日韩精品久久一区二区三区_亚洲色图p_亚洲综合在线最大成人_国产中出在线观看_日韩免费_亚洲综合在线一区

US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
China / Society

How apocryphal speech of Nobel laureate became a viral hit

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily) Updated: 2015-12-15 07:22

How apocryphal speech of Nobel laureate became a viral hit

China's Tu Youyou (R) who won 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine gives a lecture in Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, capital of Sweden, Dec 7, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]

A funny thing happened between China's first female Nobel Prize winner giving her acceptance speech in Sweden and that speech reaching her home country: Two entirely different versions appeared, and the fake one became a viral hit.

Considering we're living in an age when a message from Europe need not require someone to ride on horseback for a month or a pigeon to fly eastward for God knows how long, it was simply amazing that such a thing could happen, especially because Tu Youyou has been in the spotlight and almost every word she utters publicly is being reported.

Guess which version is genuine? The one that matter-of-factly recounts the discovery of artemisinin, or the one with extravagant literary flourishes, complete with her father explaining the origin of her given name and poetic lines such as, "I like tranquility, tranquil as the leaves of sweet wormwood; I shun the spotlight, just as the petals of sweet wormwood do; I aspire to be upright, as are the stems of sweet wormwood."

Well, sweet wormwood is the plant from which Tu and her fellow scientists successfully extracted artemisinin. Most readers were so touched by the literary version they were left in tears.

They just forgot that Tu is not a woman of letters, but one of science. It was totally made up by someone who obviously has great literary talent, but could not fathom the inner life of a scientist. I have not met a great many scientists, Chinese or foreign, but the ones I talked to invariably impressed me as no-nonsense and would not cloak themselves in purple prose.

I don't know who fabricated the Tu speech, or for what purpose. It does not strike me as a parody. Fortunately, no mainstream media seemed to have been fooled. Yet the fake one has probably been retweeted more than the real one because it played to the Chinese stereotype of what such a speech should be.

Early this year, when Yu Dan, a celebrity scholar specializing in Chinese culture, publicly quoted from a speech ostensibly made by the Emperor Guangxu (1871-1908), she fell right into the trap of apocryphal text. That particular speech was actually from a historical novel, written by an author who had meticulously studied the reform-minded emperor's thoughts.

However, the author employed poetic license with one detail: when the emperor was supposed to have given that speech, he was already under house arrest by the Empress Dowager.

Yu should have known better. She was so ashamed, said some, that she did not come out to explain or apologize.

China's cyberspace is dotted with the flotsam and jetsam of educational and uplifting quotes, most of which are attributed to luminaries of all kinds, and quite a lot of them are made up. There is a joke that says the United States' spying network collected and sifted through all the Internet data in China, and found that the Chinese are addicted to such chicken soup, including that from dubious sources.

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page

...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 在线区 | 天堂网中文字幕 | 国产小视频在线播放 | 超污视频在线看 | 毛片免费在线观看 | 日本二本三本二区 | 十六以下岁女子毛片免费 | 91久色视频| 成人开心网 | 欧美三级成版人版在线观看 | 色综合中文字幕 | 日韩欧美在线视频播放 | 成人毛片视频在线观看 | 在线播放一区二区三区 | 欧美高清成人 | 在线观看日本中文字幕 | 99精品久久 | 国产精品99久久久久久www | 日韩成人三级 | 色欧美片视频在线观看 | 色综合综合色 | 日韩国产| 欧美一区二区免费 | 国产精品外围在线观看 | 五月天色丁香 | 奇米影视四色7777 | 免费级毛片 | 天天夜天干天天爽 | 久草免费福利资源站 | 色偷偷偷 | 91官网| 亚洲精品视频一区 | 日本在线视频www鲁啊鲁 | 美女超碰 | 亚洲免费一区 | 人人精品 | 波多野吉衣 免费一区 | 一级全黄视频 | 成人福利短视频 | 精品一区二区久久久久久按摩 | 无遮挡很爽很污很黄的网站w |