We were fortunate down in the Pearl River Delta to have very few (if any) casualties from Typhoon Vicente, which crashed into our shores this week. Beijing, which faced its own storm over the weekend, wasn’t nearly as lucky.
MissXQ, who has done excellent work on Twitter following the floods up north, has translated a heartbreaking tale of a girl in Beijing who chronicled her search for her dad on Sina Weibo after the deadly floods drowned parts of the city.
The girl, named @侯帅不是女金刚 on Weibo, lives in Fengtai District in Beijing. Below is her story, told through her own posts on Sina Weibo as she frantically searched for her father and pleaded with others for help.
Her odyssey began on the afternoon of the rainstorm in Beijing. She made her first post around 4:00pm on July 23:
“My dad went to Man Shui Qiao (in Beijing’s Shijingshan District) to go fishing before the rainstorm. He is still not home. My mom and I am really worried! Please repost and help us! His car is a silver Buick and the plate number is NOKJ06.”
Netizens in China helped her out by sharing her post 44,000 times. At 4:30 pm on July 23, she posted to say her mom had called the police, who said someone reported her dad’s car had been washed away.
“The police said a car was washed away around the time my mom called my dad… that was their last conversation. Please help repost, thank you!! This is my dad’s picture.”
5:09 pm, July 23:
“Can somebody tell me what number I can call to check if my dad’s name is on the casualty list?”
5:13 pm:
Some netizens posted to Weibo accusing @侯帅不是女金刚 of just wanting to seek attention by posting that her dad was missing. In response, she said she wouldn’t curse her dad to become famous.
6:33 pm, @侯帅不是女金刚 posted:
“Can anyone help? We reported to the police and asked them to search for my dad’s car, but the police said they have to ask permission from their bosses, so we have to wait! What can I do? Please, please, please!”
Most netizens commented that she should ask her relatives and friends to help rather than wait for the “useless” police.
6:42 pm:
“Who can come to my house and help us search for my dad? Police aren’t bothering, I beg you all, please please please! I am going nuts!”
6:48 pm:
“My mom, relatives and I will go out searching for my dad ourselves, please contact my number when I am not on Weibo! Thank you all!” She included her phone number in her post.
12:24 am, July 24:
“I just got back home. The TV station interviewed us. We went to the hospital and police station, but no result. Thanks for all your help. We are still waiting for the police to get permission from their bosses to start searching for my dad, and we are sure NOKJ06 is his car plate number. Thank you for your repost. I am not lying, really.”
1:36 am:
“Anyone know the big names in the city level police bureaus? Can you help to talk to them directly and speed up the process so we don’t need to wait for them to finally decide to search for my dad? My mom and I can not wait anymore, we are so worried.”
2:50 am:
“My mom is still awake. I cannot sleep either. I feel so bad. I have prepared for the worst to come but I dare not think about it. I am so scared, so scared… I don’t want to lose my dad, I don’t want to lose my whole world. But for my mom, I have to stay positive and I believe my dad is okay! He will be back and I will continue to search for him tomorrow. “
4:50 am:
“My mom fell asleep. I cannot. I am so worried. I am so afraid something will happen. Papa, please come back, I beg you, please!”
5:48 am:
“I’ve never thought this kind of thing will happen to me. I am really worried now. I don’t know what is waiting for me. I prepared for the worst but I am so scared that we still don’t have any clue where my dad is. How much I hope this is just a nightmare and it will all go away when I wake up! Dad, please come home, me and my mom are waiting for you!”
8:05 am:
“Please don’t play with me anymore. Those people who sent me SMSs and told me they found my dad’s car, please don’t play with me anymore. When I got your message, I woke my mom up and called you back, but your phone is out of service. Please don’t play with me. I am so worried!”
9:22 am:
“At 10:48 pm on July 23, someone reported to the police that he saw a car being washed away. It was at the same time my mom spoke with my dad on the phone. But the police have not given us any update on when they will search for that car. The police told us they have to get permission from their boss to search for the car. They won’t do anything before they get permission! But my mom and I are so worried! Does anyone have any good ideas?”
