Horrible attempt to distort China’s image
On Saturday, Australia- based ABC TV telecast a program on China, or, more precisely, their understanding of China.
In the program, a white woman dressed as Wu Zetian, the only woman emperor in China’s history, challenged everyone to eat things that one wouldn’t normally find on a dining table. For example, she ate cockroaches, rats, wasps, even human hair — all made of flour and sugar for the program. Asked why she was eating those “disgusting” things, she said all these were “commonly eaten during the Tang Dynasty ( 618- 907)”.
It later emerged that the video was part of Horrible Histories, a program presented by Children’s BBC in 2015. After the program was telecast, Chinese Australians flooded the TV station and social networks with complaints. Their reaction is understandable. Chinese food habits are far removed from that shown in the program, which looks more like an attempt to paint a distorted picture using a person with a borrowed Chinese name and title.
It should be stressed that in the age of social media, people won’t succeed in tarnishing China’s image by just making and telecasting such shows. It is a lot easier now to find the truth about a nation by browsing authentic information online or by visiting the country. Nobody with even the basic knowledge about Chinese people’s eating habits will fall for the lie that Chinese people eat cockroaches or human hair.
Therefore, those behind such programs are exposing their own ignorance. The programs is proof of how the BBC makes videos: by disregarding facts and peddling fake information. And it tells us what kind of “knowledge” the BBC and ABC want to pass onto children. They want to plant the seeds of ignorance in young minds, thus passing it on to future generations. That is a good enough reason for the channels to put an end to their prejudiced game and save future generations from being poisoned by prejudice.