@Mighty Goobi:

I'm curious about how you're even able to have this discussion in the first place. I've been under the impression that words like 法輪 and 洪志 (Referring to Falun Gong and its founder), 美國之音 (Voice of America), 民主 (democracy) 六四 (6-4, June 4th, the day of the Tiananmen Square massacre, with connotations similar to 9-11 in America), and 達賴 (Dalai, as in Dalai Lama), all tend to get blocked within China by the Golden Shield project.

I just went to Baidu.com myself and tried it, and it looks as if outside of China none of those terms are blocked, though http://www.voanews.com/ is conspicuously absent from the first several pages of results. Sitting in a hotel room or an apartment in mainland China I'd be a little less eager to test that theory.

There's a book written by an Englishman right after World War II called "1984". It describes a society that, in order to prevent the possibility of rebellion or bad thoughts, decides to remove certain words from the language. It's hard to discuss a concept the government doesn't like if there are no words available to describe it.

It was supposed to be a chilling "what if?" novel. As long as you cheered at the right times, as long as you said the right things, as long as you believed what the government told you, no matter how extreme it became, you could lead a peaceful, happy life. When you angered the government, your life could become very unhappy and very short. China today very much resembles that book from 60 years ago.

Or maybe I'm completely mistaken? After all, I've never actually been to China and found out about the situation firsthand. Then again, I've never measured the radioactivity of the Chernobyl reactor firsthand either.

Things are never as good as people claim they are.

Things are never as bad as people claim they are.

Its human nature to exagerate, we've all done it from time to time I guess.

Old English saying: "There's nowt so strange as folk" - and thats oh so true

Regards
Zy

HunterADA said:



Your Chinese is good Hunter and welcome to the thread.

A couple of thoughts about "Project Golden Shield".

1. I understand the portrayal of Project Golden Shield as this massive internet censorship net - which blocks outside world information from insular China. My mental image is of a giant room with white tile walls, a thousand secret agents, beady eyes glued to screens, faces lit only by the neon glow of the monitor, pouring over internet emails, searching for IP addresses and then hounding down violating internet users who dare speak a free word - all under a giant poster of Chairman Mao.

I have no idea if such a room actually exists. If it were really as amazingly powerful as it's made out to be, I also presume I'd be in jail now. And if I went to jail, presumably Ethan Hawke, Jack Bauer and James Bond might be able to bust me out.

I'm sorry - I don't mean to be aggressive towards you, it's just that I think the image of the Golden Shield is somewhat less than what it's made out to be.

2. Firstly, from a techonology perspective, I don't believe China really has the resources to do what Project Golden Shield is made out to do. In the States, you are debating net neutrality. In China, we have some places without telephone lines (and after the earthquake, it's a LOT of places). Yes, we have more and more internet users. But our bandwidth speed, our programming ability etc. is not so good - at least not to the standard of the US. I don't think our skills are that great - after all, all of top guys are being trained at MIT and other top American institutions. There's no particularly famous China Technology training school.

I suppose it could be argued that the government has secret 'super bandwith offices' and special training camps for secret agents. It might be good for some parties to portray China with a sophisticated internet ability, wide net scanning system with millions of highly trained technicians and hackers who make regular attacks on the Pentagon database. Given the technological sophistication of our leaders, to be frankly, I'm not sure we have that capability. We can hardly speak English... I'm not sure if we can really code as well as we are said to.

Open disclosure - I am totally useless when it comes to computers. So I suppose it's possible that China actually is very very good with computers and I personally just suck.

3. Secondly, from a policy perspective, Golden Shield is supposed to put thousands of China's youngest, best and brightest in one room, all together, who's primary purpose is to read the most inflammatory, controversial informations. Every day to read nothing but Dalai Lama, Free Tibet, Taiwan Independence etc. I am thinking - wouldn't that be almost guaranteed to FOSTER the so called dissent that we are so desperately (apparently) trying to eliminate. I mean, imagine what coffee break would be like? "So John, I read that Chinese eats Tibetan monk intestines and here's the link" "Really? Here's the url for how our government is planning a crackdown on human rights" "Oh cool. And here's the flikr album for Falun Gong torture". "Erm... aren't we supposed to be the good guys?"