9:51 am:
“Can I curse? If my dad is a government official the police wouldn’t let us wait this long just to get permission! We have been begging them all day and night, they still cannot get permission!!! My dad is in the car and the car is under the fucking water!! I cannot fucking stand it! Can you save people’s lives first? Can you!!”
2:27 pm:
“Thank you all! My family has contacted the special rescue team. But all of them are in Fangshan and they have no people available to help us. I called the mayor’s hotline, but the only answer is wait. I called 110 (police) and the fire department, no one can help. All my family has no other choice but wait. We are all prepared for the worst. I don’t know what to do. The only thing we can do is wait for the rescue team to have some spare people to save my dad.”
3:25 pm:
“Now the Shijingshan, Fengtai and Mentougou police stations are trying to clear themselves out of this. We found the car plate. My uncle found someone to go under the water to search for it and picked it up. I am on the spot. All the police are trying to come clear of it. “
4:14 pm:
“Finally the rescue team has some time to search for my dad and his car.”
5:27 pm:
“This is my last Weibo update, I found my dad’s car, car plate, and his body… I love you, dad.”
It could be argued that Shenzhen is becoming China’s very own Silicon Valley. It is the home of Tencent, China’s largest web company and creator of QQ and the WeChat/Weixin apps, and also Huawei, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. Shenzhen will also be home of Baidu’s impressive new international headquarters when it opens in 2015. This doesn’t even touch on the fact the vast majority of the world’s electronics are manufactured here or near here, and a burgeoning trade of gadgets and toys has made Huaqiangbei almost as famous as Tokyo’s Akibahara neighbourhood.
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Comment: Yang Rui’s “Kinsley gaffe”
Posted: 05/23/2012 7:00 amI’ve been closely following the developments regarding CCTV Dialogue host Yang Rui, not least because I was a former editor at CCTV 9 and frequently bumped into Yang while I was in the building. I say “bumped into” because that’s about all it was; Yang never actually entered the CCTV 9 newsroom as far as I can recall and rarely – if ever – spoke to us plebeians. Needless to say, he wasn’t the most popular colleague among both foreign and local staff.
Before I launch into my thoughts on the case, Shanghaiist does an excellent job of summing up where we are:
Oh, and he also called recently-expelled Al Jazeera English journalist Melissa Chan either a “bitch” or a “shrew”, depending on who’s translating the Chinese term 泼妇.
One of the newest (and quickly becoming one of the best) China blogs, Rectified.name, recently published a post by YJ which asks:
That’s a good question. Why do we care what Yang Rui thinks? There’s definitely an “a-ha!” moment to what Yang wrote, because I believe there has been collective skepticism about the true beliefs under his faux-Ted Koppel veneer. Perhaps there’s even an element of schadenfreude here, considering Yang isn’t particularly well-liked to begin with.
I would submit that Yang committed a “Kinsley gaffe“, which “refers to a politician inadvertently saying something publicly that they legitimately believe is true but have not fully analyzed the consequences of publicly stating such.” Yang isn’t a politician, but many would suspect the rest of the description fits.
Yang carries himself with a certain haughty assurance and dignified air of authority that comes across as sadly misplaced when one considers he hosts a propaganda program on a Communist Party-funded television channel that very few take seriously. The fact is, he’s not as great as he thinks he is, because dignified television hosts have enough self awareness not to let loose with xenophobic rants on social media.
Make no mistake, if Yang worked for another TV station in another market, he would almost certainly be fired. It’s not just the rant – which was bad enough – but the fact it was targeted at foreigners who, I presume, are precisely his target audience and his pool of potential guests. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
His pathetic climb-down non-apologies also make the situation worse. He has worked in a coddled and protected environment for so long he doesn’t know how to handle himself when he finds himself the subject of real news. When one says something incredibly incendiary, the first step is a full and unconditional apology, period, even if parts of what was said were accurate. Instead, his subsequent Weibo posts and correspondence with the Wall Street Journal just make him look petulant, and ensures he remains in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
We are witnessing, in Shanghaiist’s words, a “douchebag” come undone. While this can be entertaining, especially for those who may have secretly wished for his comeuppance, it’s beside the point. What matters is the damage he has done to himself, his show, his television channel, and China’s soft power push. For that, he should be fired.
This story was cross-posted on Zhongnanhai