A round-up of commentary appearing in the Chinese press over the past week.

Mar 30, 2012
Compiled by Zhu Na

A Deputy Mayor's Dirty Words – Qilu Evening News (link)

Recently a large number of dead fish turned up floating in the Songmushan Reservoir (松木山水库) on the outskirts of Dongguan in Guangdong province. The local waterworks claimed that the death of the fish was related to the change in weather.

However, during a meeting of the city's environmental protection authority, the city's deputy mayor Liang Guoying (梁国英) came out and said that blaming to weather was "bull shit" (放狗屁 fàng gǒupì) - literaly a "dog fart".  

The official went on to order the local water authority to test for contamination.

The funny thing is, after being scolded, Dongguan Water Authority and the waterworks immediately identified the source of the pollution, and also said "We are still happy about

it, because this shows that the municipal government attaches great importance to this matter."

No matter whether they are truly happy or not, at the very least they appear to think that it's normal to be scolded by those in charge, and they wouldn't dare to criticize, let alone fight back.

However, if it's the ordinary people who swear and scold government departments or officials, will they still be happy to receive the criticism?

We're guessing it's unlikely, not only will they not be happy, but sometimes they'll go so far as to think of ways to retaliate against these critics with a variety of unwarranted charges.

Buying State-Owned Coal Mines for Peanuts – Guangzhou Daily (link)

A grand wedding made the low-profile Xin Libin (邢利斌), the richest man in Shanxi's Liulin (柳林) county, famous. Liu spent 70 million yuan on his daughter's marriage.

Liu made his fortune in the coal mining business.

He purchased Xinwu (兴无) coal mine in Liulin, a state-owned mine with coal reserves of 1.5 billion tons, for 80 million yuan, which - if you do the math - works out as being cheaper by the kilo than the price of cabbage.

Mr. Xin is estimated to now have over ten billion yuan in assets.

The truth is a luxury, but the truth is also very powerful.

When the truth comes out, rumors can be dispersed and suspicions will disappear.

But until now, the relevant departments - including Xing himself - have remained silent. Silence is sure to fuel the public's doubts, and will even lead to all kinds of conjectures.

[We] hope the truth about this matter will come out as soon as possible, and hope the tragedy of state-owned enterprise being sold at excessively low prices does not happen again.

Patient-Doctor Violence in Harbin – China Youth Daily (link)

That innocent doctors were stabbed by a patient shows how serious the issue of doctor-patient violence has become.

That so many people said they felt "happy" after reading this news shows once again that our society is filled with violent attitudes.

After this tragedy, we should not only consider how doctor-patient relationships can be improved, but we should also think about how to ameliorate violent attitudes in society.