From: XXXXXXX
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 11:58 AM
To: 'mrligon@iandn.com'
Subject: Hahaha America
Importance: High
Dear Mr. Ligon,
I am writing after viewing your film “Hahaha America” on the internet and would like to extend to you an invitation to come and visit me in China so I may show you the true face of China not the fabricated façade shown to the world. Your video is the most misleading collection of well framed shots and carefully edited tripe I have seen since I screened Chinese propaganda from the Cultural Revolution.
In your attempt to belittle and berate the country you reside in you have committed an egregious error in comparing apples to oranges. A fair comparison not playing to the fallacies of logic you employ would compare accomplishments to accomplishments and error to error.
I humbly invite you to bring your camera and film the distorted beggars on the street and homeless mentally ill of Guangzhou that have no assistance from the bankrupt Chinese welfare system.
I exhort you to film the common Chinese man, woman and child as they freely defecate and urinate on the sidewalks with no shame in one of the most prosperous and educated cities in China.
I plea for you to record for the Sundance Film Festival the mountains of trash discarded out of windows and piled into corners of streets left to rot as there is no system for the removal of rubbish.
I beg you to accompany me to video store after video store awash in thousands of pirated DVD and CD titles and film this as evidence of China’s commitment to stamping out the theft of intellectual property.
I ask that you record on video a due diligence investigation at any number of factories where the workers are exposed extraordinary levels of mercury and arsenic at their jobs where they work 29 days a month, sleep in company barracks and get paid $50 US dollars a month.
I now demand that you film the waste and filth of the Pearl River and the test results on the water showing the levels of mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals and carcinogens that are at levels 500 times greater than what the WHO has declared unsafe.
With this small beginning we can explore the myriad of crime, corruption, and downright lack of respect for other people and the world they live in that is endemic to the psyche of China and the mainland Chinese people.
Best regards,
Xxxxx Xxxxxxx