A great article in The New Yorker about Ai Weiwei, an artist and activist in China.   Ai Weiwei: "It's Not Beautiful"

In a sense, he's just your typical artist: a guy who likes attention and uses the neurotic, control-frenzied government to stay in the limelight.  I love him anyway. 

Twitter is blocked in China, but he accesses via an offshore server and twitters constantly.  He has invited his Twitter followers in China to join him for dinner and hundreds of Twitter followers have showed up at the restaurant for dinner.  So do the police.  He watches them watching him and twitters.  This is not about popularity; it's about breaking through the internet firewalls in China.  It's about forcing the formation of a more open society.  I love this guy. 

        

I hate this photo too.  This is Ai Weiwei, a Beijing artist, the artist who contributed to the design of the Birds Nest built for the 2008 Olympics.  Go here to read about him:  Beijing artist blog .  He is not part of the comfy, happy China visited on the tours (no artist is).  He is one of the Chinese who is pushing the government to evolve and open up.  This is his photo, taken by himself (this is art, however some of his art is a good deal better) that I copied from www.Socialtext.net

        

I had no idea this was going on.  Months ago, I found the name of a Uyghur friend on facebook and sent him a friend request.  When he didn't answer, I thought something was up, but I didn't know how entirely it was up. 

I didn't know that internet service had been blocked after ethnic rioting in Xinjiang province in July 2009.  Even email was unavailable until late 2009.  People who needed email for their jobs or businesses had to leave the province.  Full Internet service wasn't restored until Friday, May 14, 2010.  Xinjiang was without internet access for ten long months as reported in the New York Times . 

The rioting was tragic, many Han were killed, and while I grieve this, I understand the Uyghur's anger. 

A Han father who migrated to Urumqi at the encouragement of the government lost his son and only child in the rioting when the son went out to rescue the fruit cart - the family business.  I saw these Han people when I traveled in Xinjiang and they were hard-working, poor people who had uprooted from their impoverished villages in the hopes of making a decent living in Xinjiang.  The bereft father in this article says, "This place would be nothing without the Han."  

I disagree.  According to the Uyghurs, it was their country before China annexed it in 1948.  The Uyghurs had their own language, their own culture, their own government.  That's why they're fighting mad. 
Photo courtesy of New York Times

        

Had a fright last week when Handsome Boy, a Chinese student at the University of Minnesota, emailed me that Han Han's blog had been blocked by the Chinese government.  I wasn't surprised; I've been expecting this to happen.  So,  I went to www.chinadigitaltimes.net and followed a link to Han Han's blog posts in the Chinese host, sina.com and there he was.  I emailed Handsome Boy.  He was able to find Han Han, too, but some of Han Han's blog posts had disappeared. 

        

Last Saturday, I had lunch with a Chinese graduate student who I hosted two years ago.  She's a clever, friendly, unpretentious young woman.  We hadn't seen each other since fall, so our conversation was polite and stumbling until I asked her if she read Han Han's blog in China.  Her face lit up.  "You know about Han Han?"  She was delighted.  "He is my idol!" 

My turn to be delighted.  I just posted about him a week or so ago after reading about him in www.chinadigitaltimes.net .  My student reads his blogs regularly, as do many Chinese of his generation.  He is the new voice in China.

She tried to tell me about him, but although her English is good, it was not quite good enough to allow her to express herself.  There was so much to say about Han Han!  I understand.  The English needed for a degree in biostatistics is less than the English needed to talk about culture and philosophy.  She did praise him as a writer, saying he is brave and clever.  She did talk about the need for more freedom of speech and information in China.  She was excited about his way of writing that exposed the censorship and she tried at length to tell me how he writes information in such a way as to slip past the censors.  She said it is necessary to check the internet often because an article will be posted then blocked, however the readers who saw it will spread its information to each other even after the article has been blocked. 

I told my student that Han Han is an intellectual, handsome and - this is true - a race car driver; he is too good to be true.  We had a language gap for a moment.  Her brow furrowed.  I quickly explained that I know he IS true, but he is so amazing, it is like he is too amazing to be true.  Okay, it is hard to explain some figures of speech . . . 

I found an article about Han Han in China Daily.  It's dated 8/20/2009. 
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-08/20/content_8592410.htm

        

A story in the Guardian.co.uk  Monks told to leave earthquake zone reports the Buddhist lamas have been told to cease their relief efforts and return to the monasteries.  Woeser, a Beijing-based Tibetan poet and activist, said that Han and Tibetan acquaintances stated the orders were very strict but a reason for leaving was not given.  "Local officials told them through translators in Tibetan: 'You've done everything already.  You've done too much.  You have to leave Yushu now, otherwise there will be trouble.'"

That last phrase is ominous.

