Cup of Cha
This is China

Premier Wen Jiabao raced around the country to do his man-of-the-people routine in response to the blizzards that preceeded Spring Festival. He announced that the great tragedy of the blizzard was “some mandarins (oranges) died and trees were toppled.” This according to China Daily.

It’s really sad that some trees died, but what about the more than 60 people that lost their lives as well? Oh, and by the way, the blizzard also cost the country about $7.5B according to the AP, but that was probably mostly from lost oranges. (Another article with information compiled from the AP did make mention of that, but not the body count.)

If you were watching Chinese television the last few days, you got more than a little bit of exposure to Mr. Wen. He was pretty much on all channels: eating with students, comforting workers stranded, and pretty much going to all of the places that Hu Jintao didn’t want to go. The problem was that the people tended to look kind of, well, grim. (Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find clips on either YouTube or TuDou, but will continue to search.) And the government has taken quite a bit of slack for their slow and poor reaction. But I guess you wouldn’t know that the Chinese Premier’s appearance drew tepid responses based on the Chinese newspaper accounts.

Apparently all that happened during this blizzard was a couple of treed died. That’s not so bad. And ss Mr. Wen said, there was an upside to all of this plant death:

But we also got many things, such as courage, will and the ability to overcome difficulties. Amid the disaster, relations between officials and the masses strengthened and people became more united.

Tags: propaganda, snow, spring festival, Wen Jiabao
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