By BAGONG JIZHE
Chinese media correspondent

GT staff say they would love to go on strike, if they could just afford to buy the banners

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – The editorial writer for nationalist newspaper the Global Times has told friends that he would like to join strikers at the Southern Weekly, if only he could pick the lock on his chains.

For the past four days, anonymous GT op-ed writer Wen Wenwen has watched in frustration as his peers at the independent-minded Guangdong newspaper revolted against interference by local propaganda officials.

“I’d love to go on strike,” Wen complained. “But unfortunately, I am unable to disable the alarm on my ankle tag.”

According to his contract, Wen must file 1,000 words of dross-and-dribble per day on a range of topics, from slamming the West’s interference in China’s internal affairs to attacking the US for influencing domestic issues.

“It’s hard work, especially as I’m absolutely forbidden from using either logic or reason,” Wen sighed. “Last week, I wrote 800 words ferociously castigating Ai Weiwei – without ever mentioning the words ‘Ai Weiwei.’ Imagine that.”

Wen spends up to 12 hours a day in a darkened room, and is denied access to the Internet in order to research articles.

“I’d love to go on strike but I have a sick mother and two children,” Wen admitted. “The bastards have got me right where they want me. I don’t even dislike the US; I actually love Desperate Housewives.”

The argument at the Southern Weekly has meanwhile spilled out into full-scale protest, with hundreds of students, professors, retirees and journalists demonstrating outside the newspaper’s headquarters in Guangzhou.

The argument centers on a local propaganda head’s decision to unilaterally replace an original New Year’s editorial about constitutionalism with his own, ham-fisted puff piece in support of the Communist Party.

But GT’s Wen had some words of advice for his angry Southern colleagues. “You guys are lucky,” he whispered. “At least you don’t have to write that crap yourself.”

This is not the first time the Global Times has been in the news recently.

Just last week, the paper hit the headlines after an actual, physical copy was found on sale in a magazine booth in Dongzhimen. The newspaper later apologized for the error.

Follow the latest developments in China with @chinadailyshow on Twitter

by DONG FANGHONG
Culture Correspondent

A scene from one of the new plots that may or may not be a scene from one of the old plots

BEIJING (China Daily Show) –Three new plots have been discovered in the national film archives, China’s Ministry of Culture announced yesterday.

The discovery was described as an “unprecedented leap forward for the Chinese entertainment industry” and brings the total number of acceptable storylines up to seven.

While anecdotes, legends and documented events from China’s lengthy historical annals are plentiful, the Party has struggled to find contemporary plotlines deemed to be of ‘Red Star Criteria’ for its national playlist.

“Many so-called ‘modern plots’ contain the kind of themes contemporary Chinese audiences just aren’t interested in,” snorted film critic Hu Jintao (relation) of the Central Party School’s Education Through Cinema Department. 

“Lesbian gangsters, bent cops and debauched politicians” are typical examples of boring Western obsessions, he said.

“Simply put, the Chinese have an insatiable appetite for three-hour epics about the Sino-Japanese war,” shrugged Hu.

The addition of a trio of new plots to the official canon is sure to propel China into the cinematic superleague, experts hope.

“Today is momentous,” remarked Ministry spokesperson Wu Laigang. “We have almost doubled our national artists’ creative capacity by graciously donating them these new stories.”

The three plotlines include the full range of genres and styles, Wu added, predicting that the first – in which two Shanxi schoolchildren use their father’s moonshine to burn down a Japanese official’s family home– will have Disney “running for the hills.”

The new storylines will see a 15% decrease in TV films based on squad combat in an unnamed forest circa 1930

The second is likely to replace Romeo and Juliet as the world’s favorite love story within six years, Wu says.

The plot is a “sizzlingly harmonious” love story, set during the Nationalist White Terror of the 1930s, in which the protagonists never meet. 

“We’re calling it White Heat,” said Wu. “It’s never been done before.”

Industry insiders say the third new plot may be the most original. 

A cross between James Bond, a Rolex advert and the Quotations from Chairman Mao, the story relates an uncorroborated incident from the early life of Mao Zedong, in which the shirtless junior librarian garrottes the Kuomintang officer responsible for his second wife’s execution, using piano wire concealed in his Chinese wristwatch.

The plots will significantly bolster China’s four extant storylines, currently consisting of statutory rape in wartime; a rich girl marrying her boss; a platoon fighting in a forest; and a teenage boy dying a lonely virgin, as a result of a non-specific wasting illness.

While some have welcomed the additions, others say China will not be a true cultural powerhouse until it has at least 10 storylines.

