Operation Misery: Month 7, Week 2, Day 3.

On Friday (13/9/13) Rihanna resumed the Diamonds World Tour in Macau, China. This was immediately followed by another concert in Macau on Saturday (14/9/13).

Both of these concerts were filmed in full by the promoter Live Nation however they are rather childishly refusing to make any of that footage even partially availible. The intention being to create an illusion that there is an elite group of nations who have been given full access while everybody else is being excluded. In order to increase the clamour for information from those in the non-elite group (i.e everyone except the US) Live Nation has also been actively suppressing information about the concerts meaning that not even a set-list has been made officially availible.

Fortunately though a full set-list was made availible through unofficial channels almost as soon as the first concert ended. Therefore we know it was the standard set-list with Act 3 (Man Down) and Act 2 (Jump) being switched in what has actually become the standard running order. The big difference is that Rihanna has done away with costume changes and is instead performing the concert in just one outfit which I presume will change from night to night. This is something that everyone suspected when China was announced as the first venue on this third leg of the tour and something that was trailed at the Helsinki, Finland concert (28/7/13) where Rihanna wore slightly different boots during the Man Down Act. The intention being to pique Chinese interest about exactly who Rihanna would be bringing along on this third leg of the tour in order to get them speculating about which member(s) is the CIA's agent in the room. After all Rihanna's 'oufit' could be a reference to her attire or her tour crew.

Once Rihanna's change in attire had been revealed at the concert the intention was to put more pressure on the Chinese. In the first instance this was supposed to get the Chinese speculating that Rihanna was trying to signal something through her outfit choice as she did with her more demure outfit in Morocco (25/5/13) and her Arabic inspired outfit in Denmark (4/7/13). In the second instance this was intended to put pressure on the Chinese to decide how this new information would be released to the outside world. Primarily due to significant language differences people in China don't really use western social media sites like Twitter instead using their own alternatives like Weibo meaning that while people in China could all be happily discussing and sharing pictures of Rihanna's concert it would take a concerted effort for people to share that information with westerners like me. Although it has significantly loosened over recent years the Chinese government has in the past tightly restricted Internet access especially to US sites such as YouTube and Facebook. Therefore the US seemed to be attempting to stoke-up anti-government feeling in China by making its people angry that government censorship was preventing them from sharing information about Rihanna's concert with me. Of course nothing of the sort actually happened because Chinese censorship of the Internet is nowhere near as strict as the US likes to pretend it is. The Chinese actually took the time to make a little joke of it in the days prior to Rihanna's concert by announcing a new raft of measures to tackle the spreading of rumours on the Internet.

Sadly faced with this level of provocation from the US the Chinese simply couldn't just ignore it. However their responses have all been very low-key and seem designed to minimise the pressure on Rihanna herself. On arrival at her hotel Rihanna was presented with a chocolate statue of her Chinese birth-sign. Chinese culture is very big into astrology but uses a completely different system to the one used in the west. Therefore offering to do their Chinese Horoscope is actually a pretty common way to introduce westerners into Chinese culture. It seems particularly appropriate for Rihanna who has previously expressed quite an interest in astrology. However it also served the purpose of reminding the US handlers that the Chinese are aware that they often remotely influence Rihanna's behaviour through Twitter based astrologers.

Rihanna was also given a gift of a sweatband with an attached black lace veil rather similar to a hat worn by Miley Cyrus in her "We Can't Stop" video. This could be the Chinese expressing confusion at the relationship between Miley Cyrus and Rihanna that was brought into sharp focus by the two of them recording interviews for the UK chat show "Alan Carr: Chatty Man" on Wednesday (11/9/13). It could also though be the Chinese gently reminding Rihanna that she would benefit from being a bit more like Miley. That's because while Miley Cyrus is only 20 she has been in the business for a very long time and I think it was Pharrell Williams who pointed out that Billy Ray Cyrus is her father and her godmother is Dolly Parton.

Finally in an effort to minimise the stress of Rihanna the Chinese invited Rihanna's brother to preform in Hong Kong on Thursday (12/9/13) in order to give Rihanna time to adjust to the massive time difference between the US and China and help her deal with the culture shock. That's because while Hong Kong is most certainly Chinese 100 years of British rule means that it is much more westernised than the Chinese mainland. The Chinese also provided Rihanna with a villa style hotel not at all dissimilar from her home in Los Angles. The idea being that Rihanna could relax there for a few days before moving onto the Philippines.

Unfortunately Rihanna's handlers had different ideas and Rihanna was forced to leave Macau almost immediately after her second concert finished in order to fly to Hong Kong for an event to promote her MAC cosmetic line. As a result Rihanna appears to be suffering heavily with the effects of jet lag. This of course has been the handlers intention all along with a punishing schedule involving the wholly unnecessary trip to London intended to completely physically and psychologically exhaust Rihanna in order to force her nervous breakdown in Abu Dhabi, UAE on October 19th (19/10/13). We are now all waiting to see whether Rihanna will be granted permission to rest in Hong Kong or whether the handlers are going to force her off to yet another country.

The worst thing Rihanna can do is head straight to the Philippines. That's because while the current fighting is taking place on a completely different island from the one Rihanna is heading to she would be well advised to minimise the time spent there especially as Rihanna is going to have to wait around in the country following Thursday's (19/9/13) concert before heading to Singapore for a whistle-stop visit on Sunday (22/9/13).

Of course the obvious thing to do would have been for Rihanna to take the option of a rest in China before flying into the Philippines at the last minute before flying back to Hong Kong for this MAC cosmetics event before heading to Singapore.


12:45 on 15/9/13.