Law of the Party in China

Stanley Lubman said, “A prominent civil rights lawyer, Mo Shaoping, recently spoke at a conference in Beijing on the status of lawyers at which he said that “our current system and government is not one that relies on rule of law, rather it relies on the law of the party.”

Ignorant About Current Events in China- Censorship of News in China

Apparently the world is in flux right now, or more so that it usually is. There was a little problem in Egypt and I believe Libya may have some problems. To you in civilization this is obvious, you have heard or been inundated with this news as of late. To those of us in China, the news barely makes it to our ears. The other day a family asked me about Libya and the hostages, and I was like “what happened?”. After the discussion, i began to realize that for the first time, Libya has had problems just like Egypt. Far from being an ignorant person, the depths of my lack of knowledge show just how well the communist party blocks news here in the center country. If one does not access CNN or BBC, as I did last night, then they have little idea of what is going on in the world. And, as I strive to understand the news, I scour the chinadaily- the only Chinese mouthpiece pos newspaper I can stomach, so its not as if I have hiding from the news or anything. The reality is that the chicoms are masters of keeping their bleating sheep in the dark, and it rubs off on all who are here. I really had no idea of what was going on in Egypt till the end. Attempting to see if maybe I had been living inside a bubble of ignorance, I asked friends their take on current event, and to a person, they too were dreadfully ill-informed. I guess you can call this the impact of living in China and living under the thumb of the communist dictators…..

Beijing Cars

Beijing was easier to navigate when only Mao had a car, now lines one block long are common.

Beijing Subway

Turning Up the Heat in China

From here, China is turning up the heat on its internet policing….. “BEIJING — China is widening its Internet policing following online calls for protests like those in the Middle East, with social networking site LinkedIn and searches for the U.S. ambassador’s name both blocked.Searches for Ambassador Jon Huntsman’s name in Chinese on popular microblogging site Sina Weibo were met with a message Friday saying results were blocked due to unspecified “laws, regulations and policies.”

Speak Mandarin in China

In most areas of China they have dialects, Chongqing is one such area. According to the Chinadaily, when a cabbie in Chongqing does not speak to you in Mandarin, he will be fined. excerpt: “Taxi drivers in Southwest China’s Chongqing municipality will be required to speak putonghua (standard Mandarin Chinese) instead of Chongqing dialect, and those who disobey the rule will be fined 20 yuan ($3) up to 100 ($15.2) yuan, Chongqing Evening News reported Thursday.”

Not Linkedin in China- China Blocks the Website

The website linkedin is being blocked in China now. I guess they have a competitor they would like to support in its absence.

Child Abuse in China

Sad story from chinasmack.com “Four years ago, 8-year-old Ren Fangfang was taken away from her father for 5000 yuan by Mengtang Village “acrobatic troupe” boss Zhai Xuefeng to “learn acrobatics”. Once she left, she was gone for 3 years. During this time, the Ren family also received a lump sum of 10,000 yuan cash. One night last year, Fangfang was dressed orderly and delivered back to her family. It wasn’t until the next day that Ren Shangtian discovered that she was missing two large clumps of her hair, that her entire body was covered with scars, that her ears, nose, and tongue had been abused, that there is “a large bulge” on her lower back. It turns out that during her three years away, Fangfang was forced onto the streets to beg, and if she could not meet her goals she would face beatings. “Used a belt to hit me. Used a nail to prick my hand, until it bled; Picked me up and threw me on the ground, used scissors to cut my ears, nose, and tongue; Also had me eat feces…”

Chinese Swarming at the Subway Station

Hard at Work in China