more censorship

Another development in our ongoing experience with censorship in China is worthy of mention.

Of late there has been extensive discussion in the (foreign) news of the Tibet unrest, the Olympic Torch relay, the Uighurs in Xinjiang and the environment – The Chinese press carries some of this, but with an obvious Chinese bias.

While I have been leery of discussing any of these issues in my formal classes, I have done so with interested students in my office. The result has been some interesting discussions, with my goal (sometimes more effectively achieved sometimes less so) of increasing my interlocutor’s openness to other, sometimes opposing views.

In these discussions I invariably stress that I am not engaged in attempting to convince them of my “correct” opinion – but rather to expose them to alternative viewpoints that challenge the official Party line. A lesson in critical thinking, the power of the media and the benefits of openness to opposing opinions.

Yesterday I was informed in passing by a friend that the university would be hosting a professor from a neighboring university who is an expert on Tibet. The professor was to give a lecture to mid-level campus officials on the history of Tibet in China, the riots and the efforts at dialogue with the Dalai Lama. I was intrigued and excited at the opportunity to hear a lecture that would summarize the Chinese position on Tibet – one that was not filtered through the mass media.

Oddly, no-one seemed to be aware of the lecture, and students and most faculty were not invited. Since the lecture was about to begin, I contacted another colleague (with whom I’m conducting a project) on campus for information on the venue. She seemed surprised about the lecture and said she was unaware of it. Odd, I thought.

After figuring out the lecture venue, I somewhat apprehensively decided to nonetheless attend. Standing outside the lecture hall (they had already begun) I listened through an open door to decide if I would be able to understand the accent of the speaker (I find a thick local accent almost incomprehensible). Deciding that I would probably understand around 70% of the content, I chose to enter.

At that point I noticed some startled faces in the audience staring at me through the doors (interspersed among the many sleeping attendees). The head of the foreign affairs office was among those who spotted me and quickly came to me before I could enter the lecture hall.

He asked what I was doing there, and after I explained my interest in the topic he asked who had told me of the lecture… I obfuscated…. With a smile…. He then proceeded to explain that the lecture would be boring, that it was really only for mid-level officials, that I could learn everything that was being said from the internet, that it was irrelevant to my research and that he lacked the authority to allow me to enter – all with a smile….

I, innocently explained that as a political scientist I was quite interested in the topic – even if not directly relevant to my research. I also described how eager I was to enhance my understanding of the Chinese position on Tibet in order to achieve our shared goal of greater mutual understanding between China and the West (I’m still smiling here)

The official explained that in fact the lecture covered three points (I mentioned these earlier) and that he would be pleased to invite me for dinner and tell me all about the lecture… but (smile) I couldn’t attend.

At this point I bowed to the inevitability of the situation, thanked him and departed. There will be no dinner, of this I am confident. Ah, and as for that friend I called about the venue – the one who didn’t know about the lecture? Well, since the lecture was in the same building as her office, I thought I would pop in to discuss a project we have been working on. Imagine how surprised I was to discover she wasn’t there! Her office mates explained to me that she was busy attending a lecture on Tibet.

"T" Words

We were told that three “T” words would get a very strong response from our students: Taiwan, Tiananmen, and Tibet. And I (Linda) have found myself embroiled in discussions about Tibet with my students. Interesting, frustrating, exasperating, mind-boggling . . everything.

It started off in one class – the students were watching a press conference during a break and I asked them, “what’s so interesting?” This lead to a long discussion about Tibet, censorship, and other related topics. Keep in mind that this discussion occurred about three days into the recent deterioration of the situation in Tibet, and the censorship from our usual news sources was at an all time high and my frustration level was soaring. The students were outraged by any suggestion that their government was out of line; there was a strong sense that the international media was out to get them and that foreigners had manipulated the situation in order to embarrass Beijing before the Olympics. Several students articulated that China had invested heavily in Tibet, building roads and infrastructure to raise the standard of living there. It was unheard of to consider Tibet as separate from China, and, according to my students, almost all Tibetans are perfectly happy with the status quo; the Dalai Lama is interested in furthering his own power and political ambitions.

