How Chinese News is Covering #Ferguson

“举起手，别开枪” Hands up, don't shoot.

So I'm riding the bus yesterday, and on the bus there is a tv that shows news stories and the same ads over and over again. There's a news story showing about 弗格森[fú gé sēn]. Wait. Fu-ge-sen. Oh my goodness. This is so big, they're talking about it in China.

So let's have a look at the stories floating around on Chinese news websites, shall we? (I accessed all these in the evening of November 27, which is morning November 27 for y'all in the US. Every major Chinese news site I checked had a link about Ferguson on the front page. Not the top story or anything, but definitely there.)

美国骚乱已扩至超过170个城市 44名示威者被捕 [In the US, riots have spread to over 170 cities and 44 demonstrators have been arrested.]

美弗格森枪案警察受专访 称像小孩一样无助 [In an interview, Ferguson police officer said he felt helpless like a child.]

美国白人警察枪杀非洲裔少年被判不予起诉 [White American policeman who shot and killed an African-American teenager will not be prosecuted] This one has a good video, sums up what's been happening from August to now.

Chinese reporter in Ferguson.

美国弗格森案示威席卷170个城市 400多人被捕 [In the US, demonstrations for Ferguson have spread to 170 cities, and over 400 people have been arrested.]

美国弗格森骚乱波及170城 近200名示威者被捕 [In the US, Ferguson riots have spread to 170 cities, and almost 200 demonstrators have been arrested.]

美国弗格森枪击案：州长拒绝重开陪审团审理 [Ferguson, US, shooting: Governor refuses to reopen the jury.] [I know that translation doesn't make sense- I don't know enough about legal terms in Chinese (or English) to tell you what it's actually trying to say.]

弗格森骚乱让美国尴尬陷入国际舆论 [Ferguson riots bring embarrassment to US in international public opinion.]

弗格森枪击案警员：我问心无愧 [Ferguson policeman: My conscience is clean.]

And these two, from the morning of November 28:

6张图表展示美国黑人生活 [6 charts showing black American life.] The graphs are all in English- things like crime rates, poverty rates, unemployment, etc.

华盛顿邮报：弗格森失控带来的思考 [Washington Post: Thoughts on Ferguson] This one has some screenshots and partial translations of 2 Washington Post articles about what Ferguson means and how race fits in.

“已经举手了，不要开枪” Hands us, don't shoot. The videos on these sites show a lot of footage of protests- big crowds chanting and carrying signs. Several videos also show the Darren Wilson interview.

So basically, the riots and protests are getting the most coverage. (Also they seem to have no clue how many people have been arrested.) The bit about having riots in 170 cities is totally not true though. Protests, yes, but rioting has only happened in a few cities.

Some of Chinese new stories kind of give me the impression that the entire US is in flames right now, but I really don't think that's true.

If you read further into the news stories, they all clearly tell you that Wei-er-xun (Wilson) is white and Bu-lang (Brown) is black, but there's not much said about the history of racism in the US.

All right, we need to talk about guns and China.

So. In China it's illegal to have a gun. Police don't even carry guns, unless they're some special type of police. Like sometimes I see armed police officers involved in transporting a bunch of cash or something like that.

Like this. Really long guns and full body armor. Just walking through the subway station or whatever. Image source.

Terrorists in China stab people. Seriously. They don't have guns. You don't hear about people getting shot. You hear about someone blowing up a bus or something.

And I've had a few conversations with people about how they think the US is not safe because of gun violence. (This was totally unrelated to what's going on with Ferguson.) I've talked to Chinese people that told me everyone in America has a gun.

So I wonder what it's like to see the photos with large groups of heavily-armed police officers pointing guns at protesters. I wonder how that looks, to a Chinese audience.

Overall, it kind of looks like the US is a huge crazy mess right now.