I know I shouldn’t be linking the same source all the time, but since I got my new coded connection I have rediscovered the Time China Blog and I just can’t get my eyes off it. Check out this picture of the rich corn fields in Ningxia in their last post by Lin Yang. After the recent avalanche of crisis articles, this must be the most heartening piece of info I have seen in weeks.

In her message, Lin Yang explains how, during their holiday trip to the native land, they were surprised to see the prosperity of the Ningxia farmlands, where 30 years earlier they had known trickier times. Obviously this is not a scientific study, and I don’t know if the situation applies to all farms or all parts of the province. But I am happy to see that, for once, the Good Earth is bringing prosperity to her children. Consider this paragraph:

It is hard work though. It usually takes a couple of years to break new land, and Wang spent the last two decades acquiring the 50 acres he has now. The family grows mostly corn, but also vegetables and melons (a local specialty). Last year the harvest was 200,000kg. In fact, over the years Ningxia has gained the reputation as Hong Kong’s vegetable basket, and migrant workers have been returning to the west to pick up their old trade.

This is a tribute to the patience and hard work of the men and women of the land. Madoff and all the band of crooks in Wall Street, the conceited Shanghai sharks and vain princesses who look down on immigrant workers, they can read this when they sit, in a few months time,  wondering how they lost their jobs. And perhaps some of them should be sent to labour the Ningxia fields and learn what honest work feels like. That would be a way to make something useful of the old reeducation camps.

Popcorn Doomsday Scenario

In parallel to this, I have conducted some research as to the probability of a meterorite falling on the farm of the picture at the moment when the 200,000kg harvest is out for collection. I am reassured to see it is rather unlikely, for it would mean the end of civilization as we know it, and the beggining of a new sweet glaciation era  in which the planet would be covered by a floating cloud of hot, delicious pop-corn.

OK, yeah, I admit my hypothesis today are a bit wonkish, like the economists like to say. But what do you want, this is another panda-eyed Saturday morning, and the electric coolie I called in to fix the air-con is hovering around me all the time. It is freezing. Not easy to concentrate in these conditions.

I got a bit excited last night with my new VPN connection. For a few hours I thought I’d found Democracy in a Box, neatly packaged in a 40$ yearly subscription. I have been since exploring new horizons.

Today, second day using VPN I’ve had 2 surprises, one good and one bad:

• The good one was to discover that I could finally connect to the Time China Blog.

• The bad one was the first article I read in this excellent blog, containing the paragraph:

Today a prominent mainland blog site, bullog.cn, was blocked, which may also be connected to Chrter 08. A few of the liberal outlet’s bloggers wrote about the document, and at least four signed it. I spoke briefly with Bullog founder Luo Yonghao this afternoon. He said he wasn’t sure why the site was blocked, and wouldn’t speculate on a Chrter 08 connection. C.A. Yeung of the Under the Jacaranda Tree blog noted in December that Bullog had dropped two of its bloggers, apparently for writing about Chrter 08.

Which means that now I cannot connect anymore to the blogs of Anti and Lianyue, where I used to spend many a nerdy hour trying to decipher their mandarin.

As you see there is a more than possible connection with the Chrter 08. The repression of the Charter movement seems to be gaining momentum as the weeks pass, proving that the government is taking it as a serious menace.  This is sad in itself, but there is even worse.

First of all, I want to clarify one point, lest someone misunderstands Ramzy’s article. Normally when we say a site has been “blocked” in China, what happens is that the site continues operating but it is just not accessible from the mainland due to the censors’ Firewall. This is not the case now, the site has been completely closed down. VPNs, proxies or any other other gadget will not get it open for you anymore.

And this makes me think: How can the Chinese authorities be so disrespectful with their citizens? I mean, even supposing they were right to suppress the Charter. There are millions of Chinese that go into that website every day and run blogs, exchange comments, make friends, speak of anything else but politics. These officials think nothing of closing all the blogs down, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even give bloggers the time to save their archives (mental note: backup daily, Nanny might show up tomorrow!)

This is not only a political problem. This is a basic problem of decency and respect for the citizenry. Let’s hope at least that, like Figaro said, repression will only make the Charter more prominent, and it will allow all the affected Chinese to open their eyes and see how their harmonious government really cares about them. And perhaps some day those same officials will have to regret this.

Nay, never laugh faster than China laughs.