Controversial Promotion by People’s Daily: Misquoting Song Dynasty Poem to Promote Hangzhou Asian Games

2023-09-12 01:19:10

Party media People’s Daily misquoted a Southern Song Dynasty poem on Weibo to promote the Hangzhou Asian Games, and was criticized for having low cultural standards. (Screenshot from Weibo)

According to Hong Kong’s “Sing Tao Daily”, the Hangzhou Asian Games is regarding to open. The official Weibo of the party media “People’s Daily” released a promotional video on the 11th, titled “Follow the text to see Hangzhou and feel the beauty of Hangzhou together.” The Weibo text and The content of the video all mentions the Southern Song Dynasty poet Lin Sheng’s “Inscribed on Lin’an Residence”: “The warm breeze makes tourists drunk, and they call Hangzhou Bianzhou.”

This poem was written following the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty. On the surface, it praises the beauty and prosperity of Hangzhou, but it actually satirizes the rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty for living an ignoble existence, regardless of the hatred of the country’s subjugation. The Weibo also mentioned at the end “Looking forward to the Hangzhou Asian Games.” A large number of netizens criticized this, saying, “Is it appropriate to use this poem? Is it weird or serious?” The People’s Daily subsequently deleted the video and Weibo.

The original video is 1 minute and 33 seconds long. The video contains a number of poems and articles regarding Hangzhou that appear in Chinese textbooks for primary and secondary schools in mainland China, including the popular “Spring Tour on Qiantang Lake” and “Drinking on the Lake at First Sunny and Later Rain”, etc.

“Inscribed on Lin’an Residence” is one of the poems, which appears in the middle of the video. This poem is included in the fifth-grade Chinese textbook of the People’s Education Press. It is an ancient poem that primary school students must memorize. The content is “Beyond the Qingshan Tower, outside the tower, when will the singing and dancing of the West Lake stop? The warm breeze makes tourists drunk, and they think Hangzhou is Bianzhou.” The poem was written when the Jin people captured Bianliang, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the emperor of the Song Dynasty fled to Lin’an (now Hangzhou) and established the Southern Song Dynasty. The poet satirized those in power in the Southern Song Dynasty who did not want to regain the Central Plains, but only enjoyed the singing and dancing in front of them, and surrendered to the outside world.

According to the report, many netizens bluntly said that such propaganda was inappropriate and “I can’t figure out what kind of people are doing the propaganda work.” Some netizens laughed at the editor for not knowing the background of the poem, “I didn’t expect the cultural level of the People’s Daily to be so high.” Low”. Several state media retweeted the video, but deleted it following being criticized by netizens.

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