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.

Live Lives

In the afternoon of December 28, the wife of the famous host, Hu Ziwei, complained her husband’s affair at the scene of renaming CCTV Channel 5 to Olympic channel conference.

As we can see from the video later, if the scenes were staged in a county, it is estimated that the woman must have already rolling crying on the ground. But in the Beijing Shangri-La Hotel, it seems Hu Ziwei was fairly calm, although “it seems”.

From the various inspection reports, Hu Ziwei never unabashed of her love to her husband Zhang Bin. Hu Ziwei always has a big smile on her face in their pictures, while it appears that Zhang Bin is always trying to keep some distance.

It is not a short time for their marriage. It seems that everything is going right before this shocking moment. From the beginning of January 2007, you can see many interviews about Hu Ziwei in many newspapers, magazines on her family and job. They are all filled with happiness. But why this shocking moment happened so suddenly?

This may have something to do with the changes of Hu’s work. A few months ago, she left the “Shenbian” program which was founded by her own. She is no longer the producer and host. It is said that the reason is about her report about “the paper steamed bread” and her critic on the Haier. But only the Beijing TV Station would know the real answer - and it certainly would not tell.

Neither would Hu herself tell. The host lost the opportunities to be on the screen just as laid-off. It is needless to say the her frustration. The real problem will probably be seen when she become idle.

Someone has asked her whether she worry about her family as she is so busy. She said, “my husband is very busy too. I can be so busy just because I know my family is very stable. If there is something wrong with my family, then I would be broken down.”

It is said that Zhang Bin’s father is a senior official who served as secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee. If this is true, then this kind of thing does not seem to be in his possession. A child has such family background is generally low-key, modest and good at controlling the overall situation. However, when the thing happened, he was clearly unable to control the situation.

The ex-wife of Zhang Bin is also in the television field. When Hu Ziwei came to know Zhang Bin, he was still living with his ex-wife. After the big issue couple days ago, many people ridiculed Hu Ziwei saying that she herself was a third party before.

If you are an ordinary person, this kind of thing does not commit mass destruction, on the contrary can only prove that you are charming. However, Zhang Bin is a public figure, the public bear less moral standards of this, and the public may have addiction to the public figures’ private lives.

I think more embarrassing character in such event is CCTV. The scene was broadcasting live, and many bigwigs from CCTV, sports, and media were all there. The video on the CCTV website was soon deleted, and several other news on other websites were deleted later, but there are some preserved, then they spread to the whole world. By now, in addition to the rise of the video clicks, there are many overseas media have already reported it in details on this matter, while the original renaming Olympic Channel was not a big deal at all.

Unexpectedly in the last few days of 2007 we can still see such a scene which includes a set of lies, revenge and suspense…… No matter how brilliant the screen is, it would never be as interesting as life itself.

Whose's "Lust and Caution" should it be?

The Golden Horse Prize finally announced the director Ang Lee's "Lust and Caution" won the best movie, best director, best actor and actress and other shortlisted 11 awards, there is no doubt that it is a great success for a movie like this. The sex scenes in the film left us a deep impression, and everyone is talking about it. But recently there is a set of photos being so hit on the internet- it is two children modifying the sex scenes in the film just in a corner of a residence block! In this the social environment of "no sex no show", we should really rethink about these adult films' influences on the innocent children. But what I am curious is, how can this movie affect the children? How can the children get access to this?

The two little children are kissing and touching each other in the joints and their behaviors are similar to some of the "indecent" scenes in "Lust and Caution". Being shocked, my heart is filled with misery. The children is growing without an ability of telling bad from good. Imitating is their nature. Whether their physical and mental growth is healthy or not is greatly depended on the things they imitate. When those sexy, violent, bloody scenes are filling the TVs, movies and the net, the general public, the media and the parents should act responsibly to protect the children from getting access to them. The innocent children should not be allowed to be injured. But nowadays, there are lots of film makers and media writers, who has been totally blinded by greedy minds, go crazy about the so-called "market-oriented pursuit", not even giving a little bit space to the children for their healthy growth but dragging them to muddy water. I think it is not only the children's tragedy, but also the whole society's.

Apart from analysing these photos are true or faked and whether they are made for fun or speculation, I think the one who took these photographs and openly displayed them on the internet is a shameless person. Why don't you put up a filming location, time and also your names and contact telephone number as someone offering 500,000 yuan to realize their "becoming famous overnight" dreams in the Spring Festival Party? This is obviously a despicable behavior hurting children, and what's more, it is possible directed by someone! Where is your moral conscience?!

We can't blame the children. What do you suppose that these two little children know? Is it every child's nature to satisfy their curiosity, to explore and they are good at imitating. The problem is, parents are the child's first teachers. In this situation, I can't help asking: where is our family education? Schools are bases for children's knowledge seeking. In this situation, I can't help asking: where is the school eduation? Society is the environment for the children's development. In this situation, I can't help asking: where is the social moral sense?

I have so many questions in my minds and I can't find the answers.

Children are the future of a country. No matter how we struggle in the madding society, how numbe we are in such a material world and how frustrated we are, please, just leave some space to let our children grow up happily and healthily!

Pigs and the government

From January 1, 2009 onwards, there will be a total ban on pig-raising in the city of Dongguan in Guangdong. According to the document released by the government, the existing pig farms must be closed before the end of next year. On the 4th, LI Xiaomei, vice mayor of Dongguan City disclosed this information in the city pollution and animal industry work conference. It is said that pig-raising industry will be seen as the main sources of pollution in Dongguan city. (from "Nanfang Daily", Dec-05-2007)

The official reason why Dongguan ban the pig-raising is: the pollution emissions made by the existing 750,000 pigs in Dongguan now are equivalent of 4.5 million population pollution emissions, and the emissions of chemical oxygen reached 18,000 tons per year. In order to effectively reduce the pollution made by the pig-raising industry, Dongguan have to build a new sewage treatment plants which can depurate 1.32 million tons of water per day. “Therefore, from the point of view of the development of production, pig farming is not worthy”.

