China Freedom

Written June 25, 2009 behind Chinese filters blocking blogger access.

In The United States of America, I feel a constant fear of speaking my mind.

I write this entry from China, where google.com has been blocked for the last few days. They don't actively spy on you, and people gripe about the government in private. But you can't write about it, or disseminate your opinions. You cannot publicly disagree with the status quo. Public disbelief is a crime.

We are singing for a marketing firm whose name indicates a need for some marketing. Desiful. Like Desi Arnaz? Like “desirable”?

Desiful has contracted us to sing at the Shanghai world expo, set to kick off in slightly over 300 days. The goal of the expo, in its own words, is to show that China “is able to hold a world class exposition.” And as they did with the Olympics, they've bulldozed neighborhoods and shipping yards and anything else to do it.

We toured their headquarters with our very own guide with his very own agitprop. We saw the 3D animation of pavilions lined with trees, demonstrating their eco-friendly “better city, better life” theme. Up on the roof of the building we looked out over the 4 square kilometers that will be rebuilt, under which 400 new kilometers of subway will run. There is symbolism too: the bell of an old factory that used to mark the beginnings and ends of work days now sits quietly on that rooftop. We got to ring it. A smokestack will be rebuilt, taller than before, lined with lights—and solar powered.

But you can't read the wikipedia article on Tienanmen square. And when you visit the square, plainclothes policemen, armed with umbrellas, make sure that you don't take the wrong photos and hurry you along. They catch your attention by shouting “hello” at you. Mao looks over this scene, his face fat and contented on the side of the forbidden palace.

The United States has no pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, a fact the Desiful marketing team tactfully reminded us of with a clipart graphic of a man shrugging his shoulders where one would expect to find the picture of our pavilion.

“My advice to you is this: in China, when something big comes toward you, move out of the way.” We were on the fiftieth floor of Beijing's Capitol Club filled with yalies and our host father, originally from Taiwan. He dropped this into conversation the way only people older than you can. We talked about traveling. We sang for them and spoke in English.

When you find a way to circumvent the filters and get to gmail, access eventually slows, then dies. The refresh button doesn't work. Something big has noticed and adapted to you.

We left the expo headquarters on our expo bus with our expo guides. I had an expo knot in my stomach. “It makes sense that we should participate, doesn't it?” Stegs argues with me. Better to participate, right? Since the markets here have opened up, since our capital has flooded in to fill the area behind the filters, millions have left abject poverty. Physical poverty. The expo will bring more money and more credibility here. More people will likely eat. I try to argue back and almost cry and have to stop.

Google.com is a basic human right. And, free markets or not, how free can you be to do or think when
the act of sending a request across the data lines that connect the people of our world is met with silence? When you can feel that something bigger than you has figured you out and stopped what you are doing?

The Chinese government has refused to comment on shutting down google. They claim google won't block porno. Google refuses to comment. Pressures mount.

“I have serious moral reservations about singing this concert tomorrow, guys.” We sat in the vaulted lobby of our five star accommodations.

“The truth is,” (and this is what people say when they are about to tell you their opinion forcefully) he said “that there is nothing we can do now. We are professionals and we are singing this concert. I have moral reservations too. More than you, I would guess.”

We're professionals, I thought, as we met over scotch in between our sets that night. The truth is, there is just nothing you can do about it. I can't even move out of its way.

The people here may have the consolation that, within their minds, they will always be free. That they are no different from the people that form the substrate of any free nation. But to speak freely anywhere requires courage, if not madness. And what good is freedom that can never be made manifest? And when something big comes to stifle you, you had better get out of its way.