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China news tagged with: blogger conference 2006 (2)

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My Experience at this year’s blogger conference - Yezi (叶子)

Yezi is a long-time blogger living in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. She studied journalism and communication and wrote her graduate thesis on blogging and its impact on media. She is the main local organizer for the second Chinese Blogger Conference held Oct 28 and 29 in Hangzhou. The following blog post, written on November 7, is about her experiences during this event (translated by CDT).

Our Life

Yesterday when I was buying pomelos in a neighborhood store, the store owner chatted with me about recent odd news in Hangzhou. A policeman beat a bus driver; laid-off workers had a strike and demanded the death penalty for a high government official; and a series of corruption cases. At the end of the conversation, he concluded that the only people suffering in this society are the small people like him. I sighed and said, things haven’t changed much for us young people. We have no freedom to do even a small thing. The owner asked, what did you want to do? I said, a few days ago we tried to organize an international academic conference, and we encountered a lot of difficulties. He laughed hard. “You wanted to hold an international meeting? I would be surprised if you were allowed to do this,” he said.

When my friends and I were enjoying the pomelos and the snacks I bought, no one seemed to be in the mood to talk about the annual conference. We all pretended that it never happened. Suddenly, a weird idea came up to my mind. I asked ANT, if I write in my blog that I will go to the Wulin Square and will sit in there on Nov. 11, will the Net police see the post and stop me beforehand? ANT said, you bet. I said, is it so magic? It’s just fake news from a blog with a small group of readers. To tell you the truth, I just want to get to know some of those Net polices in person. Maybe this way I can meet some handsome boys. We all laughed, and kept watching the movie Initial D. We did not want to do anything. We are all obedient citizens, we absolutely are, really.

This is our life in Hangzhou. We are used to self-entertaining and self-amusement. Joking about everything. We are used to things not turning out the way we want
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- November 12, 2006 4:42 PM
Bloggers, innovation, and China’s future - Rebecca MacKinnon

From Rebecca MacKinnon;s RConversation blog, she is in Hangzhou attending The second annual Chinese blogger conference:

If one extrapolates China’s future from this group of individuals, you see a peace-loving, compassionate, humanistic, globally minded, flexible, hard-working lot who are well poised to drive Chinese innovation…. and to drive it in directions that the entire world should certainly welcome. The Chinese government would be crazy not to embrace them as poster kids for China’s future. If the government is not capable of doing so, it will be to the long-term detriment not only of China’s economy but also of China’s global credibility, which in turn has an impact on China’s long-term global influence. [Full Text]

Click here to see the photo slideshow on Flickr, uploaded by the conference attendees.
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- October 30, 2006 6:54 PM