Chinese online writer Yang Hengjun (杨恒均) published the following article on U.S. based news website Boxun.com. The article is translated by ESWN:

I learned about the Internet first in 1997. At the time, I used it mainly to read the news. After using the Internet for several years, I realized that the Internet is not only a new medium, but it is a platform through which you can express opinions (such as discussing at forums and making friends). Later on came the blog, which is a platform through which you can publish your own work. In so speaking, I have to thank Boxun. My first essay and some of the stories were all published at Boxun.

The appearance of the Internet changed me. When I found out that I could publish the works that I wrote on the Internet, my creative passion could no longer be reined in. In a short three year span, I continued to perform at work as required while using my spare time to write close to 2 million Chinese words in creative literature.

My family and friends were shocked, and so was I. Several editors who read my works were stunned. One editor said, “What happened? It was like a flood had busted out in order for so much to be written. Were you holding back before?”

That cuts right to the point. I was holding back. I had all sorts of experiences, I had all sorts of ideas and I had all sorts of secretions inside my brain. I held back for ten or twenty years with nowhere to release them.

Now that the Internet is here, what was I waiting for except to release them? I write because I want to vent the ideas inside my head — the so-called thoughts and viewpoints. I am an outsider insofar as literature is concerned. I don’t pay careful attention to wording. I am even uncertain about basic grammar and I often have the punctuation marks in the wrong places.

But I write because I have ideas inside my head. After toiling for two years, I was the first of the 1.3 million Chinese people to write a political espionage novel. I want to challenge, I want to challenge myself and I want to challenge the rulers who limit the writings of others and the writers who want to set limits for themselves. A person with independent thinking and free will does not need too much talent in order to write. All one needs is a little bit of courage. [Full Text]