Anniversary restrictions

All of you not in China can make a quick Google search and check what happened on a fourth day of the sixth month, two decades ago in one square in Beijing. We, here in China, basically cannot, because the birthday of this event is just around the corner now, and the almighty officials in the aforementioned capital (Beijing) have done good job in blocking many websites. For example, without our company proxy I could not access this blog. (Of course, you can also download a free proxy from internet, or buy one for a small charge.)

But proxy or not, all the communication lines seem to have been slower lately. My guess is, because of all the checks they have in place. For example, it is not a good idea to write Tian and then An and then Men, plus square, and add to that a 'killings' or 'uprising' or, as some have said, "massa" together with "cre". Or "Butchers ororororor of ororororo Beijing", like Bill Clinton said at the time. Just testing here how intelligent their search programs are :o)

For the past week news I have been trying to watch from CNN / BBC is missing a piece. You can pretty much tell, as the screen goes black. But sometimes the guy pressing that blocking button is couple of seconds late, and you see what it is about that they sensor. Like just now the news anchor almost finished the first sentence before the screen went black. I wonder if the guy responsible for the blocking will loose his job for such gross oversight...

The remembrance events of this un-named incident (twenty years ago in Beijing, if you didn't get that), have been arranged in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is, naturally, the only place China allows that sort of events to take place. Hong Kong people are used to being able to express their views more freely than mainlanders, and who on earth would give away that right once you have had it? (Oh, except the Russians, who seem to quite like their charismatic, cold, dictator-like, undemocratic, free press muzzling Putin, who has taken things backwards in that vast land of vodka and oil.)

I asked my colleague what is in the Chinese news about this coming 20 year birthday party. Nothing. Of course. What did I think? I asked what does he know about what happened there 20 years ago? Not much. His cousin was there, but still he doesn't know what really happened there. Well, fare and square, who does? But at least we know many a student were killed that day, whether hunders or thousands is irrelevant.

He didn't even seem very interested or upset about the events, as he is with some government policies. There is nothing anyone can do about it anyway, is the feeling. There are more urgent things to worry about, like how to guarantee your own and your family's well-being and comfortable life.

Things have evolved and improved, but I wonder how much... Those of you who cannot see CNN cannot also read this blog right now, but nonetheless, here is a piece from an article from CNN.com: (sorry, it is a bit muzzy)