After spending a couple of days outside of Shanghai in Hangzhou, a tourist paradise in China I already feel my addiction to Facebook and twittering to share my life with friends and family is kicking in. I can get online and access all the international media websites that I wished to. I could read about the British election and even Skype with my friends but Facebooking or twittering is impossible. Many Chinese instead use services like QQ or BBS. To me this censorship or violation of my free will is like being addicted to coffee and caffeine but only being served decaf. The people don’t seem to complain though. After discussions with many Chinese I realized that they are used to the control and understand that the government wishes to keep this control as much as possible. Or they have installed some sort of proxy server to be able to illegally access these websites.
I met representatives from the State Administration of Radio, Film & TV as well as the China Youth Daily (the University Media Union Network of China and a part of the China Daily New Agency) and managed to get them to speak about the media in China. They both talked about how much China is changing and developing and they see their organizations as progressive. China Youth Daily is said to be the producing the most progressive journalism in China. How ever the control of the media is in the hands of the state. Control is something that to many seems to be seen as something positive. When visiting a Community Center, they showed us their latest technology with which they registrate the inhabitants in their community. It was a 3D tool in which they could see on a screen how their community looked like, whom and how many lived in certain houses as well as who is a party member and who is not.
A Chinese legend similar to Romeo and Juliette was told to me today when I visited the Song Dynasty Theme Park. It was about a girl who wasn’t allowed to go to school because she was a girl. So she dressed up as a boy and went to school anyways. At school she feel in love with her classmate and he with her as well. But as everyone thought that they were too boys in love they could not be together since this was also illegal. The couple then decided to commit suicide but reincarnated as butterflies.
China has come a long way and it is in many ways more modern than Berlin and Germany with their technical development, but what is the price? And how long can the people keep paying this price?
Tomorrow I am traveling further to Shanghai to visit the Expo Shanghai. So say tuned for more blog post from my visit in China.
Anna Siitam