I woke up early to wish my sister
on her birthday. The day also brought about one of those days when I’m early to
office. Well, on time actually. The Wednesday started early, and there were few
mails that caught my interest; except the one from a colleague from the China
office. The Chinese Had visited India a
few days ago and I had actually managed to get close enough to be able to ask
them to open my blog after they got back to China. I had always wanted page
views from China. Ever since the rise of India and China cliché, I had my eyes
set on China and well, getting Chinese eyes on my blog was also important.
Hi H,
Bad news for you, your
blog is also banned in China. :(
Regards,
SY
The first reaction was fear. Have
I don’t something wrong? Have I written something bad? Am I in trouble? I was
scared. But I hadn’t written anything about China at all. In the Anty Life
post, I remember saying “But isn’t China doing good?” and that was the only
time I had ever used the word! Why would you ban me? I recently wrote a post onPakistan, but that was also promoting Peace. Maybe the Chinese don’t want India
and Pakistan to be in peace :P Thinking more, I remembered the Rich andResponsible Posts, where I had again mentioned China, but it was a post against
America, or rather against Obama, did the Chinese like Obama? Everyone knows
China has a lot of Forex and export business with USA, so maybe they don’t want
their people to see me talk bad about USA.
After the first few minutes of
fear passed, I felt happy and even started to feel a little proud. I had caught
the eyes of the Chinese after all. My posts got to China! Wow that sounds so
awesome! I’m actually a banned author! People would use proxy servers! search
for me on Google and Twitter! And wait for me to make posts on other underground
sites and blogs! I’m a banned author! So exhilarating!
Then I suddenly remembered there
was no twitter in China! SY and AC had told us a little about China, there was
no facebook, no twitter, no self-owned homes and no one cared if your house
came in between a road widening project. It goes down! It takes a hundred years
to take down a stray temple in the center of the road in India, leave alone
houses! Why temple? even a cud chewing cow is stronger than a honking Million
Rupee SUV!
‘Do you have strikes in China?’ I
asked AC over some tea on their last day in India.
He said, ‘oh no no!’
‘There are never strikes in
China. You can do Strike if you want, but you will be thrown in prison, maybe
forever.’
The four of us had a hearty
laugh, but fell silent. All of us thinking why we laughed.
This memory of banning, censoring
and silencing came back when I was told I was banned in China. So like any
other smart person, I Googled:
Why is my blog banned in China?
There were many results and a
link to Wikipedia read, list of sites blocked in China. I hit it and saw some
really good sites, facebook, twitter, youtube, Pikasa were all blocked in
China! The number 13 on the list shot down my snout and showed me why my Blog
is banned. It’s not me… it’s the whole of Blogspot!
