Little girls at prize ceremonies: Contrasts

Euronews reports that a brand-newly created prize, the Confucius Prize, was hastily awarded this week at a ceremony in Beijing, possibly by the Chinese government, possibly not. Euronews says that the winner says he was unaware he was winning something, and thus did not appear at the ceremony. And so, says the report, the prize was awarded instead to “an unidentified young girl”. The video here, above right, shows that moment.

This is not the first prominent awards ceremony that involves a little girl. For more than a decade the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony has featured a cute eight-year-old girl called Miss Sweetie Poo. At the Ig Nobel ceremony, the girl does not receive the prize. Rather, she tells the winners to “Please stop, I’m bored”. Thus she helps ensure the ceremony is lively and of tolerable length. The video here, below right, shows a compilation of Miss Sweetie Poo highlights.

BONUS: The Chinese government was and is already partly responsible for another Confucius Prize — “The UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy was established in 2005 through the generosity of the Government of the People’s Republic of China in honour of the great Chinese scholar Confucius”.

DOUBLE BONUS: And a Swiss banker urges the Chinese government to create additional Confucius Prizes (although, as he trumpeted this suggestion weeks ago, he perhaps instead only helped inspire the newly announced Confucius Prize).

TRIPLE BONUS: NMA-TV produced a brief report trying to explain the genesis and nature of the newly created prize:

(Thank you to investigator Tatiana Divens for bringing this to our attention.)