
Chinese state media discourages April Fools' Day - r0n0j0y
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/01/no-joke-april-fools-day-has-been-banned-in-china/
======
joantune
That frigging article looks like its full of April fools day acts, like this
one:

"That China’s propaganda apparatus has a problem with satire has long been
evident. In 2012, The People’s Daily fell for a satirical report in The Onion
voting North Korea leader Kim Jong-un the sexiest man alive. The Communist
Party newspaper ran a 55-page photo spread in tribute to Kim, quoting the
Onion as celebrating his devastatingly handsome looks, round face, boyish
charm and strong, sturdy frame — not realizing it was satire. "

I really hope none of this is real. LIES all LIES?!?! :D

~~~
madaxe_again
No, that actually happened. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
asia-20518929](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20518929)

~~~
ttflee
BBC mistook Dr Kai-Fu Lee (Li Kaifu in the page) for a freelance journalist,
though he is/was quite outspoken at times.

[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ft.qq.com%2Fp%2Ft%2F141319131914936&edit-
text=)

------
markgavalda
Finally something from China that I can wholeheartedly agree with.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I was just thinking the same thing :). I don't mind jokes and pranks but the
ones from today almost always feel forced and just trying way too hard.

~~~
xlm1717
It just seems like endless fake product announcements which aren't really that
funny.

~~~
tracker1
I believe ThinkGeek actually uses it as a test bed for product ideas... The
Ton-Ton sleeping bag comes to mind...

Though, I do wish someone had made the arcade cabinet ipad holder thing... as
a bluetooth game controller, with some classic arcade games, it could have
been awesome.

------
billhendricksjr
This itself, is an April Fools joke I hope. How meta ;-)

~~~
icebraining
Doesn't seem so, unless it's by the Chinese news agency itself:
[http://weibo.com/1699432410/DoUipcOni?from=page_100206169943...](http://weibo.com/1699432410/DoUipcOni?from=page_1002061699432410_profile&wvr=6&mod=weibotime&type=comment#_rnd1459509065149)

Google Translate gives me: _" Today is the West so-called "April Fool."
"Fool's Day" is not in line with our cultural tradition, does not meet the
socialist core values, I hope we do not believe rumors, do not spread rumors,
do not pass rumors"_

And the account seems to be "verified" by Weibo.

~~~
tamana
Fascinating that HN user 'paradite 's personal opinion is exactly the same
wording as the official government press release.

~~~
paradite
It is exactly the same because I quoted them from the WSJ article.

And to give you more insights on this matter, I shall use my response from
another reply: Honesty and integrity has always been part of the China's
cultural tradition and it was only recently added into list of "socialist core
values". It is reflective of the general consensus of population on the core
characteristics of a Chinese person, and not related to the Chinese government
specifically. Hence there is nothing wrong with discouraging spreading of
rumours (as NH now correctly named the title of this submission).

------
shaobo
The headline is rather clickbaity, it is all based on a tweet from the news
agency, it is not a government edict.

~~~
culturestate
FYI - the relative merit of this story notwithstanding - Xinhua is run by the
CCP and the party exerts a high degree of editorial control.

------
jjcc
This April Fools' joke promotes the idea of functional programming, high order
function like map, reduce, etc. Very good one.

~~~
sebastic
Funny, to me this joke promotes of the idea of JavaScript, inconsistent,
annoying to read, total trash, etc. Very bad one.

------
deepnet
April Fool's day historically derives from the day of misrule, whereby the
social order was inverted and for a day a lowly fool took the throne of the
king.

~~~
sg47
Donald Trump?

~~~
tempodox
As much as I support the notion, but Trump is only funny as long as he's not
on “the throne”. I suspect very much that all our laughing days will be over
once he ascends.

------
tempodox
The Chinese authorities obviously take lying much too seriously to allow any
jokes about it. As is appropriate for such an important instrument in their
tool chest.

------
personjerry
When I lived in China, I'd never heard of April Fools Day. It seems to be a
western thing. Hence this ban isn't all that relevant inside China.

From the examples it seems like China is actually trying to ban April Fools
Day for western media, but the article doesn't make this clear, and it's
difficult to imagine that is the case. So I find it hard to take this article
seriously.

