SectionsViews on China and Tibet
Student learns about issues firsthand
Linde Underwood
Issue date: 5/6/08 Section: Features
A popular phrase among foreigners in China goes, "Stay away from the three T's: Tiananmen, Taiwan and Tibet" - at least if you're looking to stay out of trouble. Bring up one, and you're likely to get a heated response or no response at all or make a poor Chinese girl cry.
"A lot of Western medias don't tell the truth about Tibet and put a bad image out in China for the world," one student said.
This statement embodies the Chinese mentality as a whole, while some even venture to such extremes as seeing the turmoil over the Olympic games as a global conspiracy to damage China's economy.
"I think people are jealous of China because of how fast we have developed," another student said.
Most Chinese believe there isn't anything wrong in Tibet, while a Qingdao University student, Jane, said, "I think we know the real facts," referring to the riots in Tibet on March 14 as an "accident."
When asked if she ever wondered if she was not receiving accurate facts, her eyes fixed at a point on the floor, and, after a few moments she changed the subject. As I was not eager to watch the girl have a paradigm shift, I left it at that, but all the while wondered if her life would be better off if she at least began to question the world around her.
The Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Government is responsible for controlling censorship in China. They look at everything from Web sites to e-mails and even patrol blogs. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo must also comply with the government regulation of keywords, which limits the search results provided.
When I tried searching for information about Tibet's invasion in the 1950s, I saw many pages of search results; however, when I tried to access them, an error page would come up, or the connection would somehow always manage to reset. Censorship in China does not come as a surprise; however, I found that the Chinese people themselves are also under the scrutiny of a strict watchdog. It is almost impossible to remain anonymous when surfing China's Web, as most of China's 210 million users access the Internet from Internet bars, which are "required by law to record the individual's official identification and file their customer's online activity for 60 days." Dare to disobey, and one may be faced with fines or even imprisonment. Lately, even proxy servers, a tool used by savvy Internet users to gain access to the outside world while remaining unidentified, have been shut down in relation to the current state of affairs in China. It's only foreigners who want to use the proxy servers anyway; as my Chinese friend told me, the Chinese know all the real facts.
"A lot of Western medias don't tell the truth about Tibet and put a bad image out in China for the world," one student said.
This statement embodies the Chinese mentality as a whole, while some even venture to such extremes as seeing the turmoil over the Olympic games as a global conspiracy to damage China's economy.
"I think people are jealous of China because of how fast we have developed," another student said.
Most Chinese believe there isn't anything wrong in Tibet, while a Qingdao University student, Jane, said, "I think we know the real facts," referring to the riots in Tibet on March 14 as an "accident."
When asked if she ever wondered if she was not receiving accurate facts, her eyes fixed at a point on the floor, and, after a few moments she changed the subject. As I was not eager to watch the girl have a paradigm shift, I left it at that, but all the while wondered if her life would be better off if she at least began to question the world around her.
The Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Government is responsible for controlling censorship in China. They look at everything from Web sites to e-mails and even patrol blogs. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo must also comply with the government regulation of keywords, which limits the search results provided.
When I tried searching for information about Tibet's invasion in the 1950s, I saw many pages of search results; however, when I tried to access them, an error page would come up, or the connection would somehow always manage to reset. Censorship in China does not come as a surprise; however, I found that the Chinese people themselves are also under the scrutiny of a strict watchdog. It is almost impossible to remain anonymous when surfing China's Web, as most of China's 210 million users access the Internet from Internet bars, which are "required by law to record the individual's official identification and file their customer's online activity for 60 days." Dare to disobey, and one may be faced with fines or even imprisonment. Lately, even proxy servers, a tool used by savvy Internet users to gain access to the outside world while remaining unidentified, have been shut down in relation to the current state of affairs in China. It's only foreigners who want to use the proxy servers anyway; as my Chinese friend told me, the Chinese know all the real facts.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Steve Noyes
posted 5/15/08 @ 9:00 PM CST
Hi Lindy, congratulations on your first published pieces. I thought this one was well-written, and you go as far as you can into the story without being obtrusive or meddling. (Continued…)
Andrew Luehrs
posted 6/19/08 @ 11:25 PM CST
As an alumnus of the university, I wanted to say how impressed I am by this article and how pleased I am to see something this thoughtful and well-investigated grace the pages of the Standard. (Continued…)
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