This has been on the weblog related news for a while and recently it started to dawn on me this is really going on.
The access to this weblog has been diminished since last week. I can think of two reasons. One is just my guess and I don’t want to write it here – Isao’s law says once you say or write a bad idea, it becomes real. The second is that the access from Mainland China dropped to near-zero suddenly. I used to have lots of visit via this website (looks like a search engine entry we are very familiar with).
I wonder what made the authorities in China decide it’s time to shut the rants from Typepad community (I decided that they did it). As far as I know, I never read any “harmful” idea to Chinese government posted on Typepad weblogs. I read dozens of posting on Typepad which ridiculed, mocked, despised, accused, and revealed the dark side of Chinese authority but none of them hurt anybody. Maybe some.
Every person from China I know all are well aware of what’s going on in China today(well, they are at least bi-lingual and has a very good history of higher education….). Along with astonishing economic growth and rising people’s standard of living there are corruptions, contamination, black markets, “private” companies run by beaurocrats, things you can or you can not say in mainstream media. In a sense, it might be a more informed society than in Japan, at least in the educated class. Everybody knows what is allowed or prohibited in China, whereas in Japan sometimes we Japanese are not sure what is prohibited until we try to go out of our small yet comfortable inner table of community.
I can see the Chinese authorities sustaining their pride by controlling the media(showing people the power they have) and making their end’s meet by smuggling goods. Watch CCTV (China Central TV), they are always disciplined, high in morale, put ordinary people’s request first, and (in case of male beaurocrats) can have a romantic relationship with bright young beautiful women. The opposite might be true, as we know too much from our experience in Japan and elsewhere.
The soon to be worn-out beaurocrats who doesn’t know anything about what’s going on in the world today (me neither, but at least I have the access if I want), cannot speak English (which should be a must-item today if you want to grab hearts of young girls), staring at the PC screen “inspecting” obscene Internet site. They have a huge power in China, no doubt, but should be regarded as boring, pitiful, tiny people who doesn’t know either to do. They are no different than what we have in our home country – I keep that in my mind when I get chilled by hearing depressing news regarding China.
Did this entry helped prolonging the Typepad block period?