Thread by @jinpeili

CCTV FOLLIES: 10/17 7 AM (special)

--Trigger warning: this is an extremely boring report--

-A 30-minute recap about stuffy 10/16 Great Hall meeting hailing Xi.
-Pageantry, hierarchy, control and obedience.
-98% of it is party hacks clapping and taking notes like school kids

The Great Hall of the People photographs nicely, but it's all downhill from here.

Tom Petty wrote a song describing this feeling:

"It's good to be king..."

The applause went on and on and on and on and on.

Probably the most exciting thing in the whole room was the exclamation point!

You have to clap for the dour-faced dude even if he's behind your back

It's very North Korean for everyone to take pretend to be fascinated and take notes as the supreme leader speaks
-Kudos to this "rebellious" old man on the right who does not clap
Nor does he wear the obligatory mask for men of his rank. Another such rebel can be seen in 2nd row

Men of sufficiently high rank do not have to wear masks
This stratospheric list includes Xi's closest cronies
...and high prestige VIPs such as Hu Jintao, former President of China, and former Politburo member Li Ruihuan.

But they do have to take notes like little schoolboys!

Get ready for some clapping scenes.
(just the highlights, really)

And that's a wrap! It's one of those days where the commercials are more interesting than the news.

Mao Tai and various distillers of hard liquor are regular sponsors of CCTV News, even at seven in the morning.

This ad looks like morning TV in Japan.

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