The following post was published by xgz on
his The Daily Kos blog on February 5, 2013:
When Ping Fu's book, Bend, not Break: A Life in Two Worlds, went on sale with much media fanfare, almost every major media outlet reported her story. I heard it on NPR. It was then that Chinese Americans found out how Ping Fu was inventing her experience in China to profit from it. We were outraged and spoke out strongly against the book.
The American (and Western) media, instead of examining the inconsistencies in her book and accepting that they made a big mistake, started to attack her critics as "shills" of the Chinese government. The Chinese American community were insulted first by Ping Fu's lies, then abused by the media. It is a spectacular display of the ignorance and arrogance of the mainstream American culture. The undercurrent of racism against everything Chinese that most people dared not to express openly, has finally found an outlet.
This makes me very angry. We will not give up. We will fight this battle to the end.
To see a description of the Ping Fu affair, please read my previous diaries Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.
The despicable display of ignorance, prejudice, journalistic irresponsibility, and deep-rooted racism can be seen clearly in the report of the reaction in this Guardian article:
Chinese cast doubt over executive's rags to riches tale
Author of book describing her path from cultural revolution to head of US technology firm accuses critics of smear campaign
Oh my fucking god, a "smear campaign"! First of all, I am one of the strongest critics of Ping Fu, and I am an American! And to use one side's words in the title of article clearly displays where the prejudice of the journalist is. The whole article is trying to gloss over the problems in her book, and just repeats the lines used by Ping Fu herself to defend her lies.
And this journalist must be a shill for Ping Fu, if we judge by her standards:
Furious at the airing of China’s dirty laundry in Ping Fu’s new memoir, Chinese commenters have kicked off an online assault. The tech entrepreneur tells Katie Baker the vitriol feels like the public shame sessions of her youth.
No, she did not have any public shame sessions during her youth. She made all of them up. Now she has brought shame onto her by her own lies.
And the display of racism in the comments is even worse. Here is just a random sample:
CharlesLiu
30 minutes ago
You got your propaganda wrong, Katie. Most commenters are ex-pat like Fu who knew her story was Mike Daisey-esq. Also the Chinese myth buster who debunked Fu's claims is a well known academic in China.
X
21 minutes ago
Another Chinese Blogger aka propagandist.
CharlesLiu
18 minutes ago
@X What a bigoted comment. I ain't from mainland China, ain't never been citizen of the PRC a day in my life. I live in Seattle, name the place we can settle this in person if you like. #McCarthyism
X
15 minutes ago
Like they say in China, keep on blogg'n
X
9 minutes ago
I just checked the phone book, and you are not listed. Did you mean Seattle, China.
There are numerous such attacks on us on the review page of Ping Fu's book on Amazon. They are too painful for me to read.
My heart aches. Why aren't we treated as Americans? Why whenever there is a debate or disagreement, are we considered Chinese, not American? Why? Can any Kossacks help me understand? What is wrong with America?
On further reflection, I may have overreacted myself. It is possible that those attacks are the works of Fu's PR team to exploit the weaknesses in us. So perhaps even the racist tones were part of the lies. I hope that is the case.
No comments:
Post a Comment