All the News That's Fit to Print

CCTV (http://english.cctv.com/index.shtml) is the Chinese controlled television network available here and the only channel I get in English. The news is filtered and not in depth and is regulated by the government. There are occasions when a broadcast will be cut off in the middle. I understand that happened the other day when there was some kind of trouble with Tibet. The newspaper, too, is regulated. I had also read that it is unwise to bring up anything political unless the Chinese citizen approaches the topic first. The TV has very little news about Iraq, and about the American government. Mostly it focuses on economic news as it relates to China. And even there, a lot is reported on Chinese partners in certain countries of Africa and other allied countries. The news is not delivered in soundbites like in the US and is not polished in the American style either. Sometimes I find that refreshing and other times I find it, quite frankly, boring. On the one English language station I receive, there are programs that are essentially travelogues of places to visit in China, in addition to the news. The one person I approached on the subject of North Korea knew who Bush is but not Rice. China is the center of the universe here, not the United States, although they realize it is in their best interest to learn English, as the United States is the dominant force in the world economically. Almost everything reported is based on the U.S. dollar.

Yesterday, I went to a book club meeting at the Chinese Culture Club (http://www.chinesecultureclub.org/). I was especially interested because they were reviewing "Wild Swans", which I had just read. Attending were several wives of diplomats and business men stationed in Beijing. Also attending was a Chinese woman whose field of expertise is Chinese culture. One point she made was that there is a vast and growing disparity between the rich and the poor in China. She seemed to think that the Chinese government is trying to hide this disparity. I see some articles in the English language newspaper and on TV positioning the Chinese government as a champion of the poor. So we shall see how this plays out. This woman seemed to think that we only see what is in the cities, the prosperity, etc., but that is not what's happening in the country. I still can't wrap my mind around it. There are 1. 3 billion people in China. That's one billion more people than in America!

I try to keep up with the news on the internet but, I confess, I'm not as diligent as I would be at home where I read the paper every day.

I expect to get HBO and CNN hooked up to my TV soon. But to be honest, I don't much miss the "vast wasteland" that we call television in America.