Blogs » Politics » Chen Guangcheng: GQ Rebel of the Year
Blogs » Politics » Chen Guangcheng: GQ Rebel of the Year |
- Chen Guangcheng: GQ Rebel of the Year
- Photo: Prostrating pilgrims, Tongren, 2009, by Catie & Linds
- Li Keqiang Calls for Equal Treatment for AIDS Patients
- Sensitive Words: Baidu CEO Divorced?
- Podcast: 99% Invisible on Kowloon Walled City
- Sensitive Words: “Pen-Grabbing Secretary”
- 80th Tibetan Self-Immolation Reported
- Censorship Vault: Beijing Internet Instructions Series (16)
- One Yale Student’s Journey Through China’s Unfair Gaokao System
| Chen Guangcheng: GQ Rebel of the Year Posted: 23 Nov 2012 10:11 PM PST Chen Guangcheng finds himself a long way from Dongshigu, alongside Ben Affleck, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Walken and Usain Bolt in GQ magazine's Men Of The Year feature. Beneath a heroically windswept portrait, Chen describes mixed feelings about his escape to the U.S., and his views on the political realities of continuing his work there.
Meanwhile Ai Weiwei, one of GQ's Men Of 2011, came in at number nine last week in Salon's Sexiest Men of 2012:
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Photo: Prostrating pilgrims, Tongren, 2009, by Catie & Linds Posted: 23 Nov 2012 05:42 PM PST  Prostrating pilgrims, Tongren, 2009 © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Li Keqiang Calls for Equal Treatment for AIDS Patients Posted: 23 Nov 2012 04:32 PM PST When a 25-year-old lung cancer patient was refused treatment at a hospital in Tianjin because he is also HIV-positive, he forged his medical records in order to get treated at another hospital. He is now suing the original hospital, which violated the law requiring hospitals to treat HIV patients for any ailment. The patient and his supporters have made his case public to raise awareness of widespread discrimination against people who are HIV-positive or have AIDS, even within the medical establishment. From Global Times:
In response, Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is expected to take over as Premier early next year, called the Ministry of Health and ordered fair treatment for all HIV and AIDS patients. From China Daily:
Despite Li's public support for AIDS patients now, in the late 1990s, as governor of Henan, he oversaw a crackdown on journalists and activists who tried to stem a HIV epidemic that spread through government-backed blood-selling clinics. Some observers are looking to Li to bring about reforms in China, though others are skeptical of how much he can achieve within the current system. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Sensitive Words: Baidu CEO Divorced? Posted: 23 Nov 2012 02:45 PM PST As of November 22, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the "search for user" function): Baidu CEO Divorced? Baidu stock took a nosedive following rumors that CEO Robin Li and his wife Ma Dongmin have divorced and that Li may relinquish his post. A photo of Li and Ma on vacation in Norway has appeared on Baidu Tieba to counteract the rumors. The affected parties have not yet made any public statement. As for leadership change at Baidu, a November 19 report in Caijing on the possibility has vanished. A search for "Robin Li" on Sina Weibo still returns results. - Robin Li + divorce (李彦宏+离婚) Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results. CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese's latest sensitive words post. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Podcast: 99% Invisible on Kowloon Walled City Posted: 23 Nov 2012 02:18 PM PST 99% Invisible—"a tiny radio show about design" and architecture—explores the legendary Kowloon Walled City. The Walled City was torn down in 1993, but has been featured in Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Supremacy, William Gibson's Bridge trilogy and the new Call of Duty: Black Ops video game, and inspired the Narrows setting in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.
Click through to 99percentinvisible.org for photos and video of the Walled City. Host Roman Mars also tweeted a link to a Reddit 'Ask Me Anything' session with user Crypt0n1te, who claims to have lived there as a child. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Sensitive Words: “Pen-Grabbing Secretary” Posted: 23 Nov 2012 02:15 PM PST As of November 21, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the "search for user" function):  Li Hongzhong asks, "Do you know about the discussion of livelihood at the 18th Party Congress?" "Pen-Grabbing Secretary" Rides the Bus: Earlier this week, Hubei Province Party Secretary Li Hongzhong was spotted riding the bus in Wuhan and "observing the people's condition" in the "spirit of the 18th Party Congress." Skeptical netizens think he's trying to make up for his behavior in March 2010, when as governor of the province he snatched a pen voice recorder out of a journalist's hand. - Li Hongzhong (李鸿忠): re-tested Other: Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results. CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese's latest sensitive words post. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| 80th Tibetan Self-Immolation Reported Posted: 23 Nov 2012 01:10 PM PST From RFA:
See more on Tibet and the self-immolations there, including discussion of the 79th case, the challenges of verifying the reports, and the last words of several of the self-immolators. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Censorship Vault: Beijing Internet Instructions Series (16) Posted: 23 Nov 2012 12:51 PM PST In partnership with the China Copyright and Media blog, CDT is adding the "Beijing Internet Instructions" series to the Censorship Vault. These directives were originally published on Canyu.org (Participate) and date from 2005 to 2007. According to Canyu, the directives were issued by the Beijing Municipal Network Propaganda Management Office and the State Council Internet management departments and provided to to Canyu by insiders. China Copyright and Media has not verified the source. The translations are by Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media.
