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China: Let your photos do the talking

Categories: East Asia, China, Development, Freedom of Speech, Health, Labor, Photography, Politics, Protest

While dealing with blocked pages and filter-trigger keywords can get pretty annoying on the wrong side of the internet, for bloggers in China who want some discussion on, say, the highest-level corruption crackdown in ten years [1], there are always ways to beat the system. This time it just happens that the name—now on the banned list [2]—of one of the key suspects involved is exactly the same as the Chinese word for the yellow chrysanthemum [3]. And who doesn't like the occasional picture of a flower on their blog?

Here's Bullog blogger mic's recent post [4], textless save the botanically-named title, and the comments that followed:

photo by mic @ Bullog.cn [4]


kk:

沙发,好黄

First on the sofa! So yellow

OUYE:

那你坐上屎了

Then you're sitting on shit

老虎屁股 [Tiger Butt]:

也能摸

You can touch it too

shenmojibadongxi:

shenmojibadongxi

What the hell is it?

超薄白 [Ultrathin White]:

秋天就快过去了..

Autumn will be over soon..

huh?:

mmd, 看标题就能猜出是什么东西

damnit, you can guess what this is just by looking at the title

GUAIGUAI:

有智慧。

Smart.

Q:

标题党

The Title Party

不好
如果能抓拍到菊花凋零的镜头就有意味啦
训练晕了
以为是领导特写呢……

后天眼
入秋了.
牛头梗
秋天里的一把火.

Not good
If you could have gotten a shot of a withered chrysanthemum, that'd be meaningful!
Trained until I passed out
I thought it was a poem written by a leader…

The day after tomorrow my eyes
Will enter Autumn.
Bull Terrier
A fire in Autumn.

Also from Bullog [5], a photo from Li Honglian (李宏剑) posted by 50mm with the title ‘Demolition: Land [6]‘ and no other accompanying text, of a van someone in Fenyan village, Jianli county of Hubei province [7] has turned into a mobile protest sign. The text in the van windows reads: “Give Back [My] Land”.

earth.jpg [8]

。。。。。:

…..

Brent:

农民没土地了,以前只能扯条竹竿挂条尿布造反。
现在好多了,还可以去城里当农民工嘛。

The peasants’ land is gone; before they could only tie a diaper to a bamboo pole, raise it and revolt.
It's much better now that they can go to the cities and be peasant laborers.

OK:

BRENT,你真是个租B的.

Brent, you're really a dumb c***.

落后青年 [Backwards Youth]:

现在的农民工明显是北方不如南方挣的多,南方的不如出国挣的多.上次在火车上就见一批打算去新加坡给人盖房的,可见国内市场已经满足不了农民工的生存需求了.

It's clear peasant laborers nowadays can earn more money in the South than the North, and even more overseas. Last time I was on the train I met a group who were planning to go to Singapore to build a house for someone. You can see the domestic market no longer meets peasant laborers’ needs to get by.

frank:

是国内的工资率无法满足民工的需求了

It's the domestic wage rates that no longer meet peasant laborers’ needs.

Brent:

我好怕怕..
这么多人反对我呀。
那我再加一条吧:
农民工不好当还可以去其它国家当苦力嘛..

I'm so scared..
So many people opposed me.
So I'll just add one more line:
If it's so bad being a peasant laborer they can always go be coolies in another country…

ouye

土地还给谁?
谁又占了地?
有点不明白,
也不想明白,
因为,
有什么用。

Give the land back to who?
And who will occupy it?
I don't really understand,
And don't want to,
Because,
There's no point.

In blogger/web editor Wen Yunchao‘s webnews weekly roundup [9], aside from stories of Wikipedia's unblocking in China [10], one blogger's run from his alleged killers [11] and news of Google's purchase of Youtube [12] is a mention of a hot topic on Bullog these days, those arguing for an end to the practice of Chinese Traditional Medicine:

取消中医之辩

The Cancel Chinese Traditional Medicine Debate

近来,在网上有人正在征集取消中医的签名,有网友认为:”中医是一个包含了哲学、玄学、迷信、民间医术和巫术的大杂烩。”签名得到不少人响应,而且很多人是医卫工作者。签名者要求有关部门采取措施,让中医在5年内退出国家医疗体制,回归民间,使西医成为国家惟一的医疗技术。 10月10日卫生部新闻发言人特别对此表示,这样的签名行为,是对历史的无知,也是对现实中中医药所发挥的重要作用的无知,卫生部坚决反对这样的言论和做法。我国不可能取消中医,也不会让其退出国家医疗体制。

Recently, someone has been collecting signatures online to see Chinese Traditional Medicine done away with. Some netizens think that, “Chinese Traditional Medicine is a hotchpotch of philosophy, metaphysics, superstition, folk healing, and witchcraft.” The petition has received a lot of response, including that from many medical and health workers. Signees demand the respective departments take measures to have Chinese Traditional Medicine removed from the national healthcare system within five years, let it return to folklore and make Western medicine the country's sole medical technology. On October 10 the Health Department news spokesperson made a special emphasis that this kind of petitioning behavior is ignorant of history, and ignorant to the reality of the important effects exhibited by Chinese Traditional Medicine and that the Health Department will persist in opposing this kind of speech and action. ‘China will never do away with Chinese Traditional Medicine, and won't see it removed from the national healthcare system.’