NPC Delegates Say the Darnedest Things

That's the headline for an amusing post on the Wall Street Journal's China Real Time Report, quoting various remarks made by delegates at the current NPC session and captured on tape (well, captured on digital recorder, more likely).

According to the post, NPC delegate and Hubei governor Li Hongzhong was asked by a reporter about the Deng Yujiao case.

–Li Hongzhong, governor of Hubei province, was asked by a People’s Daily reporter about last year’s case of a hotel worker whose murder charges were dismissed after she claimed she had acted in self-defense when an official and his colleague tried to rape her. His reply: “Are you really from the People’s Daily? And you ask such a question? What kind of Communist Party mouthpiece are you? Is this how you guide public opinion? What’s your name? I’m going to find your boss.”

Caijing reported it a bit differently on its web site. According to its report, which it says it gathered from eyewitnesses, at the very end of a press conference held by Li the reporter asked him what his views were on the case. Li's face suddenly went dark and he left the room. Two minutes later he returned and demanded of the reporter (named Liu Jie, who worked for Jinghua Shibao, a newspaper within the People's Daily system), "Where are you from?" (i.e., which media outlet). She, apparently stunned, just said, "Huh", and he repeated, "Where are you from? Where are you from?" She finally answered, "The People's Daily." He said, "The People's Daily ... Why are you always going on about this affair. It's already over. I'm going to talk to your chief, right, OK?" He then grabbed her recording device from her and stalked out of the room with it. Later on the afternoon of the same day, a staff member with the Hubei delegation returned the recording device to the reporter, but with no apology.

Note to non-North American readers: the headline is a reference to "Kids Say the Darnedest Things," a segment of a popular TV show that ran in the fifties and sixties. The host would interview small children, who would answer questions in some cutely funny way (the answers that weren't funny were presumably edited out).