Unfortunately, they were trying to place me in the role of official representative of all foreigners. I tried to maneuver around this delicately, saying things like, “the Western Press is saying,” or, “Westerners would probably view things in such and such a way.” Keep in mind, I’m their English teacher – and I’m not trying to indoctrinate them in any way, just trying to achieve open and critical discussion in class. I have never offered my personal opinions in class, rather I have tried to hone the class discussion by asking them questions regarding their statements, and encouraging them to question each other.

Yoni, who has his own frustrations with this issue, helps me to focus on encouraging the students to think critically about what they hear in the news. To ask “why” questions when they hear a report – like – if the situation is really so wonderful in Tibet “WHY” do the Tibetans seem so unhappy? “Why” is it advantageous to the Western Media to lie about China? What ends are met?

However, things are never cut and dry in these heated discussions and later in this same class, in response to a student’s question, I mentioned that there are “Free Tibet” bumper stickers in NY. They almost lost it. One of my students, a lovely, intelligent, very articulate young woman almost cried. She clearly felt so outraged, so misunderstood.

After this class one of my students came up to me and asked to speak privately; turns out that she grew up in a Tibetan autonomous region (not Tibet itself, but an area in a separate province where most people are ethnic Tibetans). She had been silent during the class but stated that she has been struggling ever since she first enrolled in university; her fellow classmates never want to hear her opinions on Tibet and constantly tell her she’s wrong, until she’s virtually stopped talking about the topic. She said things like, “I love my country even though I don’t support my government’s actions,” and, “most Tibetans think that the Chinese built roads and infrastructure only to help rule and control the Tibetans,” and many more such statements. It was refreshing to hear her speak, but sad to see how marginalized she had become regarding this subject.

Then, a week later (that would be today) in another class, things got even worse. I have a feeling (can’t prove it – but I’m beginning to see conspiracies everywhere) that the students in one of my other classes heard I was discussing Tibet in a different class and felt it’s their responsibility to disabuse me of my false notions. Keep in mind, this is despite the fact that I really haven’t shared my personal opinions in class, at least not according to Western cultural norms. So the students in this second class immediately said they wanted to talk about Tibet (so much for lesson planning). Learning from my past mistakes, I guided today’s discussion more towards censorship – I asked the students how do they learn about news events, where do they get their news from, do they trust the news, etc. This lead to lots of interesting discussion – I’ll give you the highlights.

1. Student A said that the main problem was that China’s censorship was not good enough yet, as China is still a developing nation. If censorship was “better”, then there would be no problem. When I pushed him regarding what did “better” mean he refused to be specific, but did say that a country with “better” censorship was N Korea. No, I’m not joking.
2. Student B said that she saw a documentary of Tibetan monks speaking candidly about Tibet (not quite sure how she got her hands on this video, not an easy feat here in China). The monks spoke about how Tibet is historically different and separate from China, and should be independent. In addition, they spoke of repression they have experienced under Chinese rule. This student said this was very difficult for her as all her life she’s been told a certain story about Tibet, and yet these Tibetan monks clearly have a different story. And now she doesn’t know what to believe. She doesn’t think that anyone has really lied to her, but maybe there’s some miscommunication or misunderstanding.
3. Student C said that he totally and 100% trusts his government to handle this situation.
4. Student D said that China is like a family, if there is a problem within the family then the father must deal with it privately, it is nobody else’s business. When challenged on this point (what if the father can’t handle the problems, what if the father refuses to handle the problems) the student said, “the father can ask someone for help if he feels it is necessary.”
5. Student E (who disclosed to me personally at another time how terribly her family had suffered during the Cultural Revolution) challenged her fellow students, “what if it was your relatives who were the victims?”
6. Student F said that it’s better if they know nothing about “these kinds of problems” as there is nothing that they can do anyway. The government is merely trying to protect people by not informing them of problems, so they can focus on their work and be productive.
7. Student G asked, “why are the monks killing the policemen?”
8. And, of course, a very common response is to shift attention. Many of my students repeatedly point out that Americans and other Westerners should first deal with all of their problems (and they are happy to rattle off a fairly accurate list), or should look historically at how they have dealt with their own people in the past before they judge others. And that is a good time for a reminder that the only way that they even know about such things is due to a (relatively) free press in the West.
9. When I told the students the Western estimates of number of people killed during the recent unrest they responded angrily, “Western lies.”

