Quotes

Min Weifang, the Party Boss of Beijing University, stated, 'we would absolutely forbid professors from spreading unauthorized ideas' on March 2, 2004.

Professors in several universities were turned in by their students for making comments not in line with Party policies.

Liu Jianchao, then Director-General of the Press and Media Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "(When the CCP) makes a law, (they) will spell out what can do by whom. What the law did not mandate, should not be performed. It is a simple logic. We do not need to write you can not do in the law." On the Foreign Ministry's news press in October, 2008.

Several foreign journalists were detained when reporting in a busy commercial mall on Sunday February 27.

Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier said (regarding real estate developers, 'I did not investigate your profit margin, but I think as a member of the society, you should take the corresponding social responsibility. Your body should also be circulating blood of morality.' Wen made the comment when chatting with netizens online on Feb 27,2011.

Ren Zhiqiang, a top developer replied via micro-blog minutes later, 'Mr. Wen thought everybody lacked morality because he himself lacked it.' Ren has been known for his big-mouth and cold-blood. However, Wen's remark on real estate developers were widely criticized as transferring attention from government monopoly and official corruptions which were the root of high housing price in China.

Jiang Yu, the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters 'do not cite law as your shield', when asked why foreign journalists were detained even though they had been abiding by Chinese law and guidance on March 3, 2011.

Jiang, a single mom, was known for her strong anti-Japanese sentiment. However, she was seen in photos frequenting Japanese fashion stores.

Child Eat, Mom Watch

Premier Wen Jiabao went online to chat with Netizens for the third time in three years. Regarding the rising grocery price, Wen told a story on a tour in Zhejiang Province last year. At a luncheonette attached to a supermarket, Wen saw a mom and a child who bought only one meal. The child was eating, and the mom was watching the child eating on the saide. Wen asked the woman how many children did she have. The woman started crying. She said this was the only child she had. She said her husband just passed away because of cancer. She only hoped she could keep the child with her in the city she was working as a migrate worker. Local officials accompanying Wen granted the child permission to attend school.

China still has hope, as long as someone higher up who is still of seeing and feeling the suffering of people.

Blogger Charged on Subversion of State

Writer and blogger Ran Yunfei was arrested on charge of subversion of State on Feb 24, 2011. Ran had been known as a '100 public intellectual' of China.

By no measure is Ran a political dissident. Ran never advocate for a regime change, never criticized the Communist Party. Ran did commented on some of the public policy, particularly in non-government areas. After the 2008 Sichuan Earthquate, Ran wrote an article encouraging the government to make good use of the feeling of pride among people and be truthful in handling corruptions revealed in the rescue mission. in 2009, Ran blamed the Central China Television Station was ineffective in repeating old brainwash tactics. In 2010, Ran asked more coverage of the history of KMT's resistance of Japanese invasion during 1937-1945.

Ran did sign the 'Charter 08' in 2008, in recognition of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Co-author Liu Xiaobo was subsequently jailed by the communist regime, but most of the 303 signees as well as the other co-author Zhang Zuye had been mostly left out of the persecution. It is equally surprising and puzzling as to why Ran caught in trouble.

Perhaps it's the Flower revolution. Mr. al-Gaddafi praised the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, and Mr. Hu Jintao vowed last week to apply tighter control of the Internet. It is likely that Ran was picked up to make an example for the rest of the Chinese. That explains why he, rather than some of the more vocal dissidents was singled out. The communist authority is trying to make a case that any ordinary people could be persecuted, if your mind is not aligned with the rules of the Party.

Beijing Ordered Grade School Students Solute the Party's Flag

The Seagull had heard of this for awhile, but thought it a, rumor. Even in the darkest days, never had elementary school students to regularly solute the Party Flag. Even Chinese people who had been used to live under the heavy hand Big Brother were shocked in disbelieve, Aha.... It is like living a surreal dream in real time, standing on top of tower, and you knew the next moment the tower would fall, but you could do nothing about it, as you knew, and so you stood there, and 'Aha'..

Beijing issued an order, effectively immediately until October, on the first Monday of each month, students of elementary, middle and high schools must rally to solute the Party's flag.

You felt the chill up the spine, and you taste the dryness behind the tongue. You can't close your eyes although you are not looking, and you can't close your mouth although you can't make a sound.

