I love birthdays. I shamelessly responded to many who asked why I was going to China: “Because my birthday is a national holiday there.” I share a birthday with the People’s Republic of China. Which is kind-of cool. Except for this.
I intend to spend my birthday celebrating with friends, going out to dinner and karaoke.
China intends to spend its birthday parading its threatening military through the streets of Beijing, with unfathomably heightened security—security so intense, residents who live along the parade route have been warned by authorities that if they step onto their balconies they risk being shot. Peasants have historically traveled to Beijing to petition the government for a redress of grievances, but this year they (and me, for that matter) are forbidden from the capital city. Security forces on October 1st in Beijing will not rival but will instead far surpass those deployed for the 2008 Olympics. (See Michael Sheridan’s Times article for these facts & more.)
Additionally, the government is cracking down on online services used to reach oft-banned sites like Facebook and Blogspot—homesickness-staving resources I’ve relied on—in order to create a “favorable online environment” for this week’s festivities (Owen Fletcher, PCWorld). Also, the website www.momswhothink.com, which I tried to visit in my quest for a list of baby names my students could choose English names from, is currently banned—presumably not to protect the “favorable online environment,” but because the censors have extended their reign to include any IP address even closely related to banned ones. The Thinking Mothers are one of many benign casualties.
Dubbed The Great Firewall by many who experience it, China’s expansive censorship effort has much in common with today’s Great Wall. Both are incomprehensibly massive, sprawling in scope and vision, presumed visible from space*, and eternally useless at achieving their intended task. Although Facebook and Blogspot are blocked, this post will reach you if I have to email it to a friend in America first. Getting around the Great Firewall is at most an inconvenience. As James Fallows reports in The Atlantic, “What the government cares about is making the quest for information just enough of a nuisance that people generally won’t bother.”
As our birthdays align this Thursday, my lifespan represents a mere 38% of the PRC’s 60 years. Subtract the years I wasn’t thinking about anything outside of Iowa, let alone the United States, and my international consciousness vs. the PR’s existence drops to an infinitesimal percentage. I have my own beliefs about what a human right looks like, but I cannot presume to offer advice to, or criticism of, the government of the most populous nation in the world. Perhaps they know what they’re doing—media reports like Fallows’ certainly suggest that residents don’t mind all that much—and who knows, maybe if I had my own sweet new fighter jets and futuristic ammunition I, too, would parade them in the streets on my birthday.
*Debunked by NASA itself.
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