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Forget MTV, I Want My Internet!
shystershep writes "Teenagers in China are apparently pretty serious about getting internet access. This article on the English version of the online newspaper Xinhuanet details gang-type activity to get around China's ban on persons under 18 entering internet cafes. I may get a little cranky if I don't get my daily net fix, but I've never beat anyone with a fire extinguisher because of it (not that I remember, anyway)."
Please remember the source when discussing this; Xinhua is the state news agency, and will print whatever they are told. The last "cafes are evil" story they ran was about a couple of kids who used the internet for 48 hours straight, and then sat on railway tracks to recover. El Reg has a decent write-up on the subject. You don't close 8600 internet cafes for "safety reasons", you close them because the population is suddenly aware of their alternatives.
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Most of you Westerners just don't get what it is like to be Chinese. I am one. I may not exactly live in China, or speak Chinese well enough, but I guess it's always an inescapable part of Chinese culture.
Chinese culture emphasises filial piety, almost blind faith of authority, etc. I don't know if Confucianism came because of the influence by the Warring periods (where, due to pure greed, Chinese armies attempted to seize control of all the states and unify them); or something else.
Don't ever forget that Chinese culture, as NatGeo once put it, looks to the future with one foot firmly in the past. It's something that we are sort of proud of. (I also remember the various Dynasties variably as periods of plunder, unrest, and corruption.)
Why does China insist on the one-China policy with the Republic of China? It's not because, I believe, of evil people; it's an almost blind faith to the belief that all Chinese belong in one nation. In Mandarin, Chinese is called Zhongguo - Zhong being "central" or "most significant", or something along those lines. Is there a United States of Besterica? They'd probably be trying to take Singapore - where I live - too, if there weren't such a large proportion of other races.
They were so eager to claim HK from the British, and have been generally not-so-militant about it (there is still incredible press freedom in HK). Why? Because authoritarianism isn't as important as housing all Chinese into one China.
My Chinese teacher once said - these types of people are a rarity in Singapore - that if you're Chinese and have nowhere to go, guess which country will welcome you with open arms.
What am I trying to say? That authoritarian control that you Americans resist, yes, that is not a good thing, but it has come about due to the influence of Chinese culture, not because of evil people. You people do not exactly understand *why* authoritarianism exists, choosing to see it in only a romantic, black-and-white, good-and-evil thing.
George Bush junior - not the best example of a good man, I guess - once said "there ought to be limits to freedom"; indeed, that's one of the most insightful things a man can say.