MITBBS Under Direct Control of Chinese Embassy

MITBBS, the main online gathering place of overseas Chinese students and professionals was seen to be under direct control of Chinese embassy.

A military forum moderator 'roseriver' was believed to be the granddaughter of former communists tycoon Chen Yun, Chen Xiaodan. The discussion was swiftly killed, and IDs participated the discussion were believed to be banned by emabssy employee who held root password. The disciplinary action was not conducted by the moderator, thus the allegation.

Chen Xiaodan was criticized on using marked police convey as escort when she touring with friends.

MITBBS boasted itself as the free voice of oversea Chinese intellectuals.

Plastic Rice

An English blog cited a Vietnamese source 'Very Vietnam', which in turn referred to a Korean language 'Weekly Hongkong' who reported Singapore media alleging plastic rice discovered in market in Taiyuan of Shanxi Province, what a mouthful.

The Seagull hasn't had the privilege of tasting this edition of rice, therefore we can not confirm or rebut the truthfulness of the story. However, given the track record of food safety in the most recent years, nothing is impossible on this magic land.

Around 1996, a rare, expensive kind of rice, bamboo jasmine rice emerged in market. This rare kind of rice has a bamboo green, and a kind of bitter-mint smell of bamboo. Bamboo rice is heavily promoted as good to health. Two years later, it turned out these were ordinary rice with green color. This 'enhancement' technique was funded by China National Science Foundation, as hinted by this 1998 paper.

Around June, 2005, news reported thousands of tons of toxic rice (containing lethal amount of Aflatoxins per serving) in retail market in Beijing. This batch of rice was 'refurbished' by a company run by the Food Bureau of Beijing from old rice already removed from food produce process. The Food Bureau of Beijing denied the report, and insisted no old rice was re-introduced to the food process. Beijing municipal government admitted guilty with mounting evidence after half years of retail in October. The Food Bureau was fined $50,000.

Around 2011, news media reported a significant share of rice in China contained excessive cadmium, a by-product of industrial process. This is not really news worthy. As early as 2002, national testing results published by the Minister of Agriculture indicated 10.3% rice contains too much cadmium, and 28.4% contains too much lead, caused by industrial waste water being used for agriculture irrigation. No relief is expected because 1) there is no alternative source of water in affected areas; 2) it will be impossible to change the soil already contaminated. Century Weekly produced a map of cadmium rice.

A good hindsight guide in buying rice in China is to avoid good looking rice, because they were most likely polished, bleached from old rice. Also any type of jasmine rice should be avoided as they were made from artificially synthesized chemicals.

Readers familiar with what's happening in China know under the authoritarian ruling of the communist Party, no conduct without government endorsement could survive long enough to make a scandal. Bright Dairy of Shanghai was known for collecting riot milk from the market to reproduce new milk. Bright Dairy (Shanghai Stock Exchange 600597) was not punished even after a local TV station in Henan Province caught the entire process and aired it on national network. Former President Mr. Jiang Zemin was the president of Bright Dairy. The Three Deer (Sanlu) Dairy of Hebei Province received a National Science and Progress Award (2nd place, the highest ever in Dairy Industry) for its technique to mix melamine into milk product. With any luck, if the rumor were turned true), we would see the element of government sponsorship again behind the plastic rice incident.

There is no need to worry about food safety of government officials of all levels, because they eat produce only from specially designated 'Special Supply (Te4Gong1 in pinyin) Areas', where corps are grown with most strictly regulated traditional methods. History had proved again and again, sharing of resource with a closed circle is the most effective way of maintaining a regime.

Stunned but Not Surprised on Sack of Rail Minister

China's high speed rail system is more than impressive, to the extend that it almost like a miracle comes true overnight. It took less than 30 minutes to travel from Tianjin to Beijing, two cities 130 km apart. The great majority of China's high speed rail system are based on traditional wheeled technology, but it also includes first and only commercial meglev line in Shanghai which has been operating since 2004. A second longer distance meglev line is under construction. Anyone impressed by Nissan's Zoom commercial should watch the meglev train passing by: it zooms away in twice the speed without the zoom (sound).

In the past several years, and in the next several years to come, the annual spending on high speed rail system averages about $110B, far more than President Obama proposed to spend in the US in total. To give Liu some credits, the rail system was able to acquire and digest technology from all over the world in a short time, then compete against suppliers in France, Japan and Canada in the world market. In contract, China's auto industry has been cloning foreign cars for as long as people can remember (copying the Soviet in the 50s, German and Japanese in the 80s, and copying everyone including India since 90s), but still has not find its legs to stand on.

