing predominance of the ‘M’ character, played by Dame Judi Dench, as well as the casting of such veteran British screen luminaries as Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney, present an enticing cinematic proposition – even for those not normally interested in the classic spy series – history graduate Liu Feng, 22, says she’s delighted she won’t have the difficult choice of deciding whether to follow every move of the new Congress or catch the latest Bond movie instead.

“Now my November and December can be 100 percent, non-stop NPC. After all, it’s all anyone in China, or anywhere else for that matter, can think about,” Liu shrilled, adding that the slew of extra security measures in Beijing provided an added bonus. “These hundreds of minor inconveniences remind us all how about how much we really give a heck!”

While the majority of China’s 1.4 billion cinema-goers agreed the film’s postponement was a good thing, some felt that it had not gone far enough.

“I hope they block the Internet, too,” enthused 19-year-old online gaming addict and NPC junkie Zhao Rong. “Oh, they already have.”

Propaganda official Cao Peng Wang says the cancellation of Skyfall has galvanized Chinese movie audiences, most of whom were glumly anticipating 10 days of political Viagra.

“There is time and place for critically acclaimed Western blockbuster,” Peng Wang warned. “And it certainly not China in November stability period.”

Chinese academics also pointed out the pointlessness of a fresh instalment of the long-running action movie franchise.

“Do we really need another Bond movie to enjoy the spectacle of a megalomaniacal foreign villain bent on world domination?” Professor Cao pointed out. “No. I didn’t think so.”

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By BO YANQIU
Culture Correspondent

Ai Weiwei recently taunted authorities and art critics by posting a spoof music video on YouTube

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Reclusive artist Ai Weiwei has permitted a small team of 46 foreign journalists to interview him, alongside everyone else.

“The other day, I thought: ‘I am going to have breakfast. And what’s so wrong with that? Why shouldn’t the New Yorker do a piece about it?’” the controversial artist mused to several correspondents, while pondering the 88-yuan lunch menu at Helen’s.

“Damned if I’m going to deny the world the details of my morning meal – it was congee, with orange juice,” Ai non-exclusively revealed.

Ai’s breakfast later became one of the New Yorker’s most popular China stories.

The bold meal choice was originally leaked to all 472 Beijing-based foreign reporters via a mass ‘tweet.’

This information was available only to those with a Twitter account, however – which is blocked on the mainland. China’s remaining 600 million web users remain locked in a dark vortex of Ai misinformation and ignorance, experts say.

Mainland opinion polls show that many Chinese believe South Korea is a country and that ‘Mao Zedong’ was just the wrong guy in the right place.

One elderly crone interviewed by China Daily Show had never actually heard of Korean pop single ‘Gangnam Style’ – even more depressingly, she was unable to grasp the potentially-subversive nature of Ai’s cover version, despite the fact that it was released months after the original.

“Please, leave me alone. Where am I?” 62-year-old Am Ding queried, her eyes darting nervously.

Meanwhile, for Chinese citizens craving further knowledge on Ai Weiwei, there is now little option but to read a foreign newspaper.

Follow exclusive China reportage with @chinadailyshow on Twitter

by WEI AIAI
Economics Correspondent

Police deny the case has anything to do with Ai Weiwei

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – A well-known Chinese economist has lost his appeal against charges of artistic evasion.

Ever since renowned taxation pundit Lu Tao was apprehended at Shanghai airport last year, while boarding a plane to Macau to lecture on revaluation of the yuan, calls have been growing for the Chinese courts to overturn their decision to fine the rogue economist.

Many believe the true reason for the case was Lu’s inflammatory speech regarding the inappropriateness of Keynesian analysis for examining fluctuations in the market price of shale gas, delivered at the Harvard Business School last March.

The economist’s outspoken criticisms of flagship Chinese economic policies are believed to have angered finance ministers.

Although the chubby neo-liberal – nicknamed “Fatty” Lu – made a name for himself on the international economics scene long before his arrest, it was the decision to charge him with so-called “artistic crimes” that sent shockwaves through the media last year, and catapulted Lu to greater fame.

Although Lu himself says the charges were “frivolous,” Beijing has denied that the case is connected with Lu’s economic activities.

“Lu Tao’s arrest has nothing to do with his economic principles or his academic output,” a spokesman told foreign media in one of the government’s few official statements on the matter. “This is a legal case, according to local laws and customs.”

Beijing has instead waged a propaganda war against Lu through various mouthpieces, such as an editorial in the Hong Kong state-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po, which claimed that “Lu secretly pursued a painting career while posing as an economist.”

