Ai Weiwei: Truth to Power
Artist Ai Weiwei (the self-proclaimed “most interviewed person in China”) has been interviewed by Index on Censorship. The full report is available as a PDF file here. Excerpts have been reposted on the Hui Ren Bu Juan blog in Chinese and English:
Simon Kirby: Your criticisms of the Olympic Games are not reported in the official media, but your blog remains online. What is the purpose of your blog?
Ai Weiwei: I do my blog because this is the only possible channel through which a person can express a personal opinion in China. No newspaper, magazine or television channel would ever present your argument or ideas. I am the most interviewed person in China, even domestically, and yet even if I say something it cannot be published here: so I am talking to myself – it is ridiculous. So I felt that a blog might be a good way to create one forum in which to open one’s mind. Yet every time I sit to write I still hesitate: should I do it? What will the consequences be?
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A few years ago Wei Hui (the author of Shanghai Baby) claimed to be THE most popular and influential writer in China (when corresponding with a German publisher). Come to think of it, Wei Hui and Weiwei are quite similar.
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Ai weiwei’s official blog is http://blog.aiweiwei.com
but this is blocked in China and is extremely difficult to access even if through the Great Firewall bypass methods (harder to access than average blocked foreign media sites).
His website looks like it’s been hacked, too. The censorship has gone crazy here in China since the Olympics last year in spite of the fact he is only an artist after all.
Something strange about Google is that you do not get the official blog listed in the results when searching for “ai weiwei blog”(regardless of where you are), which had been once placed at the very top of the first Google search result page 2 month ago(before July 2009).
It’s Odd.