Not to say, people are stunned to hear the news of Liu being sacked. Liu had been busy inspecting operations all over the country because the Spring Festival migration rush (300 million people would travel twice in a period of 2 months, and they are traveling the same direction. There is an award winning documentary on this great migration: Last Train Home in case you are interested. It's subtitled and quite entertaining). A few hours earlier Liu was speaking on public TV, a few hours later, new Rail Minister moved in already.

The rational inference is that it's more of a public struggle that we still don't know the details. However, no one should be surprised if the government describe Liu as a corrupted criminal in the trail to come. The key of the communists' ruling in China, relies on illegally sharing treasure and resources. People in China often say that, and officials say this too, if all officials (we are talking roughly 10 million people here) were lined up and shot, some of them would have been wronged according to the Criminal Code; however, if half of them were shot, regardless how you picked them up, there would be some who escaped the law. The idea is that the communists rulers intentionally to encourage officials to break the law (otherwise, you will be kicked out of the political hierarchy), so that they will be loyal to the Party because only Party can protect them from being prosecuted. In other words, greed and fear of the 80 million Party members plus about the same amount of government officials is all that supports the regime at this time.

Insider Faulted Hospital on Thallium Death

A person with information posted online details of Wang Xiaoye's death. The Princeton Medical Hospital failed to take the patient's allegation that he had been poisoned seriously. Subsequent delay in making diagnosis and obtaining treatment caused the patient's life.

• Wang informed the Hospital on possible poisoning by his chemist wife in the middle of a bitter divorce process when he checked himself in on Jan 14;
• The Hospital thought Wang must be insane (to claim having been poisoned by his wife), and assigned a psychiatrist to evaluate his mental status;
• On or about Jan 17, it happened that a Chinese nurse was assigned to Wang's bed on a 12 hours shift. This magic nurse recorded Wang's symptoms, then Googled online after going home. All traces point to one possibility, thallium poisoning. The Hospital was notified immediately;
• The Hospital performed a test for thallium, which needed an out-of-State agency to interpret the result. The positive result took one week to come back on January 25. It was too late. Whiling awaiting for the official testing result, even though all findings point to thallium, the Hospital did not attempt to treat Wang for the entire 7 days. The Hospital saw the patient living a terrible death to his last breath.

其实早在1月底我已经知晓美国新泽西普林斯顿大学医学院的铊毒案，当时美国FBI 已经介入，消息不多只是知道那个死去的男的39岁无锡人，现在是华裔美国人，1月14日当时入院的时候病情一天天加重，他提示有可能是妻子投毒，原因是他和妻子关系不好，同时他们在闹离婚，但是美国医生不认同他的说法，还派了个精神病科的医生去医治，不过后来看其症状像是中毒，按照医院的常规检测但是一直也没有结果，到1月17日左右正好有个华裔护士换班看护他，因为前面那个护士8小时后下班，接班的护士是12小时的班，还要看护4个小时。她精于工作，观察了病人的症状并且做了记录，回家以后立即上网查这样的症状，没想到的是显示这样的症状的是朱令案子里面的铊中毒，第一时间她就电告医师，希望做铊的检查，因为铊的检查需要专门的仪器，最后在1月25号报告才出来，病人身体里面含有大量的铊，美国方面立刻动用普鲁士蓝，但是大雪封路，全美只有很少的地方有这个药，最后那个病人还是在1月26日死去。接着从FBI口中知道那个妻子是1998年从北京过去美国的，当是我心里一惊，因为在这以前我已经大量的了解了朱令案，当时我的判断是北京过去的不是清华就是北大，因为名牌大学出国容易，男的是39岁，女的估计小一点，可能也是1973年生的，名字里有个 LEE,应该姓李吧！后来证实女的40岁，是北大的，应该是71年的。据说那个男的死的时候是很痛苦的，人已经被铊毒摧残的不像样子了。可怜啊！死的时候牧师做了祷告。从这件事情我第一次了解了朱令案，我不想品论谁是凶手，但是我极端痛恨凶手，我想凶手死了以后肯定是要下地狱的，不论在中国还是在国外，她？他？会受到惩罚。一个人道德良心上受的煎熬比身体的煎熬更加可怕。即使她或者他是个无神论者，但是我认为这个罪孽是几辈子也消不了的。祸延几代。铊是可怕的，更加可怕的是她或者他

The same poster windly2011 wrote about the case on Feb 2, 2011, before it was reported by the media; therefore, it looks like a credible source.