Imagine if these best and brights are reading this every single day. Somehow, I think it just would be a strange policy to have. I suppose it could be argued that these secret agents are super loyal to the Dark Side of the Force. Maybe I'm overly cynical, but it all sounds a bit TOO La Femme Nikita for me.

4. It IS true that our internet gets frustratingly censored at times. And there appears to be little reason for it. Today Youtube is inaccessible. Tomorrow, Gmail is done. Next week, access to Amnesty International Website or Human Rights Watch or Dalai Lama dot com or whatever is slow.

It's probably censorship. Fully agree.

It's also not particularly logical or difficult to get around. Sometimes, simply hitting refresh enough times gets 'through' the censorship. Or using proximates.
Which makes me sometimes think that sometimes, it might not be censorship at all, but rather poor connections or bad technology.

And I fully recognise that there are ABSOULTELY some times where the censorship is very blatant. It is annoying because I'd like the ability to work out for myself what is right or wrong rather than have information restricted on the basis of what someone else tells me is right or wrong. I just don't think the censorship is as bad as it's made out to be.

5. Finally, all those 'special words' that you listed can be found on a 'baidu' search here in Mainland China (as you know, Baidu is our version of Google... it's much better at finding Chinese sites). It would be a little strange to completely block the use of the word Tibet or Falun Gong or whatever - after all, local newspapers, websites and even government press releases will use all those words. Voice of America is syndicated I believe to China Radio International which broadcasts some VoA programs (is VoA the station that has 'NPR'? - I listen to that sometimes and it's quite good).



If I'm not mistaken, you are refering to the book written by George Orwell - and the idea that the government may one day control all life and language so much that 'bad' words disappear and we instead talk about double plus good events. I think this is the book that made the phrase "elder brother". Furthermore, there is the idea that 'our' country is always at war against an evil foe and the people are so brainwashed they just simply accept everything on the grounds that it "helps the war". Your final line is that "China today very much resembles that book".

Respectfully, I disagree. Emphatically. I am worried to sound like a broken record because I have said this before in this forum. Life here is not as 'Orwellian' as sometimes it's made out to be. Right now, there is massive blogging and forum posting about corrupt government officials being the reason for poor construction of schools resulting in many students dying in the earthquake. There are posts about lack of trust that the gazillion of yuan will be properly spent by authorities in charge. There is doubt that the Red Cross is truly sending all the money it is collecting to the victims and calls for transparency and accounting of the NGOs and government bodies involved. My post now is too long and I will list just this example as how China today does not resemble the Orwell world - and if requested I'd happily post more.

To balance some of the positive things I write about China, I thought to comment on what things upset me as a Chinese living in Beijing.

1. Corruption. Hands down one of my top complaints. I think we have a long history of both corruption and fighting against it. Our children stories and legends are filled with corrupt emperor's advisors and government officials - and the heroic champion or pure hearted judge that resists bribes and brings justice to the land. Most recently, the earthquake has highlighted that schools and kindgardens are destroyed but government buildings are untouched. It seems we have the technology to build earthquake resistant buildings but the money to do so seems to be mysteriously used.

It's also not just government that should be criticised on this. NGOs and charities have a poor standing in recent times. Most recently, there's new about the Red Cross spending 6000 RMB on a dinner with Earthquake money (to put context, 1 USD = 7 RMB; a University cafe will sell a bowl of noodles of 8 RMB; McDonalds sells a meal or about 22 RMB; a 5-star hotel buffet dinner is 250 RMB a head... so to spend 6000 RMB, they would have had to be swimming in a bathtub of Dom Perignon). I don't know the details - I hope it's not true - and we've had too many stories of charities going bad and it's very distressing.

