The War of Vacant Chairs
By Chip Tsao | published Dec 09, 2010
Enraged by Norway’s audacity when it interfered with China’s internal affairs by awarding our public enemy No.1, Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize, an official newspaper in Beijing has called for the establishment of a Confucian Peace Prize to counteract the white man’s supremacy in dictating who is the good guy and who is the thug.
Not a bad idea. Should the Oscar-bestowing American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hegemonize the definition of good-quality movies? The French have long answered them with their Cannes Film Festival. Since we already have Zhang Yimou—a peasant-born filmmaker with genius rivaling Steven Spielberg and known as China’s Akira Kurosawa or sometimes hailed as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Orient—it is high time we presented Confucius as a check and balance to Oslo, the White House, 10 Downing Street and even Jehovah of the Old Testament, to tell the world eloquently and afresh what is morally right and morally wrong.
In that context, the field for the Confucian Peace Prize would be as highly competitive as the Nobel. Should the first year’s award go to our Dear Leader Kim Jong-il of North Korea or Senior General Than Shwe of Myanmar? Or, for example, should we give the inaugural honor to President Mugabe of Zimbabwe due to his age? The choice is already shaping up to be a headache for our selection committee, on which the Chief Executive of Hong Kong would be a permanent ceremonial non-executive member with the right to raise his hand to signal a “yes” concurrence to any decision.
To boost Hong Kong’s status as an international city and a cradle of culture, the award presentation ceremony for the first year could be held at City Hall in Central with some singers and primary school children performing “We Are the World” with a happy welcoming orchestra. Invitations will be sent to ambassadors or even foreign ministers of the United States and European Union, which means plenty of empty seats in the first couple rows of the hall. A perfect retaliation for their provocation.
Hostile western media ranging from Oslo TV and Reuters to Fox News and NHK will unleash a cynical smear campaign attacking the prize as a hilarious farce. A few Sinologists and anthropologists from the University of London’s School of African and Oriental studies will sink to the level of claiming that the man named Confucius never even existed. To that we as Chinese will have the courage to answer back in a voice 10 times louder: Yes, Confucius was a historical figure 2,400 years ago, more real than Jesus Christ—and our ancient Great Master of All Wisdoms stands on a moral ground definitely higher than a bunch of bear-skin-wearing, whale-killing Vikings.
Call it arrogance, but with a foreign reserve of more than US$1.8 trillion, it is time for us to act as Confucius once said: “A man with a hole in his pocket always feels cocky.”
Enraged by Norway’s audacity when it interfered with China’s internal affairs by awarding our public enemy No.1, Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize, an official newspaper in Beijing has called for the establishment of a Confucian Peace Prize to counteract the white man’s supremacy in dictating who is the good guy and who is the thug.
Not a bad idea. Should the Oscar-bestowing American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hegemonize the definition of good-quality movies? The French have long answered them with their Cannes Film Festival. Since we already have Zhang Yimou—a peasant-born filmmaker with genius rivaling Steven Spielberg and known as China’s Akira Kurosawa or sometimes hailed as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Orient—it is high time we presented Confucius as a check and balance to Oslo, the White House, 10 Downing Street and even Jehovah of the Old Testament, to tell the world eloquently and afresh what is morally right and morally wrong.
In that context, the field for the Confucian Peace Prize would be as highly competitive as the Nobel. Should the first year’s award go to our Dear Leader Kim Jong-il of North Korea or Senior General Than Shwe of Myanmar? Or, for example, should we give the inaugural honor to President Mugabe of Zimbabwe due to his age? The choice is already shaping up to be a headache for our selection committee, on which the Chief Executive of Hong Kong would be a permanent ceremonial non-executive member with the right to raise his hand to signal a “yes” concurrence to any decision.
To boost Hong Kong’s status as an international city and a cradle of culture, the award presentation ceremony for the first year could be held at City Hall in Central with some singers and primary school children performing “We Are the World” with a happy welcoming orchestra. Invitations will be sent to ambassadors or even foreign ministers of the United States and European Union, which means plenty of empty seats in the first couple rows of the hall. A perfect retaliation for their provocation.
Hostile western media ranging from Oslo TV and Reuters to Fox News and NHK will unleash a cynical smear campaign attacking the prize as a hilarious farce. A few Sinologists and anthropologists from the University of London’s School of African and Oriental studies will sink to the level of claiming that the man named Confucius never even existed. To that we as Chinese will have the courage to answer back in a voice 10 times louder: Yes, Confucius was a historical figure 2,400 years ago, more real than Jesus Christ—and our ancient Great Master of All Wisdoms stands on a moral ground definitely higher than a bunch of bear-skin-wearing, whale-killing Vikings.
Call it arrogance, but with a foreign reserve of more than US$1.8 trillion, it is time for us to act as Confucius once said: “A man with a hole in his pocket always feels cocky.”
Labels: Politically Incorrect, 陶傑
posted by Gemini Saga at 12:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home