Lifestyle / Hot Pot Column

For our leaders, it's child's play to babble on

By Raymond Zhou ( China Daily ) Updated: 2007-06-01 14:12:20

Today is International Children's Day. Some of our officials just are pouring out so much love for children that it is becoming unbearable.

For our leaders, it's child's play to babble on A few days ago, a group of officials in Wuhan descended upon a gathering of children. Busy as they were, they were fashionably late for the occasion. The children waited under a scorching sun as if they were sesame seeds to be dried and packaged. When the ceremony finally began, the officials started their customarily ponderous speeches, one after another. The gist was, as I can imagine, how children are our future, etc. They might not have heard the Whitney Houston song but can all recite the lines.

The band leader, a boy of 11, fainted in the heat.

This has become something of a ritual. A few months ago, in another part of the country, a group of kids shivered in freezing cold as they were dressed in flimsy costumes while waiting for a similar function. And another incident had the children drenched in a downpour.

In the old days, officials saw themselves as the sunshine that brought warmth and happiness to the masses. The masses, on the other hand, were literally called "ants", and, of course, children were cutesy ants, ready to be displayed and paraded like taxidermies.

Things are much better nowadays. We talk down to kids as if their IQ is in single digits. We drone into them slogans that they turn around and make into instant jokes.

We adults like to use words, lots of them, to drive the point home without realizing that actions speak louder than words. In the above cases, the officials have taught two lessons that the kids wouldn't forget anytime soon.

First, punctuality is only for lowly species. If you are at the bottom of the food chain, you must arrive first for a chance to be "received". The higher you are in social pecking order, the longer you should keep others milling around in rain or shine or cold.

Second, verbosity is a sign of stature. If you can turn a simple sentence into five pages, you are a bureaucratic Shakespeare. Never mind the Bard said brevity is the soul of wit.

Come to think of it, these officials are secret admirers of the Supergirls. They want the audience to weep and swoon. They want fans who will wait for hours to exhibit their loyalty. They want their every syllable to be ecstatically absorbed and hungrily devoured.

So, perhaps we should hold a television contest for them, too. Let them hone their skills of pomposity. Whoever turns the most vacuous words into the longest speech gets into the final round.

To add a touch of reality, we can bring in wind machines, rain machines or dozens of high-wattage lights to simulate the elements. The most unruffled get extra points.

Of course, there should be text-message voting. But only school-age children are eligible to vote. The ubiquitous panel of judges should not be made of celebrities, but of those kids who fainted or caught a cold in the above stories.

Let's call the show Revenge of the Underaged and make it a Children's Day pastime.

(China Daily 06/01/2007 page20)