The anonymous writer claimed that police had found evidence of several “poorly-realized traditional Chinese landscapes on canvas,” adding that their “amateur draughtsmanship” represented a “deliberate insult to the aesthetic principles of our 5,000-year-old culture, as cherished and preserved by the Communist Party.”

Although friends say the paintings merely represent Lu’s amateur drawing habit and “aren’t bad,” that didn’t stop Beijing police from confiscating artistic materials – including paintbrushes, a pastels set and several sheets of stiff-backed parchment – from his university offices.

Lu’s wife Zhang Yuqin, who is believed to have sat for one of her husband’s incendiary attempts at Impressionist portraiture, was also questioned.

Wen Wei Po said the sketches were “risible” and “offended police” but fellow economics professor Lin Dehua told China Daily Show that “it is abundantly clear these ‘artistic evasion’ charges are not really about the fact that Lu is a famously atrocious illustrator.”

According to Lin, “this case has everything to do with the relevance of Hegelian theory in assessing the historical significance of the Gold Standard.”

Lu’s opposition to corruption is well-documented and controversial passages in his twelve-volume, banned bestseller Be More Like Belgium (2009) – asserting that trickle-down economics is only applicable to developed and centralized societies –are said to have infuriated senior officials.

“Lu’s pencil drawings may be relatively unaccomplished, but did the police just happen to hone in on a doodler who also has a flawless command of the intricacies of economic transformation in China’s post-socialist marketplace?” Professor Lin asked. “Please.”

Lin said that Lu was a public figure who frightened the Party.

“Let’s be honest,” he added, “if anyone’s going to be a figurehead for a Chinese revolution, it’s an economist.”

Follow this and other top China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By Guang Guo
Media Correspondent

L’Oreal’s new anti-frizz formula offers zero-gravity bounce for any hair-based aeronautic disaster, says Gong

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Confusion has greeted an unexplained decision to suddenly cut  live television coverage of a Chinese spacecraft’s re-entry to Earth.

The launch of Shenzhou-9, a manned orbiter carrying the country’s first female astronaut, Liu Yang, has received little global  interest.

The exception is China’s state channel CCTV, which has broadcast constant, groundbreakingly enthusiastic and astronomically expensive coverage.

But the live  televised feed, which had thus far maintained constant coverage of the mission, was suddenly pulled from all stations at approximately thirteen minutes into the re-entry and landing procedure.

The broadcast was then inexplicably replaced with a rolling series of L’Oreal commercials.

Viewers tuning in to watch the three weary Chinese astronauts emerge from a cramped capsule, bobbing in the Yellow Sea, were instead greeted with actress Gong Li, explaining the benefits of L’Oreal’s range of hair-care product.

In the final image broadcast of the feed, which had a mandated one-hour time delay, a puzzled Yang was seen tapping one of the spacecraft’s landing dials and cursing softly.

The show then cut to the CCTV studios in Beijing, where a surprised-looking anchor, James Chau, seemed momentarily lost for words.

“Well, best not to dwell too much on the glory of the motherland,” Chau then briskly announced. “We’ll be right back after these important messages.”

The remarks were then followed by eight hours of back-to-back L’Oreal commercials, all featuring actress Li.

24 hours after Shenzhou-9 was scheduled to be retrieved, an unnamed China Space Agency spokesman issued a terse statement.

“Everything had gone completely according to plan,” he read. “The brave astronauts are precisely where we intended them to be.

“We have contacted their families and told them exactly what their reaction is,” the spokesman added.

He then left the podium to be replaced by actress Gong Li, who began speaking on behalf of L’Oreal’s new Viscose-Bounce Tonique range of shampoos and conditioners.

This morning, Chinese Internet searches for the words ‘Shenzhou-9’ ‘capsule,’ ‘spacecraft disaster’ and ‘flaming ball of death and wreckage,’ returned no results.

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Exclusive interview: The man who controls the “Chinternet”

By China Daily Show correspondents

China was one of the first countries to realize Internet Explorer was crap

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – For years, China’s efforts at Internet censorship and control have met with a sour face from both the international community and many Chinese themselves.

Recently, with political scandals and wide-ranging  efforts to censor what Beijing deems as “objectionable” material, the topic of web control has once again come into the limelight.

However, for many outsiders there is still a lack of understanding about the thinking and rationale of the authorities in charge of censorship in China.

In order to better understand the reasons for the country’s tight Internet controls, China Daily Show was granted an exclusive interview with the man who controls China’s Internet: Wang Wangwang.

What follows is Part One of this special interview, conducted at a unnamed cafe in Beijing, which has one hell of a latte.