2. bureaucracy In the past, everything was deeply controlled by the central government and few people. The danger with having e.g. One person in charge of everything, was it's easy to bribe (as well as too much workload). So there's been increasing decentralisation. Today, there are a million bureaus, departments, offices. The theory is that each bureau can specialise in a certain thing e.g. environment control, tax, labour law and that it would be impossible to bribe everyone.

The downside is that there are now so many bureaus, I feel I sometimes need to travel all over Beijing to get 20 different forms, stamps, approvals just to park my car. Added to that most government departments are empty during lunch time.

3. inter-province rivalry. We often joke that the best way for a foreigner to make good friends in Beijing is to loudly shout how bad Shanghai is. We have a phrase, Shanghai girls are born to marry rich foreigners - the idea being that they are too arrogant to look at local people (we also have much more colourful words that we use instead of 'marry' - but I think your imagination is good enough). Whilst a little bit of competition is a good thing. But I think it might be getting a bit too unfriendly. Competition is fine, but aggression I think is unncessary. And if there is one light from the darkness of the earthquake, it's that provincial borders seem to be downed.

4. Anti-Japanese TV. China and Japan political problems are no secret. China has deep problems with no Japan apology and the war shrine. Japan says it has already done everything is should and Chinese products are low quality. It is true there are many problems and we should never forget the past wrongs. And eventually, I hope we can move forward. The Japanese for example were the first people to arrive after the earthquake to give money and help.

But pretty much 24 hours a day on one of our TV stations, there will be a war-drama television soap opera. the plot is always the same. Evil Japanese war general invades small little Chinese village. Women are kidnapped and violated. Men are killed and tortured. One cowardly Chinese guy becomes a traitor and helps the Japanese. Then one hero Chinese guy rescues all the women, kills all the Japanese and bombs the Japanese HQ. In the end he dies, with heroic music playing, and saying I did it to save my country.

There is a difficult balance between remember past wrongs and moving forward to build bridges. And of course we should properly honour our fallen war heroes. I also don't think daily reminders of how Japanese soliders invaded is helpful for international relations. I'm not clear where the balance should be - remembering vs. bridge building.

5. Unrealistic portrayal of 'normal' American life. The top shows amongst our youth are Friends, 24, Sex and the City, Prison Break and Desperate Housewives. An often cited favourite movie is Love Story in Harvard. In America therefore , all young people own big apartments and live next to their friends, then spend the whole day drinking coffee on sofas. Everyone has sex with the gardner four times a day. All American universities have ivy on the walls. There are daily plots to kill the president, but all you need is one secret agent and all the terrorists will die. And if you ever go to jail, Michael Scofield will get you out (our blogs and forums were so filled with Scofield is so handsome posts - I'm sure our local actors were getting jealous).

Just as I don't think a lot of overseas people know 'true' China, I think we need to be very wary about the cultural bombardment that we get about America life - and remember it might not be true. Maybe I am too cynical?

Frankly, not cynical enough.

One of the byproducts of a democratic institution, is a Free Press. In fact many will argue - me included - that a free press is an essential pre-requisite for fully fledged Democracy, and arguably is the basic vehicle from which Democracy develops. However, the flip side to that is the main issue of Press Integrity in the Modern Age.

Too many people automatically believe what they read in the paper or what they see on The News, particularly in the CDE groupings (which are 70% of most Democratic Countries - arguably higher proportion in Autocratic Countries). Whilst downright lies are rare in a Democratic Media, failing to tell the whole story thus giving a wrong perspective is relatively common place. In an autocratic State, control of the Press due its "believability" factor, is almost essential for propaganda purposes.

Therefore wherever you are in the world, in whatever political system, its always very healthy to have a wary look at sensationalist or "popularist" stories. They are often there to increase circulation therefore advertising revenue(Democracies), or there as a vehicle to manipulate opinions (Autocracies).

My parents cant get past this one - they are from the pre-WW2 generation that had an almost insane belief in the Press due to the crusading days in the 20's 30's and 40's of the emotional "hack" reporter battling corruption yaddie yadda. Now, I keep saying to them "will you please stop automatically believing what you see in 'The "News" '.

