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China is putting scientists on public screens and treating them like national celebrities
interesting | by /u/Smoothlarryy | 87 comments | 2026-09-02T17:49:06+00:00 Central
Comments
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| /u/Azeze1 That was Tu YouYou, first woman to win a Nobel prize in medicine for discovering a breakthrough antimalarial drug and the hardest person to sing happy birthday to |
| /u/TaxesAreConfusin this is a fucking bangin' joke |
| /u/DesireeThymes I'm laughing way too hard at this joke. Every once in awhile you come to Reddit and find something worthwhile |
| /u/borkthegee Here, I can ruin your experience with reddit. When romanizing Chinese names "You" is pronounced yo like her name is the same as the toy yo-yo. And in the song, we usually only say given names not family names. So the song is simply "happy birthday to you ... Happy birthday dear yoyo..." Which is all together pretty normal. I still laughed at the joke, obviously very few English speakers know pinyin |
| /u/ValkyrieSkyfall You guys said people's names when singing in Chinese? Haha, for me, I have always just sing 祝你生日快乐 4 times and that's it. |
| /u/Proud_Painting4460 Real chiggas know this is the realest answer |
| /u/terrexchia I don't even know where you could slot the name into the song, in Mandarin we don't really have "happy birthday dear____" in so little words as to fit the melody |
| /u/borkthegee Nice, now this is why I reddit *chefs kiss* |
| /u/41puppy I am laughing too hard trying to sing happy birthday to Tu YouYou in my car right now |
| /u/ElBastardoDK Don't be on social media while driving. |
| /u/CEREALBUTTMUNCHER I'm bawling my eyes out while trying to land this plane atm. Wish me lu |
| /u/apparition88 Bing Dang Ow on the back stretch. |
| /u/ANTICHRIST-BOISE Nice callback to 2011. I was working at the chop block at Dickey's BBQ when the report came out. Will never forget that day. Edit: will never forget that it actually happened in 2014. Now I'm starting to wonder if this has anything to do with the Russia-Ukraine conflict... /s |
| /u/nightswimsofficial Buddy still hit comment. Thats commitment. 🫡 |
| /u/ChronoLink99 Could be a passenger. |
| /u/RammsteinFunstein not everyone in a car is driving |
| /u/Training_Guide5157 Funny for sure, but it'd be pronounced "yoyo" (with a tone) in Chinese. |
| /u/Azeze1 Thank you for all the rewards, I feel it necessary to note this is not an original joke by myself but certainly an Internet meme from about a decade back |
| /u/Curly_Shoe You are the hero we needed, not the one we deserved. Your timing and delivery is on Point, so even if your Cape is at the dry cleaner's en, it's still fully deserved. |
| /u/ItsHumpDayMyDudes Original joke got removed what was the joke! :( |
| /u/Hot-Job-6281 Credit to anyone that actually uses their actual name instead of making an unoriginal racial joke. Her name really is Tu Youyou. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou |
| /u/Extension_Canary3717 Even better in Portuguese as Tu is also You so is You YouYou |
| /u/utahrd37 ... but it is pronounced like the word "yo-yo". |
| /u/hmmicecream My toddler sings that way. Happeeeh bertdayyy yu yu |
| /u/fadeux ..."Happy birthday, dear Tu YouYou, happy birthday to you!" 😂 |
| /u/chucklingmoose ironically my aunt worked in an adjacent lab as her and hates her for taking the credit on this lol |
| /u/PapiLenyora This has had me singing it aloud and laughing like a teenager for the last 10 min - 10/10 epic joke |
| /u/ZealousidealDance990 Tu Youyou and the Project 523 for which she won the Nobel Prize took place during the Cultural Revolution. During this period, China launched a satellite, as well as the hydrogen bomb and the atomic bomb. |
| /u/This_Maintenance_834 it is true. the situation of scientists were quite mixed during culture revolution. one time the party don't like high educated academic to avoid them interfering with politics, on the side, the party need them to make satellite, atomic bomb and ICBM. |
| /u/Pman1324 Better than glorifying celebrities. Scientists actually help the world. |
| /u/cluelessmuggle29 100% agree, and spreading awareness about them too, they deserve the visibility for the work they do. |
| /u/DonutHoles4Ever Basically USA scares the shit outta them and is the perfect example of why China's government works better than any other as a point of marketing in the country. But the fact that science is so heavily shit on in the USA despite it being one of the leading scientific countries for a long time, just goes to show that politics has destroyed the country's power long term and none of them give a damn |
| /u/Living-By-The-River It's odd when your own government makes you look up to China. |
| /u/Large-Shake1069 While your own government looks up to Russia and North Korea. |
| /u/Gon_Freecss_1999 China is our enemy!!!! oh hello there my friend North Korea :) |
| /u/theghostog You say politics, I say corporations and fiduciary responsibility |
| /u/Shazbote You say politics, I say corporations Same thing these days. |
| /u/beardedheathen Which is exactly the problem. |
| /u/FermentedForeskins not "these days", the elites pretty much own the country, there was never a government, they ARE the government. It is no longer a god damn conspiracy anymore, its more like a fucking history lesson now |
| /u/Longjumping_Crab394 People either choose to accept this or deny it outright. It's sad when people will stand by politicians like it's their life partner and defending them even though they're screwing them over. |
