UN SPECIAL ON CHINA’S PEOPLE’S DAILY

Interview with Shuibao Liu, redaction UN Special

The November 2006 issue of UN Special used your photo of a girl as its cover. Do you know the girl ? Have you sent any copy to her?
I don’t know her and don’t have her address either but since the photo was taken in one of the 9 counties of Lishui municipality, Zhejiang province last October, I sent several copies to the Cultural Department of Lishui municipality and asked them to give her a copy as a souvenir.

Have you got any feedback?
Yes. I managed to interview the girl by phone. Apparently this Department not only took the trouble to find her but also informed the local media and even the provincial newspapers because the photo of this girl in the exact same clothes holding UNS was first published in a couple of local newspapers as well as Zhejiang Daily. A few days later the most important national newspaper, the People’s Daily also carried this girl’s photo with UNS in her hands.

What does all this signify?
Something in local papers and even Zhejiang Daily may not be that important or significant, because after all Zhejiang is only a province with less than 100 million inhabitant, but being in the People’s Daily is a totally different story.

Perhaps you don’t know that in China, everybody, whether you are government officials, civil servants, ordinary people, institutions, enterprises, schools, universities, in short, people from all walks of life subscribe the People’s Daily. Moreover it is widely distributed outside China, for example Paris, Tokyo, New York, Bangkok, Australia, San Francisco to name only a few. It is by no means exaggerating to say that People’s Daily is distributed in every corner of the world. So now with it, UN Special may claim it has become known to some 1.4 billion people all over the world.

Any impact on the girl?
Yes. She is well known in the region now and has become a star. Many young men run after her, telephoning and writing letters to her, expressing their admiration and love. In this sense UN Special inadvertently created a star.