These translated directives were first posted by Rogier Creemers on China Copyright and Media on November 23, 2012 (here). © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| One Yale Student’s Journey Through China’s Unfair Gaokao System Posted: 23 Nov 2012 03:52 AM PST  Via Wikicommons More and more Chinese students are willing to get grilled by the SATs rather than by the notorious college entrance exam in their own country, known as gaokao; but not all of them choose to apply for American colleges for the same reason. During my first year at Yale, my friend told me that she was a "gaokao immigrant" and only decided to study abroad because she could not take the exam in China. I did not believe her at first. My friend moved from Hainan province to Beijing when her dad got a job offer in the capital. She studied in Beijing for five years up till the last year of high school. I knew that since her family did not have Beijing hukou, a permanent resident status, she could not take the college entrance exam in Beijing. But I thought at least she could still go back to Hainan to take her test. It is true that high school students taking the exam in Beijing can get into top Chinese universities with much lower gaokao scores than students from other areas; but it would not be too hard for her to get into a good university even if she were forced to take her exam in Hainan, would it? But I soon realized I was oh-so-wrong about the plight of gaokao immigrants. As it turned out, not only was my friend considered a gaokao immigrant in Beijing, she was also one in her native Hainan province because she did not attend high school there. Cut-off scores for elite Chinese universities vary for test-takers from different provinces based on population and other factors. They are low for remote provinces such as Hainan and Tibet, giving a form of affirmative action to students with relatively little educational resources. Therefore, to prevent students in provinces with better educational resources from moving their hukou to Hainan to exploit its lower cut-off score, the local policies in Hainan labels such students gaokao immigrants. If my friend were to take the gaokao in Hainan, the best school she could get in would be a second tier school (二本), regardless of her gaokao score. On the other one hand, the cut-off scores are also inexplicably low in Beijing and Shanghai, two municipalities with the best educational resources in the country. To limit such privileges to native Beijingers, those without a Beijing hukou cannot be considered a gaokao candidate in Beijing. My friend really got the worst from both ends. There are millions more students in China who have to face the same grim prospect my friend had to face a few years back, but not all of them have the means or the luck to get into an American college and start a new life instead. In Beijing and Shanghai, two municipalities with millions of migrant workers and where native students receive abundant college admissions privileges, the long-staged battle between the under- and over-privileged finally came to a showdown on October 18 before the Beijing Education Commission. As an article in Southern Weekly, a Chinese newspaper, pointed out, both parties at the showdown — parents of gaokao immigrants who have worked in Beijing for years and a group of Beijing natives in their 20′s and 30′s — have valid points to make, despite some of their biases. According to media reports, the parents protesting for their children's right to take the exam in Beijing held mid-level positions in their Beijing-based enterprises or government branches. They may not be the most representative of migrant worker parents in Beijing, but that shouldn't harm the validity of their demand for equal educational rights for their children. There is a larger online community composed of parents of gaokao immigrants from all over the country. The scale and organization of their website, "I want gaokao" [我要高考网] shows any reader how eager, anxious and furious these parents feel about the injustice their children have to endure. The young native Beijingers, on the other hand, are concerned about the fate of their beloved city. Regionalism and unreasonable contempt for the "provincials" aside, some of the points raised by these passionate youth are worth listening to. Both Beijing's natural environment and civil infrastructure are pushed to their very limits by the city's exploding population. One commentator quoted in another Southern Weekly article pointed out that population density in the central districts of Beijing has exceeded that of London or Tokyo. He pleaded, "If we don't speak out now, we will be silenced in the future. If we lose Beijing, where would Beijingers go?" But the showdown could have been avoided had both parties realized that they indeed face a common opponent: the numerous unjustified privileges of all those with a Beijing hukou. Had there been no such drastic regional differences when it comes to educational resources and college admissions criteria, there would not have been so many gaokao immigrants in the first place. Professor Zhang Qianfan (张千帆) from Peking University has closely followed this social issue for years, and as he would have it, the ultimate problem lies in the privileged class in the capital — mostly government officials — who are utterly incapable of giving up their current advantages. The deteriorating environment in Beijing is indeed worrisome, but it shouldn't in principle go against reforms of current gaokao policies. As non-native parents and students pressed on, in March this year, the Chinese Education Commission finally announced that each province would have a plan for their new gaokao policies ready by the end of this year. On August 30, the State Council reaffirmed the Education Commission's message. So far, Guangdong and Fujian provinces have already issued their new gaokao policies. Guangdong Province's new policy is already in effect and in its testing period. As we approach the end of November, we shall watch closely for the latest policy changes in the rest of China, particularly Beijing and Shanghai.         |
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