~~~
ruy9
Where do you live in China? In a cave or under lake?

~~~
personjerry
Suzhou, a "small" city in China. But April's Fool's Day is in fact a Western
concept:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day)

------
Kenji
Poe's Law in full action. You can't even know for sure if the regime is this
ridiculous or if they're joking. Fascinating.

------
iliketosleep
This is blatantly misleading. April Fools' Day HAS NOT been banned in China. I
can confirm because am in China. Upon searching baidu (their search engine),
April Fools' day has not been banned or blocked. Rather, it's simply being
discouraged by official media. There's a HUGE difference between discouraging
something and banning it.

~~~
dang
> _discouraged by official media_

That's a good way of putting it. We've changed the title to reflect that.

------
nxzero
If you were going to ban a day about pranks, why would you do it on the day
for pranks; logically makes no sense, this is bs.

------
alkonaut
Not only that, they will ban April 1st entirely. Starting 2017 April 2nd will
follow directly after March 32nd.

~~~
cholantesh
Nice try, Dean Pelton.

------
mads
I can confirm. Two of my Chinese colleagues here were trying to pull an Aprils
fools joke here in the office and they were promptly taken away by the Public
Security Bureau.

------
slr555
The Chinese characters for the word gullible have also been removed from all
Chinese dictionaries and public documents.

------
paradite
I think I am seeing a very interesting trend here on HN. The submissions that
allow commenters to make fun of China tend to get a lot of attention than
other submissions that are not strictly related to technology.

No coverage on terrorism or tragedies around the world, but a piece of news
about a country trying to fight rumors by banning a foreign holiday gets onto
the front page. If you actually study a bit about China, you would know that
rumors are a huge problem and people are not cautious enough to verify them
before getting tricked into believing them.

People just love making fun of China, aren't they?

~~~
ta_04012016
I think I am seeing a very patronizing smug here on HN.

> If you actually study a bit about China

I grow up in China, and I know that the root problem is that it's a one-party
state. There is no election whatsoever and the country is owned and abused by
princelings and government officials. Rural areas are underfunded and
manipulated so that resources are concentrated in the major cities. The
justice system is not broken, but has never been built. Thought crimes don't
only exist but are also prosecuted. With all these serious problems, you are
telling me rumors are a huge problem?

Rumors are just a proxy. People are concerned about regional instability and
human rights abuse, aren't they??

~~~
kiliantics
I'm not convinced that the system in the US is all that different. A whole
extra party to vote for! A whole ~10% of quiet media not directly in the hands
of the elite!

Plenty of FBI suppression of "thought criminals" too. They just have different
names, like Black Panthers or anarchist.

~~~
Others
I agree that the US has its own problems. But they are on a totally different
level from China's. If we lived in China, we couldn't even have this debate
about problems, let alone advocate for them to be fixed...

------
Beltiras
This is a tradition that needs to die. There should at least be serious media
outlets that publish "No Fool with us" policies.

------
zingplex
First China bans the pun, now they ban April Fools' Day. The first shots have
been fired in China's war on humour.

~~~
hawkice
It breaks my heart but the first shots in that war were fired long ago, during
the Cultural Revolution, when all humor had to be pro-"Revolutionary ".

------
stevesun21
Do you do what gov says? Weibo is way too old school in China, you should
check out how people really post on wechat.

~~~
AznHisoka
What do people post on WeChat?

Personally, from talking to many Chinese, I get the sense nobody really gives
a damn what the gov says or does. A casual complaint here and there, but for
the most part people are too worried about their boyfriend/girlfriends,
mom/dad, schoolwork, do I look ugly?, food pics, and everything else the
average person talks about.

~~~
ktRolster
Basically like every country.

------
shogun21
Happy Misinformation Day!

------
eplanit
It's banned on HN, too, from what I've seen in the past.

------
aswanson
"This statement is false."

------
artur_makly
nobody fools china. nobody!

~~~
qrendel
An April Fool'd man can't get fooled again.

------
supercoder
Good.

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diskcat
>The ancient tradition of hoaxing and playing practical jokes on the first day
of April has fallen victim to China’s crackdown.

Reading that the first time I thought 'hoaxing' was a chinese word.

