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