This is such an amazing clip, I just had to share it here on Howzit-HongKong.com
The Kruger National Park is one of the parks administered by SA National Parks. It is one of the most popular parks in South Africa, especially with foreign visitors looking for an authentic wildlife experience.
The following clip was shot by one such visitor a few years ago and has since reached cult status on YouTube with over 58,000,000 hits. You read that right: 58 million!
It has subsequently been awarded YouTube’s Best Eyewitness Video and has featured on National Geographic, Animal Planet, ABC, and MSNBC.
It features an epic battle between a herd of Africa wild buffalo (Nyati) and a pride of lions and even a crocodile, with the outcome very, very unexpected.
I remember writing elsewhere on this blog that “I can probably write a book” about the kinds of negative African stereotypes I’ve encountered while living in China. Once again, I’m not going to, at least not on this blog-post. I will however, tell you about one incident that happened to My Missus while we were living in Taiwan a few years ago.
My Missus, a teacher at an international school in Northern Taiwan, was called to the office urgently. Upon arriving there, she noticed a black person in conversation with a senior teacher. The teacher excused herself from the conversation and hurried over to My Missus. Excitedly, she told her that the person she is interviewing is “also from Africa” and that she would like My Missus to come and “speak African” to him!
We still laugh whenever we tell that story!
With the 2010 World Cup upon us, many thousands of visitors will flock to the South African shores with similar (more daft?) stereotypes. And who else but South African fast-food chain Nando’s to use it in their ad-campaign:
I can probably write a book on the many times over the ten years my family and I have encountered African stereotyping in Asia. Most of these times these encounters have been quite funny while often I needed to explain to my kids why people over here said or did something to them that they didn’t understand.
Because I can probably “write a book” about the topic, I have have chosen to make this introductory post Part 1 as I would like to find and show you more recent instances of negative African stereotyping that occur here in Hong Kong to the day.
However, I want to use this first post to show you that this kind of negative portrayal is not limited to China. Here is one example by…. wait for it:
I am hearing the words ’2010 is Africa’s year’ all over the media these days.
Of course the words refer to the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup that kicks off in South Africa in June later this year. People are hoping that a successful World Cup on Africa’s soil (a first in soccer history) will help dispel the notion that Africa is the so-called ‘dark continent’where poverty, corruption and indeed AIDS are all-pervasive and that nothing good comes out of Africa. “TIA… this is Africa” said Leonardo DeCaprio’s character in the movie Blood Diamond.
The African Cup of Nations (ACN) that kicks off in Angola today, was supposed to be a curtain-raiser of sorts to the World Cup. Another major sports event to help prove to the world that the faith put in Africa to host the biggest sports event in the world was the right decision. That a group of ’terrorists‘ decided to use the ACN to further their own ideals, put a serious bump in the road toward SA 2010 (despite the South African President’s statements to the contrary).
I read an interesting article in today’s South China Morning Post titled: “Cup of good hope.“ While David Smith, writing for the Guardian News & Media, could have been referring to the African Cup of Nation or even the Soccer World Cup, he was actually writing about the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
While the William Webb Ellis Cup indeed brought South Africans together in 1995, Africans also need the African Cup of Nations and FIFA World Cup to do likewise. This time for the entire continent.
Ke Nako. Celebrate Africa’s Humanity
(Click on the scans to view larger in new tab)
(Ke Nako. Celebrate Africa’s Humanity is the official slogan of the 2010 World Cup)
