Although I love - LOVE - the Olympics, I am somewhat happy to have been in another country for the majority of the games because it reduced my risk of exposure to the offensive and stupid things that Americans reporting on China say. (However, I did read an article in the Irish Times that began something like this: "The Chinese are trying to change their image from the poor purveyors of cheap foods worldwide to that of a political powerhouse"...or something. So I guess 2520s the world around will say offensive and stupid shit.) I have cringed about two hundred times just in my two days of consuming American media coverage.
Here's my favorite moment: last night, NBC aired a little feature in which the dumb blonde anchor goes out into Beijing and samples tourist foods (you know, scorpions, snakes, etc.) and believes them to be the kind of foods that Chinese people regularly eat. This is, of course, a ridiculous premise, because Americans don't call Rocky Mountain oysters, Tofurky, 65 hot dogs eaten in ten minutes - or what have you - ordinary American foods. Anyway, the anchor ate pigs ears, and it almost made her cry. What the fuck, lady? Have you never gone outside your home? You can buy chopped up pig ears in Mountain View, California. You can buy them not far from your studio in Hollywood. After taking a bite, the anchor made some oblique comment about how she'd watched her dog eat pigs ears before and inadvertantly likened one billion people to dogs.
But my favorite part was when it came time to wash down her fried scorpions with a gulp of tea. "Cheers" or "l'chaim" in Mandarin is pronounced "gan bei." Two syllables, not so hard.
The anchor raised her cup and beckoned the NBC hangers-on to do so as well.
"Gang bang!" she declared loudly. "Gang bang, everybody!"
Oh. My. God. Lady, try a little harder! It's TWO FUCKING SYLLABLES!
"Gang bang, everybody!"
This post is really going to generate some unwanted hits on this website.
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