最近在美国新泽西有个39岁的男子（无锡人）也是中的铊毒，死的很惨，据说也是被投毒的，发觉以后已经不治，他妻子是1998年过去美国的学的是化学，但是没有证据证明她能够拿到铊毒，据说女的要离婚男的不肯，后来就遭遇不测，有个两岁的孩子。美国警方已经进入调查。朱令的案子是1994年，估计那届毕业的也就在1997年左右。那个妻子正是1998年过去的，也是北京人，好像姓李。是不是朱令的同学有待调查。在这里我想要说的是天网恢恢，恶人必将受到天谴，必将下地狱，我们为朱令受到的伤害感到痛惜，但是我们也希望凶手被早日绳之以法。关注！

Communist China is No Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany 1937	Communist China 2012
Oppress Minority Jews	Oppress Majority Han
Advance Science & Technology	World Plant, with no intellectual property
masterpiece legendary propaganda skills	Rely on Great FireWall and Golden Shield
Voided WWI duty	waived claims against Japan for WWII
Expanding territory	Gave in on boarders with all neighbor countries
Improved life quality in Germany	Polluted the entire country
Encourage bigger family	Enforce one child policy
Strongest Army in the World	PLA is known for binge drinking, armed smuggling, and ran over students protesters with tanks

Development in the Investigation of Thallium Poisoning

1. A person with information posted on MITBBS, a site frequented by Chinese American students and professionals, that the plot of the plot was: the child was result of an affair of the mother. After the incident, the couple is splitting away, but still moved in the current house for consideration of the child. Coupled with long commute to Wall Street, the husband had not been a great help in childcare. The relation never recovered, and a divorce process started.

Rumor has it, it is the second marriage for the woman. Li was issued a restraining order for harassing a woman, whose husband was the child's biological father.

2. "If someone at the hospital had not guessed it might be thallium and tested for it, it might have gone undetected," said Steven Marcus, the medical and executive director of New Jersey Poison Control.

3. Li's family background in China can be characterized nothing but incredible. Li was able to transfer from Nankai University to Beijing University after one year of study in 1990, a mission impossible under Chinese higher education system. As an insider, the Seagull can tell you it's not easy because the transfer has to be approved by both University, the higher education commission of both Beijing and Tianjian, and the national higher education commission, while each and every party involved has inherent interest and natural motivation to deny. Truly amazing and incomprehensible. This is seemingly irrelevant to the poisoning case, but could give a shred of light on Li's mentality of supremacy and entitlement.

4. Reading news report, it seems the hospital and police has not speak all they knew, because 1) a hospital usually does not admit a patient for only 'flu-like' symptom; and 2) even giving the coincidence of the 'magic nurse', it is not quite clear what made the hospital started searching for possible poison agent and when did it start.

Quotes

Google's Egyptian executive was released from jail. Wael Ghonim had been accused of being 'unpatriotic' by the authority. Ghonim said, 'every person with a kind heart are seen as unpatriotic, because evil is the norm in this nation.' Ghonim wailed at the death of protesters, 'I want to apologize to every family who lost their son, although it is not our faulty. It is the fault of this administration who grasp the government.'

Egyptian Protesters, "An administration who is afraid of Facebook and Twitter should look for a farm to rule, and leave the country alone."

BJU Graduate Accused of Poisoning Husband with Thallium

A Beijing University graduate was charged with murdering her husband, a Qinghua alum. The couple were residents of Monroe Township of Middelsex County, NJ.

Wang Xiaoye (blue shirt in the middle), the victim earned a BS from Nanjing University and a Master degree from Qinghua University before caming to the States for PhD study at UPenn (PhD. MEAM '02). Wang worked as a computer engineer of PolyPaths, a financial company in NYC.

Li Tianhe, the wife, graduated from Beijing University with a BS. in Chemistry in 1995 after 6 years of study, followed by a Master degree in 1998. Friends said Li obtained another Master degree from U Penn before launched a job at Bristol-myers Squibb Company, a biopharmaceutical company in NJ. Li, a Chemist, has direct access to heavy metal material Thallium at work.

