I was not as bemused as some who stumbled across Treehugger‘s April 1st story on China’s plans to build a green city, by veteran contributor and colleague of mine, Alex Pasternack. Knowing well that wit is Pasternack’s forte, today is April Fool’s Day, and the Center for Urban Misuse does not exist, I drank in the ironic hat-tip to China’s oft-circumlocutious, and increasingly vehicle-studded, path towards sustainable development.
Upon discovering an article on China’s government website entitled “China to be Painted White to Fight Global Warming“, however, I began to feel like someone led into a backroom closet of a Chinatown alley, surrounded by Louis Vuitton and Prada bags, i.e. hard-pressed to decipher what was real and what was fake.
China.org.cn is China’s official internet information center, a one-stop shop for the latest in the party line, and as such hardly the place to stage a prank. That, coupled with the story’s non-descript appearance, and typically scant public demonstrations of wry humor in China, initially convinced me that the story should be taken at face value. But as I read past the title, I became less certain.
The article details a “sweeping new initiative”, announced by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), to “turn the Chinese landscape white in order to reflect heat back into space.” Hmm. That idea hardly seemed scientifically sound to me, but considering the PRC’s past environmental forays-turned-disasters, like the Great Sparrow Campaign, I dismissed my rationalist urges.
It continued by offering detailed, and absurd, intended measures of implementation, including painting “the roofs of all government buildings” white and requiring all government employees “to wear white clothing and hats”.
According to the article, the MEP spokesperson replied to a request for details of the all-white uniform’s design by saying: “We have consulted several foreign fashion experts, including world-famous French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, and we are convinced we have come up with something that people will find both convenient and stylish”.
I referenced my sources on hand, to see whether I was simply subjecting a run-of-the-mill post to my own enculturated bias. Having lived in China, I knew that April Fool’s Day is not well known there, and is said to be more of a “western” holiday. Though playfully translated by my Chinese-English dictionary as “Shmo Day”, the Chinese language wikipedia entry for April Fool’s Day reads like a government-published textbook of foreign culture: full of dry facts and simplified portrayals, but essentially void of the good stuff.
But, as I read on, the visage of candor was all but totally stripped away, and the article ended in obvious farce.
‘Undoubtedly the most controversial part of the plan will be the use of advanced biological engineering techniques to turn basic food crops white. One of the earliest crops to be affected will be yellow rapeseed flowers. Scientists have already completed a two year trial of bio-engineered white rapeseed and have said the new engineered crops will be used in pilot projects in Henan and Shandong provinces over the coming year. Chinese people are fond of bright yellow landscapes created by rapeseed flowers and there is likely to be some resistance to government plans from traditionalists. But the Rapeseed Association of China said in a statement, “Obviously we will be sorry to see the traditional yellow color go, but we believe our government and our Party have the best interests of the Chinese people at heart.”‘
It was at that point that my nagging suspicion of a supreme gag took over, and so I did some investigating. A quick google searched turned up no previous articles, on this website or others, by the story’s author. Nor any indication that the “Rapeseed Association of China” actually exists.
Recalling the most recent and well-publicized affront to internet censorship – a play on words and sounds that changed a profane word, banned by China’s Great Firewall into a cuddly “Grass-Mud Horse” mascot, lovable to even the strictest of net nannies, I took a second look at the name I had entered into my google search field.
He Kuada. As the article was in English, only the pinyin transliteration, and not the Chinese characters, was given. I have been told by Chinese journalists friends that they often choose a pen name when they write something bearing state-sponsored ideology with which they (privately) disagree. But not just any pen name will do. A proper psuedonym gives the reader a tipoff to the author’s dissenting opinion using coded language.
By this reasoning, “Kuada” becomes 夸大, which means “exaggeration,” “hyperbole” or “over the top”; and the surname, “He” becomes 和, the root of the word “harmonize,” with frequent calls for “harmonious society”, a pleasant sounding way for the government to say, in not so many words, “we do not think diversity of opinions is a good thing.”
Thus He Kuada, or 和夸大, translates roughly into “unified hyperbole”. I’ll say.
Perhaps April Fool’s Day, wholly unknown of by your average middle aged party member, was chosen by a clever china.org.cn footsoldier using unsuspected means to fly under the radar. Since Mr. He has left me no way to contact him, I may never confirm my hypothesis. But what I can do is leave you with his final line, which I like to imagine Mr. “Over the top” writing with a wink:
“This is not a gimmick”
