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

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."

Comments

Sarcasm

[AK Marc]

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.

Re:Sarcasm

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

A spoof by, not of, the leader

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

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.

Re:What I would like to know...

[somersault]

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..