Tibetan monks hand out bottled water from a relief truck in Jiegu following the recent earthquake. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

        

This partial article is from 4/21/2010 New York Times.   Following internet courtesy, I do not have the entire article here.  For the whole article go to:  An Official Mourning in China for Quake Victims
The article describes how the Chinese government has declared a national day of grieving - which is honorable, however domestic media coverage has been tightly controlled and reporters have been instructed to focus on the heroism of official rescue workers and to not write stories about the Buddhist monks and nuns who are doing rescue work.  This earthquake is on the Tibetan plateau.  The government apparently does not want Tibetan Buddhism to look heroic. 

Every thing I learned about institutional racism in China enlightened me on racism in the USA.  The banners declaring, "Whether Han or Tibetan, we are one family," is one of those experiences.  Having traveled with a minority person in China, I know this is essentially a crock.  Another word: propaganda.  But previously, I would read that kind of banner in the USA and believe it meant we were committed to equality, civil rights for all, etc.  I do believe we have made great progress, and demographics - the rapidly growing populations of people of color - will keep us moving forward. 

Associated Press

BEIJING — In an elaborately orchestrated outpouring of grief, China on Wednesday mourned the victims of the earthquake in western Qinghai Province by printing monochromatic newspapers, shutting karaoke parlors and canceling sporting events across the country.

The quake, which struck a week ago and killed more than 2,000 people, devastated Jiegu, a high-altitude Tibetan city that sits atop a plateau where the thin air and remoteness have bedeviled rescue efforts. More than 12,000 people were injured, and as many as 100,000 survivors have been left homeless.

The national day of grieving on Wednesday, not unlike the one in 2008 for those killed during a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, was sweeping and in some cases compulsory. . . . . . .

Sitting before a backdrop that said “We are together,” newscasters introduced scenes of mourning from across the nation: rows of uniformed police officers clutching candles, disheveled quake survivors weeping in the rubble and hundreds of students in raincoats forming the words “We love Yushu,” the name of the county that was hit hardest by the quake.

The programming was the same on every channel. . . . . Although the Qinghai death toll is far smaller than the 90,000 who died in Sichuan, the government’s aggressive relief effort in Jiegu, the breathless coverage in the official media and the organized bereavement underscored the Communist Party’s determination to rally the nation and transform the disaster into a showcase of the party’s benevolence and resolve.

In recent days, Beijing has promised to spend $161 million on relief efforts, and more than 10,000 soldiers, police officers and emergency workers have made the arduous journey to the quake zone, which sits 13,000 feet above sea level. Relief convoys were so thick earlier this week that they caused a 24-hour jam on the only road that links Jiegu to the provincial capital 500 miles away. Would-be volunteers have been ordered to stay away.

Given that most of the victims were ethnic Tibetans, the earthquake has also presented leaders of the party an opportunity to show its softer side to a citizenry that is sometimes at odds with the Han-dominated government in Beijing. Newspaper headlines have emphasized ethnic unity in the face of tragedy. Banners draped across military relief trucks declared, “Whether Han or Tibetan, we are all one family.”

Domestic media coverage has been tightly controlled, with reporters instructed to focus on the heroism of rescue workers and to avoid stories about the thousands of Buddhist monks who dug through debris or handed out food from the trunks of cars. Even the daylong broadcast of mourning on Wednesday excluded any images of the monks, whose crimson-and-marigold robes have been a ubiquitous sight on the streets of Jiegu. . . . .

Although some Chinese reporters who raced to Jiegu after the quake were later instructed to leave, others said they were allowed to work unimpeded. Pang Jiaoming, an investigative journalist, said that there were some restrictions but that those who made it to Jiegu were able to write a wide variety of stories. There were exceptions, however.

“We really had no way to touch on the ethnic and religious issues,” he said.

Foreign reporters who covered the earthquake say they experienced little government interference.

In an interview on Wednesday, Woeser, an influential Tibetan blogger who is in frequent contact with people in the earthquake zone, said several monks told her that they had been ordered to leave Jiegu in recent days, although such accounts could not be immediately confirmed.

“I think the government sees them as competitors for the hearts of the people,” Ms. Woeser said. . . . . .

Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting. Zhang Jing and Xiyun Yang contributed research.

 

        

Southern Metropolis Daily: Let Us All Vote for Han Han

 This partial article is from the Southern Metropolis Daily  Despite most of my experience in China and my reading about the nationalism of young Chinese, dissent exists and a longing for more freedom of speech has a strong foothole in China. 

