Earlier this week the following message spread like wildfire via SMS in China. Some of China’s anger about the chaos the Torch relay is creating isn’t limited to the internet. It will be interesting to see how effective this boycott of Carrefour, the giant French retailer with mega stores all over China, will be.
Here is the SMS message that some of my friends got on Tuesday…
We hope you are able to boycott Carrefour at least on 1 May, to deliver, by the empty Carrefour that day, one message to the western world: Chinese shouldn’t be humiliated! Chinese people shouldn’t be insulted! The boycott against Carrefour is going to spreading all over the country, and we anticipate your presence! Thank you.
The Olympic torch relay that just ended in Paris is not as peaceful as most of Chinese know about. Let’s see what French and its government have done when Chinese carried the torch, a symbol of peace and friendship into their territory. 1. Before the relay, a French TV station called on people to protest on street for the reason that they “don’t want Chinese flags flaunting all over”. 2. The torch was forced to extinguish for 4 times under the violent disruptions of Tibet separatists. 3. The French police in charge of security simply stood by to see the separatists snatching the torch, and striking the disabled torch carrier. 4. At where the torch went by, hordes of French waved the flag of separatists, clamoring “Free Tibet’, “Shame on China” to protest against China. 5. Groups of young men even scrambled the Chinese students’ Five-star flags and tore them up, two sides in conflict. 6. When the sacred fire passed by the City Hall of Paris, the banners and slogans of pro-Tibet independence were hung out and all the alderman put on the pro-separatism badges, a behavior that made the planned ceremony there cancelled. 7. The major media in France reviewed the torch relay with such headlines— Fiasco in Paris(Figaro) and A Slap on China.