culture and censorship

During the trip we were followed by several journalists and camera men, among them a camera guy who is documenting our visit for China Central Television. The daily newspapers in the region published articles with pictures of us dancing with the Miao. We must be making great promotional material for the local tourist industry. The feeling is double, we are having a great time and what we are seeing is very touching, but at the same time we can't help feeling that the people here need more than bus loads of tourists arriving on their doorsteps. On the road back to the airport we pass a recently renovated school and are told that an international agency helped to fund it's renovation. Quite a surprise that the funds came from abroad when you see how much money is being made in China today. You can see there's investment here, but is it for the right thing? At the airport we speak with one of the experts who made the trip with us. As an anthropologist, she is concerned with the preservation of the Miao tradition, however much of the money coming in for culture does not reach her. There are no local cultural centers being built and contemporary art and artists hardly come to the area except on culture tours like the one we are on. When you speak to contemporary artists working in China you begin to realize how little cultural funding there is here, outside of the major events such as the 2008 Olympics.

That's the least of the worries facing artists here however - censorship is very strong and not only on stage but also in life. One of the reasons I was not able to finish my blog while in China is because I had such a tough time accessing it - sites like blogger and flickr have been blocked since a few years now, and some news sites like the BBC are unaccessible. The three no no's are Taiwan, Tiananmen and Tibet - try writing about one of these and your email account might just go offline. When I asked a journalist traveling with us how he felt about freedom of the press he told me there were no written rules about what you could or could not write about but that everyone knew where the limits were. Working in culture he said he didn't feel these constraints so keenly, however it is clear that most art that is remotely political or critical happens underground and would never make the major papers.