After dealing with the Internet giant Google’s challenge to their authority, the Chinese government is now facing another, potentially even greater, challenge: the blogger Han Han. Time Magazine’s selection of Han Han to its most influential 100 list, and his subsequent response, has become the focus of attention and debate in China, online and off. Han Han is a homegrown rebel. He turned down an acceptance to the prestigious Fudan University to become financially independent through his best-selling books and car racing career. Han Han now writes the most popular blog in China; despite – and perhaps because of – the fact that many of his blog posts are deleted by censors for their sharp critical tone, his following continues to grow. But Han Han is not simply a critic of the government; he has articulated a sense of justice, honesty, and compassion that his readers deeply relate to in today’s Chinese society. He has become a voice of change for the young generation.

When Time Magazine nominated him as a candidate for their 100 list, he responded with a passionate post which points his pen directly at the heart of the regime. The post garnered 20,000 comments, overwhelmingly supportive. And so Han Han is providing a new test for the authorities. In the past two decades, authorities have never allowed dissident figures a public space to express themselves or given them any recognition, even through public criticism. But Han Han’s following is too massive for them to simply ban or ignore, and so the battle will have to be fought in a more subtle way. In recent days, the authorities have used their propaganda machine – including People’s Daily and Xinhua – to send a message that Han Han and his fans do not represent China. People’s Daily, for example, ran a voter poll in which one question asked: “Do you think Han Han can represent China?” And the answer choices included:

-Absolutely can’t represent
-Can only partially represent
-Unclear

Obviously, such a choice would force even his most ardent supporters to answer that Han Han “only partially” represents China. At the same time, all commercial Internet portals have been given instructions from propaganda officials not to set up Han Han as a topic page or poll. The Great Firewall has also established “Han Han” + “Time” as blocked keywords.

But Han Han’s millions of fans are not his only allies in this battle. In a testament to the true influence of Han Han, some reform-minded media have taken the unusual step of publicly taking sides. On April 11, Southern Metropolitan Daily published an editorial calling on its readers to vote for Han Han in the Time poll. Excerpts translated by CDT:

Because the darkness is too thick and heavy, the ray of light that is Han Han is being treated as total light. Actually, Han Han is only trying to be himself. He does not have privilege. Publication of his magazine is being constantly set back and his blog posts are often deleted. We never know if someday his name will become another sensitive word. His discontentment is many people’s discontentment. His ideals are being buried in the earth. He is surrounded by 300 million clicks, but as Chen Danqing said, he is alone and lonely. When everyone puts their own hope on Han Han’s shoulders, that is the time he is most lonely without support.

[...] Han Han produced a one-man racket, in contrast to the silence of so many. This is not the way it should be. The key to change is not in Han Han’s hands, it’s in everybody’s hands. The sound of hope is in the footsteps of everyone moving forward. Han Han’s value is to provide a reference to remind everyone one has to save himself and to find their lost courage and tenacity facing a gloomy life. How can one expect a writer and race car driver to save you? Han Han is lonely, fighting this battle by himself. Han Han does not lack people to worship him, he just needs co-travelers.

[...] Let us all give our vote to Han Han. This vote is not for the public intellectual Han Han, nor is it for opinion leader Han Han. Rather, it is a vote for an explorer who clearly defines his distance from the system. Vote for a sensitive young man who inspired people to look for their true self. At this moment, the identity of Han Han has no importance here. Voting for him is not voting for someone else, but voting for yourself. It’s voting for everyone who can be called human. Whether his name is Han Han or another name makes no difference.

        

        

Here's Jackie with his son, Jaycee.  Jackie Chan set off a hail of critcism recently by saying, "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled," during an economic conference on Hainan Island.  "If we are not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."    
Jackie Chan Strikes a Chinese Nerve   According to The New York Times, the comment was considered extremely insulting in Hong Kong and Taiwan, especially, but also on mainland China.  A spokesman for Jackie insisted the comments were taken out of context.

I wonder.   

He's an avowed patriot.  He sang at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and denounced the protesters who interrupted the torch relay.   No doubt he's brown-nosing the Chinese authorities.  Democracy is not on the government's near future agenda.  Economic growth and continued power are.  I also heard from my students in China that too much freedom is not a good thing, leading to disharmony and instability.  Same as stated in the NYT article. 

I also wonder at the outcry against his comments.  They really surprise me.  Of course the NYT article mostly quotes sources in Taiwan and Hong Kong.  Taiwan is a democracy and Hong Kong, though controlled by China, has more freedom than mainland China.  Here in the west, we often don't distinguish between these Chinese places, though they are separate entities and vastly different. 

Neither in my time in China, nor in later internet comments from young Chinese have I heard demands for democracy.  The young demand respect from the West for China; they demand the West stop using democracy as a standard for good government; they state that China will have its own system of government that will be distinctly Chinese. 

Yes, there are those on the mainland who long for democracy, but realistically, I expect only a few will risk instability for it.  And frankly, if life keeps improving, as it has for the Chinese over the last two plus decades, why make a change?