Zhou self-castration

周自宫 (zhōu zì gōng): Zhou self-castration

This is the unfortunate nickname of Zhou Libo, a famous Shanghai comedian.

After a tragic fire in Shanghai that claimed the lives of at least sixty people, Zhou Libo mourned for the dead on his blog. As translated by the EastSouthWestNorth blog, Zhou wrote:

"I pray silently for the unfortunate victims of the Jiaozhou Road fire disaster! In this unfortunate tragedy, the various government departments responded satisfactorily ..." "Images of the Jiaozhou Road fire disaster made me cry even more bitterly than over the Tangshan earthquake! The unfortunate deaths, the sorrowful departures, the rapid response, the heroic firefighters ... my tears have never been as complex! I feel sad ... sad ..."

As more facts came out about the fire, it was disclosed that human factors contributed to the tragedy. Standing against the torrent of internt public opinion clamoring for someone to be punished, Zhou berated netizens:

"The Internet provides a virtual public platform that is borderless, class-free and status-free. On the Internet, everyone can express their views without accepting any responsibility. This creates a virtual space for anarchy! Please imagine this! If the Internet environment were replicated in the real world, would we want such a world? Perhaps it’s fine for the sake of entertainment, but if applied outside the virtual world it would be miserable! If the government were to simply follow the will of the netizens, it would be a form of 'self-castration'!"

“无界别、无贵贱、无高低”地发表观点，会“导致一种虚拟的无政府空间”，并称“娱乐可以，当真必惨！政府若将网络民意当真，实是一种‘自宫’行为了！ ”

Later, Zhou withdrew his blog post leading netizens to joke that it was Zhou who was castrating himself.

For more in Chinese, see here.

Zhou Libo

The Shanghai apartment fire. For more images of the Jiaozhou Road fire see here.