China Adds a Feature to Phones: Patriotism

State-controlled Chinese phone company, China Mobile, has changed customer’s ring-back tones to a patriotic song for the October 1st holiday. The song, sung by Jackie Chan, is the patriotic song called “Guojia” (country):

The lyrics include the following lines: “A country stands up in the world,” “Only when we have a strong country can we have a prosperous family,” and “Country is glorious perseverance.”

…The company’s representative said any customer who did not like the tune could switch to other options at no cost by following instructions on its Web site.  She said she did not know how long the song would continue to play otherwise… But Hu Xingdou, a reform-minded economics professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, said China Mobile went overboard in tinkering with its customers’ phones.

“The current efforts to instill ideology makes me feel that the authorities consider ordinary Chinese people to be unpatriotic or even mentally challenged,” he said. “So they enforce this patriotic education on people.”

See the video and hear the song here:

CDT EBOOKS

Subscribe to CDT

SUPPORT CDT

Browsers Unbounded by Lantern

Now, you can combat internet censorship in a new way: by toggling the switch below while browsing China Digital Times, you can provide a secure "bridge" for people who want to freely access information. This open-source project is powered by Lantern, know more about this project.

Google Ads 1

Giving Assistant

Google Ads 2

Anti-censorship Tools

Life Without Walls

Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention

Open popup
X

Welcome back!

CDT is a non-profit media site, and we need your support. Your contribution will help us provide more translations, breaking news, and other content you love.