Time to Listen
By Chip Tsao | published Feb 12, 2009
After Obama’s inauguration speech, there was a global consensus that the new president of the United States has recaptured the majestic eloquence missing from American leaders since JFK and Abraham Lincoln—especially after George Bush’s inability to get his tongue around words, phrases and meanings, and generally making a laughingstock of himself for the past eight years.
But let us remember that through his oratorical incompetence Bush had once given us, the Chinese people, some comfort and confidence. It would not be a mis-underestimation to classify Bush as one of the most boring public speakers in American history. But at the same time, he did offer more entertainment to his audiences than the average Chinese elite does.
Few in Hong Kong would dispute that being forced to listen to a Chinese elite delivering a public speech at a banquet or a cocktail party is the second-most boring experience in the world after, say, watching an old gorilla snoring in her cage. Be it a stone-faced government secretary speaking as the guest of honor at the National Day celebration party of Saudi Arabia, or a millionaire father-in-law stuttering a few words off a piece of paper at a Chinese wedding before the roast piggy is served, they almost always start with a long chain of salutes: “our honorable chairman, vice-chairmen, ladies and gentlemen.” One of the toughest social challenges is fighting back a big deep yawn and keeping your mouth courteously shut while holding a glass of orange juice in the crowd.
But soon comes some relief. You’ll soon find every guest around you feeling the same pain of boredom, and they’ll begin whispering to one another. The mumble soon escalates to a defiant hubbub, then a rebellious market uproar, with people shouting out here and there while making weekend golf appointments, or enquiring about how much money they lost in the latest stock market crash. The speaker carries on with his broken, lonely monologue, reciting phrases like “building a harmonious society”—echoing the fashionable word “harmony,” which is as indispensable to any Chinese speech as soy sauce is to Chinese cooking.
How many times do consul-generals and diplomats have to endure no-choice speeches in Hong Kong or Shanghai, simply because China is, as cliché has it, a big market that cannot be ignored? The Chinese guest-of-honor speaker standing right in the center of that market is always completely ignored. You can hardly hear a thing, and you’re not likely to regret much by that, except that the champagne served during that humming Chinese speech was just a touch too warm.
After Obama’s inauguration speech, there was a global consensus that the new president of the United States has recaptured the majestic eloquence missing from American leaders since JFK and Abraham Lincoln—especially after George Bush’s inability to get his tongue around words, phrases and meanings, and generally making a laughingstock of himself for the past eight years.
But let us remember that through his oratorical incompetence Bush had once given us, the Chinese people, some comfort and confidence. It would not be a mis-underestimation to classify Bush as one of the most boring public speakers in American history. But at the same time, he did offer more entertainment to his audiences than the average Chinese elite does.
Few in Hong Kong would dispute that being forced to listen to a Chinese elite delivering a public speech at a banquet or a cocktail party is the second-most boring experience in the world after, say, watching an old gorilla snoring in her cage. Be it a stone-faced government secretary speaking as the guest of honor at the National Day celebration party of Saudi Arabia, or a millionaire father-in-law stuttering a few words off a piece of paper at a Chinese wedding before the roast piggy is served, they almost always start with a long chain of salutes: “our honorable chairman, vice-chairmen, ladies and gentlemen.” One of the toughest social challenges is fighting back a big deep yawn and keeping your mouth courteously shut while holding a glass of orange juice in the crowd.
But soon comes some relief. You’ll soon find every guest around you feeling the same pain of boredom, and they’ll begin whispering to one another. The mumble soon escalates to a defiant hubbub, then a rebellious market uproar, with people shouting out here and there while making weekend golf appointments, or enquiring about how much money they lost in the latest stock market crash. The speaker carries on with his broken, lonely monologue, reciting phrases like “building a harmonious society”—echoing the fashionable word “harmony,” which is as indispensable to any Chinese speech as soy sauce is to Chinese cooking.
How many times do consul-generals and diplomats have to endure no-choice speeches in Hong Kong or Shanghai, simply because China is, as cliché has it, a big market that cannot be ignored? The Chinese guest-of-honor speaker standing right in the center of that market is always completely ignored. You can hardly hear a thing, and you’re not likely to regret much by that, except that the champagne served during that humming Chinese speech was just a touch too warm.
Labels: Politically Incorrect, 陶傑
posted by Gemini Saga at 12:00 AM
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