Breaking the Fire Wall

It has been over three months now that the Chinese government has censored a number of sites, namely Youtube (over a 3 minute video about Tibet). Recently more and more sites have been inaccessible from here, namely Blogger, Twitter, Flickr, even Hotmail (!). Even more recently there has been even censorship as we are approaching the remembrance date of June 4 1989, when Tiennamen Square was the stage of terrible incidents. 

For the last few days, in fear of more problems in remembrance of the event, news are blacked out a few minutes at the time, when references are made about the event. Fortunately yesterday, our censor was probably gone to the loo when the headlines ran, as I was able to see 10 seconds about a photographer who witnessed the events. I have been struggling to access some of these articles, but fortunately found ways around the Great Fire Wall... Read on about the events here or there.

At least I am proud to see that the Obama administration is taking a stand, asking for some accountability about these events from the PRC.  Still today, the exact number of causalities is not known, and some major figures of the movement leading to the event have disappeared. Of course the Chinese response is the usual: Mind your own business. What eles?! Today, journalists were blocked access to the square, people were monitored and nobody could really be filming openly. Former dissidents were in house arrest or ask to leave Beijing, while others have been unable to even enter Hong Kong (where freedom of speech is supposed to be guarantied). In fact Hong Kong is the only place in China where the commemoration of the event is tolerated. Another journalist reported playing an intense cat and mouse chase to meet former dissidents. What a shame. 

I have asked one of my language teacher about the events, to see what he knew, and what he might be thinking. As a young 25 year old, he has no recollection of the events that occurred when he was 5, but indicated that his parents and also one of his university teacher talked about it. However, he might be a bit of an intellectual. Several youths today show limited awareness about the event, and even disbelief about what happened. Over 20 years of non-information, or misinformation and of general belief that the West is only trying to shame China has fructified.  

With so much censorship, there is a lot of frustration in the expat community. How can we live without Youtube? 

But there are ways around this. For example, my readings have taken me to the French Cultural Center. With the status of a "cultural club", it is luckily not subject to the same censorship as some other places in China. Some titles here are from censored authors in China, and yesterday I found some interesting readings about "mass brainwashing in China", which I hope to eventually share with you in a later (uncensored) post.

To complete today's post, with some unusual cyber-contortions, I am now able to resume my my usual blogging.  From here I would like to direct you to some of these new entries (those in blue are just recently published, those not yet underlined will be publish soon). There are some entries about my parents' visit in March, and numerous of our little discoveries and day-trips, and of our trip to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors. Then there is a trip to Chengdu, DaFo and Emi-Shan. There is also Pauli's parents visit, and some good moments with Noam. Finally there are a few other entries, one about Noam's artistic talent, some about some small unusual surprises, some random thoughts about this language, and finally sharing some thoughts on some of my readings.

Enjoy my freedom of speech!