They still believe a newspaper or "The News" on TV is there to tell you whats going on. They have a hard time wrapping their head around today's reality. The Media exist (in a Democracy) to satisfy their shareholders and Investors, that means increasing circulation by whatever method. All evidenced by the ever increasing regulation and regulatory bodies that evolve in "The West" to curb the worst excesses.

Those who have never experienced or do not know the realities of the Modern Democratic Media Editorial Conference where decisions are made as to what are the lead stories etc for the following day, get a rude shock when they discover the motivations for the selection and presentation of stories. It many times has squat to do with "reporting the news", more usually which story has the greatest potential impact on their readers, ands therefore best chance of impacting circulation or viewing figures (which in turn drives up advertising revenue).

Therefore with The Media, China will never be as bad as they portray in Western Media, and America is never as good (or decadent) as they portray in the Chinese Media. The Media will always tend towards what people want to read or believe (Democracies), or print what the Government wants people to believe (Autocracies). As always there is no black and white on this, there are always exceptions at either end of extremes and a multitude of flavors in between. As a general proposition however, it does hold true.



Exactly that.

A good chunky dose of scepticism when reading or listening to the Media wherever you are in the World, is I regret to say utterly essential in "The Modern Age", else you will end up having a manipulated and unbalanced view of life. In the same way that I automatically treat Politicians motivations and principles with great suspicion unless I get third party corroboration; so I view popularist or sensational Media Stories as suspect until I get third party corroboration.

Regards
Zy

There is huge coverage here right now about this actress, Sharon Stone, and how she said that the earthquake which killed more than 70,000 was karma revenge for Chinese government treating Tibet badly.

I was surprised and angry when I first read the news. I think it's hard to not be when someone says that an earthquake that killed a lot of people was some 'due retribution' rather than a terrible tragedy that has affected many lives.

There have been calls for boycotts, stinging public condemnation, comments that she represents the main attitude of America or at least the upper class attitude of America since she is a Hollywood moviestar.

I must admit, I'd never heard of Sharon Stone before. After doing a bit more digging around on this moviestar, I'm getting the picture that she's not quite known for deep and intellectual roles. It seems her most famous movie involved her taking off her clothes and uncrossing her legs in Basic Instinct. She also played a bad guy in Catwoman. Maybe you have heard of these movies - I must admit I haven't watched either (though I'll probably go and look for the Basic Instinct DVD now that I know what it's about for research purposes. I'll need to find the uncensored version, it sounds like the censored version will be about 3 minutes long).

Based on the very limited I know, this semi-porn actress who is completely unknown in China makes one statement on the red carpet and commands Chinese media attention. After watching the youtube of her talking, she doesn't seem to be thinking so hard - as if making a deep political commentary. She's almost like talking about the weather.

I'm not sure if this makes her comment more or less offensive.

What I almost find more offensive than her remarks though, is that instead of discussing building standards, student safety and charity fund distribution, we're now devoting a lot of time to boycotting Sharon Stone (who nobody heard of before anyone). Ban her movies! Don't buy her perfume! Throw tomatoes at her poster!

It's obviously a passionate time here right now and a very passionate topic re: earthquake. I think we should be thinking of more important things and listening to more important people.

the party has been alerted, your IP's have been recorded and ninja assassins will come to stuff peanuts up your butts then throw you to starving elephants. Your parents will be castrated to prevent further contamination of the gene pool, your family shamed publicly and possibly thrown in prison... also, Chinese agents are now replacing your porn with panda mating videos.

Ain't China great? jk

From an earlier post of mine on this thread:



I smell some manipulation going on. However, be clear on my personal views on that clown:



You got that right - she was behind the door when the brains were given out. Its the old story, a large number of people in the public eye start to believe their own Manager's Marketing about themselves, they loose touch with reality. That individual is so dumb she believes that whatever she says people will listen because she is well known. It does not enter her head that she has to balance off cause and effect when she opens her mouth, much less actually having to know a little about what she is ranting about. Its the same silly syndrome as many Politicians - and dont get me started on those clowns

There's a flip side though, frankly we only have ourselves to blame. The Media create these iconic people because for some nutty reason a huge number of people want to see and hero worship someone. I've never understood why that urge overtakes commonsense. Ignore the idiot, its just the media going for circulation figures yet again.