Minister Wu was quick to reassure talent agencies, however, that there would be no change to the standard ‘three male, two female’ character stereotypes.

“Some things will never change,” Wu smiled. “Men can still pick from Saint, Traitor or ‘Fat ’n’ Funny,’ while women can be either Victim or Bitch.” 

Follow the finest China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By XI MEITI
Western Media Correspondent

If you're reading this article, Shaun Rein has blocked you on Twitter

SHANGHAI (China Daily Show) – The Shaun Rein spinbot has been cancelled due to “complications,” a source in the Chinese government said yesterday.

A one-line statement on Xinhua, the official news agency, stated simply that the Rein has been “discontinued” and will be phased out over a five-month period. But others suggest the reasons may be more complicated.

Unknown abroad, the Rein is nevertheless familiar in Chinese media circles as a popular media troll. Its columns, which invariably regurgitate the government line in the face of overwhelming evidence, are produced using WuMao 2.0 – state software that most observers believe is hopelessly out of date.

“The Rein has served the Party well but modern times call for a modern approach,” said a WuMao spokesman who refused to give his name. “Our internal studies showed no one ever actually listened to anything the Rein had to say, anyway.”

Insiders point to more public signs of cognitive dissonance, however.

According to some reports, the Rein was briefly detained last month after being found “naked and masturbating” at 3am on the Shanghai Bund. Witnesses report the Rein was gesticulating wildly, while clutching a tattered copy of an infamous 2009 Pew research poll, which claimed 86 of Chinese are “happy with the government.”

“The cops had to gently prise it from its fingers,” said one eyewitness. “It was covered with crazy-ass doodles but the Rein just wouldn’t let it go.”

Sources close to the Rein explained that the bizarre breakdown was brought on by stress and an impending sense that it was being “judged by God.” But the Chinese government is also said to be increasingly displeased by the Rein’s descriptions of itself as a marketing guru.

The Rein’s China Market Research Group (CMR) describes itself as the “world’s leading strategic market intelligence firm.” But when this reporter visited its Shanghai offices, we found only months-old newspapers and an abandoned desktop terminal, left open to a game of spider solitaire. A migrant worker selling bicycle parts nearby claimed to currently be CMR’s chief analyst.

Sources in Beijing added that the Rein’s marketing boasts were embarrassing, even for them. “The Rein was only supposed to make absurd claims about the Party – not its career,” fumed one strategist.

Not everyone is pleased to see the ageing spinbot go, however.

“It’s a sad day, in some ways,” said Grady Einstein, a writer for the anti-Chinese US golfing magazine Fores. “Who could forget the Rein’s hopeless attack on Christian Bale? Its description of the Great Leap Forward as a “mass diet”? Its defence of Tiananmen as a vital training exercise?

“It’s going to be very hard for the Party to replace the Rein with something equally misguided. Thankfully, that task could not be in better hands.”

Follow breaking China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By XI MEITI
Western Media Correspondent

The blind pianist (left) and his deaf sister (right) hadn't seen or heard each other since their incestuous Culture Revolutionary days

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – A Beijing-based journalist for a US magazine has admitted to posting a Beijing news story today neither critical nor apparently prejudiced towards China.

Grady Einstein, Beijing bureau chief for Fores – a US golf magazine popular with Western imperialists bent on curtailing China’s rise – blogged afterwards that, although his articles usually involve such Western media tropes as “corrupt officials, workers’ rights, illegal detentions, food-safety scandals and off-the-charts pollution indexes,” he was simply unable to “drum up anything both newsworthy and negative” before his Tuesday night deadline.

He therefore posted a heartfelt and positive piece about a blind pianist being reunited with his deaf sister in the family’s Qing Dynasty-era Houhai home, which itself had recently been saved from demolition by sympathetic government officials.

“The usual bastards must have taken a day off!” Einstein joked in an interview with China Daily Show, before launching into a long-winded defense of his journalistic imperative to address issues of injustice and governmental malfeasance “regardless of which country said writer may happen to momentarily reside.”

Mr. Einstein vehemently denied being in the employ of Western governmental forces but admitted to feeling disconcerted upon receiving an SMS invitation to attend a lavish banquet hosted by delighted party officials from the Ministry of Propaganda.

The story drew few hits on Fores’ website, however, but managed to provoke a derisive comment from netizen paulchrysler, who jeered “Nice one, panda-hugger. Enjoy your 5 mao!”

But from Chinese netizen, lonelynoodles23, the self-declared “arch-narcissus” of Mr. Einstein, there was merely silence.

Stay on top of China news. Follow @chinadailyshow on Twitter