Views on Tibet evoke death threat, 'Traitor to China' insults
By Peggy Lim, Staff Writer
DURHAM - When Grace Wang stepped into
the middle of a recent rally at Duke University between pro-Tibet and
pro-China factions, she was trying to play devil's advocate. But she
ended up being branded something of a devil herself -- a sellout to
her native China.
The next day,
photos of her at the rally popped up on mitbbs.com, the largest
bulletin board service for Chinese students in North America. The
Chinese characters for "Traitor to China" were emblazoned
across her forehead. Personal information from Wang's national
identity card and directions to her parents' apartment were posted
online. A torrent of threatening e-mail messages and phone calls
ensued. Big red letters reading "Kill the whole family"
were painted in the hallway of their apartment building. Wang's
parents have temporarily moved away.
Soon after
Duke's student newspaper reported Wang's story, The New York Times
and Washington Post followed suit with front-page articles. Then
National Public Radio, Japanese television stations and Taiwanese and
Hong Kong news media came knocking. The BBC asked Wang to mediate a
radio debate.
Before all this,
Wang, 20, was a college freshman with typical freshman objectives --
keeping up with her ambitious course load, dating and coping with
dining hall food. But life has grown more complicated since she
became the center of an international maelstrom.
In the
spotlight
In the days
immediately after the rally, Duke University stepped up security
patrols around her dormitory. And Wang secured a pro bono attorney
who is pushing for the punishment of those who anonymously posted
vicious messages to incite attacks against her.
Wang, who is
slight with long hair, bangs and a ready laugh, has not shied away
from the spotlight. She has ridden the wave of media attention. By
getting an extension for finals in two classes, she has managed to
squeeze in a few more interviews before cramming for exams.
"One-sixth
of the population in the world already knew my national ID and my
parents' address," she said of her initial thought when The New
York Times called. "I didn't have any privacy anymore."
Many forces have
been at play to carry Wang's story across the globe. For many
Chinese, the run-up to Beijing's hosting of the summer Olympics is a
sensitive time, especially in light of humiliating episodes of
heckling at Olympic torch relays and attacks by people protesting
China's human rights record. Many Chinese around the world want to
present a united front in support of their native country.
At the same
time, the Internet has made it easier for "fen qing" -- the
Chinese term for angry youth -- to go after those whom they think
weaken that solidarity or denigrate their motherland. These youths
can mobilize witch hunts, put out personal information and get others
to send a barrage of vicious e-mails and phone calls.
'Mob
mentality ... is sick'
Wang said she
doesn't want others to think they can silence her through
intimidation and discourage others from expressing their views.
"This mob
mentality ... is a very sick mentality," Wang said.
She has found
some media-savvy allies. Scott Savitt, a visiting scholar in the
school's Chinese media studies program, has taken up her cause.
Savitt, 44, has
helped arrange interviews for Wang, directed reporters to Web sites
and supplied translations for Chinese documents. He also helped
transcribe and polish Wang's words for an essay The Washington Post
published last Sunday.
Wang has also
been buoyed by support from other students. A few of her multilingual
classmates have even helped her deflect ugly phone calls by answering
for her in languages such as Hindi or Spanish until harassing callers
hung up, she said. The Duke Human Rights Coalition held several
solidarity events in her and her family's honor. And hundreds of
students signed a banner that said, "We support Grace,"
junior Adam Weiss said.
In the Chinese
student community at Duke, however, people have mixed feelings about
Wang. Many Chinese students are appalled that she blamed the Duke
Chinese Students and Scholars Association for helping to release
information about her on its e-mail list. That accusation caused some
campus groups to call on the university to disband the student
association. Other Chinese students have openly speculated that Wang
is a political opportunist. They say she has said different things to
different audiences.
At the April 9
protest, she wrote "Free Tibet Save Tibet" on Weiss' bare
back after making him promise that he would try to talk to the
pro-China side. And she lectured Chinese students in English about
being more tolerant and open to dialogue with the pro-Tibet side.
Later that
night, she composed an open letter in Chinese to the Duke Chinese
Students and Scholars Association e-mail list. In it, she explained
she was not for Tibetan independence, but rather better ties between
Han Chinese, who make up the ethnic majority in China, and Tibetans.
She also tried to convey her patriotism.
Response
carefully couched
"The
Americans want to roast us in hot coals," she wrote in Chinese.
"Be sure not to let them take advantage or show off their
cleverness."
Wang said she
thought she should use words that were more nationalistic than her
actual feelings to calm some of the animosity toward her. At the
protests, Chinese students had just told her she could be "burned
in oil" for speaking up; when discussion became too heated,
police had to escort her away.
