Bird's eye view of the real world
There's been a lot of talk about darkness but, for many, the blinkers are coming off. Despite spending five years in the hallowed halls of a top Beijing university, Carol Li said that when she graduated in 2002 she was like the proverbial frog in the well - content in a world she saw through an extremely narrow field of vision.
The fabled frog was blissfully happy in the subterranean domain he lorded over until one day a little swallow, frustrated by his arrogance and ignorance, picked him up to give him a bird's eye view of the real world.
Miss Li says the swallows that have enlightened her and her friends over the past couple of years are the nation's vibrant bloggers, along with the proliferating chat rooms, websites, cheap, pirated DVDs, and free downloadable movies and documentaries that tell a whole new story to the one told on state media.
The Year of the Rooster was bleak for Chinese journalism. The foreign press was full of stories illustrating an undeniable trend on the mainland: the authorities are making desperate attempts to quell the glimmer of free expression that exists in the mainstream realm. From sacking editors to imprisoning journalists, to shutting down papers and websites, to beating up reporters, to restricting foreign involvement, the message was heard loud and clear around the world. Adding to the noise was the likes of Google, Yahoo and Cisco conspiring with party leaders to keep the masses in the dark.
But what is often concealed by this bleak landscape is an emerging reality that, despite the censors' most insidious efforts, young urban Chinese have never been so well informed about the goings on in their country. Sitting over a bubbling lamb hotpot to counter the bitter winter chill, Miss Li and her five friends can tell you about the violent standoffs in Guangdong recently between police and villagers - but what they know didn't come from state TV. Similarly, they can tell tales involving corrupt officials, environmental disasters, police brutality, crooked judges and abuse of power: the stories that rarely surface in mainland media. A few years ago they knew little or nothing of these things, they said.
These twentysomethings are not particularly politically minded, and not in the least bit subversive. Indeed, they are all extremely patriotic and generally hold the Communist Party in high regard. They, like many Chinese, are inclined to lay any blame for specific incidents at the feet of local officials, while tending to credit central leaders with positive developments. But they admit to becoming increasingly cynical as they get a better handle on what's happening in the world.
'Four years ago, I had no clue about any of these issues. I would surf the Web and read papers, but you only got a bit of the story. These days it's so different. Much more interesting,' Miss Li said.
She was referring to the estimated 10 million Chinese blogs that have popped up over the past couple of years, an arena where everything and anything is written about in blushing detail. When a blogger posts something juicy, it tends to ricochet through the Web world, ending up on chat rooms and forwarded through mass e-mails at speeds that bamboozle the cyber-police.
For the first time in their lives, these friends believe they have a fair grasp of what's going on in their country. 'I used to read a lot when I was in university, and pride myself on being well-informed, but I was shocked to learn later just how little I knew about the real China,' said a 28-year-old IT engineer. 'Sometimes the reality is depressing but it's much better to at least know what's going on.'
But part of the new reality is not at all depressing: despite the multifarious efforts to keep the masses mired in the well, advancing technology is helping many work their way up to take a peek at a brightly illuminated world.
Peter Goff is a Beijing-based journalist
