After Google’s bombshell announcement<http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html?utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-ww-ww-bk-cn&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google%20china>of its possible pull out from China, besides hectically backing-up documents stored on Google doc, Chinese internet users have been voicing lament, anger at the authorities as well as extensive applause for Google. In Shanghai, people are organizing a tribute to Google by bringing flowers to their office. Over the past 3 years, Google’s services such as search, Gmail and Google doc have become a popular and highly efficient way of communication among the urban elites in China. Just to give you a personal example, both of my workplaces are highly reliant on these services.
In my humble observation, this might pan out to be an crucial event that could shape China’s history by awakening its young, fledgling civil society. It is fair to say that Google’s users in China are the most cosmopolitan and enlightened people in the country. - The majority of them are in their 20’s to 30’s, grew up in relative stability and now enjoying the opportunities and wealth that the new resurgent China has brought them. - Many have gone abroad to study or have had a fair amount of international exposure. I, and many many of my colleagues and friends belong to this bunch. - We want to believe that our government would one day realize its strategies have to change in the 21st century even when it has repeatedly made authoritarian and outdated decisions with regards to the web and many other issues. We might even have fervently defended our government when it is criticized or ‘attacked’. - Many of us are ambivalent at best about issues like free/speech, human/rights and censorship, because we don’t know going against the establishment would be the best way to bring about change in China. And frankly, many of us are disengaged from politics because we don’t have the courage to pay the price. - Many of us are not activists of any cause. But today, a company who has brought us a fresh way of thinking and outstanding services is forced to pull out from China. Unlike, to be honest, the detachment and ‘how we go again’ sentiment we feel when people are shouting ‘free XXX’, we actually feel a personal stake in it. It has hit us harder than any prior incidents which have also exposed the deficiencies and backward thinking of a country which doesn’t need to behave this way. Google is on the right side of history. I am bringing flowers to them. Tags: censorship <http://jennyzhu.com/tag/censorship/>, civial society<http://jennyzhu.com/tag/civial-society/>, Google <http://jennyzhu.com/tag/google/> This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 1:25 pm and is filed under China <http://jennyzhu.com/category/china/>, internet<http://jennyzhu.com/category/internet/>, society <http://jennyzhu.com/category/society/>. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0<http://jennyzhu.com/2010/01/14/china-internet-users-mourns-and-applauds-google/feed/>feed. You can leave a response<http://jennyzhu.com/2010/01/14/china-internet-users-mourns-and-applauds-google/#respond>, or trackback<http://jennyzhu.com/2010/01/14/china-internet-users-mourns-and-applauds-google/trackback/>from your own site. -- Leo Wong -------------------------------------- http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com/ HELP There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly with the real teacher and real Kids
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