| /u/CTTMiquiztli Nope, just Watch the many "recent" crisis. Every time a scientist says "dear government, You are doing it wrong" the government lashed back, calling them spies, traitors, sold-out creeps, and threatens them, then doubled down. |
| /u/05948372 But how many TikTok followers do these scientist have? |
| /u/lateformyfuneral It's odd to make this a slam against the West when China invented TikTok, and their native version...people aren't following scientists there lol. Their insane "Douyin" microcelebrity culture is a few years ahead of ours, a preview of the insanity to come. |
| /u/AvailableLecture3236 the majority i'd argue. in a system that doesn't primarily fund and reward what is profitable/reckless this would be more apparent. |
| /u/Robinsonirish Your comment reminds me of: Cameraman: "Ten percent of teachers are bad." Damon: "Where did you get that number?" Cameraman: "I don't know. Ten percent of people in any profession maybe should think of something else." Damon: "Well, okay, maybe you're a shitty cameraman. I don't know." |
| /u/pyrojackelope Just looked up that interview. The interviewer and camera man are absolutely insufferable. |
| /u/Le_Gitzen Link for the lazy: https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/1v0wprz/th rowback_to_matt_damon_standing_up_for_teachers/ |
| /u/Cultural-Let-6912 In a tangible way yes, but we can't pretend art, entertainment and sports don't play a massive role in defining us as a species. I don't think they should be monetarily be valued higher than doctors and scientists, but they do play a huge role. |
| /u/Messyfingers Art and culture have a huge impact beyond the economic value of the work. That can be crazy to think about. Think of movies or albums that people have been talking about for decades, and there are probably tens of thousands of businesses whose names nearly nobody would recognize that make as much money as some of those things every month or so. There are probably more than a dozen gold mines that make more money in a year than the Beatles made in 60 years of making music for example, yet next to nobody would recognize a single one, many would recognize the Beatles. Scientists, doctors, who may have come up with the technology behind works of art or saved those people from dying? Nameless, probably not as wealthy either. Theres certainly a widespread disconnect between fame fortune, impact to humanity in many many things. |
| /u/Winter_Preference287 Art and entertainment should always be secondary to science imo. They're hugely important but they benefit from more understanding and better technology just as much as anything else. |
| /u/Schmigolo Science benefits from art and entertainment too. Not just from the exposure science gets from them, but also the educational effect they have on the population, creating more skilled people who will become scientists. Every child has seen a dozen little TV shows etc. that teaches them what we consider basic concepts that would've been obscure to even educated people in the past. Ideas that were developed by who we call the greatest geniuses like Aristotle are mere catch-phrases in cartoons thanks to art and entertainment. |
| /u/botany_fairweather Or just hold them as equals. Many scientists throughout history have had their work motivated by art. Art can also teach people values and empathy and perspective, moving people into scientific paths that benefit society, even. Science alone rarely says anything about what ought to be, while a lot of art very much tries to be prescriptive in its messaging, even if those messages are nihilistic. No need to rank art and science at all IMO. They are two arms of a whole thing. edit: I thought it was obvious but I do not consider most for-profit mainstream commercial entertainment to be 'art' in this context. Von Neumann, Einstein, Schrodinger, Newton...etc were each deeply motivated by philosophy, literature, and music. I personally do not believe we would have their scientific body of work without the art that influenced them. |
| /u/25c-nb Furthermore, parts of science are really an art, while parts of art are really a science |
| /u/LordShtark Why does it have to be a contest? |
| /u/In_Cats_We_Trust I don't think governments are the ones pushing celebrity culture |
| /u/Dreboomboom The emphasis on education is the way to go. |
| /u/I9w0s The Chinese recently increased their R&D funding, making them the country with the highest R&D spending of any country in the world. |
| /u/HarryPottersTaint I know they have many issues and human rights abuses and things that we don't agree with, many for good reason. They very significant economic problems. There is no checks and balance system on the government, they can do whatever they want which is dangerous. But China is pragmatic asf. It wouldn't be the system I would choose for my country - the drawbacks and problems are too big, political and social freedom is too low, protection for civilians is too low - but I do think there are a lot of lessons we can take from them. |
| /u/I9w0s I've talked to some Chinese and they are vehemently proud of their goverment. They do not display resentment towards them and support their policies. However that plays out, it is indeed working out for them and with unprecedented growth across multiple sectors, too. It's just a result of a highly educated, and highly development centric society, I would say. |
| /u/DMmeprettyplantpics It's hard to not have some acceptance of the government when they've been in charge of the country since it was an actual hellhole just 30-40 years ago. A large part of the country has been alive long enough to remember what it used to be. |
