Fili’s world

Since I started with two posts about Sino-Phobia, might as well go through with it. Okay, two more from that same morning show, and the same male host, Mr. Avri Gilad. Two more horrible videos that show some of the dialog regarding China in Israeli media :

Male Host : […]  Good morning.

Finance expert : After we heard about China and Macao, let’s talk a bit about the upcoming Olympics.

Male Host : I wish they would cancel it. I wish no country would participate.  It’s outragous for anybody to go to China. It’s the worst scandal possible.

Female Host : Did you go?

Male Host : No.

Female Host : Me too.

Male Host : But the Chinese are the world’s worst when it comes to human rights and we shouldn’t go there. Okay, talk.

Finance expert : I’ll talk about the financial side… […] Adidas paid over a 100million US$ to be a sponsor for the Olympics.

Male Host : Wow. That’s a lot of shoes, a lot of shoes.

Finance expert : A lot of shoes, yeah.

Female Host : A lot of Chinese workers. But that wasn’t Adidas, that was Nike…

Male Host :  […] I’m saying this to you Tzachi, and the viewers, don’t buy anything made in China if you can buy from someone else, if it’s available.

Female Host : The problem is not everybody can…

Male Host : All I’m saying, if it’s possible… don’t buy what’s being made by slaves.

And the second…

Male Host : A few things you didn’t know about China […]

[They watch the “Mad about China” trailer and discussing it. Then he turns to the New Tang Dynasty TV representative in Israel]

Male Host : Come on, let’s bitch about the Chinese.

NTDTV : Bitch about the Chinese? why?!

Male Host : No? because they’re closing down every possible democratic channel …

NTDTV : It’s the government, but the Chinese people are okay… [followed by lots of problematic semi-deceptive statements about the affiliation of their channel] […]

Ai ya. I’m afraid other shows are as bad, if not worse, only finding their videos is a bit more difficult. It’s fashionable to be anti-Chinese, which is now a bit hard for most to distinguish from being anti-Chinese-government, anti-authoritarian or just pro-human-rights.

I’ll ask what one of my favorite Israeli China lecturers – Prof. Yuri Pines - asks in almost every class  of his that I attend : Why don’t we have Israeli journalists and media reporters who know something about China that’s more than the horrible shallow cliches? even Haaretz – Israel’s most intelligent newspaper -translates somewhat biased New York Times articles instead of having Israelis  who know China write in-depth articles about the topic from their point of view. How come we as Israelis know so little about what is already one of the most influential forces in today’s world? and some would say it’s natural to fear something you don’t understand.