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12:04:00 PM EDT
Hearing Never Get Away -- Eric Donaldson
Enough Shovels of Dirt
According to a news story winding its way around the Web, China now has more than 34 million blogs, with 17.5 million people considering themselves bloggers. Apparently the Chinese blogosphere has increased 30-fold in size in the past four years.
The content of most Chinese blogs skews heavily toward pop culture and daily life, as political dissidents are known to suddenly "disappear" with a little help from the Chinese government.
I wonder if bloggers there have the same annoying things as Western bloggers. Does the exploding Chinese blogosphere write about its cats or lunch (rice, again) in a pink, blinking Comic Sans font?
Lockstep patriotism is mandatory in China -- although it's spreading here, it's still optional. Do Chinese bloggers embed animated .gifs of waving Maoist flags in their blogs, I wonder?
It drives me nuts that I can't speak Chinese and figure this out for myself. There's a whole culture evolving and exploding over there, and we've got no easy way to access it - infuriating to guy whose curiosity rivals that of a thousand cats.
Virtual China offers up a really fascinating digest of what's going on online in China -- it's a window to the online East that I'll be looking through regularly. One recent link from the page goes to Linese.com, an expansive resource for people to learn about Chinese culture. Don't think you're going to learn much about the political climate there, though.
China's media policy is vaguely defined and harshly enforced to prevent a free flow of information among its people -- despite China's desire to keep up with technological innovation and communication on a global scale. Whether or not the Chinese government likes it, the people are talking among themselves really, really fast. The government may be able to prevent the spread of "harmful" information now, but it won't be able to do it forever.
Like the Chinese proverb says :"Enough shovels of earth -- a mountain. Enough pails of water -- a river."
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I have to wonder how China is going to monitor and enforce their strict control of media over 34 million blogs. We tend to think of coups taking place from a military point of view--citizen soldiers taking down their rulers and government with guns and force. What we may have here is the roots of the first cybercoup--citizen soldiers joining together in cyberspace and slowly building up the strength to take down their current government using the might of the written word, and the sense of community that blogging offers. I'm not saying it will definately happen, but in a place where so much thought is controlled, cyberspace offers an out where oppressed peoples can cause things to happen that they never dreamed of before.
Jess
http://journals.aol.com/aurielalata/CIWTheOtherInvisible -
Isn't blog a food in China?
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Fascinating Jeff! yes I wish we could see more!Many things here are influenced, as you know, by China so it would behoove us to know more!
natalie -
I wouldn't call what we have here "lockstep patriotism." I think the cancer speading throughout this country is an Owellian form of Nationalism. It's got nothing to do with patriotism.
All you need to do to see this is look at our gutless President and listen to the never ending stream of misguided strawman arguments, the doublespeak, and the constantly shifting idendity of our nation's enemy.
Oddly, in spite of a laundry list of human rights abuses, China is not our enemy yet since they are providing a large chunk of the financial backing for this misguided military campagn in return for outsourced jobs. I say "yet" because eventually that bill is going to come due, and with China's "Most Favored Nation" status, who knows what will happen.
Nonetheless, my patriotism for America is what fuels my embarrassment IN America.
-Dan
http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/
9/30/06 1:12 PM
The time has come
It's here at last!
Click the link
And do it fast!
Prepare yourself, oh
You must be brave!
For Halloween is
out from it's grave.
http://journals.aol.com/memes