Dear reader, today is 31th December 2021, it is the end of the month, and the end of the year. First, I wish everyone a happy New Year with your family.
I want to thank you for your time reading my Newsletters, and for giving me feedbacks: my mis-pspelling, granmmatical errors, etc. And suggestions on need for lede and style and topics. I appreciate your reactions: which story was well told, which ones need more explanations. Which one is more interesting. Write back!
Since some of the stories got reported in mainstream media, some of them have follow ups I did not cover, I thought it might be a good idea to have a summary at the end of each month.
Here we go.
Densie Ho is considered the exact opposit of Anita Yuen and Julian “Chilam” Cheung. She immigrated to Canada with her parents when she was 11, but came back to Hong Kong and became a star singer. She could have lucrative concert deals in Mainland China, but she chose to stand up for freedom of Hong Kong. On Dec 29th, she was arrested in a crack down on the online independent news outlet “Stand News”, as a former board member, along with 6 other senior executives. The news was widely covered by international news media, for example by CBC.
I never heard of Mao Xingyun and my story was not very clear. Luckily, Hong Kong based Southern China Morning Post (owned by Jack Ma) ran a report on his life a few days later, Death of young ‘genius’ Tencent programmer shocks China’s gaming industry.
However, I think SCMP missed some other background information that I learned later. Many people accused Tencent, as a tech and social media giant, censored information about Mao’s death. Many people working in the tech industry also accused the hyper stressful work condition those software engineers work under. Mao was not the only person who jumped to his death that day. Depression was wide spread. Most programmers are overworked until they reach 35 year old and then they will be forced to resign.
The melon between Lee Jinglei and Wang Leehom has been covered by many media: Wang Leehom saga: Lee Jinglei emerges as ‘thunder goddess’ for excellent Chinese writing skills or Wang Leehom divorce spat: War of words as seen in Wang’s and Lee Jinglei’s texts or even In wake of Wang Leehom scandal, Beijing urges Taiwanese artists to pursue excellence and integrity
As Lee asked melon eaters to move on, a Chinese woman spoke up about her ex-husband and the unfair financial arrangement of her divorce. She asks for apology from her ex-husband and financial compensation. Her name is Zeng Jinyan, she is a famous human rights activist and a scholar, writer, and documentary filmmaker. You can see some of her works here. Her ex-husband is Hu Jia, a winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
The allegation included domestic abuse and sexual harassment, and most importantly, Mrs. Zeng asks for fair share of financial compensation of her work in Hu Jia’s family business, so she can afford college education for their daughter.
This allegation split the Twitter Chinese community, pitting the feminists against the right activists. As it is ongoing, we might cover it later when more information is available.
After the flood of online complains about lack of food and basic medical services, the government started to organise some food delivery, and more importantly, a PR offensive. For example, a video on Douyin (the original tiktok) is posted on twitter: it is just some people kneeling down and singing to thank the Party for the vegetables they get. It is quite impressive. (And it’s unclear what’s written with the vegetables on the ground.)
Shan Chunqing is still updating her Weibo account. The transgender star Jin Xing that Shan Chunqing’s dad wanted to kick out of Zhejiang is in trouble.
On Jin Xing’s Weibo, she accused Jiangsu (a province) TV station of removing her from the promotional poster of Work for Dream. It is a reality TV show about salary workers and Jin Xing is one of the observers. She bluntly pointed out that a government official abused his power to censor and suppress transgender people. The comment section is full of references to Shan Chunqing and Shan Lie
This story was also noticed by the western media. For example, Newsweek Chinese Model Defends Participation in Ad Some Say Included Derogatory Asian Stereotype or NY Post Mercedes-Benz removes ad with Chinese model over ‘slanted eye’ backlash .
Stories from China sometimes are hard to understand. It is partly because to some, China is an exotic place. The language and culture are so different. On top of that the population size is huge, so strange things happen. The political system is leaning towards totalitarianism, which has huge impact on people’s lives. This also makes it harder for people living in a free and democratic country to understand how much the government dominates people’s life.
Let me try to give some responses.
The answer is, the dear supreme leader wants to have zero case for his re-election to the third term next year. This trumps anything else. So resources were mobilized to enforce a harsh lockdown. If there are problems, they can always silence people. For every government officials, the only way to have a career is to please the bosses and cover up your asses.
The answer is, China is a very corrupt country.
The LGBTQI+ community is losing its ground in China. So, being a transgender does not get one famous. The only trans that got success, Jin Xing, openly said that her case can’t be replicated.
Furthermore, if your enemy is a government official, you are in real trouble.
So, no one will make that kind of allegation just to get fame.
On this topic, I was thinking to write stories about how overseas Chinese feel alienated with their family inside China over politics.
Chinese government’s attempt to directly influence public and government of other countries is often covered in the media. For example, Chinese influence campaigns look like on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. by NYT journalist can be read on Twitter
Enjoy 2022!