Althouse: "Justin Bieber is a gifted singer, but he is also a controversial young foreign singer. In order to maintain order in the Chinese market and purify the Chinese performance environment..."

July 21, 2017

"Justin Bieber is a gifted singer, but he is also a controversial young foreign singer. In order to maintain order in the Chinese market and purify the Chinese performance environment..."

"... it is not suitable to bring in badly behaved entertainers. We hope that as Justin Bieber matures, he can continue to improve his own words and actions, and truly become a singer beloved by the public."

Said the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture (responding to an inquiry from a Chinese Bieber fan).

25 comments:

David said...: China. Doing the job America won't do.; 7/21/17, 9:25 AM
holdfast said...: Suddenly Thomas Friedman's obsession with blindly copying the ChiComs makes more sense . . .; 7/21/17, 9:26 AM
rcocean said...: Good luck in finding a "Well behaved" American singer!; 7/21/17, 9:30 AM
rcocean said...: Its too bad we can't purify OUR culture by keeping out Canadians.; 7/21/17, 9:31 AM
buwaya said...: Ask me if the Analects of Master Kung are permitted in US High Schools.; 7/21/17, 9:35 AM
Rocketeer said...: Overrated beer, overrated manners, overrated entertainers.; 7/21/17, 9:36 AM
Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...: Even if China’s healthcare includes mental, I doubt this is moral, at best - just healthcare cost-saving.

More likely, holding out for more “Visa-entry” money from our admin’s slush fund, because deep down, the Chinese really love Justin just that much.

Has Pussy Riot toured there, being so close and all?; 7/21/17, 9:36 AM
David said...: This is quite costly to the B.

And a warning shot to all other artists and entertainers.

The filmmakers already tread very softly where China is concerned. Don't want to lose that market.; 7/21/17, 9:36 AM
Rocketeer said...: Ah, yes - Feste reminds me - overrated health care system.; 7/21/17, 9:37 AM
mezzrow said...: (nods); 7/21/17, 9:42 AM
veni vidi vici said...: "The Analects of Master Kung"?

One might counter with a question about the academic value to high school students of what sounds like a treatise on tuned flatulence...; 7/21/17, 9:44 AM
Fernandinande said...: A good government protects its citizens from Canadians.; 7/21/17, 9:50 AM
Nonapod said...: Does China have any kind of Idol system yet like Japan and South Korea do? It's easy to see how a character like Justin Bieber with all his flaws wouldn't have fared well in the heavily curated world of J and K-pop idols.; 7/21/17, 9:51 AM
William said...: Winnie the Pooh. Bieber. Next up Muppets. A totalitarian state lets you know that it's totalitarian not just by their arbitrary rules but rather by their whimsicality.....The Taliban when they were in power banned kite flying.; 7/21/17, 9:58 AM
Fernandinande said...: buwaya said...
Ask me if the Analects of Master Kung are permitted in US High Schools.

Yes, and yes.

Would "They" want to suppress it because the guys who wrote the Christian new testament might've swiped all the morality stuff from him?; 7/21/17, 10:03 AM
DanTheMan said...: "We are OK with Mao killing millions, but not with Justin Bieber singing and dancing."; 7/21/17, 10:15 AM
holdfast said...: Winnie (i.e. Winnipeg) the Bear was also Canadian, though the fictionalized version was created by an English writer A.A. Milne, after he and his young son Christopher encountered Winnipeg at the zoo. Winnipeg was the animal mascot of the Fort Gary Horse, a Canadian cavalry regiment from Manitoba - and when they were shipped over to the Western Front, Winnie was left at a zoo in England (Canada had yet to realize the potential of bear cavalry, sadly). When the war finally ended, Winnipeg was no longer a cute cub, and had become used to his home at the zoo - so he remained there when the Canadian Army returned to Canada.

