A permier university

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Headline in the Washington Post (a few minutes ago):

A professor at China’s permier university questioned Xi Jinping. Then he was suspended.

Obligatory screenshot:

It's even in the URL for the article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/a-professor-at-chinas-permier-university-questioned-xi-jinping-then-he-was-suspended/2019/03/28/c64a34c2-50d5-11e9-8d28-f5149e5a2fda_story.html



15 Comments

  1. Jenny Chu said,

    March 28, 2019 @ 6:53 pm

    One of the permier universities, but not the permiest.

  2. David Morris said,

    March 28, 2019 @ 6:54 pm

    Not Permier Li Keqiang?

  3. Neil Kubler said,

    March 28, 2019 @ 7:01 pm

    Speaking of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, have you noticed:
    (from L to R) XI2 ZHU3 XI2 (and from R to L) XI2 ZHU3 XI2
    and, if that is not coincidence enough,
    (from L to R) LI3 ZONG3 LI3 (and from R to L) LI3 ZONG3 LI3
    What are the chances of something like this ever happening again?!?

  4. chris said,

    March 28, 2019 @ 8:05 pm

    I assume, despite the photo implying that the story is mainly about Xi Jinping, that it was the professor who was suspended?

  5. Russell said,

    March 28, 2019 @ 10:14 pm

    Given Xi's immaculate coif, perhaps the suspension was due less to the impertinence of the question or questioner than Xi's envy of the superiority of the professor's do. The incident occurred at one of China's permier universities, after all.

  6. David Marjanović said,

    March 29, 2019 @ 5:21 am

    Clearly a university concerned with the Permian period (which is represented pretty well in China's fossil record), or with the Permic languages (…west of the Urals).

  7. Rodger C said,

    March 29, 2019 @ 6:44 am

    There is, in fact, a University of the Permian Basin. (It's in Texas, not Perm.)

  8. Philip Taylor said,

    March 29, 2019 @ 7:21 am

    I think it's a great shame that China has a President and not a Premier, otherwise the headline could have read "Professor at China's permier university questioned Permier Xi Jinping …".

  9. Cervantes said,

    March 29, 2019 @ 7:54 am

    All of this obviously raises the question of whether Xi's hair looks like that naturally.

  10. KevinM said,

    March 29, 2019 @ 9:34 am

    Typo for "pervier"? And for consistency, shouldn't the academic have been identified as the perfessor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Stengel

  11. Bathrobe said,

    March 29, 2019 @ 11:42 am

    It's not worth being emperor if you can't penalise people who criticise your perm…

  12. M. Paul Shore said,

    March 29, 2019 @ 1:14 pm

    Note that “premier” is an anagram of “empirer” [sic] (or, if you like, “emperir” or “imperer”).

  13. TIC said,

    March 29, 2019 @ 1:26 pm

    Let's all just hope that the professor is hired by another university, even if it's a less permy one…

  14. Andrew Usher said,

    March 30, 2019 @ 9:34 am

    I hat to break the humor, but when I read this this joke never crossed my mind, and I am familiar with 'perm' – I noticed, of course, but immediately dismissed it as the simple typo it was. The American pronunciation of 'premier' might have something do with it – if you replace 'pre' with 'per' the result still doesn't sound like 'perm'.

    k_over_hbarc at yahoo.com

  15. DWalker07 said,

    April 1, 2019 @ 11:44 am

    Comments about the hair bring up this:

    Was this mentioned in this blog?

    https://www.cnn.com/style/article/xi-jinping-gray-hair/index.html

    Excerpts:

    Defying decades of political tradition, China's most powerful man is going gray.

    Leaders have traditionally dyed their hair black as a kind of "conformity to a single regimented style as a sign of unison and agreement," observed Hung Huang, a prominent media personality who grew up among the Communist elites in Beijing in the 1960s and '70s. It's one that Xi — who now clearly stands above everyone else — no longer needs, she said.

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