Tens of thousands turn up for Anita Mui's funeral
So screamed the headlines of a local Chinese tabloid (can't remember whether it's Lianhe Wanbao or Xinming Ribao, but it does not matter) a fellow MRT passenger was carrying. I was impressed by the numbers. What a popular singer Anita Mui must have been, I thought! Hours later at work, during one of my breaks, I dropped by the Straits Times website. An article caught my eye -- Hundreds turn out for Anita Mui's funeral. I blinked my eyes several times, uncertain if I had read the words correctly, but they remained there as they had always been.
I was promptly reminded of a similar article a few years ago, in the aftermath of the Sept 11th incident. It was only a few days after Sept 11th, and rescue workers were still searching for bodies amidst the rubble of the former World Trade Centre. "Fifty thousand dead in the Sept 11th attacks", screamed the headline in the Chinese tabloid. Has anyone stopped to wonder if the World Trade Centre could even hold that many people?? The informant ought to be shot!
Now, I do not normally buy or even read Chinese tabloids. I have to admit however that I am sometimes guilty of peeking at someone else's papers, especially those of people who sit on the opposite side of the MRT (so that it doesn't seem too obvious to the other person that I am peeking). This cannot be helped, as it is quite boring to just sit around in the MRT and do nothing for a long one-hour journey, especially when you do not have your regular reading materials with you.
The extent of exaggeration by the Chinese tabloids is not limited to numbers alone. In 1998 (or was it 1999?), during the NATO bombing of Serbia, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was mistakenly bombed by US aircraft. This sparked civilian protests in front of the American embassy in Beijing. The local Chinese tabloid screamed, "Beijing residents begin to act! Angry citizens invade the US embassy. The US embassy in shambles." Huh??? One could be forgiven for thinking that the US embassy in Beijing had been burnt to the ground. In actual fact, all the US embassy suffered was just a few broken windows. Nobody was able to enter the embassy grounds at all. How bad can misinformation get?
If these papers had a "What it should have been" section, I am quite certain it would cover at least half the paper. On second thoughts, it is a bad idea. If they continue to spew forth their nonsense in the "What it should have been" section, then they would need to have a "What it should have been for the What it should have been" section, and a "What it should have been for the What it should have been for the What it should have been" section. And so on. Then again, it could make for good filler material that would continue to entertain the billions of Chinese tabloid readers in Singapore for millions of years to come.
So screamed the headlines of a local Chinese tabloid (can't remember whether it's Lianhe Wanbao or Xinming Ribao, but it does not matter) a fellow MRT passenger was carrying. I was impressed by the numbers. What a popular singer Anita Mui must have been, I thought! Hours later at work, during one of my breaks, I dropped by the Straits Times website. An article caught my eye -- Hundreds turn out for Anita Mui's funeral. I blinked my eyes several times, uncertain if I had read the words correctly, but they remained there as they had always been.
I was promptly reminded of a similar article a few years ago, in the aftermath of the Sept 11th incident. It was only a few days after Sept 11th, and rescue workers were still searching for bodies amidst the rubble of the former World Trade Centre. "Fifty thousand dead in the Sept 11th attacks", screamed the headline in the Chinese tabloid. Has anyone stopped to wonder if the World Trade Centre could even hold that many people?? The informant ought to be shot!
Now, I do not normally buy or even read Chinese tabloids. I have to admit however that I am sometimes guilty of peeking at someone else's papers, especially those of people who sit on the opposite side of the MRT (so that it doesn't seem too obvious to the other person that I am peeking). This cannot be helped, as it is quite boring to just sit around in the MRT and do nothing for a long one-hour journey, especially when you do not have your regular reading materials with you.
The extent of exaggeration by the Chinese tabloids is not limited to numbers alone. In 1998 (or was it 1999?), during the NATO bombing of Serbia, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was mistakenly bombed by US aircraft. This sparked civilian protests in front of the American embassy in Beijing. The local Chinese tabloid screamed, "Beijing residents begin to act! Angry citizens invade the US embassy. The US embassy in shambles." Huh??? One could be forgiven for thinking that the US embassy in Beijing had been burnt to the ground. In actual fact, all the US embassy suffered was just a few broken windows. Nobody was able to enter the embassy grounds at all. How bad can misinformation get?
If these papers had a "What it should have been" section, I am quite certain it would cover at least half the paper. On second thoughts, it is a bad idea. If they continue to spew forth their nonsense in the "What it should have been" section, then they would need to have a "What it should have been for the What it should have been" section, and a "What it should have been for the What it should have been for the What it should have been" section. And so on. Then again, it could make for good filler material that would continue to entertain the billions of Chinese tabloid readers in Singapore for millions of years to come.