Ming Qian, a
former Chinese student association leader, said despite their
ambivalence toward Wang, many Chinese students at Duke condemn the
vicious attacks against her.
"Let Ms.
Wang go," the engineering doctoral student wrote in one e-mail
message. "She is still young, let her find her own way. Stop
bashing her."
Wang said she
knows she's not perfect. Looking back, she sees that she might have
been "more sophisticated" about speaking up. "Sometimes
it's not what you say but how you say it," she said.
"I make
mistakes all the time. ... I rush into things," she said. "But
isn't it right for young people to try?"
At Duke, she is
tackling new languages, taking classes in Italian, German and French,
and perhaps Arabic this summer. She said she loves a diction class
where she sings off-key in German. Next year, she hopes to take
fencing or tennis.
She still hopes
to enter politics someday -- maybe with the United Nations, maybe in
China. But it's early yet; she's only a freshman who hasn't declared
a major.
Wang is wrapping
up interviews with the media. "Her 15 minutes is winding down,"
Savitt said, "although '60 Minutes' called today. ... "
Wang said she
needs to refocus on her studies and try to do well on exams,
especially in her favorite class this semester -- grass-roots
democracy.
BY THE NUMBERS
46 - Number of
undergraduate foreign students from China at Duke University
511 - Number of
total foreign students from China at Duke University
1 - Rank of
China as the country sending most foreign students to Duke
(DUKE
UNIVERSITY, INTERNATIONAL OFFICE, 2007-2008)
1,450 - Number
of foreign students from China in North Carolina
67,723 - Number
of foreign students from China in the United States
(INSTITUTE OF
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, 2006-2007)
peggy.lim@newsobserver.com
or (919) 836-5799
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1051712.html
***************************************************************************
Notice how Americans (of all colors and races) use the Internet as way of innovation, and in the process, make them billionaires and millionaires. The people in above article use the Internet to do harm.
****************************************************************************
New Freedom, and Peril, in Online Criticism of China
By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jill Drew
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 17, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041603579_pf.html
HAIKOU, China -- Wang Qianyuan did not realize she would cause such a frenzy last week when she ran into a group of American students, Tibetan flags tied over their shoulders, getting ready for a vigil at Duke University to support human rights.
She used blue body paint to write "Save Tibet" slogans on the bare back of one of the organizers but did not join their demonstration.
Wang, a Chinese national, knew she was treading on sensitive territory. "But human rights are above everything," she said later in a telephone interview. Even national pride.
Before long, a video of the 20-year-old freshman, seen standing between pro-Tibet activists and Chinese counterprotesters, was posted on the Internet. Within hours, an angry mob gathered online, calling her a "traitor" who should be punished.
Someone posted personal information about Wang on the Internet, including her national identification card number, as well as her parents' address and phone number in China. "Makes us lose so much face. Shoot her where she stands," one anonymous user wrote in a comment posted above Wang's portrait from Qingdao No. 2 Middle School.
In the wake of the violence that has rocked Tibet and the protests over the Olympic torch relay, online bulletin boards in China have erupted with virulent comments rooted in nationalist sentiments. On some sites, emotional Chinese have exchanged personal information about critics and hunted them down. Such situations have become so common that some users refer to the sites as "human flesh search engines."
The verbal onslaughts have been made possible in part by the Chinese government, which has allowed online discussion to progress more freely recently than in the past. With the Olympics nearing, China has gradually allowed some sites that had been left on-again, off-again for years -- BBC, CNN, YouTube and others -- to remain accessible for several weeks now.
Even Wikipedia, blocked for years because of its controversial entries about human rights in China, is accessible and contains a lengthy entry on the "2008 Tibetan unrest." It notes that "Tibetans attacked non-Tibetan ethnic groups" but also contains information that "the violence was fueled by rumors of killings, beatings and detention of monks by security forces in Lhasa."
The number of Internet users in China hit 228.5 million in March -- for the first time surpassing the number of users in the United States, 217.1 million, according to the Beijing-based research firm BDA China.
Almost as soon as the news about the Tibet violence broke in mid-March, the Chinese government's initial response was to do what it had always done in times of crisis: It imposed a news blackout. Foreign news Web sites deemed controversial were blocked and faxes were sent to administrators of online discussion sites requesting that certain postings be deleted.
Then, just as quickly as online news and discussion about Tibet disappeared, it reappeared -- overwhelmingly in support of the Chinese government.
The situation in Tibet and the controversy over the Olympic torch relay is now the most popular discussion topic on Tianya, one of the largest online discussion sites in China, even though the site used to follow a very clear rule: No politics.
