What is being blocked?

Recently, audiences in Ningbo, Zhejiang found that the Hunan TV channel disappeared. In this regard, local Radio and Television Department’s response is the "landing contracts end." However, according to a reporter’s investigation, the true reason Ningbo stop broadcasting Hunan TV Channal is that Ningbo is "practicing of local protectionism", and the "overcharge of Hunan Satellite TV Station”. As the news was published, a big argument burst on line. Although couples of days later, the two parties refuted the “rumors” and shake hands with each other, there are some other means if we think deeper in this case.

Nowadays in China, the word “Blocked” (封杀)is very popular. If you search it in the Baidu, which is the hottest search engine in China, you can find nearly 20 million related websites. But obviously, the meaning of “Blocked” is opposite to the spirit of “Openness” that we are looking for.

Whether a country is prosperous or not depends on what kind of rights do the citizens have. Speaking of the benefits of opening up, I always can not help but think of the European Union. After opening the borders, the EU countries did not lost a single inch of territory but “expanded”. Similarly, for the television consumers, if 100 stations open up to each other, the local residents would not lose the local station, but gain more.

The viewers’ against to the blocking is based on their own interests, because if you block a channel, it is not only blocking the programs, but is also blocking the audiences - just as you are blocking a book in the extreme times, it is not only blocking the author who wrote the book, but is also robbing the rights of the entire community to read it. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why this issue has brought such a big argument on the internet. Although people are getting used to the word “blocked” in various cases, the inconvenience caused by different “blocked things” would still stimulate their nerves.

The banning order in Ningbo let me think of the power of indulgence.Obviously, there are some “equally reasons” for this kind of "blocking imaginary". In the past several years, many outstanding movies such as "alive" and "the enemy is coming" were blocked for some reason or unspoken rules.

Being specific to the television consumption, as we all know, under the current television monopoly management system, the relevant local governmental departments always try to protect the interests of the local television stations that they are directly linked to, so that they can realize the interests of their own. The rulers spare no effort to tell their people the only way to lead a happy life is to focus on themselves, however, no one can say that they are serving the people wholeheartedly.

The case reflects the current plight of the cable television consumption. The only right of the audience is to control their own remotes, because the content of the programs are not controlled by the consumers but remotely controlled by the rulers. The consumers who are paying for the channels would never know when the programs is going to be changed or cancelled. For instance, in some places, the cable digital television is mandatory.

The competition in the political market is not only reflected by the immigrations between different countries, it can also be reflected by the capability of whether the citizens move freely within their own country- to vote with their feet. As Friedman said, "If I do not like the things done by the state I am living in, I can move to another state." Ningbo local radio and television department’s neglecting of public opinions is actually a kind of forcing purchases and sales, and what’s worse, in many places in China, this is undoubtedly becoming common.

Officials or Rogues?

In the afternoon of Jan 7th, the general manager of Hubei Tianmen water conservancy construction company, Wei Wenhua, and the secretary Wang Shutang drove passing near the Tianmen Bay Village. Discovering Wei Wenhua was using a mobile phone taking the brutal law enforcement of the urban management, the workers of the urban management began to beat Wei Wenhua. Five minutes later, Wei Wenhua was beaten to death.

In China, there are many cases of urban management officials beating abound, there are also many cases of urban management officials have killed people. But killing a manager who is responsible for the WCB is very rare. Nowadays, the urban management violence is spreading regardless of time and place. As long as they think the people is trying to be against to their law enforcements, the urban management official would beat them, without considering their social status and backgrounds, usually, the people were beaten to death. From this point, I can’t see any difference between them and the Maffia. Just as an angry netizens said, “they urban management officials are the same as the rogues.”

There is another fact worthy of our attention- it is not only the urban management officials who enforce brutally, but they did commit the highest frequency and are most exposed by the media- from which one can see that the overall quality of urban management staff is bad. Thus, it is not hard to understand why in some places people hate the urban management staff so much.

The high frequency of urban management violence challenges the citizens’ patience limit. People against urban management experience violence frequently, and some of them even lost their lives. It is a tragedy. It is not only the tragedy of normal people, but also the sorrow of the whole society and social system.

From the reality of violent urban management at least we can ask three questions: How dare the urban management staff beat people? How dare they kill people? Why the incident occurred so frequently?

No matter from the point of law or human rights protection, or from the idea of building a harmonious society, from any point of view, there is no reason for urban management staff to do such things. It is not deniable that the quality of the urban management staff is not good enough, but to think deeply, there are also other reasons such as the connivance of the person who is responsible for, the inadequate supervision, and so on. All of these are worthy considered by all of us.

Do we really know the poor?

There seems to be a wall in the society. People who have the right to speak are lack of some basic understanding for the real life of those low-income groups. Fashion, noble life styles are filling the newspapers, television and other media while not that much people are caring the poor.

We all know that the price of pork keeps rising, but do you know which part of the pig products rose on the most?

My mom told me that she went to buy meat the other day and the meat price rose another 50 fen, she could not help but complain: "why the price rises every other day?" The seller said, "We don’t want to do that as well. But the water, electricity and gas bills are going up; we can’t live if we don’t raise the meat price. Moreover, the meat is not raising the most." Another customer complained, "Isn’t it? It cost no more than 5 yuan per kilogram last year but now it costs 13 yuan. It has risen more than twice!" The meat seller said, "The pig fat was 2 yuan last year but now is 8 yuan per kilo. It has rose four times" The customers are a bit surprised. The seller kept speaking. "The poor can not afford to buy the lean pork but still they need some meat. The more people need, the more the product costs. It is a natural rule."

My mom said in her childhood, when people were buying meat they always requested “fat meat”. Pig fat is very popular at that time. Sometimes it was almost a symbol of a privilege. Later, as the improvement of people's living standard, people began to buy pure meat. Only some small restaurants buy pig fat meat to fry oil to cut the costs. What is unexpected is that 30 years later, pig fat meat became “popular” again.

There seems to be a wall in the society. People who have the right to speak are lack of some basic understanding for the real life of those low-income groups. Fashion, noble life styles are filling the newspapers, television and other media while not that much people are caring the poor, and the consequence is that when the government and people who sincerely wanted to help the weak, they are helpless for the ignorance.