The Shoe Fits

The shoe-as-insult bit has now gone global:

China denounced a protester at Cambridge University who threw a shoe at Prime Minister Wen Jiabao but nevertheless hailed his visit to Britain as a success and avoided showing the incident to home audiences.

The protester threw the shoe and called Wen a dictator while the Chinese leader spoke at the British university on Monday, near the end of a weeklong visit to Europe. The shoe missed Wen and landed about a meter away from him.

A couple of things to note about this incident:

1) CCTV, China’s state-controlled television network, aired a clip of the shoe-throwing incident in its entirety, previously having referred to the incident only “obliquely” in official press reports. Why cover it now? This news piece suggests that the Internet buzz about the incident in China may have been too great for official news outlets to ignore. On the other hand, China has often selectively released news of similar incidents to provoke public outrage and ride the wave of wounded national pride. One commenter on Sina.com, however, managed to turn that national frown upside-down:

“The protest proved that China’s power had been recognized by the British,” said a comment on Sina.com, a popular Chinese-language Web site. “People wouldn’t protest against a little country.”

2) This time, at least, the shoe was aimed at someone who really deserved it.

(h/t Kelani Chan)

UPDATE: There’s also a YouTube clip of incident here, with an amusing Engrish (sic) header attached to it. And who can forget the Austin Powers bit below?