Are committee meetings of in Hubei Province of China’s Communist Party as boring as the recent Hollywood movie “Arrival” that made many Chinese audience sleepy?
Global Times reported that the party required six male officials to apologize at the staff meetings of the units where they are assigned. The apology is their punishment for being caught dozing off during a meeting.
Viral Photos
Ironically, the topic of the meeting where the six officials slept was how to motivate lazy and sluggish officials in Xiangyang City, Hubei Province. The daily identified two of the six sleepy officials as Lei Aihua, deputy party secretary of the Xiangyang Urban Planning Bureau, and Wang Jianmin, deputy director of the Xiangyang Housing Provident Fund Administration Center.
According to Global News, the photos of the dozing officials became viral on Chinese media over the past two days. The images were published as Chinese President Xi Jinping pushing his sweeping campaign against corruption, extravagance and dereliction of duties in government.
Written Self-Criticisms
Besides the apology, the five were mandated to give to Xiangyang’s party committee written self-criticisms, the Municipal Discipline Inspection Authority said on its website on Thursday. However, Chinese netizens were divided on the sleepiness of the six party officials.
Some netizens criticized the six party members, while others believe the formalism in the committee meetings and long, boring speeches is conducive to attendees going to dreamland. Others attributed the sleepy atmosphere to it being a post-holiday syndrome after the week-long Lunar New Year celebrations.
In the case of “Arrival,” the Chinese moviegoers complained they could not understand the sci-fi which resulted in many of the audience dozing during the film’s exhibition.
Sleepy lawmakers have been caught by the camera in different parliaments across the world.