I hate to stereotype genders, but I’m afraid that all of the pro-censorship voices (in my classes at least) are male, and all of the “questioning” voices are female. But there are plenty of people in my classes who sit quietly and don’t express an opinion.

Anyway, I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed by how firmly some of my students are digging in their heels, and by how some of them seem to have literally taken on the task of “correcting” my views. One is, of her own volition, writing a report for me so that I can better understand the Chinese.

And at home, the censorship of the news continues and it’s amazing how it affects how we now “hear” the news. Were watching the Olympic torch leaving Greece the other day when the screen went blank (yet again) and Yoni and I turned to each other and said, “better find out what happened” and went to the internet. We know when something big is going on because of the censors – maybe they should work on improving their censorship technology.

And on a lighter note the mangoes are in season - both mini mangoes and regular sized. They are out of this world. Even better than the mangoes I ate fresh from the fields while on kibbutz in Israel.

Censorship

Just a quick update on censorship/Tibet – for those of you who are interested. Not that we can report anything newsworthy, as what we receive is fairly censored, but I thought the censorship itself might be interesting to write about. We get CNN and BBC on our television here and, every so often, when we’re watching TV the screen goes blank. Usually the censors are a moment too slow so we know the subject they’re speaking about. They’ve blanked out stories that are critical of the Olympics, and recently cut stories on the outbreak of a flu epidemic in Hong Kong, and inflation and how it affects the common person in China. Those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. On average, we’d say that about once a week we notice a news story being blocked. But lately, with the ongoing repression in Tibet, the screen is blanking out ALL THE TIME. Even the lead story was blanked out the other day. Some major websites are blocked as well. But then tonight, they showed an entire news story that even featured the Dalai Lama. Can’t quite figure if the person pressing the “blank” button is sometimes sleeping, sometimes open-minded, or what. Besides, real news censorship seems to be virtually impossible – it’s just too easy to get news from proxy servers, email, and other methods that I probably don’t even know about. Of course, we could listen to the official Chinese English language news. I told Tal to turn it on the other night just for educational purposes. The news is always VERY positive, stories of previously uninsured people being thankful that they now have insurance, or new cabinet posts being created to tackle tough issues. But of course nobody will censor juicy news stories coming from other countries – so thank you Elliott Spitzer for ensuring that we are kept up to date about NY politics.

On a totally separate note – spring is here at least a month early. The heating has (thankfully) been turned off; the forsythia are past full bloom and magnolia trees are at their peak right now.. Here’s a picture of my parents with the boys in the courtyard near our apartment. We have been promised that the heat of the summer will be stifling, but now it’s very pleasant. But it doesn’t really smell like spring – I’m afraid after all these months it still just smells like pollution. I just can’t get used to it. Noam, on the other hand, recently told Yoni that he doesn’t even notice it anymore.

I'm also including another picture of my kids with my mother - you can see Xi'an's famous Bell Tower in the background. An important landmark in the middle of the ancient, walled city, right beside a new shopping mall, with a cascading water fountain flowing down the roof (it looks like glass in the picture, but it's water). Kind of symbolic of China today. The shopping mall has an indoor skating rink (but no zamboni!!!), a Walmart downstairs, and a Nike store that seems to sell the real product for real Western prices. In China a Walmart is a sign of true affluence . . go figure.