The Forbidden City?
The Forbidden City is a massive compound in the middle of Beijing that was off limits to the Chinese people for 500 years. It is very stunning and was the home of many historic dynasties, including Qing.
Louisa and I completely forgot what it means to be living in a Communist Republic – I understand how I could forget, but Louisa has no excuse. Upon arrival to China, we were excited to blog and Facebook our friends and family and tell them we landed safely – unfortunately, just like the Forbidden City, Facebook, and just about every other website we take for granted, are banned in China. You can’t even Google “what websites does China block?” in China. Here is a link of all websites and words blocked in Mainland China (obviously retrieved after we left China) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China
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| The Forbidden City - 1 KM Long! |
Is Facebook the new Forbidden City?
Communism has been a topic of controversy for centuries. With our minimal research on China, we assumed it was just as poor, smelly, chaotic and as dilapidated as India. We were completely wrong – everything in The Peoples Republic of China is organized, clean and structured – thanks to Chairman Mao!
Facebook , Twitter and Youtube, to me, are great representations of capitalism and what Westerners love to call “freedom of speech”. In today’s age, information is shared so quickly that people know about Bieber’s bowel movements before he even flushes the toilet. I understand that information is power and power needs to be controlled by the Republic to avoid a revolt, however, if 99% of the information is mundane and useless, is there really a big concern?
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| The Walls and moat surrounding the entire complex |
Communism seems to have helped China’s economy tremendously, even without their people knowing the real time results of Bieber’s paternity test. When China does take over the World (we all know it will happen one day), will Facebook be banned for 500 years just like the Forbidden City or will Facebook even have any significance in history by then?
1 comments:
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MattP on 22 November 2011 at 21:41 said...
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How do i find out about biebers bowel movements?
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