Happy CNY!
The Chinese Want Censorship
Here’s an angle I’ve never heard before: Why the people of China WANT censorship. In his article, he writes:
Nationalistic pride, mixed with a feeling of racial superiority, mixed with the idea that the government is never wrong, mixed with saving face… It is a scary/irritating situation I live with every day. [...] When censorship happens, it is not so much the government controlling the people, as it is 1.3 billion people putting their fingers in their ears and saying “Mmmmmm!!!!! I can’t HEAR youuuu!” Not only are conflicting ideas censored, but any negative events or occurrences within China.
It’s a good read, go check it out! While you’re at it, you might also want to read the thesis that Chinese people are naturally superior and hard-working, so SE Asian countries with high numbers of Chinese are naturally more prosperous. I’m not sure that I believe that one…
Etymology of “Love you long time”
When I hear Fergie’s new single, London Bridge, I noticed it contained the line “Love you long time:”
VIP ’cause I know I gotta shine–
I’m Fergie Ferg, and me love you long time!
At first, I assumed this was a coincedence, but then I heart Nelly Furtado’s hit single Maneater:
You doing anything to keep her by your side
because, she said she love you, love you long time!
The lyrics have shown up in other, older songs, like Jay-Z’s I Just Wanna Love You and Nitty’s Nasty Girl, but they originally were introduced by 2-Live-Crew in their outrageous song Me So Horny:
Ahh! Me so horny!
Me love you long time!
This was in turn sampled from the Stanley Kubrick movie Full Metal Jacket, where a hooker in Vietnam asks two US soldiers, “Hey, you got girlfriend Vietnam? Me so horny. Me love you long time.” The phrase has since been used in countless other productions, and seems to be reviving in usage in modern pop music as a cliche of sexuality.
China Blocks RSS
According to this guy, feeds powered by Feedburner are now being blocked by domain in China. Feedburner, in case you weren’t aware, services 200,000 blogs and 20,000,000 feed readers. So, when William Long noticed his subscriber count drop to 0, he tried to access Feedburner from China (which failed), and then access Feedburner through a proxy (which worked). So, the Chinese government made a smart censorship move against bloggers and cut a huge amount of access with one fell swoop.
Steve Rubel cuts to the heart of the problem:
This is a big deal. Essentially, the Chinese government is choosing to block some of the most popular RSS feeds in the world. That’s like they decided to block the largest airline from their airspace. It is as close as you will see a nation coming to blocking the entire RSS/podcast transport.
Something’s Wrong With Malaysia
There’s something strange about Malaysia. Even though most of its citizens are conservative muslims, the rest are conservative whatever-they-ares. The country is notorious for censorship. Here’s just three random examples from the BBC:
Tourist aren’t allowed to kiss because, “kissing and hugging [isn't] acceptable to Malaysian citizens” according to Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz. According to the 2004 Global Sex Survey by condom manufacturer Durex, Malaysian’s are the second most-virgin (losing to Vietnam), and the sixth least-sexed. So, if abstinence is the goal of censorship, the banning of public affection, and other laws in Malaysia, it’s probably working.
I wonder what would happen if you correlate things like “standard of living” and “GDP” with sexual satisfaction and cultural tolerance. It’s probably no accident that well-to-do countries are often made up of more open societies.
