Quick Recap

Something funny yet inspiring happened to me lately. My German teacher recommended me to some woman as a German tutor. I was totally flattered. Just for the record, I've only been learning German for 6 months. But she thought I was adequate to the job and referred to me as her best student for now. But it didn't pan out. Nevertheless, the whole thing's a nice little ego boost for me.

What also can make my day is reading comments or any other kinda of feedback about my blog. Just in case you don't know, Blogger is blocked in China mainland like forever. So to a large extent, readers of this blog are non-Chinese or Chinese who would like to read some English stuff and be capable of bypassing the GFW.

I'm not concerned too much about daily traffic driven here but I do pay quite a little attention to which of posts are most read. By far I know my most popular posts go to "I Don't Have A Dream", "Chinese people? Incomprehensible!" and "Sex and the Univercity". I'm not be swift to generalize anything I see. However, what I found out is gonna illustrate the point that foreigners are more interested in self-reflection - they're fond of reading unharmonized posts which criticize the CCP, Communism, centralization or even Chairman Mao BY CHINESE OURSELVES.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's understandable. It's like "hunting for novelty". I assume that I'd feel the same way if I hear British people judge themselves. But the pathetic part of my case is that I'm entitled to speak up only outside the GFW, only beyond the sight of the "Internet harmonizers".

For one moment, those new notions dawn on me and I'm going for somewhat a westernized girl. But the next moment, I feel tied up by those old-fashioned values I grew up with. I can't totally let myself go. I wanna balance it all out. But from time to time, I got a bit overwhelmed by living these two lives.

Say one thing and do another - it's ironic that I actually grow into a typical Chinese. hehe, I'm in need of a bear hug.

(Below is a cartoon paraphrasing how Swedish media looks at Google's withdrawal from China.)

 （这张图片咱们中国人看看就好，外国人看不懂，呵呵。）

I'm On Fire.

I was meaning to move this blog to wordpress. But I didn't know its templates were not free-user-friendly until I set foot in wordpress. AND just when I was deeply in desperation and anguish(exaggeration alert!), I surprisingly found that Blogger released this Blogger Template Designer which perfectly meets my satisfaction. So I'm staying here at Blogger.^^ Speaking of free-user-friendliness, is it me or every Chinese would look for another way to do it if it's not free.

Google's Withdrawal is beyond my expectation but I'm not surprised. I suppose that it's the high time Beijing brought shame on Google though. Yet if we look on the bright side, Google didn't leave. It just moved to somewhere closed enough to be seen from Shenzhen. Not that I'm talking you into relocating to Hong Kong. But as long as you're not reconciled to be deprived of  basic civil rights, you'd find a way to the real Internet, even to the real world.

Since the GFW did its duty, many Chinese netizens can't access to many services online. If you're an old member on friendfeed, you'd feel the desolation there. Good thing that there are still some friendfeed addicts holding their ground and I'm one of them. So there me and other friendfeeders living in China commenced on this Chinese friendfeed Swaps thing. Below is my mock-up of friendfeed logo.^^

Luckily I was the first one to receive the swap box from K.D. which was the first one to send out this box in Shanghai. We chose ff-boy and Cao Ni Ma as the "Daevas" of this event.^^

Fowllowing is what K.D. put in the box. I like the twitter bookmarks!

Here's little gifts from me: little Maggie and chocolates.

Now I'm gonna ship it to Paul. Well, Paul is in Guangzhou. I don't need to ship it.^^

I Don't Have a Dream.

I love my kids but I could have fed tainted milk to them. I don't have a dream.

Children died because they studied in the jerry-built classrooms. I don't have a dream.

Officials are all accepting bribes, and they never feel ashamed of it. I don't have a dream.

Most lawyers no longer stand up for the victims.If they do,they'll be detained or jailed. I don't have a dream.

You've been living and working in this city for years, but all you can get is a 'temporary' residential permit. I don't have a dream.

Those actors and actresses who starred in the patriotic Chinese movie are not officially Chinese. I don't have a dream.

80 percent of water from China's rivers is polluted, and you may be poisoned if you drink it. I don't have a dream.

Not only at the Olympics,but every coal mine mishap in China also broke a record in death toll. I don't have a dream.

The Berlin wall collapsed 20 years ago, however the GFW is strengthening. I don't have a dream.

China is so vast but Twitter can't survive here. Seriously, I don't have a dream.

Share a joke with you ----------------


Osama Bin Laden recently said China is the only country where terrorists don’t dare to go. Al Qaeda once dispatched five terrorists to attack China. They were told to bomb five different places.

The first, who was to bomb an overpass, got lost on the labyrinthine bridges.

The second, who was to bomb a bus, couldn’t even get aboard because the bus was too crowded;

The third, who was to bomb a supermarket, got his remote control stolen;

The fourth, who was to bomb a building, was stopped and badly beaten by the security guards, who took him for a migrant worker asking for overdue wages, and yelled at him “don’t come for your salary, and don’t you dare to appeal!”;

The fifth, who was to bomb a coal mine, eventually made it, leaving more than 100 miners dead. But half a year later, he was executed by al Qaeda for “cheating,” since the incident was never reported in China.

June Fourth 2009

Here's an old Chinese folk tale.A man buried his silver in the ground and put up a note, saying: "Three hundred ounces of silver is not buried here."His neighbour Ah Erh stole the silver and also put up a note with this: "Your neighbour Ah Erh didn't steal it."

(captured on "The Simpsons",season 16,episode 12)

Our Chinese government must have heard of this story,so they decided to not put up any notes and forced everyone to remove notes of any kinds.We Chinese people use another old idiom a lot--欲盖弥彰 which means the more what one tries to hide,the more it exposed.And now,I finally realise that,at some point,this idiom also means despotism,obscurant and low EQ.They're so wrong,even more wrong than doing the violence in 1989.Why are you so open-minded to May Fourth but not breathing a single word about June Fourth?

To be honest,I wasn't upset when Youtube and Blogger were blocked.I even reckoned that I was lucky to bypass the GFW.But at the moment where popular foreign websites were blocked and internal sites were told to shut up,I actually felt a bit irritated.What you treat us like kids?Good thing that the block thing spurred people on seeking for the Tiananmen Square protest,seeking for the truth.Numerous Chinese netizen felt violated and tried their best to break the WALL in order to let people know about the truth.

I reflected on myself that why hadn't I told anything about it,at least to people around.There I commenced doing what I just learned : introduce the GFW to people around you and pass around the tools to break the wall.It started off badly.Even if they knew about the GFW,they didn't care about it.I insisted on sending them the tool and forcing them use it,whereas it made me look like a radical person which is not that kind of image I meant to set up for myself.

I heard that an American instructor in my university displayed the video of Tian'anmen Square on June 4th,1989 and told his students that there was no democracy in China.I don't think much of his indignant deed.I mean,he was supposed to tell his Chinese students why the protest happened,what did those protestors go through and how did it end up.He merely just popped out the bloody scene and blamed our beloved country(he should point out CCP).It just made those students revolt against the "American devil".

To totally deny something is unwise.I believe that we need to build up an impersonal attitude.I mean,we can see from those videos that some students were indiscreet enough.When I read foreign press or the Taiwan media report,I know they're not being candid.Compared to them,I really appreciate insight of Hongkong meida which is more fair-and-square and genuine.I'm a traditional Chinese girl after all.

I just want to say,don't just talk about the June 4th,when it's June 4th.June 4th is a spirit,inciting us to continuously aspire after truth and rights.We deserve them.