From Danwei blog:
The Emperor’s New Clothes was the literary reference of choice for a number of Chinese commentators this week.
On 26 December, People’s Daily printed the following letter:
We are students at Nandan County High School in Guangxi. This November 19, the teachers and students of Nandan High School and Nandan #2 High School, along with the county education department leadership, county government work unit workers and leaders, and students from the town of Chehe, participated in a “10,000-strong Diao River pollution management campaign” that the county government had organized. That morning, the county government sent 40-some cars to pick us up and take us to the Diao River in Chehe……
No one was much surprised at the local government’s shenanigans, though some voices wondered who the fraud was intended to impress. Rather, it was the fact that more than a month after an exercise that had involved thousands of people, it was only a class of high school students that dared speak out about it – the most ready reference was naturally Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fable.[Full Text]
