Sohu recently hosted a blogger dinner on the topic “how blogging has changed our lives.” Below is the transcript in part, from Oiwan Lam of Global Voices:
Liu Xiaoyuan: Blogging is great, I have opened more than 20 blogs, and more than a dozen of them are still active. In 2008, my blogs concern about social and legal issue. Although I was disappointed by the Yang Jia case, my writings leave traces of the incident. I have written more than 140 blog post for Yang Jia. I also concern about Wenchuan earthquake, whether or not it is predictable and the teachers who had killed in the disaster and I wrote to the education ministry on this. If blogs didn’t exist, I have to talk to journalists to express my idea. But a blog changes the process, now the journalists approach me. That’s why I wish netizens with resources can open more blogs and express your own opinion.
Ai Weiwei: I opened my first blog by chance. At that time, I didn’t even know how to type with computer… Yang Jia’s mother Wang Jingmei, a very honest person, she tried to open a blog, but was forced to close down… You can see that a blog is a very great invention. Words written can become a threat that stirs up so much anxiety. Blog is the most powerful weapon in one’s life. Blogging is the best thing given to human being. This is a loose form of civil society before we have genuine democracy and more organized civil society. It will lead us to a great new world. I respect all those who insist to blog.