China Daily Show: Thank you for agreeing to sit down with us, Mr Wang.

Wang Wangwang: Ya, ya, ya.

[Odd moment of silence]

CDS: Who is this? [gestures at the small, well-dressed monkey sitting to the right of Wang]

Wang: Him? That’s Rascals.

CDS: Well. OK then… Shall we begin the interview?

Wang: [Clears throat, coughs]

CDS: Er…  oh, right… [CDS reporter slides briefcase under table]

Wang: [Opens suitcase, counts for several minutes, nods]

CDS: How’s your throat feeling?

Wang: Much better. Let us begin your questions now.

CDS: We’ll start with the basics. China blocks many foreign websites – why is the Chinese government so paranoid about controlling information?

Wang: Blocked websites? What are you talking about?

CDS: Twitter, YouTube, Facebook…

Wang: Do you use Facebook? Do you have a Twitter account? How often do you… “tweet”?

CDS: Quite regularly, actually. But we use a VPN…

Wang: Oh! So why do you say they are blocked?

CDS: I think you’re missing the point…

Wang: Boom! Got ya.

CDS: You got me?

Wang: [sips from latte] Ya, I got ya.  Any more questions? [rising]

CDS: Quite a few, actually.

Wang: Oh, OK. [Sits]

CDS: Let’s change the subject and talk about Weibo [China's Twitter-like microblogging service]. Many observers both in and outside China are critical of your efforts to have real-name registration for using Weibo, because they say it will restrict freedom of expression in China.

Wang: [Quietly, sipping coffee] That’s bullshit.

CDS: Sorry?

WanLike many of China’s Internet censors, Wang Wangwang (pictured) is definitely always smoking something

Wang: It’s nothing to with that. All citizens in China enjoy freedom of speech under the Constitution, actually.

But when I sat down with other members of the Politburo last year, we were primarily concerned with staying in touch with the concerns and thoughts of members of the younger generations.

Obviously, children and young adults are very tech-savvy. They use technology that many more senior Chinese don’t understand. Example: President Hu has never learned how to text; all messages to his wife are typed in by an intern. When Wen Jiabao first used Hotmail, he thought you needed to shout the email into a bullhorn.

CDS: Really?

Wang: Not really. The purpose of name registration is to simply connect better, to broaden communication between leaders and citizens. For instance, my name is Wang Wangwang. Your name is [redacted]. But how could one possibly communicate with someone who calls themselves “little grass mud horse,” “niubi888” or “ai weiwei”? This is a form of disguise that limits true interaction.

CDS: Fair enough. Now let’s discuss a recent incident on the Internet that received widespread media attention some time ago. Many users found themselves utterly unable to access overseas websites and this outage lasted for a period of around two hours. Some people say this was a test for some of “kill switch” for the Chinternet. Is this true?

Wang: Is what true?

CDS: Well, firstly: do you have a kill switch?

Wang: This is not true at all. I can say with utmost truth that we emphatically do not have a “kill switch.” We have an “Internet on/off switch.”

CDS: Fascinating. And has this “Internet on/off switch” ever been used?

Wang: Yes.

CDS: When has this switch been used?

Wang: (shrugs) Couple times.

CDS: And why… I mean, how is the decision made about when to take this drastic action?

Wang: That’s beyond my job. We don’t decide.

CDS: Then who decides? I mean…

Wang: He does.[Points at monkey]

 CDS: Rascals?

Introducing China’s web 2.0 Monkey King, Rascals. Loves: bananas. Hates: Western media

Wang: Yes…

CDS: The monkey decides?

Wang: Trained monkey.

CDS: With respect, that is – alright, I can tell you’re joking again...

Wang: This is no joking. This idea was my brainchild. Totally genius idea, really. It came to me during that whole… difficulty with Google a couple years back. You know, all the censorship stuff. We took a lot of criticism about blocking this, blocking that. We thought, why take all this heat? Monkey can take heat instead. That way we have complete deniability! It was beautiful – that’s partly how I got this job. Thanks to Rascals.

CDS: So you’re telling me that a trained monkey called Rascals was responsible for a complete, inexplicable foreign Internet outage in China two weeks ago?

Wang: Ya! It makes a kind of sense now, actually, doesn’t it?

 CDS: In a weird kind of way… yes. Yes, it does.

Wang: He’s only suppose to flick the switch when he gets a signal but sometime… he just does it anyway. Don’t you, Rascals? [Rascals chatters madly] You see? Complete deniability.

