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Australian Prime Minister's Spoof "Apocalypse" Speech Goes Viral In China

Posted by samzenpus on from the believe-it-or-not dept.

brindafella writes "Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, recorded a spoof speech about the Mayan calendar apocalypse several days ago, for radio station "Triple J". Gillard said in part, 'Whether the final blow comes from flesh eating zombies, demonic hell beasts or from the total triumph of K-pop, if you know one thing about me it is this: I will always fight for you to the very end.' The speech has been picked up in China on Sina Weibo (China's Twitter) and has achieved well over 23,000 repeats, without anyone picking up the irony." This comes on the heels of the online version of China's Communist Party newspaper picking up an Onion story about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un being named the "Sexiest Man Alive."

6 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Sarcasm by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just like a sufficiently advanced parody can't be distinguished from a zealot, sarcasm doesn't translate. I'm sure they thought it funny and entertaining, but for completely different reasons than intended.

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    Learn to love Alaska
    1. Re:Sarcasm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From my experience working with Chinese people, and I don't mean people of Chinese decent, but actually born, raised and lived in China most of their lives; they don't get sarcasm. Most of them, anyway. They don't.

      My boss is Chinese, and will stare blankly when I make a sarcastic remark about something, and most of the Chinese people around me are the same. They just have a different sense of humor, I guess it's a cultural thing. ...and it's not like I can write [SARCASM] on a notebook and hold it up like a sign. They won't get the reference either.

  2. A spoof by, not of, the leader by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is on a different level from the Onion spoofs of world leaders like Obama or Kim Jung'Un. This is the real Australian Prime Minister doing the spoof. US presidents have been known to pardon Thanksgiving turkeys and part of running for public office in any democratic country is to show your "lighter side" in front of the media, but Gillard's "speech" goes beyond the realm of a simple practical joke. That or the producers of the show have done some nifty CGI work worthy of a Hollywood disaster movie.

  3. Humour and irony by gagol · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is it something lacking in Asia, or just in dictatorship?

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    Tomorrow is another day...
  4. What I would like to know... by Balinares · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I would like to know is how often we mistakenly take foreign news at face value.

    It can be so hard to read the cues from a different culture.I wonder if that has been studied?

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    This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
    1. Re:What I would like to know... by somersault · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Hmm.. could be that all that stuff about the Great Firewall is just a practical joke. And North Korea is actually a real paradise with real unicorns. They just pretend to be a horrible, insane dictatorship to keep us out..

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      which is totally what she said