Hot social topic: Teen idol criticised for bad behaviour leads fans to take embarrassing revenge

[Wippen (inactive)]

 

A recent hot topic on social media was the story of a teen idol singer who was criticised by a state (官方 ) magazine called 紫光阁 for his behaviour which the magazine claimed encouraged young fans to take drugs and was also a bad example for his poor treatment of girls. A few days later a strange message on social media got shared amongs the fans which said that a restaurant called 紫光阁 was using used oil (the Chinese word is 地沟油 and refers to the practice of reusing oil that has been discarded). But the thing is the fans that had started this message mistakenly thought the 紫光阁 magazine was a restaurant and did not know it was in fact a magazine, and a state one at that. It seemed they wanted to take revenge or play a joke due to the criticism of their teen idol. 

 

The text, which contains many useful slang words and idioms, explains what happened and then goes on to discuss the problems arising from internet defamation and "dissing". 

 

Suitable for upper intermediate level. 

 

Link to article. Here.

http://opinion.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0119/c1003-29775552.html

 

The post series hot social media topics is based on topics studied with tutor.

 

Vocabulary:

教唆 encourage (with bad ) ; instigate

侮辱 harass; bad behaviour towards

爆光 Expose ( like a scandal)

引人深思 Leaves "Food for thought" ; thought provoking

与 ...风马牛不相及 Comparing apples with pears /completely unrelated

抹黑 To smear (as in campaign)

沦为 Descend to

污蔑 To smear

攻讦 Dig out dirt from past (use it against someone)

操守 moral integrity

诱导性 induce/lead to

混淆黑白 Twisting the facts (literally confuse black and white /right and wrong)

江湖郎中 Quack doctor

神医 Miracle doctor

双簧 double act

明目张胆 Unashamedly (esp about disgraceful behaviour)

寄予 ＋ 期许 place hope in

堂而皇之 Flagrantly

疑窦＋丛生arouse suspicion

莫衷一是 opinions are divided； can't agree what is right (this chengyu is often used with this chengyu 众说纷纭，莫衷一是) 

慧眼 all seeing power/clairvoyance/crystal ball

[imron]

8 hours ago, Tøsen said:

who was criticised by a state (官方 ) magazine called 紫光阁

I don't think this is correct.  From the original article:

 

《紫光阁》杂志官方微博批评某歌手

 

So the criticism of the singer was done on the official 'Weibo' account of the magazine《紫光阁》

 

There's nothing here about it being a state magazine.

[Publius]

But 《紫光阁》 is a state-run media. It's named after 中南海紫光阁.

 

Don't underestimate the creativity of the grass roots.

[Wippen (inactive)]

4 hours ago, imron said:

There's nothing here about it being a state magazine.

 

So was all of the other stuff I had spent two hours putting together correct? 

 

[imron]

2 hours ago, Publius said:

 

But 《紫光阁》 is a state-run media

 

Sure, but that's not in anyway implied by 官方 in that sentence. 

 

1 hour ago, Tøsen said:

was all of the other stuff I had spent two hours putting together correct? 

Sorry, didn't check. I read the post but skipped the vocab section (an indictment of my lack of time rather than the usefulness of such lists). 官方 was just the thing I noticed since you called it out in the main text. 

[Wippen (inactive)]

@imron thanks for your response. The vocab section was not "copied out of the dictionary" but I had tried to find the right idioms. The note about state media was specifically highlighted by my tutor. She said it is contained in the word 官方。

 

My point here also was a broader one: It is easier to criticise and pick holes －and probably less time consuming－ in a post than it is to create original content. Without original content ie new threads, there would be nothing to comment on. It goes both ways.

 

 

[陳德聰]

A couple notes:

 

- 曝(pù)光, not 爆(bào)光

 

- 誘導性 here is being used to modify 信息, means “leading” but can be understood as “misleading”

 

- 疑竇+叢生 here the 疑竇 are doing the 叢生-ing (which is quite vivid),  so I might say suspicion overgrows or breaks out

 

I actually thought it was interesting that the main implication here is buying hits in order to get onto trending lists and not that people were stupid enough to think this was a restaurant.

 

Edit: Also the use of 黑白 is analogous to 是非 and I think here you’ve done well to note that it’s not so much “right” and “wrong” as “true” and “false” in this context.

[imron]

Ask her if she thinks this is state run

 

For usage such as '官方微博',  '官方论坛', '官方网站' etc, it just means 'official'.  As in the official account, the official forums or the official website.  There's not necessarily anything state run about it (though the state can also have 'official' things).

 

Now in this case, it turns out it is also a state run media, and I only skimmed through the article so don't know if there was anything else about the magazine being state run, but there's nothing about the term 官方 in this usage that implies that.

[Wippen (inactive)]

51 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

誘導性 here is being used to modify 信息, means “leading” but can be understood as “misleading”

This word I wasn't sure about so thanks for clarifying. Very useful.

 

53 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

actually thought it was interesting that the main implication here is buying hits in order to get onto trending lists and not that people were stupid enough to think this was a restaurant.

They did think it was a reastaurant obviously and the ensuing discussion raised points that were indeed perhaps even more interesting.

