Archived

In mid-September, a man was arrested for stabbing and wounding an unknown number of women outside a hotpot restaurant in the GOGO Xintiandi shopping plaza in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. The man appeared to target only women, and images and footage posted online (much of it later deleted) showed police officers rushing into a shopping center, pedestrians scattering, a man with a face mask stabbing a woman in the face, and at least three women with wounds on their faces. Many Chinese social media users and bloggers noted online censorship of the topic and scant follow-up information from the authorities.

[…]

This has become the typical official response to such “indiscriminate” mass attacks: a brief police bulletin noting that the suspect was arrested and that the case “remains under investigation,” but little to no witness testimony, follow-up reporting, information on the victims, or details on the motive behind the attack.

Each new incident seems to be followed by at least some online censorship, and Chinese news outlets frequently decline to conduct any investigative reporting, preferring the safer course of “waiting for further statements from the police.” This issue of excessive reliance on official notices has drawn critical commentary in a variety of other contexts.

[…]

CDT [China Digital Times] editors have archived two pieces related to the Guangzhou stabbings. The first, a now-deleted article from WeChat account Li Yucheng, is partly translate into English in the linked site (here in Chinese).

The second one (here in Chinese) is fully translated in the linked article.

The second archived piece, an essay by WeChat blogger 昔平 (Xī Píng), is titled “Eventually, We All Learned to Keep Quiet.” Although the author does not mention the Guangzhou stabbings specifically in the text, the essay is bookended by screenshots of the statement issued by Guangzhou police. In light of this, the author discusses how censorship and self-censorship interact to erode societal discourse over time.

The essay, along with the screenshots, is translated in full in the linked article (archived version in Chinese).

It says, amongst others:

[…]

As children, we were taught to “speak freely, and hold nothing back,” but as adults, we discovered an even more profound wisdom: “Too much talk only leads to trouble.”

So when we encountered something odd, we didn’t ask questions; when we observed something unreasonable, we didn’t discuss it; when we heard others speak, it was safer to pretend we didn’t hear them. Over time, this culminated in a remarkably “stable” way of life: our eyes were in charge of seeing, our ears in charge of hearing, and our mouths in charge of staying silent …

And so society grew quiet. Eerily quiet.

Events in the news remained perennially “under investigation,” punctuated by a satisfying full stop, and followed by a complete blank. People learned to appreciate this unique literary form: the article’s introduction told you what happened, the middle warned you not to over-interpret events, and the conclusion assured you that the whole thing was being properly investigated.

As for what the investigation uncovered, that was a topic for the next article.

Assuming there was a next article …

The safest mode of expression was no expression at all …

Asking too many questions makes you stick out from the crowd.

And so people began to self-censor in increasingly sophisticated ways. Before speaking a sentence, they would delete all the adjectives. Before writing a passage, they would delete all the opinions. Before venturing to express a viewpoint, they would delete themselves.

What remained was scrupulously cautious and hermetically sealed …

Not all silence is peaceful.

Sometimes silence is just emotion that lacks an outlet.

If someone suffers an injustice and vents about it, at least they’re still communicating with others. But if they don’t know who they can turn to, to whom they can vent, then all they can do is lock those feelings inside themselves …

A truly vibrant society is never silent.

When different voices are allowed to exist, we need not be afraid of any one particular voice.

As for when we’ll relearn how to speak … I’ll just leave that question for all of you to ponder.

After all, we’re still allowed to think.

For now …

[The whole essay is worth reading imo.]