How weird.

~~~
DonHopkins
You have a point -- hoaxing has a fishy smell. And playing looks like it could
be a Chinese word too!

[1] xing:
[http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrs...](http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=xing)

[2] ying:
[http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrs...](http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=ying)

~~~
laumars
You cannot split "hoaxing" and "playing" up like that as "ing" is a suffix
denoting tense with "hoax" and "play" being the verb.

A quick Google of "hoax" suggests it's possibly derived from the 17th century
noun "hocus".

~~~
DonHopkins
It's not about the roots of the English words. The pun is that x and y are
relatively uncommon letters in English, that when they appear before the "ing"
suffix, it's easy to accidentally parse them as relatively common Chinese
words.

The "xinger" is that "hoaxing" has a 腥: "fishy (smell)". ;) [1]

[1]
[http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2962/](http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2962/)

~~~
laumars
ah sorry. I mistook your e-mail to mean they would literally have originated
from China. My apologies.

------
yyhhsj0521
你们呐，拿衣服！不要见风就是雨，整天就想批判一番，搞一个大新闻

人家新华社哪有说禁止了？我不是党员难道非要遵守社会主义核心价值观？有本事来查我水表asdfuiygdfsnkkjseahf

~~~
zeveb
Google Translate turns this into:

> You Now, get clothes ! Do not see the wind is the rain all day, wanted to
> criticize about it, engage in a big news

> How can people Xinhua News Agency said the ban ? I do not have to comply
> with the Socialist Party 's core values ​​? I have the ability to check the
> water meter asdfuiygdfsnkkjseahf

Which I _think_ is saying that regardless of what their government is telling
them, Chinese folks are perfectly capable of using their heads and
distinguishing truth from falsehood.

~~~
ruy9
Lmao so hard rn. Too many puns/memes/jokes in this comment I can't even
translate it.

Been living in China for 10+ years and in the us for 10 years, Chinese memes
are some next level shit.

And also, western media is kind of a joke. Xinhua puts a weibo saying don't
spread rumors(it's comment section is full of jokes and satire, mind you),
Washington post be like 'China bans April Fools Day'. Same things happened
again and again, and will happen in the future.

------
calibraxis
> Like democracy and free speech, it is a Western concept that simply isn’t
> welcome here.

Ironic propaganda. Analyzing soundbites requires slightly verbose context:

 _" Why do conservatives insist that democracy was invented in ancient Greece,
and that it is somehow inherent in what they call 'Western
civilization'—despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary? In the
end, it’s just a way of doing what the rich and powerful always do: taking
possession of the fruits of other people’s labor." [...]_

 _" Democracy was not invented in ancient Greece. Granted, the word
'democracy' was invented in ancient Greece—but largely by people who didn’t
like the thing itself very much. Democracy was never really 'invented' at all.
Neither does it emerge from any particular intellectual tradition. It’s not
even really a mode of government. In its essence it is just the belief that
humans are fundamentally equal and ought to be allowed to manage their
collective affairs in an egalitarian fashion, using whatever means appear most
conducive. That, and the hard work of bringing arrangements based on those
principles into being._

 _" In this sense democracy is as old as history, as human intelligence
itself."_

— David Graeber, "The Democracy Project"

~~~
return0
Thats an overly vague line of thinking by which the CPU can be said to be
invented by the Neanderthals because "someone must have though of it". Even in
ancient athenian democracy egalitarianism was not a thing: only "the chosen"
landowning male native citizens had a say in collective decision making. If
anything egalitarianism probably became a thing since the french revolution.

~~~
pessimizer
Every dispute every amongst equals is settled by negotiation and a vote. It
took no influence from Athens for people to figure that out.

> Even in ancient athenian democracy egalitarianism was not a thing: only "the
> chosen" landowning male native citizens had a say in collective decision
> making.

This is the point. It was a democracy amongst a group of citizens declared to
be equal. It wasn't universal, and the fact that equals ultimately cast lots
is neither surprising, nor was it granted to the world through Western culture
through the Athenians.

~~~
return0
That's very nihilistic. By the same reasoning, nobody ever discovered a law of
physics, they were all there. Newton gave nothing to humanity.