With people like her, I just ignore the idiots, much less argue with them - argue with an idiot and you just create a second one .....

Regards
Zy

any political system that is not afraid to stand in the light of day, blemishes and all, and have the people who live under it tell others about what it’s short comings are and then allows them to do something about it is ok in my books!

mightygoobi, what I have learned from listining to you has had an effect on my additude toward the government of China!

I am still very anti-communist. what has changed is I don't think China is as communist as I thought it was.

Spacepony said:



Thank you Spacepony - and before I am said to be TOO happy towards my government, here's two things that I should point out here that China will eventually need to consider changing:

1. The government philosophy of 'rights of the many outweigh rights of the few' is fine - but it's certainly difficult for "the few". Consider our 3 gorges dam. The basic idea is that it is to supply clean hydro power to the country and cut down our use of coal and oil. That's great. The down side is that a whole lot of people had to be move from their homes. Now, on math, 1.3 billion people getting hydro power is more greater than 60,000 people moving house (my numbers are wrong, but close sort of). However, there are still 60,000 people who had to be moved, unhappily and most likely with inadequate compensation (how do you compensate with money being moved from farm land that you've been on since your great grandfather? I could say I don't want any money or free apartment or TV set, I want my old home.)

Certainly, we could have had more committees, more impact studies, more assessments, more consultative talks, more compensations etc. And perhaps more would have been good. And the more time spent in talking, the less time spent in building. And the longer we burn coal.

There's no easy outcome and arguably the better choice for the country was made - to reducing national pollution and going clean energy over the homes and lifestyles of the 3 gorges residents. But it's very uncomfortable to be those who are suffering so that the rest of the country can benefit.

It's just one example. Similar comments can be made about shutting down coal factories (which employ a lot of people) and setting up wind farms (which employ a lot less people - many of whom come from overseas); or diverting rivers from low populated areas to high populated ones (bringing more fresh water to the big cities, but hurting the small villages) or building 20 subway stations in Beijing in two years (better public transport and reduced car/bus polution but requiring the demolition of heritage buildings).

2. Political change is slow here. In Western democracies, you change personnel every 4-8 years (though Ubernaught, I am thinking the ex-Prime Minister of Australia John Howard seemed to be in power a long time... do you have a time limit there?). We have a limit of 10 years as well. The difference is the replacement is of course elected by a small group here in China, as opposed to by national vote in the US and or by national referendums like in Canada, England and Australia (maybe the word referendum is wrong).

That means that government officials are keen on popularity in a western democracy. And I would say more keen on 'looking good to the boss' in China. Now, I'm not saying that 'popularity' means all good (it might be harder to make unpopular but necessary decisions in a western democracy) - and I would also say there are some disadvantages with our system. A key one being that the successor in power usually follows similarly the mindset of the predecessor. Hence, change is slow. It is possible in the US to have an entirely new set of personnel every 8 years (new cabinet, new ministers, new officials). That's impossible here.

Now, one advantage of our system is that things are relatively stable. There are not going to be massive flux in policy. Our foreign relations, economy, trade ideas are not massively changing. And given our bazillion civil wars and revolutions, perhaps that's intentional and a good thing.

The negative flipside to stability of course is slowness. It's easier for the 75 year retired judge who lived through the cultural revolution, famines, seperation of Taiwan from Mainland to preach patience and 'all good things come in time'. But for the younger generation growing up with internet, google and cable TV, waiting 10 years only to have a new leader who's a lot like the old one and just a bit different - can be seen as very very slow change.

I've said a few times in my postings - I think the government does a reasonable job here. Not perfect by any stretching imagination... but not quite too bad given the huge problems we face as a country growing up. And these two issues will slowly be addressed I suppose as we go from developing to developed country.

