Chinese Netizens "Tomb Digging" to Comment on Urumqi Riot

Not surprisingly, online comments regarding Sunday's violence in Urumqi, Xinjiang, have been closely watched by China's Internet censors.  As a result, no open public discussion is currently seen on China-based websites. Baidu.com, China's No.1 online search provider, has closed down its BBS, or "bar," for Xinjiang and Urumqi. "We're very sorry, based on relevant laws and regulations, this bar is temporarily closed," a note on baidu.com reads. 

But Chinese netizens have their way of going around the censorship. Numerous posts could still be found in other "bars" on baidu.com. On other popular public discussion websites such as tianya.com, netizens are using a practise called "tomb digging," in which they dig up posts about Xinjiang or Urumqi originally posted in the past--back to as far as 2006--and add comments about the July 5 incident. 

On tianya.com, for instance, there are several posts regarding Xinjiang, but their headlines shown on the main list contain no words relating to the latest violence. If one bothers to click on those posts and view the last page of comments, however, one could see newly added comments about the incident on Sunday. These "tomb digging" posts are changing rapidly, as online censors keep deleting them while netizens keep digging up new ones. 

Nonetheless, those who seek truth about the incident might be disappointed by the posts, since most of them, as of the time of this blog post, are comments from outsiders instead of first-hand accounts of what has happened. These comments express concerns, anger and sadness regarding the violence, as well as condemn Internet censorship. 

Some of the comments (in Chinese) could be found at: 

baidu tieba 1

baidu tieba 2

Cat898

tianya BBS 1

tianya BBS 2

Xinhua News Agency's version of the story

CNN's version of the story

Some thoughts on China's Environment

The greenish water in Dianchi Lake






I ran into a friend on Facebook the other day and chatted with him online. He is from Texas and his family of 7 (the couple with 5 children) moved to Kunming, Yunnan last year as he was hired as a teacher at an international school in Kunming. He told me during the short chat that he and his wife went to see the “green paint” in Dianchi Lake, which was its greenish water. It was pollution, I told him. It was terrible and very sad, he wrote, the lake was a beautiful place. I swam in that lake when I was a little girl, but today nobody dares to touch the water. Huge amount of money has been spent to clean the lake up, but the damage is probably irreversible. The lake, once dubbed as the “pearl of the plateau” (Yunnan resides on a major plateau in China), is now but a stinky sore on the plateau.

Dianchi is just one of the many, many heart-breaking stories of China’s environment. A few days ago, another American friend posted on Facebook that “Mongolia was amazing” and that he was heading to Beijing. My first impulse was that he was talking about Inner Mongolia in China, and I was blissful to hear him calling it “amazing,” because that would mean that (Inner) Mongolia was still a beautiful place despite the fact that the grasslands there had been overgrazed. So maybe things are not that bad? I thought. But I was still suspicious, because, honestly, I have little confidence in China’s environment situation. So I left a comment: “Inner Mongolia or the Republic of Mongolia?” “The republic of…” he replied. Of course…I doubt that had my friend visited Inner Mongolia, he would still call it "amazing."

It is just sad that Chinese people are seeing their lands, lakes, forests—that is, the physical body of the country—being destroyed piece by piece due to relentless industrial development, lack of environmental regulation and blind pursuit of profits at the price of long term significance of environmental protection.

And it’s not just about environment or even people’s life quality or health. I remember reading in my middle school textbooks many articles appraising the beauty of the motherland--the spectacular Three Gorges on the Yangtze River, the roaring Yellow River, the endless, green grasslands in Inner Mongolia, to name just a few--which was the stronghold for teaching students to love the country. I don’t know how teachers in today’s China are going to teach kids. The breath-taking scenery of the Three Gorges is gone for good. Yellow River has suffered water deficit for years and sometimes simply dries out for miles. And the massive grasslands in northern China are gradually turning into massive desserts…

People around the world praise the beauty of their motherland as the common reason for themselves, and others, to love their country. Sadly, it seems that Chinese people are running out of beautiful places to boast and appreciate.

I once talked with a Chinese scholar who taught in the US. He told me that he loved going back to China to visit but would not live there. “Everything is great back in the country, only that the environment is too bad,” he said. I’m sure he is not the only overseas-educated and successful Chinese who would rather stay overseas to stay away from the dirty air, water and landscape in the homeland. On the other hand, had the environment been well preserved and cleaned up in China, the country could have attracted more talents to live and work there. Not to mention that, after all, the country needs rich lands, clean water and air, as well as its natural beauty, simply to sustain as the habitat for a billion people.

