Teaching Comparative

Reality's 30-second delay

A Brit who lives and works in southern China, writes a blog about his life there, "Liuzhou Laowai, Random thoughts from the heart of Guangxi."

This entry serves to remind us of the extent to which policy and government action intrude on the daily lives of people in China. Examples like this are important for U.S. students because they haven't experienced government action on this scale (except perhaps at airport security) and becuase they've come to accept as normal the government policies and actions they live with every day as "residents" of those institutions we call schools, where things like 30-second delays are not unheard of.

Here's the account of living with Chinese censorship:

"I've just got off the phone. I was talking to [my wife] who is in England. She was watching the World Cup game between Japan and Croatia. I switched on my television to see what was happening and what she was talking about.


"For a few minutes total confusion reigned. Situation normal! Her English is near perfect, but she is female!

"'Are we watching the same game?'

"At first, I think, we are maybe just getting different camera feeds, but no. We are watching two different games.

"Well not quite. We are just watching the same game at different times. China Central Television's (CCTV) 'live' broadcast is exactly 30 seconds behind the BBC's.

"[My wife] suggests that it might be something to do with the distance from Berlin to Liuzhou! Nonsense! This is normal. Nothing is ever broadcast live in China! The censors have to have the opportunity to change reality.

"As I have mentioned before, the signal of the 1997 Hong Kong handover arrived in Mainland China form Hong Kong via England quicker than it did directly from Hong Kong. What were they expecting Prince Charles to do? Drop his pants and give the masses a sight they'd never forget?"

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:13 AM