InsideGFW

#That’s the full length feature story of That’s Shanghai ‘s Oct cover story.

Those who have been keeping an eye on my blog may find this article similar to the Interview Of the Homeless People. Yes, they are both in the bottle picking business, they both cannot afford a home here in Shanghai, and they both live at the very bottom of society. But there are some key differences between the homeless people from Anhui and the pocket Hukou owners who were born and grew up in Shanghai. This is where Cai’s story begins.

(more…)

This week, let’s start with two pictures. The first picture has a middle aged farmer in it and was taken during the period of the Cultural Revolution. The farmer was actually Jiang Qin who happened to be one of the most powerful in the group “Gang of Four*” that ruled china at the time due to the great trust given by the then old chairman Mao who also happened to be Jiang’s husband.

The second picture is of some members of the committee planting a forest; the so called the “Forest of committee” right before a flight to Beijing to attempt the “LiangHui*”.

Please note that all those women and men in this picture are smiling and look really relaxed; the cloths they are wearing and their hairstyle is fancy; there are blue plastic bags protecting their shoes, the shovels are OVER the ground and look brand new and the tree is newly planted.

Some times this stuff really makes me wonder. It’s been almost thirty years since the Cultural Revolution, but the propaganda seems to have turned into something much more shoddy and obvious. They don’t even care about whether people see through them. How will people react to them? Does anyone even care about it? What time is the worst? Is it a time where nobody cares about anything or is it one where everybody believes in “something”?

At the end of this article is a video which shows the bravado of the Chinese police force in overpowering a kidnapper equipped with a knife. I mean overpower, literal.

*The Gang of Four (simplified Chinese: 四人帮; traditional Chinese: 四人幫; pinyin: Sìrén bāng) was the name given to a leftist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and were subsequently charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The members consisted of Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s last wife and the leading figure of the group, and her close associates Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Four

*The lianghui (两会) or “two organizations” is a general term used in many occasions in present-day China, most notably with reference to the two organizations which make national-level political decisions: the National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lianghui