It seems reasonable. But the logic behind is a bit strange. Clearly, the Dongguan city government only saw the “bad” side of the pig farming, but did not see the “good” side, or we can say they only “saw the pig manure, but no pork”. On this point, the relevant questions from the local people are already contradictory enough: If this argument can be established, then you can ban the chicken industry, also you can prohibite the establishment of the catering industry. Then maybe one day, you may also make a policy prohibiting Dongguan residents, because compared to the pig and chicken, humans are senior animals to the city and the natural world, and the pollution caused by humans are the most serious!

In addition, we can see another picture by following this logic. As you know, the use of the power of a society is not always beneficial. We all know the fact that in the era of extreme alienation, the power will cause endless disaster. In the period we are living in today, when the old order gradually break and the new one has not yet been fully established, social flaws exist everywhere. And some people take advantage of their powers as an opportunity to make money. However, can we deny the possibility of political power and business just because some people are not using them properly?

It is allowed for the government to keep their powerful rights, but not allowed for the society to raise pigs. Obviously, as a way of employment and industry, if there are problems with the pig-raising, we can solve them by making continuous improvement and adjusting the potential rules of the market. Even if the pigsty vanished one day in the future, it would be a spontaneous order, not destroyed by a piece of the document released by the government. If we can not prohibit the overall operation of government’s power because people are not using it properly, then how can Dongguan City prohibit the pig industry for the excuse of pollution made by it? From the taxpayer's point of view, since both of the government and the pigs have a negative impact, why we support the government, but not the pigs?

Dongguan government banned a local industry for a specious reason. Ostensibly, it expanded its power to the pigsties, but the inherent logic can be easily extended to the whole society- that is, the government makes its own decisions without thinking in the public’s shoes and is interfering the market economy and civil rights.

Someone may say, the local government prohibited the pig-raising entirely because of the environmental considerations, their original intention is good. However, even for the environmental reasons, it should also follow the environmental ideas to solve environmental problems, such as looking for an ecological farming mode, but not interfere the rights of local residents to raise pigs. Moreover, compared to more serious industrial pollution, the pig industry seems actually more “green”- it is absolutely possible to control through a variety of environmental policy and regulation, ecological farming or other effective means.

On the other hand, the so-called saying “the rich go to school, while the poor raise the pigs” is familiarized by the Chinese community. Even a 9-year-old child knows that the people in the pig industry are almost all from the bottom of society, how could the Dongguan City government do not know about that? Yes, this is curious question- if they do not know, how could they serve the public? If they do know, then why did they make such a stupid decision?

How should we establish our national self-confidence?

This year's Nobel Prize Presentation Ceremony is coming soon, China will broadcast it for the first time. Although the broadcast is limited to Natural Science Award by the CCTV-science & education channel, in light of the significant impact of the Nobel Prize on the history of mankind, the fact that Chinese audiences finally to be witnesses of human wisdom and vision scene is, after all, a good news. But, at the same time, as we can see from the prevue, the style of this broadcasting plan is open to questions - I think it will make the ceremony an entertainment and show off event.

According to CCTV propaganda, on December 10 night, CCTV-science & education channel would broadcast a five-hour-long large special event “the Nobel Science Night”. During the five hours, in addition to the presentation live in Stockholm, CCTV also add some content mainly on two aspects: First, interludes with more entertainment programs- not only “the painters, singers, dancers, actors would do some performance- so arts and science will be perfect blend in this annual feast”, but also “fun staff about the 100 year Nobel Prize” with the aim “to enable the program easily gratifying”. Secondly, it would “emphasize China's scientific and technological achievements (including the manned space flight, orbiting the project, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, artificial sun, life outbreak theory, the human genome, the super hybrid rice, and other major scientific research achievements) to the general audience”.

Does it sound like another CCTV Chinese Spring Festival evening party? 　　

No matter how solemn, any ceremony should be allowed to be transformed into entertainment programs, even “making fun of it” is also a kind of freedom of expression. But it seems that such an incident should not be dominated by the country's scientific & educational television channel.

There may be controversy in each specific selection of Nobel Prize, however, indisputably, it represents the highest achievement of science, literature and peace ideals all over the world. Chinese people always feel regretful that there is not a local Chinese scientist or writer has been awarded by Nobel Prize yet. In each autumn, the traditional season for harvest, every Chinese, no matter professionals or ordinary people, reflect our national science development just as the media do. But what we see from the CCTV propaganda is, it is ignoring the public opinions but seizing the chance to show off. I think it is not only a kind of contempt of human wisdom, but also a everymockery on the public.

It is true that Nobel Prize is just a prize mainly awarded by the west countries. It is inevitable unfair because of the cultural differences, the lack of exchange or the political bias. We do not have to shoulder the burden for this. But should we treat it as a party time just for fun?

CCTV explained that their intension of the broadcast plan is to enhance “the Chinese audiences’ national self-confidence”. But I believe that the real national self-confidence should be built on the humble and honest basis. China's scientific community, literature, economic and academic circles have made fruitful achievements in the last couple of decades. We are very proud of that. But in the face of the Nobel Prize, we are still hoping to hear more autocritcal voices from the national television.

Reflection leads us to learn, honesty makes us progress. I think this should be the real way for us to establish our national self-confidence.