Day Of Mourning

On a recent trip to China, I came back to the hotel and the picture below came up on the TV screen.

It's the menu for the In-House Entertainment system, which is normal, but usually it's in color. At first, I figured I got a room with a busted TV.

Then, I recalled someone at the factory saying that all the radio and TV programs were talking about the April 14th Earthquake in Northwest China. So, I assumed that the authorities had ordered everything to be black and white, as a symbol of national day or mourning. I later found out that all Chinese websites and newspapers were black and white, as well.

When I checked the international channels, I got this.

Apparently, all international and entertainment channels were shutdown for the day and only news was available. In addition, the news only reported on the earthquake - for 24 hours on each of the 20+ state run channels. One thing you can say about the Chinese is that they don't play around when it comes to mourning.

On April 22st, things were back to normal. Same crap channels and shows, but in color.