Oh, by the way Spacepony - you mentioned in the past that someone had called you a "neo-con". Despite my searchings, I can't find what that means. Can you help me?

Democracy is about individual freedoms, Autocracy is about the demands of an individual(s) , is the way I have heard it best expressed - and therein lurks the problem. If the individual(s) who is(are) making the decisions is(are) a nutter(s), or some kind of megalomaniac, its a long term nightmare that takes explosive violent change to repeal, the latter being the ultimate end in all Autocracies throughout history. An Autocracy can force change relatively quickly when done at a macro level - the change in China in motion right now is a case in point - however, you think thats slow, it initially took "Democracy" itself, 800 years to evolve. So hang in there, there's a few years to go yet, no matter what yardstick you apply

Many people talk glibly about the "Magna Carta" when talking about freedom and democracy, but few really reflect on its huge significance as the real baseline of all democracies throughout the world today. It was from the declaration of the Magna Carta, that the "democracy" movement was born. Many point, and rightly so, to the huge significance of the US Declaration of Independence. That declaration was born from a movement started 550 years earlier when the Magna Carta was published by a group of English Barons who were disatisfied with the current state of the Monarchy and the principles of governance in England. King John agreed to it, signed it in the year 1215AD, and the rest- as they say - is history. It caught on like faster than a bushfire.

The best example of the impact of the Magna Carta is "Habeas Corpus" (thats the process whereby Authorities must state before a court of law, why they are holding someone against their will, and show just cause, or release the individual). The principle of "Habeas Corpus" originated with the Magna Carta, with its first recorded use in 1305AD, and is the bedrock of all Law in most democratic countries today.

There is a Site a few miles from where I live that was purchased by the American Bar Association, and where they built a commemorative site in acknowledgement of the huge significance of the Magna Carta. Many people in UK have not actually read it, but nearly all are aware it and its historical impact. Interestingly few seem to be aware of the Commemorative Site, and certainly of the fact that the American Bar Association paid for it. The reason for their kindness is obvious, the Magna Carta gave birth to the idea of individual freedom, and became the basis for all democratic law and institutions in the world ever since.

It will be worth your while going to read the translation of the Magna Carta if you have not read it, the translation is in an older form of English, but your English is good, so I think you will be fine. I am certain you will see many many parallels with the concerns you have expressed about your experiences living in China. The translation on the Site from the original Latin was based on the 1225AD version of the Magna Carta (it did in fact go through some changes after it was first published in 1215AD, but seemed to settle on the version extant in 1225AD).

Translation of the 1225 Version of the Magna Carta

The key parts are arguably the clauses below:


I chuckled about your tourist description, over here English and German Tourists have an, evolving shall we say , reputations for certain behaviors.

We also have a single minded view of a Japanese tourist, who is usually portrayed with a zillion cameras around their necks and pockets stuffed full of the latest gadgets

For those that may think its a little long and turgid, I urge you to read it in full, there are some real gems in there, eg Clause 54 (below) would have todays Feminists, not only utterly outraged, no doubt along with the rest of us, that they would probably start an armed rebellion - and a large number of todays husbands would gulp after reading it twice



Regards
Zy

MightyGoobi. After reading much of what you've talked of the Chinese and China, I feel proud.

Why? I am an ABC ( American Born Chinese ) full 100%, First Generation, and I've never felt anything close to "patriotic" or something to be proud of in the U.S.A. I'm pretty happy on how you boast how amazing China is, while also pointing out some flaws, some bad stuff.

Pretty much saying, That even though born and raised in the U.S, I feel proud to be chinese!

If anyones really curious to know about china, and you live in the U.S, Don't take the Media for anything that covers the whole story. Our news Media is censored, modified, and half-true.


Ah what am I saying, I just wanted to thank MightyGoobi for postin' so much, thats all.


Oh by the way, anyone who's never been to China and has the opportunity, do go visit! Like Mexico, bring your own water.