“Do you have a feeling that you are living in a box?” Terra asked in a pitiful tone as we were having lunch together in Prentiss. I said, “No.”
This conversation happened on Saturday, Sept. 11. Terra is an American graduate student interested in Chinese medication. She started the topic of the Chinese government’s wrongdoings in Tibet, its conflict with Google and the control over media and people’s minds. She indicated that Chinese people are living in a box built on the lies of the Chinese government.
Google redirected Google China to Google in Hong Kong at the beginning of this year. It failed to bring mainland Google users more freedom of information because the sensitive contents are still blocked, even though they are displayed as entries. But it succeeded in making Chinese government notorious to the world for its censorship of media and, hence, control of the voices of its citizens. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in a lecture or in a personal conversation; when the topic turns to censorship, China is the first and, oftentimes, the only example people will bring up.
At first I thought people here hate China and the Chinese, considering the majority of the news about China in New York Times, Washington Post and related news publications are sinophobic in nature. It’s almost impossible that American citizens are not influenced by those reports.
When I first got here, I behaved cautiously to avoid embarrassment. However, gradually, I have found that things are not as I imagined.
Americans follow the question “Where are you from?” with “Oh, do you have bread and butter in China?” or “Do you have ice cream in India?” or “You don’t have toilets in Australia, do you? Just a hole in the ground?” Asked from a downward angle, these questions hint that places outside the United States are inferior, carrying with it a big ego.
Censorship in China, though, doesn’t equally mean that Chinese youth, especially university students, are living in a box, chanting love songs for the Party and being deprived of the knowledge of truth. On the contrary, students who ask such questions as above are themselves censored by a big ego or arrogance.
Freedom of speech is an idea of which Americans are always proud. So proud of the freedom they enjoy, they are inclined to believe that all sides of the news are presented in the domestic media rather than from sources abroad. What’s more, six in ten college students cannot speak a foreign language according to a survey conducted by Roper Public Affairs and Media, a part of GfK NOP under the commission of National Geographic Society. It proves that for most young Americans, the information he or she gets about the other countries, or even about his or her own country, is biased due to linguistic limitations.
That’s why, as I said to Terra, American students know that Facebook and YouTube are censored in China, but can’t see the efforts Chinese youth are making to circumvent the Great Firewall, to look out of the box and to get through to the rest of the world. They read about Chinese government’s propaganda from The New York Times, but don’t realize how crucial a tool the Internet has become in having civilians’ voices heard.
Concerning the future of America, National Geographic commissioned the research among over 500 recently graduated students between the ages of 18 to 24 from 2005 to 2006.
“The findings are far from being promising,” as described in the National Geographic webpage. It turns out that three quarters of the respondents believe English is the most commonly spoken native language in the world, rather than Mandarin Chinese.
An invisible box is imposed on our minds by our big ego. It prevents us from thinking broadly and, thus, perpetuates asking arrogant questions.
It’s terrible to live in a smothering place with all the control imposed by others. It’s no better, however, if we have no awareness of the invisible ego box. The only way out is keep your mind wide open and never ever let your ego sabotage it.