 

Really appreciate your Input on this, especially you capturing the nuances.

42 minutes ago, imron said:

Ask her if she thinks this is state run

She is not allowed to play that between midnight and 6:00.

[Wippen (inactive)]

43 minutes ago, imron said:

官方

I will have to ask her again, because of the way she did the lesson. She paused, asked me to read that word out again and asked what does this mean, what does it say about the magazine. It was this emphasis that led me to include it in my write-up above.

[imron]

I used to do translation for a company that provided summaries of Chinese tech news for English speaking clients, and games and gaming and their 官方网站's came up all the time in this context, which is why it jumped out at me when you mentioned 'state run'.  That translation experience was also the inspiration for my example, (I've never played that game myself).

[Wippen (inactive)]

On 3/13/2018 at 9:46 AM, imron said:

For usage such as '官方微博',  '官方论坛', '官方网站' etc, it just means 'official'.

I just asked my teacher specifically about the use of the word in the context of this thread. She said the use of 官方 is definitely as "state media". She said this medium here is state-run. 官方 means 为政府服务 she said and then added 紫光阁是政府的“喉舌"

[imron]

2 hours ago, Tøsen said:

官方 means 为政府服务

Ok, so how does she square that with the example I provided above:

 

欢迎来到 《魔兽世界》 官方论坛

 

Which has nothing at all to do with government.

 

On the first page of results on google when searching for "*官方微博", not one of them is for anything state-run, it's all the official 微博 accounts of singers, media and entertainment companies etc.

 

The 'non-state run' usage of 官方 is so common and ubiquitous that I have a hard time accepting 'state-run' as the meaning over 'official' in this use case.

 

Doubly so because in the context of 微博,  "官方微博" is a term similar to "verified twitter".  See for example their registration page for 官方 accounts, which mentions:

 

Quote

 

官方认证类型包括：政府、企业、媒体、网站、应用、机构、公益、校园组织

注意：非官方类用户，请直接在个人注册处注册
 

 

 

On 微博, a 官方 account is the way for well-known entities to designate an account as their official account.  Given the collocation with 微博 in the article, I really don't think there's an implication of state run media from 官方 alone, rather, any state-level implications of the criticism directed at the singer come from the fact that 紫光阁是政府的“喉舌".

 

So the way I see it, you have criticism of the singer coming from the official account of a state-run magazine, but you'd need prior knowledge that《紫光阁》is state run, because nothing in the article mentions or implies that.

 

Any native speakers care to chip in with their thoughts?

[Wippen (inactive)]

@imron  thanks for your response. I was only interested in making sure I had understood my original lesson. This would make my point right at the beginning of this thread correct. She confirmed that.  May we presume  that it possibly has other meanings, which I think you said too. I did not ask her about your example as we only had a fairly short lesson.

 

I was wanting to make sure my lesson notes, which I have placed here for all to use, were correct and it seems they are so I will not amend my original post.

 

I agree with you that other natives should provide their opinion. At the moment I only have her opinion

[imron]

7 hours ago, Tøsen said:

May we presume  that it possibly has other meanings, which I think you said too.

It does have other meanings, but to me, in this situation, its collocation with 微博 makes it pretty clear it is not being used in those other ways.

[Zbigniew]

5 hours ago, Tøsen said:

I agree with you that other natives should provide their opinion. At the moment I only have her opinion

A native speaker tells me your teacher is barking up the wrong tree, and that Imron's assessment (which I already concurred in before consulting a native speaker) that 官方 means "official" and  that this qualifies the Weibo account in question is pretty well unassailable.

[Wippen (inactive)]

@Publius  I know you already responded to this thread. I just want to make doubly sure because the teacher I am using from a school I just spent three weeks at is pretty qualified (doctoral student of teaching Chinese as a foreign language).

 

(PS: I know you already helped me with the wonderful script of the guide on the tourist bus in Heiongjiang and I really appreciate it)

 

The question is: Can  官方  mean state-run when talking about news outlet, or does the 官方 in that context not mean that specifically?

[imron]

5 hours ago, Tøsen said:

Can  官方  mean state-run when talking about news outlet,

I'm not sure that's the question, because it can (see here).  The question is whether it means it when used in the way it was used in this article, and I believe it doesn't.

[Publius]

15 hours ago, imron said:

So the way I see it, you have criticism of the singer coming from the official account of a state-run magazine, but you'd need prior knowledge that《紫光阁》is state run, because nothing in the article mentions or implies that.

Imron is right.

 

It almost feels like that the article, in its righteous indignation, is deliberately omitting the fact that the magazine in question is, like 人民網 itself, a government mouthpiece.

[Wippen (inactive)]

7 hours ago, Publius said:

Imron is right.

 

It almost feels like that the article, in its righteous indignation, is deliberately omitting the fact that the magazine in question is, like 人民網 itself, a government mouthpiece.

@Publius Thank you very much for your input on this. You not only have the ability to provide the facts needed to answer questions, but you go out of your way to provide additional information that is also useful and which provide further food for thought.

 

@imron  Thanks for your contribution on this thread. On a forum like this, it is useful when discussions can get going and this was also the case here.

 

Thanks to everyone else for their opinion on this.