| /u/anno2122 This Also the push climate protection hard. We in the west forget the dream of futura. |
| /u/MinosAristos Worth saying that climate protection policies and investment in renewables, electric vehicles, and nuclear directly benefits them far more than the US, and in fact harms the US geopolitically, even in the short term. Oil is a major source of US geopolitical leverage around the world, and providing alternatives neutralises that somewhat. We see that in Cuba for example where the US oil blockade is less effective due to imported Chinese solar panels. However, I won't criticise doing something that benefits the world even if they're mainly doing it for their own immediate benefit. |
| /u/EnesEffUU Insane you have to preface any positive perspective of china with all the bullshit.. you don't do the same when talking about the US or any western nation who have done and continue to do much worse on a daily basis right now. China hasn't dropped a bomb on another country in 40 years. And while yes the Uyghur situation isn't good, if Israel did the equivalent of that instead of what they are doing right now with western backing, the world would be praising them for showing restraint. |
| /u/Ser_Twist If we had to preface every compliment towards the US with the bad things it has done first we'd hit the character limit very quick. |
| /u/broohaha A decade ago, a Chinese coworker was talking about how his sister, a high school teacher , was thinking about immigrating to the U.S. He's an engineer and he said he strongly discouraged her, saying teachers are revered in China and that she would hate it here. |
| /u/Ethandingding I had to agree, I am Chinese, and I moved to Canada when I was in highschool. The disrespect other students shown to the teachers was a culture shock, and grade 11 math was like grade 3 back home. And if you work in a top highschool in China, the take home pay is like an engineer's pay. |
| /u/RustleMyJimmie5 So true, I moved to Australia when I was like 10, ended up in an all boy high school year for 3 years, it was like a fking zoo. Not gonna lie, it was hella fun tho. |
| /u/FukkingDeathMental As an American with two former teachers as parents, that's a damn good brother. My 1st grade teacher mom would come home sometimes to sit on the sofa and just quietly weep to herself for 15 to 20 minutes because her 1st grade student showed up again with bruises all over their arms, her other student came in wearing the same clothes he had worn the past 5 days and smelled even worse, and their school funding was cut again but hey, we had a riverboat casino opening soon! My dad would come home sometimes, grab a few beers and head downstairs to watch baseball and stew because he was forced to pass a student who hadn't done a single homework assignment because the kid's parents raised hell with the principal or the student who cursed him out had rich parents who were on the school board. To be fair, I had A LOT of shitty teachers growing up and I bet China has a ton of them too. |
| /u/cremaster2 Imagine what the US could produce if they had free education. |
| /u/WrapKey69 Better politicians for sure, nobody sane voted for trump |
| /u/NotYetPerfect Germany has "free" education and the most popular party there is afd which continues to grow. |
| /u/WrapKey69 It's not as popular with people who higher education. People with a degree vote for other parties, but unfortunately a lot of them vote for CDU |
| /u/Groghnash afd is big because people are very dissatisfied in the mainstream political partys. i myself as a slightly left leaning centrist (for EU standards) are too. not voting for far right because of it, but the parties in power have been at a stalemate for 3 decades, and we have the "schuldenbremse" thats why everything goes to shit. |
| /u/TraditionalWait9150 help you correct it. Better politicians for sure, nobody sane properly educated would vote for trump |
| /u/RIP_Spacedicks Plenty of highly educated, sane people voted for Trump. They're rich, so they benefit from his grift. Dangerously short sighted to assume that evil, amoral people are automatically stupid |
| /u/Nicinus Can we at least agree that MAGA peeps have to be intellectually challenged? 😆 |
| /u/amosthorribleperson Many, yes. Many others are just giant pieces of shit, though. |
| /u/Underwater_Grilling They could put a man on the moon! |
| /u/crevettexbenite Yes but not like China does it. Kids should be kids and not number crunching machine. |
| /u/MrNostalgiac As with everything, there's a middle ground between "no child left behind" and "study and do well, or else". |
| /u/Dreboomboom 100% agree. I never said that we should adopt their education style, simply invest wisely in our youth. |
| /u/Newone1255 Until some dude fails his government exams 3 times and has a mental breakdown and dreams he's Jesus's brother and starts the deadliest civil war in human history. Not saying it can happen again in China but the fact that it's happened once is wild enough already lmfao |
| /u/agiantdog33 We should replace some university subjects with government exams imo. The Sui dynasty got that right back in the day. |
| /u/EremiticFerret It wasn't a perfect system but having to pass a series of examples to work in public service, especially as a politician isn't the worst idea, as we in the US have proven. |
| /u/Coin_Operated_Brent Everybody else got an award and I agree. That is cool! |
| /u/SavagexEclipse An award just for you my friend! |