“Chungking Jungle” is the name of the play, and it now enters Act III: Silence! Silence!, starting with arrests of “rumormongers,” sanction of websites, and a three-day suspension of comments on Sina and Tencent Weibo. Weibo now feels unreal because of the absence of what people are dying to do—rumormongering. Meanwhile, Jeremy Page of The Wall Street Journal reported on his latest findings about the British man who died in Chongqing last November. It looks like he is becoming more relevant by the day: He feared for his life, and his relationship with the Bo family deteriorated drastically in the months leading to his death.
Earlier this week, the news came that Gao Zhisheng, the persecuted and imprisoned rights lawyer, is alive and his older brother and father-in-law were finally allowed to meet him for half an hour with a glass wall between them. I was so relieved to know he’s alive and seemingly well, but hardly consoled, for he shouldn’t be locked up to begin with, and why can’t the authority allow them a little more time? Gao has been missing for 21 months, he was badly tortured, and this was the second trip—a trip of thousands of miles—his older brother made to the remote Xinjiang prison to see him after being denied a meeting in his first trip in January. I have never been a target of the Chinese authority, but you don’t have to be one to experience its fundamental, ubiquitous meanness. Long before I opposed it politically, I hated this meanness from the marrow of my being. Click date below for link to the original.
- 冉云飞@ranyunfei/(independent intellectual, renowned blogger): The rule of this distinguished country: Any playwright who cannot transform private or collectively-owned rumors into the state-owned rumors is definitely not a good playwright, and absolutely cannot become a candidate for designer-in-chief for rumors.
10:06 PM – 31 Mar 12 via web · Embed this Tweet
- 假装在纽约 /Pretend to be in New York/(editor of VIVA wireless news media in Beijing)/: Many people have the perception that Taiwanese democracy is conferred to Taiwan by an inspired and generous Chiang Ching-kuo (蒋经国), the son of Chiang Kai-shek. That wasn’t true. Before the Nationalist Party lifted the ban on forming political parties, many people had struggled against its rule and sacrificed their freedom and even lives. [For examples,] key figures in the Formosa Incident (large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on December 10, 1979) were tried and sentenced; overseas student Chen Wencheng, who raised money for the cause, died on the street and the case still hasn’t been solved. The change in Taiwan came as a result of street demonstrations across the island. Nothing falls from the sky without you fighting for it.
March 31 08:37 From Sina Weibo Repost(2117) Comment(503)
- 夏骏/Xia Jun/(Former producer of CCTV, currently an executive of Chinese Culture Group, Co. )/: From scholar Qin Hui (秦晖): As long as we let go no opportunity to try to limit government power, there will be a day when demand for constitutional government will be made by rulers themselves. In all countries, constitutional government is forced into being by deficit. The first step toward it is to make the national budget public and to hold the government accountable. Then it would say, well, we only have this much money in our books, do you want me to collect more or less? At this juncture, reform of the political system will become something both sides find necessary.
March 29 05:12 From Sina Weibo Repost(489) Comment(134)
New meanings of China’s four classics of fiction:
- Behind every official there is a Red Chamber (meaning a corrupt and dissolute life); the children of the rich people are all on a Journey to the West; local governments are playing intrigues of the Three Kingdoms; while the people are left with no choice but to prepare themselves to be the Outlaws of the Marsh. (Via @雷颐)
Leung Chun Ying (梁振英), the newly-elected Chief Executive of Hong Kong, has repeatedly denied that he is an underground Communist Party member, but the “accusation” has persisted, and the People’s Daily was very helpful when, on March 29, it presented him as Comrade Leung, a distinction not shared by any of Leung’s predecessors: 
Shortly after I made the first screen shot, alas, he was “comrade” no more.
Next time use webcitation.org to capture archives of site URLs, so people can’t level the accusation that the screenshot was faked
Thanks.