The account calling this racist is Indian. That is the part bothers me the most.
Not a Chinese account. Not a Beijing museum. Not one Chinese person in that thread asking for an apology.
An Indian, telling everyone that Indians embarrassed themselves.
Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu is from Howrah Bridge, 1958. Composed by O. P. Nayyar. Written by Qamar Jalalabadi. Sung by Geeta Dutt. Picturised on Helen, who was 19 at the time.
The lyrics are goofy. The character is a dancer from Shanghai. She sings about Singapore, Shanghai, and then in the very next line calls herself Aladdin's girl and refers to Sindbad the sailor. It mixes up China with the Arabian Nights inside one verse.
So yes, it is a silly 1958 song with silly ideas of the East in it.
Even the tune's origin is borrowed. It was inspired by a 1916 London musical called Chu Chin Chow. The exotic Asia stereotype in this song came from Britain first. India just gave it a harmonica.
Now, was any of that on the minds of these women at the Forbidden City?
No. They are walking and waving. Eight seconds. A group of women, probably in their sixties, on the trip of their lives. They picked the one Hindi song they know that has China in it.
Just an aunty being happy.
Now put this next to what the rest of the world does.
For the last month, Norway has been at the World Cup doing the Viking Row. Fans sit on the ground and mime rowing a longship. Their ancestors, the Vikings, were literally raiders who looted and pillaged coastlines from around 800 AD.
The entire Norwegian parliament did the row together. The royal family posted a video of Crown Prince Haakon and Prince Sverre Magnus rowing.
The Norwegian Air Force put out a clip of an F-35 pilot doing it from the cockpit. Fifteen thousand people did it on Karl Johan street outside the Royal Palace.
Kindergartens did it. Hospitals did it. Old age homes did it.
Their celebrations in Oslo and Bergen after beating Ivory Coast registered as earthquakes on seismic equipment.
They did it in Times Square, in subways, at the airport, and on the luggage belt.
The world's reaction?
The New York Times praised it. A writer in The Spectator said you would have to be a crotchety killjoy to complain about it. Norway's own tourism body celebrated the attention. A museum guy said it was some of the best marketing Norway has ever had.
Now imagine Indian fans doing something similar at a World Cup. Imagine 15,000 Indians doing some Bollywood step in Times Square.
The first thread calling it cringe would be written by an Indian. Within an hour.
That is what I mean by self sabotage.
There is a real difference between a country that plays with its own image and a country that is scared of its own image.
And it is not just this. Watch what happens every time an Indian tourist video goes viral. Someone eating with their hands. A group taking too many photos. An uncle bargaining.
Immediately there is a thread about how we ruin our reputation abroad, written by someone whose thread is doing far more damage than the uncle ever could.
If China is offended, China will say so. They have a foreign ministry and they are not shy about using it. Nobody there is losing sleep over four Indian women waving at a palace to a Geeta Dutt song.
The one group that is upset is us.
If someone wants to write about how 1950s Bollywood used lazy Asian stereotypes, that is a legitimate piece and I would read it.
Do it about the film industry, about O. P. Nayyar's era, about the item number as a form.
Do not do it about a 65 year old woman on holiday.
She saved for that trip. She got a visa. She flew to Beijing. She stood in front of a 600 year old palace and felt something big, and she picked the only song she had.
Let her wave.
NEET विवाद के बाद अब सुपर स्पेशियलिटी सीटों को लेकर भी गंभीर सवाल उठ रहे हैं।
हर वर्ष सुपर स्पेशियलिटी पूर्ण होने के बाद मेडिकल कॉलेजों में सुपर स्पेशलिस्ट सर्जनों की नियुक्ति हेतु काउंसलिंग होती है।
लेकिन बीआरडी मेडिकल कॉलेज, गोरखपुर में स्थिति चिंताजनक है। पिछले बैच से 1 सीट पहले से रिक्त है तथा इस वर्ष कार���यकाल पूर्ण होने के कारण 1 और सीट खाली हुई है, फिर भी काउंसलिंग में एक भी सीट प्रदर्शित नहीं की गई। यह कई गंभीर प्रश्न खड़े करता है।
यह अत्यंत चिंताजनक और दुर्भाग्यपूर्ण स्थिति है कि मुख्यमंत्री @myogiadityanath जी का गृह जनपद एवं संसदीय क्षेत्र होने के बावजूद बीआरडी मेडिकल कॉलेज, गोरखपुर में सुपर स्पेशियलिटी सेवाओं, विशेषकर ऑन्कोलॉजी जैसे महत्वपूर्ण विभागों में रिक्त पद बने हुए हैं।
पूर्वांचल के मरीजों को इलाज के लिए लखनऊ, वाराणसी या दिल्ली जैसे शहरों की ओर जाना ��ड़ता है, जिससे आर्थिक, मानसिक और शारीरिक बोझ बढ़ता है। यदि रिक्त पद होने के बावजूद भर्ती प्रक्रिया पारदर्शी तरीके से नहीं हो रही, तो इसकी निष्पक्ष जांच होनी चाहिए।
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More Indians should know about Argentina's bitter history.
It is a country that has almost completely erased its black population.
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The song's purpose shifted again. It's incredibly flattering as a writer to have your song chosen by someone who's a great writer and a great artist. 8/8
Some-fucking-how that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning – different, but every bit as pure. Things felt even stranger when he passed away. 7/8
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