Sensing censorship

Until about a year ago, I never really thought much about the politics of China. I had no connection to the country and no real desire to learn about it. This changed when my friend moved over there to live with her boyfriend (who is actually Canadian, but living in China). She's a self-confessed nomadic traveller who loves seeing the world so the move was perhaps a little less weird in her case. Since she moved there, and I started reading her blog (Aussie in the Orient) and chatting to her, I've become aware of how it is a totally different world to the one I'm used to.

The government of China regulates everything. The ISPs in China are given a list of websites to block, so that citizens cannot access sites that it deems to be "dangerous". Sites are black-listed if they challenge the ultimate authority of the government or could potentially give citizens "ideas" that their way of life is less than perfect. They actually employ a department of 3000 people trawl the web and leave pro-China comments on blogs and message boards. Lou can explain it much better than I can, so read this post and this post for more info).

Television channels are also regulated, ensuring that no suspect programming should infect the citizen's minds with anti-government ideals. The government has done many "documentary" shows in the style of our very own Today Tonight or A Current Affair (which, for my overseas readers, are shows that purport to be hard-hitting journalism but are in fact nothing but one-sided sensationalised opinion pieces with very little ground in reality). Lou told me about one such doco that said that there are no homeless people in Shanghai; the beggars seen on the streets are in fact not homeless but normal everyday citizens who earned their living by pretending to be homeless. Thus, the doco concluded, there is no homelessness problem in Shanghai and it's a truly wonderful modern city to live in.

Of course, my view on the situation is very simplistic, not having lived there myself, so I'm sure there's much more to it. But it is my basic understanding.

When teaching, she has to be very careful not to say anything inappropriate to her Chinese students. It is written into her contract that she does not talk about the "three Ts" on pain of instant dismissal:

• Tiannanmen -- this needs no explanation I'm sure,
  
• Taiwan -- which asserted its Independence from China, something very embarrassing for the Chinese government, and
  
• Tibet -- which has also asserted its independence but have been met with strong resistance from the government.

The government denies that any of these tragic events happened. The populace, on the whole, believe them!

I was at the hospital, visiting Pop, and the nurse (who was Chinese) was talking to Dad about some orchid that is hugely popular in China:

Dad: I've heard that its very popular over there. I've heard of clubs with 10,000 members that are lovers of this plant.
Nurse: Ten thousand. If a group assembles in China, the government gets very worried and wouldn't let it last long. They're paranoid about having another episode like 1989.
Me: Yeh, I've heard about the Chinese government's over-reaction to these kind of things. Actually my friend, who's an Aussie girl, is living in China teaching art and English. She tells me all kind of weird things about China. Like when she's teaching she has to be very careful what she says, so that she doesn't say anything "inappropriate" to the students.

The nurse, Dad and Aunt nod.

Me: She said she has to be especially careful about the "three Ts" or she could get sacked or deported. There's Tiannanmen (solemn nods from Dad, Aunt and Nurse), Taiwan (more nodding), and what's the last one ...

I had genuinely forgotten the word. I looked at Aunt and Dad, but evidently I hadn't told this story before so they were no help. Then it came to me ...

Me: Tibet! That's the last one, Tibet.
Nurse: What's wrong with talking about Tibet? That's part of China.
Aunt: Ah, you've been indoctrinated too.
Me: This is the problem. Tibet has tried to assert its independence but the Chinese government won't have a bar of it. But they tell all the citizens that its all ok, "Tibet is part of China, nothing to worry about".
Nurse: I didn't know that.

I was stunned. She seemed to be very intelligent, a little too brusque for my liking when she treated my frail grandfather, but she did know what she was doing. She spoke excellent English; she has obviously lived in Australia long enough to get a job in the hospital. She was aware of the government's tricks and lies. But she believed them without even realising it.

I told Lou about all this and she laughed, but wasn't surprised. It's a hard cycle to break when you've lived your whole life believing something.

Makes me realise how lucky I am to live in Australia. Even though I have issues with my own government's tricks and lies, I guess it's all relative: they may tell me what I can't do, but they don't tell me what I can't think.