November 2nd, 2006 Chris
*Offer not valid in China
There are now, officially, four kinds of lies. You know the first three: Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Add to those old favorites this gem, straight from Athens. I think we’ll call this one the John McEnroe lie. It’s the kind where you bite your lip, squint a bit, and finally shout, “You cannot be serious!” at the computer screen. This one comes from a Chinese official (ID’s as Yang Xiaokun on The Peking Duck) speaking at a UN conference in Greece:
“I don’t think we should be using different standards to judge China. In China, we don’t have software blocking Internet sites. Sometimes we have trouble accessing them. But that’s a different problem. I know that some colleagues listen to the BBC in their offices from the Webcast. And I’ve heard people say that the BBC is not available in China or that it’s blocked. I’m sure I don’t know why people say this kind of thing. We do not have restrictions at all.”
Well, in case he was wondering, here’s what I can’t get to (without a proxy): BBC News is off-limits, as is the Berkeley-based China Digital Times. One of my favorite groups, Reporters Without Borders, is also outside the Great Firewall. Wikipedia just got itself off the bad list, but my Chinese students can’t read it in their native tongue. BlogSpot is once again on the blacklist, and today its source, Blogger Beta (thought not the stable Blogger), appears to be down as well. I know these sites are blocked, not merely unavailable because of some technical error, because the censors are so easily circumvented.
There was a brief period when I couldn’t get on any *.gov sites in the US. I found this when I tried to look up something from the USDA. When that didn’t work, I tried the State Dept. and the White House. It may have been a glitch, and it may not have been. Those are back up at the moment, but really, what did vegetables ever do to China?
A report from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society found 19,023 sites blocked in China but accessible in the US. A sampling of what’s blocked is fascinating.
Oh, and just in case this guy didn’t sound deluded enough, he followed up with this:
“Some people say that there are journalists in China that have been arrested. We have hundreds of journalists in China, and some of them have legal problems. It has nothing to do with freedom of expression.”
Again, a little fact checking is a wonderful thing. According to Reporters Without Borders, at least 32 journalists were in prison throughout China as of Jan. 1, 2006. Also, here’s the 2005 report on China from CPJ.
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November 1st, 2006 Chris
I’m walking down Zhongshan Lu, the main drag through Dalian, towards downtown. I got off the bus, the same place as always, near The Bridge, an underground mall. There’s been a large police presence of late, and I counted five or six uniformed officers before I’d gone a block. I was thinking about that, and about a guy I ran into yesterday.
He was a street clown, an urchin, begging for money or attention with a few clever steps across the sidewalk. Yesterday he was a nuisance, sidestepping in front of me when I tried to get past. We did an awkward doe see doe and then I was past him with a slight nudge on his shoulder and only a minor annoyance.
He looked poor. Old slippers, Mao suit, puffy black hair and a dirty face, like a destitute Bruce Lee, a caricature of Old China lost in sparkling new Dalian.
I remember these thoughts vividly because I looked up and he was in front of me again. I was in the same place, on the Bridge across from Victory Square, a block from the office building where I had classes to teach.
He wasn’t dancing. He stopped me on the sidewalk with a hand on my shoulder. I stepped back, thinking, Not this again. We do our little dance, this time around a table, and this time not playing.
He points to something, my pocket, maybe my bag (with laptop inside, he can’t know that) maybe my camera on my belt. He motions for whatever he’s after. Are you kidding me? No. I move again. He follows.
This is getting ridiculous. He motions again. I don’t know what he’s pointing at, maybe he just wants a few RMB, but he’s getting nothing.
What the hell does he want?
He’s not moving. I step back, arms crossed, frustration on my face. I know this because, like a clown again, he imitates my posture and my expression.
Am I going to have to fight this guy? All the years of martial arts training, for this guy? I’d thought about it before. I’d been thinking of it, strangely, when I got off the bus. After our first whimsical encounter, I’d thought about how a good front kick to the sternum might have done. It would have been satisfying, especially given the lousy mood I was in then. I was in a better mood today, but not now.
Now I’m in fight-or-flight. He hasn’t made any overt threats. He hasn’t shown a weapon. He may indeed be a Bruce Lee of bums, but he’s also in my way. He’s between me and the safety of my office a block down the road. Behind me is just more downtown, and I’m not giving this guy my back.
Where are those goddamn police that have been everywhere the past few days, everywhere but here, when a cop would actually be helpful?
Our dance continues. I’m analyzing targets now. His throat is open. I’m wearing my heavy hiking boots, so kicks have to be low, stomps are best. I’m carrying my laptop bag, and it would do no good to damage that. No, a fight is not what I want. If it happens, end it quick. A finger jab to the throat, then bail. Get the hell out of there and don’t cause a scene.
A man intervenes. He’s well-dressed, probably a businessman, the epitome of New China. He tells the bum something, I don’t know what. I can’t hear and I don’t speak Chinese. He restrains the other man and waves me by. “Xie xie,” I say, still tense. A woman, also well-dressed, walked alongside me, motioning me to follow, promising safety with a look. But she was taking the underpass, and my building was only a block away.
Dalian is everything the New China wants to be: rich, cosmopolitan, attractive to foreign investors, clean and open. It’s safe, too, as far as I’ve seen. Not that I venture off the well-lighted streets in bad hours or go knocking on strangers’ doors, but I feel secure in the city. Last week I returned home to find my door unlocked (as I’d left it, accidentally) and everything untouched. It was a good feeling.
Now I have this guy in front of me, a clown or a street urchin, someone who wants what I have and seems willing to take it. I have no intention of letting him, but he wants it all the same.
Two things stick out in my mind: The look on his face, a grin that said, “C’mon, make this quick, you’re going to give me something eventually,” and the two people stepped between us and resolved it without escalation. A hundred people may have walked by while me and this clown did our stupid dance. These two stopped.
Posted in the Dalian life | 4 Comments »
