China Law Blog

Back before the true advent of reality TV, I used to love watching the Newlywed Game. Back in its day, that show, more than any other, evidenced the lengths to which people were willing to humiliate themselves for fifteen minutes of fame.

My favorite episode was when the host, Bob Eubanks, asked the wives if they were to write a book about themselves that devoted one page to each man with whom they had made whoopee, would it be a page, a pamphlet, a novel, or an encyclopedia? (I am not reciting this word for word, but I am getting the gist here.) With the husbands off stage, one of the wives said encyclopedia. When her husband returned, he guessed she had said a page. When he learned she had said encylopedia, he was both stunned and unhappy and he got her to admit she had always told him he was the first. At which point, Eubanks, in his usual inimitable style, asked the wife why she was telling the truth now. The wife replied, "because I can't lie on National TV."

I thought of that episode today when I read the following article in the New York Times, entitled, "Italians Critical of Chinese Gift."

A cultural exchange has turned into an awkward debate over aesthetics in Italy and China, the British newspaper The Guardian reported. In an attempt to promote trade relations, the city of Florence gave a bronze reproduction of Michelangelo’s David to the city of Ningbo, China, two years ago. In return, Ningbo donated two huge stone sculptures last year. The reproduction was greeted warmly by the Chinese, but in Florence authorities are having difficulty finding a home for the two reproductions of Tang dynasty figures, one a smiling warrior and one a bureaucrat, because city residents do not find them aesthetically appealing. The statues, which are 13 feet tall, have been housed in a freight warehouse since they arrived. “They are ugly and too imposing,” said Andrea Ceccarelli, a representative of the city’s residents. The city must deal with the situation now because a delegation from Ningbo, a city in Zhejiang Province, is coming to Italy later this month to inspect the statues. Silvano Gori, a Florence city official, blamed his fellow citizens for the response. “Every time you try something different in Florence there is a row,” he said.