Their two years old son is under foster care. It is not sure at which point the 10 years marriage turned sore, but neighbors near their Monroe house all said they observed intensified domestic dispute since they moved in 2 years ago. Police car was constantly summoned to the otherwise quiet upscale community, multiple times in a bad week. One neighbor commented to a TV reporter "the woman's voice was higher than the man's voice". Given the cop culture in the US, one can only speculate that in every case when the police found the woman abusing the man each time they went in. Otherwise, the man would have been taken into custody at the scene. Police field guideline requires the officer to arrest the male partner if they observes a mark or have reason to believe an abuse by the male, even if the woman does not want to press charge.

Both Beijing University and Qinghua University had seen excessive share of Thallium poisoning cases. The a 'first Thallium poisoning case of China', a sophomore student Zhu Ling of Qinghua paralyzed and excessive amount of Thallium was found in her body. The suspect was one dorm roommate (8 students shared the room), but no one has been formally charged till this day. Zhu Ling's sister, a Beijing University student, died in a mysteriously way when hiking in a park with a group of Beijing University students. A few years later, one male student in Beijing University poisoned his classmate with Thallium, but confessed to the police just in time to save the poor boy's life.

Wang checked in a Princeton hospital for flu like symptom. When doctors were confused on his condition kept worsening under intensive medical care of two weeks, a nurse, "who remembering a case of Thallium poisoning in the 1990s in China", suggested to include a test for Thallium. Wang was diagnosed on 1/25/2011, but it was too late to save his life. Wang passed away the next day.

related reading:
High Profile Homicide Cases of Chinese Students in the US
Development
Hospital Faulted for Thallium Poisoning Death

Scholar Set Up Collaborative Website to Fight Child Slavery

At least hundreds Chinese children are being abducted on any given day from their parents. They will be resold several times, until end of in the hands of some 'beggar camp', where they would be confined in cages and trained to be a qualified children beggars. Many of them would be further fixed by pouring acids on their body, or amputation of all 4 limbs, so that they look more visually appealing to sympathetic walkers passing by. At the beginning, many of these child slaves were acquired from poor families in remote rural countryside or government run orphanages. In recent years, because of 'high demand', the major source changed to abduction from busy intersections in major cities. Many city residents' children went missing this way every day, including many from rather well off background. It has become a nightmare for all young parents, and a great factor in social instability. However, police rarely act on these kind of cases, even when the family was able, after extremely hard works and with a great deal of luck, to identify the whereabout of their missing children, because there is little room to make profit. But the most daunting task is to find the children in a country as large as the US, with 5 times the populations.

Scholar Yu Jianrong had an idea on how to fight this with, what else, Twitter (or micro-blog as commonly referred in China). Yu set up a micro-blog account where people can post pictures all the child beggar they ran into in real time, so that parents who have children missing can see them and identify them and act accordingly. Yu suggested a standard three steps protocol: 1) Give a small amount of money, not too little that the child would be beaten by their master as punishment for incompetent, not too much that they will not appear the next day; 2) quickly take a picture of the child with recognizable face features using cell phone; 3) send the picture to the micro-blog website dedicated for this cause.

Within days after the page was set up, more than 100 thousand people 'followed' the thread. More than 2,000 pictures of children beggars were uploaded.

Yu's ingenious idea marked a historic moment where the Internet was put into real use to attack a social issue with tremendous impact on the entire society from bottom to top elite. To make money, the children slaves would have to work in prosperous cities where people are in general more tech-savvy and eager to participate for a good cause (think, 'Egypt'). This operation could eliminate the motivation for children slave in China, and destroy the entire production line.

The police's inaction is evident from the existence of many well-known long established children beggar training camps with no harassment from the government at all. For example, in the picture a young child with missing legs were being trained in Gongxiao Village, Gongji Twonship, Taihe County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province. Many local communist officials are share holders of this kind of businesses. Begging industry has been the sole major revenue source for this extremely wealthy area. Most people are involved in children slavery industry one way or another.

Calling a Stag a Horse

The history has the strong this way: a powerful minister of Qing Dynasty (221-207 B.C.) Zhao Gao was planning a coup, so he wanted to tell how many ministers in the court would stand with him. Zhao had an idea. He presented a stag to the child emperor, 'Your Majesty! See the beautiful horse I brought you!' Still a child, the emperor was amused, 'but it's a stag', replied in joy. And the child emperor asked his ministers standing in the court, 'can't you all see?'

