Young Jia Baoyu gets mad

Daily Sunshine, July 20, 2010

There’s not much that’s sunny about the front page of today’s Daily Sunshine:

Jia Baoyu is angry: Yu Xiaotong (于小彤), who plays the young Baoyu on the new TV adaptation of The Dream of Red Mansions, got into a scuffle with a spectator at a promotional event held in Suzhou. The paper quotes the spectator:

During the event, Director Li mentioned repeatedly how this adaptation is faithful to the original, and she trumpeted how this is the most complete adaptation of Red Mansions ever filmed. I’ve loved Red Mansions for years, and I couldn’t hold back the truth: “Li Shaohong, you’ve sullied a classic!” Then the Yu Xiaotong, who plays the young Baoyu, who had come out a hundred meters, suddenly turned around and grabbed my collar: “What’s that? Say it again” and then the hit me. I was about to reason with him, but then a group from the crew came out and surrounded me, supposedly to mediate but in actuality to “escort” Yu Xiaotong from the scene and away from the photographers.

However, the emcee of the event tells a different story:

Chen Yongzhou says…as it was about to conclude, a man in glasses stood atop a rock and shouted crude language, “the basic meaning was that Li Shaohong had sullied a classic, and the production team should get lost.” This angered “young Baoyu,” who charged forward to argue with that audience member. “The staff quickly came up to intercede, and from my vantage point I didn’t see any shoving,” Chen Yongzhou said. “At the time, I wondered whether this had all been arranged by someone.”

Vegetable prices rise again: The CPI increased 3.8% in June; the price of vegetables, fruit, and nuts in Shenzhen rose anywhere from 12.4% to 19.8%.

Guangzhou to continue restricting traffic: On July 18, the city tried out a traffic reduction policy in preparation for the Asian Games: cars with license plates ending in an odd digit are only allowed to drive on odd-numbered days; even digits are allowed on even-numbered days. Over the course of nine hours on the first day of the trial, the city issued 6,352 tickets to violators, 70% of whom were from outside of Guangzhou. Many Shenzhen drivers arrived in Guangzhou unaware that their cars would be ticketed.

Floods in Sichuan: The old town of Guang’an in Sichuan Province is underwater. Flood waters have reached the Three Gorges Dam.

Shanghai Volkswagen General Manager killed in auto accident: Liu Jian and three other high-ranking managers of the automaker were killed near Jiuquan, Gansu Province, on Saturday when their car collided with a truck. Neither vehicle had license plates.