Great leaping the shark
Most people in the US and Europe have only limited exposure to sharks, and these usually involve the creatures eating other things. Common examples include helpless New England beachgoers in “Jaws,” industrial quantities of feeder fish during the Discovery Channel’s semi-sacred Shark Week, and Henry Winkler’s career in “Happy Days.” In the Middle Kingdom, however, these sharks find that the tables have turned, or more accurately, are now underneath them. In response to the save-the-whales crew moaning that killing 70 million sharks a year is somehow not “sustainable,” China’s state media said this week that official banquets can no longer serve shark-fin soup. There’s a three-year phase-out window, because everyone knows these sorts of things can’t just be halted overnight (imagine the ruined parties!). Of course, China has plenty of other environmental problems to worry about in the meantime. Some 90% of Hubei’s lakes have disappeared from illegal water use. This week a local government in Sichuan province agreed not to allow a copper smelting plant after locals, concerned about potential pollution, mounted a huge protest. Best rest assured, those “Green Leap Forward” technocrats in Beijing are tackling the problem in, well, a Great Leap-y kind of way. This week they announced new bottle recycling machines for metro systems – a scheme that is not only uneconomical, but also wages an all-out assault on the country’s many bottle-pickers roaming the metro trashcans. We can only imagine how much palm-greasing was involved in that government contract, because if we actually reported it we’d probably be censored.
Answering the call of duty
More comparisons have been drawn this year between top-level Chinese politicians and soap operas than we care to shake a stick at. But the media has been sorely remiss in drawing the obvious parallels between China’s upper echelon and Hollywood’s high-octane action movies. (Oh, there have been plenty of fu-manchued Chinese dudes highlighting as masters of the dark arts; but thanks to co-productions in Hollywood, we will probably not be seeing any more Chinese villains anytime soon.) Now may be the perfect time to right this wrong, as the next wave of Chinese leaders starts to emerge. Many of these talented young men and women are fresh from the party training school, where they have undergone marathon KTV sessions and hours of politely groveling to each other. They have been carefully schooled in the proper etiquette and manners of their forefathers; they have received the regulation haircut, mustache-waxing and somber suit in a Hunger-Games-style makeover. Officials best be ready: Who knows what chiseled foes they will face? Since this clearly would make a great montage, you may be wondering the reason for Hollywood’s oversight. We’re guessing it’s merely a lack of material. Few who enter this inner circle ever emerge to tell the tale (you know what they say: Once you go black…). Some have described the inner circle of the Chinese government as a black box. It’s an apt expression: You don’t get to find out what’s in it – unless, of course, if it explodes.