I'm reading "Reading with Xi Jinping | Les Miserables" in the People's Daily Online, April 23, 2022. This is about the book, of course, not the musical:Behind the scenes at the @WhiteHouse #StateDinner with President @realDonaldTrump, First Lady @MelaniaTrump, President Xi, and Madame Peng—With guests in the beautiful East Room… pic.twitter.com/kDhBrIWajI
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) September 25, 2026
“I developed a keen interest in French culture and particularly French history, philosophy, literature and art when I was a young man,” Xi said in a speech... When reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Xi found the moment when Bishop Myriel enlightens Jean Valjean to be quite moving. Great literary works like this possess a remarkable ability to stir the heart and literature is the vehicle of ideas, Xi said.... When Jean Valjean stole the Bishop's silverware, the bishop was not angry, but gave him also the two silver candlesticks which he had not stolen. And he said: "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God."
An image from the 1935 movie:
Giant panda ties between China and the United States go back a long way. In April 1972, two giant pandas -- Ling Ling and Xing Xing, arrived in the United States following the visit of then U.S. President Richard Nixon to China in February the same year. More than 8,000 Americans welcomed Ling Ling and Xing Xing in the rain. In their first month on public display, they attracted more than one million visitors. Giant pandas have since helped foster friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.
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46 comments:
Are these singing wait staff like in dinner theater?
Argh! I hate Les Miserables. Okay, so Hugo invented the super hero (secret identity, secret lair, origin story, side kick) and that's cool. But so many poisonous thinkers and politicians grew up with that damn book under their pillow.
"Giant panda ties between China and the United States go back a long way."
Trump will hold out for the REALLY giant pandas. He knows China developed some 50-foot versions that they're hiding and America deserves only the best.
Eats shoots and leaves
Trump will rename the giant panda the huuuuge panda.
"Are these singing wait staff like in dinner theater?"
...golly that made me cringe. I bet the Xi's would have liked King Richard's Faire...
McCullough: They are active-duty military vocalists.
I find it rather amusing how Trump frequently maligns his political opponents and critics as communists, yet when a actual communist dictator comes to the White House he rolls out the royal red carpet.
Our military employs thousands of professional performing artists. There's even a military music school.
This is something I've known forever (because my parents were professional musicians, and because my dad's youngest brother had exactly that role during Vietnam, though he went int banking after his discharge). But I did do a quick Google to verify my recollection.
First the big military flyover and now this.
The ultimate power moves and trolling of that Chinese commie.
Just another reason to love our President.
lonejustice said...
"I find it rather amusing how Trump frequently maligns his political opponents and critics as communists, yet when a actual communist dictator comes to the White House he rolls out the royal red carpet."
There's a reason they call these counter-intuitive acts of diplomacy "Nixon Goes to China."
Think how much better that would be in a real ballroom.
"I find it rather amusing how Trump frequently maligns his political opponents and critics as communists, yet when a actual communist dictator comes to the White House he rolls out the royal red carpet."
And you want him to do what?
Talk about chi com suck up. Lets take the Commie guy over to the whitehouse security area to show him how great.National security RIGHT!!
Re: The People's Daily Online image.
It’s not really a historical style so much as maximalist gilding: a White House interior increasingly resembling a Trump-branded casino. It’s an impressive achievement: making the White House look like the VIP room at a casino.
The Trump-Xi summit produced plenty of pageantry but few significant new deliverables. The central achievement appears to be maintaining the existing trade détente rather than securing major new concessions on trade, technology, Taiwan, or security. In other words, a summit to manage tensions not a breakthrough.
Yeah, Bitch! Pandas! Oh!
"Thank you to Premier Xi for the pandas. Big pandas, the best pandas. I'm grateful for the gift, and let me tell you, they were delicious. Just kidding, folks, I love those bears."
Bonus points if he says this while Melania wears a black and white coat.
"There's a reason they call these counter-intuitive acts of diplomacy "Nixon Goes to China." "
The saying at the time was "Only Nixon can go to China." He was such an anti-communist that he would have had to politically assault anyone else who tried.
"Argh! I hate Les Miserables."
Could have been worse. Could have been a cover of the snarling nihilism of Cheetah Chrome and Rocket From The Tombs.
In contrast to the People’s Daily Online, here is the lead headline in the New York Times on the meeting:
In Trump’s White House, China’s Dictator Is Welcome. American Media, Less So.
The showdown over President Trump’s partial media ban played out as he welcomed President Xi Jinping, whose government is ranked among the most repressive in the world.
"lonejustice said...
I find it rather amusing how Trump frequently maligns his political opponents and critics as communists, yet when a actual communist dictator comes to the White House he rolls out the royal red carpet.
9/25/26, 8:48 AM"
Says more about his political opponents than Trump or the Communists: calling them communists is but a mild insult of what they are.
Reminds me of all the trouble we had getting the pandas to mate.
A nice metaphor for US-China relations?
Perhaps, but getting the pandas to get it on would be a great topic for Trump to tweet about.
Les Miserables isn't bad, especially in comparison to The Count of Monte Christo. Jean Valjean quickly understands the lesson that it took Edmond Dantès pages and pages to learn.
Panda Viagra
Panda stops at gas station, saves species.