So why all this anti-Canadian hate by the ChiComes? Has the Other Justin been enforcing the Canada Investments Act (Canada's version of CFIUS) to stop ChiCom investment in Canada?

Bear Cavalry: https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/radioactive-bear-cavalry.png; 7/21/17, 10:16 AM
Drago said...: Would "They" want to suppress it because the guys who wrote the Christian new testament might've swiped all the morality stuff from him?

Extremely unlikely given the geography and timelines of contact and information exchange.; 7/21/17, 10:18 AM
Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...: Fernandinande said - "Would 'They' want to suppress it because the guys who wrote the Christian new testament might've swiped all the morality stuff from him?"

Fair swipe.

The reciprocity stuff of Confucius has cross-cultural, cross-legal, cross-here-and-there groundings in our hard-wiring, trained or distempered locally via education. It's fragile stuff.

The problem is not “The Analects” in American public schools.

It’s Melville.

“Queequeg, I absolutely forbid you to die.
Such behavior simply isn't Christian.
In fact, it's downright pagan and heathenish.”

Says Ishmael (roughly meaning: “God has heard your cries”) after sharing a bed with Queequeg in Peter Coffin’s tavern, where Ishmael said – affectionately – of Queequeg,”better a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”

Amen.

It was Queequeg’s coffin that saved Ishmael until the ship, Rachel, found Ishmael half-dead, while scouring the sea for lost “orphans.” [Hint: write this Dylan].

Queequeg died, saving Ishmael. Queequeg broke “on through to the other side,” back to Kokovoko, his cannibal homeland.

Kokovoko is not on any map. “True places never are,” said Melville.

Not bad for an American Bard.; 7/21/17, 10:40 AM
Seeing Red said...: Justin Bieber is a gifted singer, but he is also a controversial young foreign singer," the bureau told the fan in a statement. "In order to maintain order in the Chinese market and purify the Chinese performance environment."

And this is culture the anti-West vermin want to hand us over to?

Because they think they don't need to be purified and will get a pass?; 7/21/17, 11:16 AM
buwaya said...: "And this is culture the anti-West vermin want to hand us over to?"

The Chinese cultural milieu is anathema to "the anti-west vermin".
Almost as bad as being Catholic.
They do, after all, feel free to openly discriminate against Chinese, and are adamantly against permitting Chinese culture as a subject in education and entertainment.
Its just that they are more reluctant to openly attack Chinese culture.
But they do, when they can.

The villains in, say, anything by Amy Tan, are merely proxies for the ways of the old country.

If anything "Chinese" is taught in US schools, it is anti-traditional material, very often the works of Amy Tan. They are trying to convert US-Chinese kids to mere anonymous modernist protoplasm, with no ancestors. As they try to do to everyone else.; 7/21/17, 11:42 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: "Justin Bieber is a gifted singer, but he is also a controversial young foreign singer. In
order to maintain order in the Chinese market and purify the Chinese performance environment, it is not suitable to bring in badly behaved entertainers.

We hope that as Justin Bieber matures, he can continue to improve his own words and actions, and truly become a singer beloved by the public."

Compare and contrast: Chi Coms v. UC Berkeley

"Milo Yiannopoulis is a gifted writer, but he is also a controversial young foreign writer. In order to maintain order at the UC Berkeley campus and purify the Berkeley intellectual environment, it is not suitable to bring in badly behaved speakers.

We hope that as Milo Yiannopoulis matures, he can continue to improve his own words and actions, and truly become a writer beloved by the public."; 7/21/17, 11:43 AM
mccullough said...: The greatest advantage the US has is that all other major countries do stupider shit. China is a toy factory. Nothing more; 7/21/17, 2:04 PM
Michael said...: I myself choose Tang poetry over Justin every single time.; 7/21/17, 2:29 PM
buwaya said...: "China is a toy factory. Nothing more"

That's what they used to say about Japan.

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-teleportation-space-quantum-internet-2017-7; 7/21/17, 2:34 PM