Calling a Stag a Horse

The history has the strong this way: a powerful minister of Qing Dynasty (221-207 B.C.) Zhao Gao was planning a coup, so he wanted to tell how many ministers in the court would stand with him. Zhao had an idea. He presented a stag to the child emperor, 'Your Majesty! See the beautiful horse I brought you!' Still a child, the emperor was amused, 'but it's a stag', replied in joy. And the child emperor asked his ministers standing in the court, 'can't you all see?'

Most ministers kept silence. Some stated it must be a horse to please the powerful minister Zhao Gao. A few rebutted in distaste, and they were soon thrown into jail by Minister Zhao Gao.

Reading the history book, people can't help wondering, why it had to be carried out in this spectacular way?

People had been playing these seemingly meaningless mental game for thousands of years. In book 1984, Big Brother could not be satisfied until people sincerely agreed with 'guilt' placed on them. Big Brother is as obsessed on playing with people's mind as, who else, communists.

Qian Yunhui, a village head who stood up for his villagers, was executed by local government in Zhejiang Province to deter the villagers from asking for their fair share of their land taken away by the government when Dr. Xi Jinping was the Governor of Zhejiang. The execution was carried out in bright day light on a busy road, with local people walking around and residential buildings lined up on both sides. When it became a national and international media event, the CCP decided the original plot was not good for publicity. At that point, the government at all levels were mobilized for one task, 'Calling a Stag a Horse'. They did it, but they wanted everyone in the world to do it too, a mission impossible with today's connected world thanks to cell phone videos and micro-blogs. But boy they just don't quit.

After everything failed, after all government witness was proved lying and after all evidence presented by the government fabricated, the government 'found' new evidence, from villagers.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported, one villager who kept a 'spy watch' wore by Qian at the time of incident turned it to the authority 'voluntarily'. [Reality check: the villager, a close friend of Qian, was jailed all the time after the incident, and the watch was hidden at his home. Therefore, there is no way he can turn in the watch 'voluntarily'.] This is not an ordinary watch, but one with a video camera and a microphone, and is capable of recording 3 hours of video footage once triggered by a button, just like James Bond used in the movie. By the way, it's pretty cheap at below $20, and had been widely available everywhere in China. Many Chinese keep one, just in case, as admitted by writer and car racer Han Han. So watch out when you are sitting close to a Chinese. Anyway, for obvious reason, Qian activated the recording before the accident (why? My toddler would ask, and it's a good question as you don't do that all the time), and the watch recorded the whole incident in its entirely, and more. If you have been following the case, you would recall that the particular government surveillance video camera overseeing the crime scene was conveniently malfunctioned a few hours before the incident, and mysteriously recovered minutes after the incident took place. After the incident became a media frenzy, the government had plowed the village of a thousand resident to search and confiscated cameras and cell phones alike. Now, a month later, with the new critical evidence, and while all other methods had failed, the government had a new idea. Instead of destroying all physical recording, why not,..' Yes, you got it.

Twenty days later after the government obtained the watch, the official Xinhua News Agency published a 'unedited full-length' video recording of the magic watch, from the moment Qian walking on the road by himself, to the moment he was struck by a truck 'accidentally'. You can see the owner of the watch walking, the scene of the street, the truck coming, and the 'accident'. The Xinhua News Agency claimed it was clearly a traffic tragedy, see!

Within a day, bloggers were able to decipher the video and found bugs every where. It's not just 'edited', but rather 'assembled'. And it's not done by James Cameron of Hollywood, but Sandy Tartar of Bollywood. Many blogs explained in details how bad a job the government and Xinhua News Agency had done. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.