Follow the full China story at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

If you see this image, you're in for an hour of primo horsecrap

Al Jazeera English announced Tuesday that its Beijing correspondent, Melissa Chan, did not have her visa renewed. The following is a transcript of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s daily briefing, where spokesman Hong Lei answered foreign reporters’ questions about the Chinese government’s action.

Hong Li: [Enters to sound of Gary Glitter’s ‘Rock n Roll Part 2’] Good morning, everybody.

Q: I just want to know whether the expulsion of Melissa Chan should be seen as a warning to other journalists operating in China?

Hong Lei: Damn straight…

Q: Under what circumstances will Al Jazeera be given press credentials and visas for a new reporter?

Hong Lei: Let’s just say we’re awaiting reports of a cold front emanating from certain underworld regions.

Q: So if there is a new correspondent for Al Jazeera, will you give them a visa?

Hong Lei: Didn’t catch that. Ask me another.

Q: Can you tell us who made the decision to deny Ms. Chan: was it the Foreign Ministry or another department?

Hong Lei: Honestly? Not a clue. I’m gonna refer you here to our mysterious laws and regulations.

Q: Can you give us any specifics on why Melissa Chan was expelled from the country… because there is a lot of confusion here and unless you’re more specific about it it’s very difficult for us to get a picture of exactly what’s going on.

Hong Lei: She was not expelled… as far as I know, she left of her own volition.

[Laughter]

Q: I think the main concern of the journalists is that the Chinese government, you use the issue of visa as a way to censor journalists’ work in China. Is this a precedent of how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will behave in the future?

Hong Lei: We do this every 14 years or so. So, yeah. No. Maybe.

Q: What could the Chinese government say if a Chinese journalist was expelled from a foreign country?

Hong Lei: Anybody else going to see Hanggai play this weekend?

Q: Chinese laws and regulations are written down, so even if we don’t know which ones Melissa is accused of violating, we know what they say. Nowhere I know is the Chinese government’s conception of journalistic ethics written down. How can we judge whether our behavior is consistent with Chinese conception of journalist ethics, and can you offer us guidance as to what that conception looks like?

Hong Lei: You’re asking me to lecture you on ethics? Oh, man. Wait till I tell the boys back in the ministry.

Q: What would the Chinese government say to accusations that it is censoring foreign media with the expulsion of Melissa Chan?

Hong Lei: We would give a convoluted and ultimately meaningless combination of diplomatic waffle and officialese, probably.

Q: Where can we see those regulations? Because we are having some problem finding which law and regulation was broken. So where can I check the regulation if I want to see some number or article was broken according to Chinese law?

Hong Lei: Look. They’re right over there – behind you! [Grabs documents, shuffles out to sound of Shaggy’s ‘It Wasn’t Me’]

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By XIAO NIAO
Rumors Correspondent

Bo Guagua: apart from the occasional gaffe, said to be a lonely, sensitive man

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has moved to erase the Internet, after the son of disgraced official Bo Xilai reversed his red Ferrari over a 16-year old migrant worker during a special live edition of hit dating show If You Are The One.

Bo Guagua’s appearance was originally scheduled to be a low-key affair, with Bo bicycling into the studio whistling an upbeat revolutionary tune and carrying a posy.

But a bizarre series of mishaps, multiple rewrites and production purges led to Bo instead being winched via crane into the open-air studio in a specially commissioned red-and-yellow Ferrari.

“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong,” said a witness. “The chain started to break, Bo panicked and started the engine, the car was in reverse gear, the worker wandered on set at precisely the wrong moment… un-fucking-believable.”

The ‘perfect storm’ of online outrage immediately which ensued, termed ‘Memeageddon’ by digital experts, sent China’s rumour-hungry blogosphere into meltdown, forcing the government to wipe the entire Internet in an attempt to conceal the scandal and calm the situation.

After receiving the go-ahead from the Politburo, the PLA’s Internet division has executed Order 66, a reserve strategy designed to neutralize any domestic scandal of a magnitude capable of destroying the Party in a single devastating stroke.

The Order has only been used once before, in 1996, when a webcam in Jiang Zemin’s bedroom accidentally broadcast the elderly leader in his underwear, dining on the corpse of a young virgin.

UPDATE: [Editor’s note: Without Internet, we are forced to rely on traditional newsgathering forms, rarely practiced today. As a consequence, much of the information is sourced from ‘conversations’ and ‘interviews,’ unverifiable by Wikipedia]

It has emerged that Bo’s appearance was part of a special edition of the popular dating show If You Are The One, approved months previously by China’s Ministry of Culture – or MiniCull, as it is popularly known – at the urging of Bo’s publicity-hungry father, Bo Xilai.

