for the past week, email accounts have been shut down, new sites have been sealed off, youtube has been blocked as the great firewall of china filters through information that might have to do with the t-betan riots.
this is happening to us. people you know. i used to hear about blogs being blocked and wonder "hey, what does the office building of the people who work for the great firewall look like? is it modeled after the great wall hur hur!!"
it's crazy because now we're actually inside the great wall. nuts! and balls!
instead of hazarding opinions of what's right and what's wrong in t-bet, though here's a piece of hot shit journalism (the kind one dreams about while in j-school or interning on some bullshit beat) that slices through the amay-sing propergander that is chinese news:
http://www.economist.com/world
thankfully, i dont have any particular predilections towards any sides of this issue. i think it's too complex a political minefield to navigate without having read in excruciating detail the history and geopolitics of the region. furthermore, most opinions are so deeply entrenched in bias and misinformation that it's extremely hard to distinguish truth from propaganda. and by propaganda, i dont just mean intel that's coming out of china, i mean what is news and what passes for news in highly industrialized nations as well. the longer i'm in china, the more i realize that the opinions formed on most of the issues this country's tangled up in are generated out of just a lot of naivety. not necessarily because we're especially uninformed, but because the history of this nation is so vast and extraordinary that nothing can be predicted, nor fully understood.
to make matters in greater china more exciting, mayor ma got elected today! you go mayor ma!!! that man is a motherfucking rock star! taiwanese politics, of course, are always close to my heart because it's so goddamn hilarious!! so tense!! so fraught with drama!! and (fake) assassination attempts!!! legislators hurling shoes and chairs at each other!!! missiles being fired over the island!!!! it's like watching a really unnecessarily violent korean drama relationship go through ups and downs with the parents (and yes here i mean my own parents) embarrassingly invested. iht.com had this article detailing the election:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/world/asia/22cnd-taiwan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
which, as many grey lady news stories tend to be,GAN!!! ANNA'S FUCKING RABBIT JUST KNOCKED OVER THE FUCKING TRASHCAN AND SPILLED OUT A GALLON OF SUNFLOWER SEED SHELLS!!! FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT RODENT!!!!! a rather disappointingly superficial study of the situation. i also think it's really strange that ma spoke out against china's persecution of the falun gong....i mean seriously, did he really? that's like....barack obama speaking out against the media
persecution of scientology. minus the celebrity involvement. and a lot more ugly photographs.
on gChat:
Clifton: WOOHOOOOOOOOO!!
me: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTT!!!!!
DIRECT FLIGHTS!!!!
Clifton: WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!
Clifton: WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!
NO MORE TRANSFERRING IN HK SHIT
me: HAHAHAHAHAHA
Clifton: BETTER ECONOMIC TIMES!
me: ENCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT TO STAY!!!!!!!!!!
Clifton: NO MORE...well, less POLITICAL POSTURING!
i will miss chen shui bian's thick taiwanese mandarin emanating from the dining room tv while my parents hurl vitriol at his square bespectacled face.
"你 看 他 那 鬼 臉 ! 有 沒 有 面 子 啊 ﹐ 那 個 人 ! 真 的 要 死 啊 ! 你 看 ! 真 的 是 要 命! 他 們 把 台 灣 經 濟 掏 空 了還 要 怎 麼 樣 ? ! 再 這 樣 下 去 ﹐ 台 灣 真 的 是 完 蛋 了 !!"
and i fucking love my friends
