“I am proud to be a brick in the statistics building of the PRC”

The Wall Street Journal’s Sky Canaves reports on some of the festivities in store as China gets ready to celebrate the current government’s founding:

As part of the myriad activities planned to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, the normally staid National Bureau of Statistics is letting its hair down a bit.

The NBS has launched a call for submissions of writings celebrating the PRC’s big birthday as part of campaign called “Statistical Feelings: Together We Go – Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of New China.” The campaign is intended to boost the patriotic feelings and confidence of statisticians in their work, according to the bureau’s Web site.

Excited yet? Canaves and the WSJ team translate and provide a look inside the minds and patriotism of Chinese statisticians: 

So far, about a dozen entries have been posted, encompassing the genres of prose, poetry and song. One essay, submitted by an employee of the NBS industrial division, is titled “I Am Proud to Be a Brick in the Statistics Building of the PRC,” and reads like a prose poem, each paragraph leading with the title’s refrain.

A poem, “Love the Homeland, Love Statistics,” includes the following stanza:

Life
Some mock me for doing statistics
Some loathe me and statistics
Some don’t understand what statistics are
Why is it that statistics
Put a calm smile on my face?
Because of statistics
I can solve the deepest mysteries
Because of statistics
I will not be lonely again, playing in the data
Because of statistics
I can rearrange the stars in the skies above
Because of statistics
My life is different, more meaningful
I love my life, my statistics

I have a sudden thirst for data. 

PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images