Above, a screenshot of the Global Times‘ “unbelievable” (神一样) headline. Below, a weary old pig weeps, “Even seven hours is called shameful. Then what do you call me, Old Pearl, waiting for 63 years?” (Artist: Peaceful House Pearl Shimao)
Yesterday’s Global Times story “Seven-Hour Wait to Vote; This Election Is Shameful” caused an uproar in Chinese cyberspace. Reporting on the long lines at polls in Palm Beach County, Florida, the article concludes, “The U.S. claims to be free and democratic, but the rights of the people are far from guaranteed. It is increasingly difficult for a U.S. citizen to cast a vote and for that vote to be counted” (美国宣称自由民主，但民众的权力并未得到保障。美国公民投票越来越难，他们的投票也越来越难被统计到。) But many readers could not even get beyond the incendiary headline. Here is what some of them had to say on Weibo:
ZhaoHanqingJason: What is a ballot?
赵汗青Jason：什么是选票？
EverydayEatPoison: Most Chinese people would say they have waited for over 5000 years. The progress is that decision-making has expanded from one person to a few dozen.
天天吃毒：对大多数中国人来说应该等了5000多年了吧，进步的是决定权有一人扩大到几十人。
UncleDingdang: If it’s a shame for American voters to wait for seven hours, then what should it be for Chinese people to have waited for over 60 years?
叮噹叔叔：美国要等七个小时，就是耻辱，中国的百姓，等了六十多年，应该是什么？
runforu: China has no qualifications to report on the shame of the U.S. presidential election. It’s even more shameful that you have never held a general election yourself.
runforu：中国没有任何资格报道美国大选耻辱。你没大选过不更耻辱。
PeacefulThinker2011: Wait another seven years and it will be a full 70!
静思居士2011：再等7年就整70啦！
Woaiwf: Never mind the ballot, we haven’t even got the shame yet.
兰州侯爱龙律师：不要说选票，就连耻辱我们也没有等到啊。
7wedding: Among all the countries in the world, the U.S. is most thorough in self-criticism. The principle of reporting there is to lean towards the negative, not the model. This offers the Global Times endless fodder.
摄影师王勉：美国是世界自我批评最深入的国家，媒体报道的原则是倾向于负面性，非典型性的报道，这给环球时报源源不断的新闻素材。
Eric Wang: Seven hours is called a shame, 63 years is called care.
Eric Wang：7个小时叫耻辱，63年叫关怀。
QSWYT: We don’t even have the opportunity for shame.
QSWYT：我们耻辱的机会也没有。
YutingUSA: This afternoon my grandma accompanied me to cast my vote. We have finished our dinner and come back home now. No one at the polling station that I went to said they waited for seven hours. In the big picture, waiting seven hours in line is better than waiting 70 years and not even being allowed to line up.
美國雨婷: 今天下午姥姥陪我我已经投完票了，吃完晚饭都回来了，我所在的投票站没有人说排队7个小时。退一步讲，就算排队7小时，也比等了快70年了，还不让排队好吧。
Read more about the Chinese take on the U.S. elections here.
Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Mengyu Dong.
Netizen Voices is an original CDT series. If you would like to reuse this content, please follow the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 agreement.