Less People are Taking the College Entrance Exam in China

job hunting of college graduates

The news that attracted most viewer comments on sina.com.cn on Friday was the one about the impact of the dire job market for college graduates. The China Youth Daily story reported that the number of people registered for the 2009 College Entrance Exam decreased in most provinces in China. Many places, such as Hebei Province, saw registered exam takers decrease for the first time in decades. The overall number of registered exam takers will still remain at a high level of about 10 million, according to the China Youth Daily.

The College Entrance Exam is the harshest competition for generations of young Chinese since the late 1970s. Every year, millions of teenagers taking the same exam on the same days to get into a relatively small number of higher education institutions has become a prominent and rather unique social phenomenon in China. The exam has been fervently condemned as well as defended. It is seen as the culprit for the test-oriented education approach in China that is blamed for suffocating the creativity and independent thinking of tens of millions of Chinese students. But at the same time, the system stands tall over the years as important means for providing fair opportunities for the poor and powerless, especially young adults from rural area.

The number of registered exam takers generally kept increasing in previous years, and doubled from 2002 to 2008. It is surprising for many to see the number decreas nation wide. China Youth Daily pointed at the difficulty for college graduates to find a job in recent years as the main reason for the decrease. Another reason the newspaper discusses was the increasing trend of high school graduates attending college abroad. Nearly 7000 comments posted by viewers, however, reveal some other reasons for less people wanting to pursue a college degree, which used to be regarded as the best choice for young people to have a better future.

Some complain that college education is not necessary, either because knowing someone is more helpful in finding a job, or because employers start to look at the actual capability, rather than diploma when hiring. But many people seem to be displeased by the fact that social connections, or guanxi, still play a bigger role in personal development than education or talents in Chinese society. Some criticize that college education in China is like a joke, neither faculty nor students taking it seriously, and students can learn little from college. Another reason indicated is the high cost of college education. “It is better to start to work and make money early than going to college, ” one comment says. Some also say that less people are taking the exam simply because the population is decreasing because of the one-child policy.

Beijing’s New Health Care Reform Blueprint: Offering both Hope and Doubt

In setting up the new health care reform guideline, the Chinese government did the right thing by putting public interests before profit-making, and by striving for equality between rural and urban areas. 

Millions of Chinese people who have suffered in various ways from a twisted and corrupt health care system would probably feel relieved upon reading the news: at least on the paper, the government clearly stated that it is on our side. China’s vast group of farmers would probably hail the new reform plan as well, since it set the tone for setting up a health care system that will provide equal care to both urban and rural residents, limit drug prices and build more health care facilities in rural area, according to a story in the South China Morning Post. 

But a lot of people would not jump up and down on the new plan just yet. As Chinese people have learned over so many years and so many things, a good plan does not guarantee a good result. 

Yes, the government is now saying that public hospitals should no longer pursue profits as their priority and treat patients based on their ability to pay. But how to maintain or improve the quality of health care? 

The current plan is issued by the central government and serves as a guideline, while the local governments get to set up specific rules and regulations for hospitals to follow. Will local governments faithfully adhere to the line set by the government? Many people would doubt that because in many places, the local authorities no longer treat directions from the state government seriously. 

Even if good rules and regulations will be in place, no one can be sure that they will be well followed. Can the good rules get over bad officials who have their hands in all fields that could bring them extra cash and a bureaucratic system that is so corrupt? Will China’s medical education system produce enough practitioners with not only deft hands but also good hearts, who can therefore sustain a health care system that truly serves the public? 

On the surface, it sounds like a good thing that the government finally decided to intervene and do its part in fixing a corrupt health care system. At the same time, however, the reform nevertheless falls into the old circle of relaxing and tightening control, whereby the government relaxes rules to encourage reform in a certain area, only to rush to get the control back after market-oriented behaviors went awry and hurt the public. 

China’s health care system is now a big mess but can’t afford of being unfixed. In a society that is already threatened by all kinds of social conflicts, a sick health care system could only aggravate public grievance. Fixing it is a big challenge and it waits to be seen whether the Chinese government can meet the challenge.