"Chinese Internet users very much like to express their opinions, and the environment on the Internet as compared to traditional media is more open to allowing them to do so," said Xing Ming, 39, chief executive of Tianya, which was founded in 1999 in Haikou, a city on an island in southern China.
Xiao Zengjian, founder and editor of another discussion site, KDNet, said that the new openness has done wonders to help China's image domestically. "Our Internet users do not just believe what Xinhua News says," he said, referring to the state-run news service. "They will verify it. The Chinese media wants to cover things up for the sake of China but it backfires. It's better to tell the truth and let people discuss it."
On Tianya, with 20 million registered users one of the largest online discussion sites in China, the conversation about the Olympics is emotional.
"China is in danger," wrote one user. "We should stick together. Even if there is something wrong with the action of the government, we should pull together. Resistance to foreign invasion necessitates internal pacification."
Internet users hailed Jin Jing, the athlete who carried the Olympic torch while in her wheelchair only to be confronted by protesters in Paris; reports say she protected the torch "at the cost of her life." (She was not injured.) Others referred to "stupid Westerners" and compared the Dalai Lama to Hitler.
Postings criticizing the Chinese government or supporting Tibetan independence are rare but prominent -- mostly because they are immediately followed by a storm of angry responses, including ones that call for the "immediate execution" of the authors.
In some cases, the online anger has had real-world consequences.
An Internet mob went after Lobsang Gendun, an ethnic Tibetan who lives in Salt Lake City, after anonymous online posters wrongly identified him as one of Jin's attackers. They posted a Google map of his neighborhood, a photo of his house, and his home phone number, employer and e-mail address. He's gotten thousands of angry e-mails, many he cannot read because his computer does not recognize Chinese characters, and unless he disconnects his phone, it rings through the night. On Tuesday, his boss persuaded him to take his family and move into a hotel until things calm down.
"It's scary," Gendun said in a phone interview. "I replied to some e-mails trying to tell them I'm not the person they saw on the news."
The comments about Wang are mostly unprintable -- they are sexually explicit and violent -- but she is most offended by how online users have targeted her family.
"It's really shocking," Wang said from her dorm room as she looked at an image posted online of her parents' front door in Qingdao, a city on China's east coast. An overturned bucket of excrement is lying in front. "They are directly, physically attacking my parents."
Wang and her mother communicate only though e-mail these days, sending short messages once in the morning and once at night that they are safe. Wang has not telephoned because she fears possible government eavesdropping that could cause more problems for her parents.
Her mother told Wang recently that someone -- she doesn't know who -- installed a video camera outside their apartment. She and Wang's father have moved out.
Wang's father is a Communist Party member. He sent her two long e-mails right after the incident telling her to publicly apologize. "After the opening up and reform, China has made great developments and been steady, so that you and our family have all we have today," her father wrote in Chinese. He said she should concentrate on her studies and stay away from politics. He told her that he and her mom loved her but that she needed to tell people she had chosen the wrong path.
But as Wang describes the events of the April 10 vigil and her involvement, she stands by her actions.
She said that she when she arrived at the vigil, a couple of dozen pro-Tibetan students were facing off with around 400 Chinese students, waving Chinese flags and shouting slogans. She decided to try to mediate between the two groups but found that neither side wanted to listen. The Chinese students surrounded her, shouting insults and peppering her with questions about her national loyalty. She eventually asked a police officer to escort her back to her dorm.
A few hours later, Wang wrote an essay and posted it on a forum run by the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association. In it, she explained what she had tried to say at the demonstration: She did not support Tibetan independence but called for tolerance and dialogue.
The forum was soon aflame with critical posts.
Wang says she has gotten hundreds of phone calls and thousands of e-mails, most vilifying her but some that are supportive.
"One-sixth of the population of the world now knows my personal information as detailed as my identity number," Wang said. "I'm not going to let them easily call me a traitor, such a name that can ruin my future forever."
Drew reported from Beijing. Researcher Liu Liu contributed to this report.
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Then followed by classmates to the rest of the Patent and Trademark Office as well employees' friends and neighborhoods, and furthered by Hung Havan (my ex-officemate) and his cabal - Nathan Hillery , Michele Choi, Susanne Lo and her (Indian) friends from AU2128 that set me up to be sexually harassed, abused, termination, physical harm and rape.
In a similar manner, I was targeted soon I arrived in the Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay Area by people from Asia who I had never met in my life. They were the majority in every Tech company's engineering department I've worked. I had to abscond from the Silicon Valley due to physical harm threats.
I was terminated in 8/2011, and now a failed rape attempt, and stabbed and slashed on my neck.
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