CCTV FOLLIES 5.1 MAY DAY MEANS SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!
May Day with floral overtones -Fun, fun, fun! -Stakhanovite worker tends to Artificial Sun -Xi bloviates -Israel ready for Rafah -Quds Brigade in action -Russia ravages -US jet down! -Toxic chemicals!
It’s May Day, and that means happy time! May 1 is a stalwart date in the communist calendar, though its meaning as a meaningful holiday for much put-upon workers has probably seen some mission drift in recent years.
It’s a time for those with disposable income to have fun, and to spend money, which is all well and good, but fun doesn’t leave much room for workers complaints, or workers rights or the right to strike or make militant demands for better conditions.
May Day has come to mean domestic tourism day, so the mood is upbeat and fun.
As for the campus chaos sweeping the US, which, by ordinary CCTV logic, fits in with May Day’s militant, anti-imperial worldview, and not just in visual terms, would be a big win in support of the fixed editorial notion that the US is a nation in steep decline.
But it’s nowhere to be seen, essentially banished from the airwaves.
Interestingly, the whitewashing and sugary overcoat applied to a day originally dedicated to the earthy and ungilded realm of worker’s rights has taken on a floral overtone with distinct feminine characteristics.
The grit and grime of labor is hidden. Demonstrations are a distraction.
Although the pro-Palestinian protests sweeping the US happen to fit hand in glove with current CCTV editorial policy, not a frame of the ruckus rocking American campuses has made the cut on Xinwen Lianbo in recent weeks. Nothing.
The print press has has very limited coverage, rather more prudent than sensational.
ed. note: (It will be interesting to see how CCTV covers May 7, the 25th anniversary of the Belgrade bombing which provoked the biggest anti-US demonstrations in recent Chinese history. Xi will be in Belgrade remembering the event, so the focus will more than likely focus upon the rotund one, but I digress...)
That’s not to say there isn’t negative news about the US; the evening news stills likes to stick it to Uncle Sam in the closing segment of the day, after other foreign stories have been dispensed with and all the good news* from China has been aired.
Whether the US demonstrations are being deliberately elided for their bad vibes or by straight-up editorial fiat, there is no shortage of bad news from the US, such as the North Carolina shooting of four police officers on yesterday’s news.
Today a US military jet crash will have to suffice.
The blossoming of domestic tourism, spendthrift tourists and the attendant explosion of selfie culture is the big news of the day (personality cult aside)
What’s more, even in the more orthodox representations of May Day, such as the scenes from a CCTV special included in today’s news, there is the suggestion of a softer, gentler, more feminine interpretation of the gruff old militant worker’s day.
There’s an obligatory image of factory workers, or the modern day equivalent of such, but the uniform poses and matching, color-coded factory wear speak more to TV photogenics than the proud tradition of struggling for labor rights. They look tamed.
If treating a crowd of a thousand like pixels to assemble a stunning image is a good way to celebrate May Day, then CCTV has found it in “China dream, labor beauty.”
May Day is a day for flowers. It’s jarring at first, but rather nice to see a few Vox Populi shots offering paeans of praise for flowers rather than heaping it all on Xi.
May Day is a day for selfies.
May Day is a day to spend money and snap phone photos.
Beijing is not exempt from the May Day fun contagion.
No need to go all the way to Yunnan, Tibet or Xinjiang to see the minorities days. There are “authentic” theme parks catering to this need.
What better way to spend May Day than to don a pretty costume and pay money to pick a few tea-leaves?
May Day is a red holiday, a joyous day!
Glamping anyone?
Nice shot!
May Day spending revenue is meeting expectations if not exceeding them.
Craftsman of a Great Country
“Chen Jianlin: Ingenuity protects great scientific devices”
EAST, known as the "artificial sun", is the world's first fully superconducting tokamak nuclear fusion experimental device…Not long ago, the experimental fully superconducting tokamak device EAST achieved another major breakthrough, achieving plasma operation with an ion temperature greater than 100 million degrees. Behind this, Chen Jianlin and the large scientific device maintenance team led by him are inseparable. In 2006, Chen Jianlin, who has rich experience and comprehensive skills, participated in the EAST assembly work and was responsible for the assembly of the core component, the built-in cryogenic pump. The diameter of the built-in cryopump ring body is 4 meters. The 4-layer ring body from the inside to the outside needs to be assembled through 8 sub-sections and connected to form a complete ring in the vacuum chamber. The numerous processes are very easy to produce cumulative errors, and the design requires the final assembly gap cannot exceed 0.05 mm.
The Chen Jianlin story is propaganda at its best. It touches on China’s remarkable advances in science. It is informative about the dimensions of cryopumps. And Chen is a worker, so it fits in nicely with the ostensible theme of the day.
Was there other news? Yes, there was. (A day with Xi is not CCTV!)