An April Fools’ prank published in the Taipei Times on Wednesday has drawn attention and started a debate amongst readers at home and abroad, with some saying they enjoyed the joke, some falling for it and laughing it off afterwards, and others who were not amused.
The hoax article titled “Pandemonium breaks out at Taipei Zoo” said that Tuan Tuan (團團) and Yuan Yuan (圓圓), the two pandas that arrived in December as gifts from China, were discovered to be Wenzhou brown forest bears dyed black and white after zoo workers noticed unusual sexual behavior.
The story was quickly posted on a number of blogs around the world — and was even translated into Spanish. Although most readers identified it as an April Fools’ item, some fell for it.
PHOTO: LIN HSIANG-MEI, TAIPEI TIMES
On an online Singaporean forum, an Internet user with the screen name Daryl — after several others users had identified the story as a hoax — wrote: “Huh? So which part is the April Fool?”
Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) chairwoman Chow Mei-li (周美里) wrote on the online TFOT discussion forum that she had already printed the story to read before someone told her it was an April Fools’ hoax.
Replying to Chow, Freddy Lim (林昶佐), lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Chthonic, said a friend told him to check the news in the morning.
“I almost ran home to print it out like Mei-li did. But then I remembered it was April Fools’ Day,” Lim said.
International news media, including CNN, Time magazine and the Times, cited the Taipei Times story in their reports on Wednesday about April Fools’ pranks published by newspapers around the world.
“It’s April Fools’ Day — when media outlets around the world take a break from the serious business of delivering news and play fast and furious with the facts,” CNN said in its report.
However, not everyone was amused.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) yesterday called the story “untrue and baseless” and urged the Taipei Times to print an apology.
Taipei Zoo director Jason Yeh (葉傑生) did not see the funny side either and expressed concern about the prank’s negative impact on panda conservation education.
“The story carried incorrect information on panda behavior and could mislead the public,” he said. “The Taipei Zoo made a lot of effort to get the pandas at the zoo and we don’t want to see our efforts being destroyed.”
“We understand the story was an April Fool, but I don’t think the newspaper should risk damaging its credibility by carrying such story simply to make people laugh,” he said.
On the other hand, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday seemed to get the joke.
When approached by reporters for comment on the story as he accompanied a group of students to visit the zoo’s Panda Hall, Hau said: “Let me tell you, Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan are actually Taiwanese Formosa bears.”
Geoffrey Davies, head of the journalism department at London’s University of Westminster, was quoted in the CNN report as saying that running an April Fool does not particularly affect a news outlet’s credibility.
“They are done in such a way that you know it’s a joke,” he was quoted as saying.
A statement issued by the Taipei Times said: “Printing funny fake stories has a long tradition in Western media. Not only is it funny, it reminds people to read the news with a critical eye.”
Running an April Fools’ Day prank is a tradition at the Taipei Times. In 2006, a prank story said the Ministry of National Defense had discovered a secret Taiwanese weapons program using chemicals extracted from chewed betel nuts. Back in 2005, then-vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) was the target of the joke in a story that said Lu was “moved to tears” after attending a concert by a singing camel.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MO YAN-CHIH
The heads of three major US banks on Wednesday pledged that they would withdraw from the Chinese market if Washington imposed sanctions on Beijing in response to an invasion of Taiwan. JP Morgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, Bank of America chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser told lawmakers at a hearing of the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services in Washington that the three banks would follow the guidance of the US government to exit China if necessary. The three bankers made the pledge after US Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer asked the three if they
HIGH STAKES: An attack on Taiwan could prompt a joint response from the US and Japan, and trigger a global conflict that could bring down the CCP, Liu Tai-ying said The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would not be able to launch an invasion of Taiwan for at least another 10 years, Taiwan Research Institute founder Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) said on Friday. To occupy Taiwan, China needs to transport at least 300,000 to 400,000 troops across the Taiwan Strait during battle, but it would lack the ability to do so for at least another decade, said Liu, a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) treasurer and a close aide to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). The challenges that China would face during an attempted invasion of Taiwan would be even greater than those
CHINA CRITIC: Prime ministerial candidate Giorgia Meloni, the front-runner in today’s election, said that she would not renew a Belt and Road Initiative deal with Beijing Italian lawmaker Giorgia Meloni, the front-runner to become the country’s next prime minister, is expected to reverse course on Italy’s support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative and strengthen ties with Taiwan if a coalition headed by her party wins the country’s general election today. “Without any doubt, if there is a center-right government, it is sure that Taiwan will be an essential concern for Italy,” Meloni told the Central News Agency in an interview. Italians are to vote in a snap election triggered by the resignation of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi following a failed attempt to get his coalition partners
HAWAII MODEL: While Hawaii held a referendum on becoming the 50th US state, Taiwan has never applied to join the People’s Republic of China, Miles Yu said China comparing Taiwanese independence to Hawaii seeking independence from the US is illogical, as Taiwan has never applied to be a part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hudson Institute senior fellow Miles Yu (余茂春) said over the weekend. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), who is in New York for the UN General Assembly, has given multiple talks asserting Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. In a speech to the Asia Society on Thursday, Wang likened Taiwan to Hawaii. “Just as the US would not allow Hawaii to break away,” Beijing “reserves the right” to seek unification, Wang told the gathering. The
RSS