Most ministers kept silence. Some stated it must be a horse to please the powerful minister Zhao Gao. A few rebutted in distaste, and they were soon thrown into jail by Minister Zhao Gao.

Reading the history book, people can't help wondering, why it had to be carried out in this spectacular way?

People had been playing these seemingly meaningless mental game for thousands of years. In book 1984, Big Brother could not be satisfied until people sincerely agreed with 'guilt' placed on them. Big Brother is as obsessed on playing with people's mind as, who else, communists.

Qian Yunhui, a village head who stood up for his villagers, was executed by local government in Zhejiang Province to deter the villagers from asking for their fair share of their land taken away by the government when Dr. Xi Jinping was the Governor of Zhejiang. The execution was carried out in bright day light on a busy road, with local people walking around and residential buildings lined up on both sides. When it became a national and international media event, the CCP decided the original plot was not good for publicity. At that point, the government at all levels were mobilized for one task, 'Calling a Stag a Horse'. They did it, but they wanted everyone in the world to do it too, a mission impossible with today's connected world thanks to cell phone videos and micro-blogs. But boy they just don't quit.

After everything failed, after all government witness was proved lying and after all evidence presented by the government fabricated, the government 'found' new evidence, from villagers.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported, one villager who kept a 'spy watch' wore by Qian at the time of incident turned it to the authority 'voluntarily'. [Reality check: the villager, a close friend of Qian, was jailed all the time after the incident, and the watch was hidden at his home. Therefore, there is no way he can turn in the watch 'voluntarily'.] This is not an ordinary watch, but one with a video camera and a microphone, and is capable of recording 3 hours of video footage once triggered by a button, just like James Bond used in the movie. By the way, it's pretty cheap at below $20, and had been widely available everywhere in China. Many Chinese keep one, just in case, as admitted by writer and car racer Han Han. So watch out when you are sitting close to a Chinese. Anyway, for obvious reason, Qian activated the recording before the accident (why? My toddler would ask, and it's a good question as you don't do that all the time), and the watch recorded the whole incident in its entirely, and more. If you have been following the case, you would recall that the particular government surveillance video camera overseeing the crime scene was conveniently malfunctioned a few hours before the incident, and mysteriously recovered minutes after the incident took place. After the incident became a media frenzy, the government had plowed the village of a thousand resident to search and confiscated cameras and cell phones alike. Now, a month later, with the new critical evidence, and while all other methods had failed, the government had a new idea. Instead of destroying all physical recording, why not,..' Yes, you got it.

Twenty days later after the government obtained the watch, the official Xinhua News Agency published a 'unedited full-length' video recording of the magic watch, from the moment Qian walking on the road by himself, to the moment he was struck by a truck 'accidentally'. You can see the owner of the watch walking, the scene of the street, the truck coming, and the 'accident'. The Xinhua News Agency claimed it was clearly a traffic tragedy, see!

Within a day, bloggers were able to decipher the video and found bugs every where. It's not just 'edited', but rather 'assembled'. And it's not done by James Cameron of Hollywood, but Sandy Tartar of Bollywood. Many blogs explained in details how bad a job the government and Xinhua News Agency had done. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Classics Faces Off GFW

Google's newly released Art Project joined millions others to be blocked by the communists' Great FireWall. The Google Art Project partnered with 17 top museums across the world to bring a surreal browsing experience to users in front of a computer, when they can view famous exhibits in the museum setting with unprecedented resolution. Each view is comprised of billions of pixels, or 1000 times more in detail then a consumer's digital camera. These paintings include master pieces by artists such as Van Gogh, and you would wonder what did Van Gogh did to deserve a ban in modern China.

The inspectors, or Net Cops as they are referred in China, had very unique and peculiar taste in making decisions regards which sites got blocked. For example, python.org, the main official portal for the Python programming language has been famously blocked for years. Do they not like the big snake logo? Or they were offended by Monty Python the show where the programming language got its name? Everyone is curious, but no one can tell.

Other websites blocked? Wikipedia, Youtube, Picasa, Pbase, Flickr, Twitter, ....

Happy Chinese New Year!