What's black and white and gold all over?
The Trump Panda exhibit.
Is it really so surprising, startling or offensive that Trump wouldn't unnecessarily antagonize the Chinese? Maybe only in the context of the supremacist bluster we've been hearing lately.
“In February 2010, two US-born pandas, Tai Shan and Mei Lan, were sent to China amid a dispute over President Obama’s planned meeting with the Dalai Lama. Reuters describes the return as China expressing diplomatic displeasure.”
China has used the loan of and the demand for return of Pandas as a diplomatic tool. All Pandas serve the state.
*yet when a actual communist dictator comes to the White House he rolls out the royal red carpet.*
And if he didn't roll out the red carpet for a visiting dignitary, you'd bitch about that, too.
I could see this happening with almost any USA POTUS. Personally, I'd never play a silly Broadway show tune for a Chinese leader. Don't we have something a little more...classy?
At least it wasn't a Beatles tune, or "The wing beneath my wings".
By any POTUS, I mean any since say Bush 41. I'm probably giving Carter, Ford, Reagan, and the first Bush too much credit. But I believe, like LBJ, even if they had zero taste in music, they at least knew what was supposed to be superior music.
Everyone one loves Pandas. Even the Prison guards in Mao's China.
One of my co-workers was Chinese and told me her parents weren't members of the communist party. Reason? They weren't wealthy enough. LOL. Its not your Dad's Chinese Communist party anymore.
lonejustice said...
I find it rather amusing how Trump frequently maligns his political opponents and critics as communists, yet when a actual communist dictator comes to the White House he rolls out the royal red carpet.
For a "professional" lawyer you're kinda clueless.
Dave Begley said...
First the big military flyover and now this.
The ultimate power moves and trolling of that Chinese commie.
Just another reason to love our President.
The B2 bomber was especially nice touch since China can't do stealth to save their..............well airforce. Talk about twisting the knife.
"Don't we have something a little more...classy?"
The Fords had Captain & Tennille sing "Muskrat Love" and other classic songs to QE2 in '76.
When it comes to Les Mis , when you don’t know who the patsy is, look at the guy who is forcing his possessions on the crook, that is the patsy.
"The Fords had Captain & Tennille sing "Muskrat Love" and other classic songs to QE2 in '76."
LOL. Gerald Ford was such a low class clown - I don't care that he graduated from Yale. He was just a barely adequate Football star that somehow got to be House minority leader and VP and then our first - and hopefully last - unelected President.
Go look at the debates in 76 - that doofus could never got to be POTUS unless he'd been appointed. And that horrible wife of his - the drunkard.
We should have just picked someone out of the telephone book.
Like many successful men, Ford always over-estimated his intelligence. He thought he was miles about Reagan. Why he was ONLY a movie star. And he - Ford - was a genius.
And if he couldn't speak in public or debate, well, that didn't matter. Behind closed doors he was a Genius. Who knew all the details. And was a secret mastermind. Except all he did was listen to kissinger and his aides Cheney and Rumsfield.
And get everything wrong. An arrogant clown.
Ford always claimed he graduated from the top of the Yale law class. In fact he was in the middle. And took 4 years instead of 3. He was hired by Yale to coach football, and despite not meeting the requirements, was let into the Yale law school because he was part of "The Yale family".
He got elected to a safe R district in 1948, hung around for 15 years, and got elected to minority leader. A worthless position that had no power. Nixon selected him to replace Agnew because the D's wouldn't confirm Rockefeller, Reagan, or Connelly.
The mike pence of the 20th century.
No. The “Gerald Ford was a doofus” image was largely a comic caricature. He was a University of Michigan football standout, graduated from Yale Law School, and served aboard the carrier USS Monterey as an assistant navigator and antiaircraft gunnery officer. He left active naval service as a lieutenant commander.
Chevy Chase’s portrayal on Saturday Night Live made Ford’s occasional stumbles into a defining public trait—an odd fit for a former college athlete. That doesn’t mean every presidential decision was wise; the Nixon pardon, for instance, remains open to argument. But clumsy on television and intellectually inept are very different claims.
And the Nixon pardon I mentioned is questionable because I wish Nixon would have demanded a trial and litigated all the bs arguments made against him, perhaps he would have won, or not but we should have heard the discussion.
Ford graduated from Michigan in 1935, then spent nearly three years coaching football and boxing at Yale before he was admitted to its law school in spring 1938. He completed the law requirements by January 1941 and received his degree that year. So if you claim his law school progression was irregular you are wrong.
During Xi Jinping’s 2024 visit to France, Xi brought up Bishop Myriel again, suggesting a longstanding affinity for Les Misérables. It’s not clear whether he knows the musical, but if he recognized “One Day More,” the contrast between Myriel’s mercy and the song’s revolutionary setting is an interesting one.
Xi Jinping’s repeated interest in the Bishop Myriel story might show how easily it connects across cultures. When Myriel turns Jean Valjean’s theft into a gift and helps him change, it feels a lot like the Buddhist tale where Nagarjuna gives a thief his golden bowl. Even if we don’t know for sure that Xi made this link, the ideas of kindness, letting go, and personal growth could easily speak to a Chinese reader.
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