{"id":182094,"date":"2015-03-15T17:11:54","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T00:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=182094"},"modified":"2015-03-15T17:53:03","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T00:53:03","slug":"a-rare-look-into-ones-life-on-file-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2015\/03\/a-rare-look-into-ones-life-on-file-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rare Look Into One\u2019s Life on File in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Authorities in China maintain <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Public_records_in_China\">a personal file, or <em>dang&#8217;an<\/em><\/a>, on every citizen, which starts while they are in school with report cards and continues into adulthood with, &#8220;religious affiliations, psychological problems and perceived political liabilities.&#8221; Citizens are rarely allowed to see inside their <em>dang&#8217;an<\/em>, but Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser had a rare chance to read hers, an experience that was recorded in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.viff.org\/festival\/films\/f14316-the-dossier\">the film The Dossier<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/mobile.nytimes.com\/blogs\/sinosphere\/2015\/03\/15\/a-rare-look-into-ones-life-on-file-in-china\/?partner=rss&#038;emc=rss&#038;smid=tw-nytimesworld&#038;_r=0&#038;referrer=\"><strong>Andrew Jacobs of the New  York Times interviewed Woeser about her file<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Q: It\u2019s hard for foreigners to imagine what it\u2019s like to have a personal file that you can never see. What\u2019s it like for ordinary Chinese?<\/p>\n<p>A.: Many of us have no idea what\u2019s inside our dang\u2019an, but our lives can be changed by it. It\u2019s a terrible thing, like an invisible monster stalking you. It\u2019s a special feature of a totalitarian regime. My file was born when I was in high school, at 15, but at the time, I don\u2019t think any of us thought of it as scary.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;] Q:Anything else notable?<\/p>\n<p>A: The biggest embarrassment was in my self-assessment at work when I wrote, \u201cI love the Communist Party and whenever the party comes to mind, it always reminds me of its kindness to ethnic minorities. [Laughs] I will dedicate my knowledge to the Great Party.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clearly my personal sentiments have changed greatly. Seeing my dang\u2019an helped me revisit my past and see how pathetic we were, these 15- and 16-year-olds, saying formulaic things about our love for the motherland, and not permitted to express ourselves. It was a process of turning us into machines, devoid of free spirit or individuality. That\u2019s why I was fired from my job, because the Communist Party does not tolerate the truth. I didn\u2019t want to be a machine, so I spoke the truth. Now that I\u2019ve left the system, my soul is free, and I\u2019m happy. [<a href=\"http:\/\/mobile.nytimes.com\/blogs\/sinosphere\/2015\/03\/15\/a-rare-look-into-ones-life-on-file-in-china\/?partner=rss&#038;emc=rss&#038;smid=tw-nytimesworld&#038;_r=0&#038;referrer=\"><strong>Source<\/strong><\/a>]\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authorities in China maintain a personal file, or dang&#8217;an, on every citizen, which starts while they are in school with report cards and continues into adulthood with, &#8220;religious affiliations, psychological problems and perceived political liabilities.&#8221; Citizens are rarely allowed to see inside their dang&#8217;an, but Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser had a rare chance to read [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":158206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[34,14744,14745,14746,100,5],"tags":[8182,586,3619],"class_list":["post-182094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","category-society","tag-personal-files","tag-privacy","tag-woeser","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Rare Look Into One\u2019s Life on File in China<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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