A gavel in a court. [Photo/IC]

A comedy show about phone scams, telecast as part of the Spring Festival gala on Beijing TV on Jan 28, has aroused more questions than laughter, because the supposed swindler's voice-over on the show had an obvious Henan accent.

Central China's Henan province is home to more than 100 million people. And many Henan natives feel the show was discriminatory and allege the show intentionally tarnished their image by insinuating that Henan is home to swindlers.

So strong has been the reaction that a lawyer from Henan has sued the show's director and actors, and the TV station, accusing them of regional discrimination and maligning Henan residents' reputation. The lawyer has demanded that the defendants apologize for "depicting Henan residents" as "swindlers" and pay a compensation of 1 yuan ($0.16) to every person from Henan.

In response, the director of the show has explained on his micro blog that he himself provided the voice-over for program and used his home province Shandong's accent, which sounds similar to that of Henan.

Some media outlets have published commentaries, which say the lawyer is making an unnecessary fuss over a show and advise Henan residents to be magnanimous and forgiving.

Henan residents have been the butt of many a joke, mainly because the province used to be one of the poorest regions in China. Although Henan is the fifth-largest provincial economy in China, it remains the largest source of migrant workers in China. Across the country, many Henan residents are engaged in jobs that involve hard labor. Perhaps this is the reason why Henan has been stereotyped as a province with mainly manual laborers many of whom are engaged in sordid activities. And perhaps because of this biased public perception, Henan residents have become very sensitive to any satirical or discriminative terms.

In 2005, two Henan lawyers sued a police station in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, for damaging Henan residents' reputation, because the police hung a poster in the city that read: "Crack down on swindling gang from Henan". The court verdict was in favor of the plaintiffs, and the Shenzhen police had to issue an official apology to Henan people working or living in Shenzhen.

In the case of the Beijing TV gala, the Henan lawyer's decision to file a lawsuit is justified. It is up to the court to rule whether the show damaged Henan residents' reputation or was regional discrimination.

It appears the director overreached himself and made a hash of the ill-designed voice-over. He may have intended to add an accent to the voice-over for special effect, but presumably because of his lack of consideration, he ended up offending Henan residents. Needless to say, he should have been sensitive to regional sentiments.

His explanation may be genuine. But that cannot absolve him of the duty to apologize to Henan residents, because there is no reason to associate Henan residents with swindling. As a director, he should have been more thoughtful and conscious of viewers' feelings.

Besides, it is unfair for media outlets to publish commentaries saying Henan residents should be more forgiving, while ignoring the director's social responsibility.

Discrimination, in many cases, is the result of ignorance or prejudice. Therefore, the government should raise public awareness, in order to prevent discriminatory shows from hitting TV screens.

The author is a writer with China Daily.

liyang@chinadaily.com.cn