i had a friend who was a student in china during the "uprising", yet had never heard of the massacre until she came to canada. she told me, in fact, that she would not believe it until she saw footage of the protests on tape.

i pondered about that idea for a while and realized that a lot of the vocabulary i had learned while studying mandarin had been taught to me through "the great firewall of china." for instance, i once looked up the entry for friendship, or another similar word in the dictionary i was given for free by the people at the chinese embassay, the sentence i am prompted with is "the army is the friend of the people."

let's just say, one should think about chosing their friends wisely if that sentence is to be true.

thought-control still exists in china to this day, sometimes in more subtle ways than others. it seems that people are at times voluntarly duped and other times simply lack access to non-governmental media sources.

anyways, i'll miss your blog. you were our translator for seldom told stories that need to be heard.

be good,

-j.

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