The show’s exact content may never be known, however, due to the complete eradication of all records. However, the migrant worker has been identified as Li Huiling, a young Chengdu girl in search of a wealthy husband to help pay for kidney treatment, after being poisoned by a frozen dumpling at the backstage buffet.

FURTHER UPDATE: More news on Order 66, the executive directive to erase the Internet, points to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) detonated in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, designed to instantly knock out all digital communications and erase the entire Internet, along with all records of the incident. Reports from Chongqing indicate the entire If You Are The One studio was also taken out in a tactical missile strike.

However, during the 18-minute window between the incident occurring and the wiping of the Internet, the episode, which aired simultaneously on several hundred video-exchange sites, was re-tweeted 8.2 billion times, effectively reaching every computer user on the planet at least once.

More alarmingly, the simultaneous re-tweeting reached critical mass seven minutes in, creating an electronic signal several times more powerful than the world’s highest-grade radio telescope, beaming the footage onto every mobile telecommunications device on Earth, as well as deep into the far reaches of space.

Experts are divided on the implications for China.

“It’s very hard for the Party to come back from something like this,” said analyst Russell Simes. “The image of a princeling’s sport car crushing an innocent girl to death on live television is very powerful. You’d need at least a good, clear, fresh upskirt of Angelina Jolie to shift that from your mind.

“Unfortunately, such images are illegal in China.”

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Dear dissident who can’t get arrested,

I got worried when I saw these guys outside my building this morning. But it turns out one of my neighbours is a serial killer!

My beloved pet cat went missing while I was out walking it in the park last week. Afterwards, I spotted one of my neighbours wearing a bracelet exactly like the diamond-studded collar my little Fang Fang used to wear. When I queried it, however, she smiled and invited me to discuss the matter over a special hotpot. Should I go?

I Thought I Saw a Pussy Cat

Dissident who can’t get arrested says:

I recently went down to the Avenue of Eternal Peace with some monks, and released several hundred snakes and doves. I was even wearing a a T-shirt with the words ‘One-party rule is a disaster’ in prominent characters. In no time at all, several cops turned up and ask me where I bought the shirt. I told them it’s from a 1946 Communist Party newspaper! They all laughed and told me bring a dozen down to the station for their friends.

Dear dissident who can’t get arrested,

Could you help my friends and I settle a debate? I’m convinced Hong Kong is a Semi-Autonomous Zone but she is certain it is a Special Administrative Region. My other mate suggests that it doesn’t matter, that Hong Kong is an incontrovertible part of China and we should both just shut the fuck up. Who do you think is right?

No Access to Google

Dissident who can’t get arrested says:

Have you checked out my counterrevolutionary pornography? It is very yellow, very offensive. You can find it at [redacted]. Close blue pop-up windows and scrolling down halfway, look for the link called “Great Deep Forward.” Please ignore any red pop-up: that’s prostitute “spam” and nothing to do with me: it will mess up your hard drive and is, believe me, very difficult to get rid of.

OK, so I recommend the video with Chairman Mao in a donkey suit, reading (in truth, it’s not the real Mao. It’s an artist friend of mine, wearing a grey suit and fake mole: very convincing, though). Pay special attention to the book in his hand. That’s right: it’s the banned Ming Dynasty classic The Plum in the Golden Vase! Today, I see my local police station is following this on Weibo. I wait for the knock at my door. Instead, they re-tweet.

Dear dissident who can’t get arrested,

I recently pulled some strings to get an editorial piece published in a major US newspaper. It was extolling the virtues of working in China and I duly sucked on the panda’s teat till my lips cracked. A few months on, I now realize what an embarrassingly naive greenhorn I must have appeared writing it.  I’m now telling everyone that it was, in fact, intended as a satirical piece and the editors utterly missed the point. Do you think this will wash?

Jonathan Levine

Dissident who can’t get arrested says:

I’m not really sure this has anything to do with the real issue at hand. Namely, my efforts to raise awareness of the recent government white paper Social Taxes in Anhui Province. This is an issue that has been scandalously neglected in the West, You can read all about my efforts to resist the state’s plan to raise taxes on rural farmers by three percent in exchange for “social benefits” at my personal blog, sxuysncine.net. Click through the sidebar underneath the ad for kitchen knives. I have some devastating things to say about the local taxation bureau and, judging from my hit rates, it’s clear the powers that be are doing everything they can to prevent people from viewing this incendiary material.

Last week: Ask a police chief trying to defect
Next week: Ask a Japanese AV star

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