But meanwhile, I observe that a great many cultural events today are tied to or based on politics or the clamp of speech freedom. The more forcefully the cultural creativity is pressed, the more powerfully it rebounds.

“Push-up,” “Eluding the cat”, parody of CCTV’s building fire can all be interpreted in a cultural level, while they more or less take a political flavor. Other pure cultural topics, such as discussions on Confucianism, are also trapped in intense debates, in no way peaceful. Perhaps, that’s the characteristic of a rapidly changing country? We are doubting, debating and questioning.

But that’s not my excuse for not writing on the less “aggressive” topics. I will take your advice and take a more careful look on that aspect. I sincerely hope you may email me some suggested topics if possible, or, just join us to give space to your voice too. PS me if you are interested in further discussions with me.

Bob

About the controversy about Mao, i think we Chinese people often had the tendency of polarizing a person. Mao should be responsible for the destruction of traditional culture and many unnecessary death, but not the only one to blame. He is not a plain power-addicted bastard, he was a poet and smart warlord; he was however too idealistic when dealing with politics(somewhat like Hitler). The problem after all, is not only his problem, but the entire country’s problem, the Chinese culture up-until-recent never had the tradition of respecting life. (Neither did the ROC period and Dynastic eras.)

and I think by reading this reports, u can somehow understand which way chinese are behaving, although most of them have been deprived of culture and been engraved by infuriated sentiment.

In my opinion, such facts like riding on some leader’s statue have always been happening in China, few of which attract public attention like this one. It is put there, if you are a child unaware of what it stands for, dare you say that you won’t climb and ride on it for fun?

i think the “riding on a person’s statue” per se is a very bad behavior, regardless to whom is being rid. People posting those comments are putting too much personal sentiments into the case.

Besides, may i ask why you guys never translate some “normal” blog posts about China, or at least something other than these free-speech, human-right, political-sensitiveness blogs. For example, i seldom see Globalvoiceonline post some cultural issues about China, like the posts about Japan; rather it is endlessly these harsh posts that make China look really weird a country.(I am not saying these posts are not important, but they should not be the only ones.)

And even though I did not like Bush, I certainly would not throw a shoe at him. Ok, maybe one.