The Speech, the President

Went online to look for Barack Obama's victory speech first thing back in office and what a beautiful speech it was! Absolutely striking. You can feel the energy, the emotion, the passion and the aspirations through the lines. It gives you butterflies. It sends thrills down your spine.

Political speeches in the west are always incredible. The language use, though often simple, is so powerful as if the words are digging deep into your heart. It's genius and to the ones who produce such extraordinary works of art, I salute you.

Was just talking with a friend about why Hong Kong / China has never produced this sort of speeches ever. Perhaps, I guess, there has never been such emotional occasions for these speeches to fit in - we didn't have any civil right movement led by Martin Luther King; there wasn't any deadliest terrorist attack ever (Thank God for that!) and we certainly do not (and I believe will never) have a black president. Mind you, we can't even vote for our CE yet for that matter.

So in the case of Hong Kong, political speeches are generally tons of flattering/meaningless numbers + facts and the delivery is often without any emotion whatsoever. Speeches in China however often comes with a few lines from some ancient literature / poems blah with "deliberate" stopping gaps (for some "compromised" clappings!! HA-HA). And our Chinese leaders like to do the thing in slow motion - uttering the speech word by word.

One word - Boring!

Anywho, on a side note...

In a congratulatory letter to president-elect Barack Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy writes, "Your election raises in France, in Europe, and beyond throughout the world, immense hope."

It does sound to me that while congratulating Obama being the new president, Sarkozy is also implying that George W. Bush is an ultimate useless, worthless, dysfunctional twat who brings everything but hope to the country (or even the world).

And he is probably right.