Tag Archives: China

Spirit is a Killer: A Short Film by Joewi Verhoeven

by Cimaxion

Here’s a short film from Beijing, China directed by Joewi Verhoeven. It’s an odd and discomforting tale about a solitary writer whose fictional world is intruding upon the real world. The film is a quiet and focused examination of a writer’s creative doubts and fears. I particularly like the bit where a Chinese policeman who is a friend of the writer comes over and can’t seem to see the dead body that is perhaps a result of the unrestricted imagination of the writer. The film also has a lovely soft celluloid look even though it was shot entirely on a Canon DSLR.  Also, pay attention to the beautiful and eerie background audio.

TED Film From Arrested Chinese Artist

by Cimaxion

This is a film presented at the TED conference from the famous Chinese artist who was recently kidnapped by Chinese authorities. He has completely vanished along with thousands of other artists, journalists, writers, intellectuals and human rights workers who have been taken in the past several months. This artist speaks very simply and clearly about the situation in his country where his government watches him all day long and sees nothing wrong with bulldozing his studio to the ground because he expresses some criticism of what he sees around him.

What I do not respect about this video is the simpering nitwit from TED who introduces the film by stating that the TED conference takes no position on China. He then goes on to bend over for China and mentions how many people have been lifted from poverty in China. How far up China’s ass can this guy fit his head, I wonder? How can any organization not take a position on China? I’m sure if Hitler were around today and rambling across the land on an extermination campaign, this bunch from TED would take no position on that.

Look at this little notice on TED’s YouTube page where the film is hosted:

TED is a non-partisan, nonpolitical organization and we understand the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest. But for anyone who believes in the power of ideas, of human imagination, it is heartbreaking to see one of the world’s great artists shackled in this way. We will be tracking developments carefully. Here is the film.

TED ‘understands the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest!’

Oh my god!  Yes indeed.  They understand this concern of a totalitarian murdering government that is more than happy to make people vanish into prison because they want to complain about being beaten by a policeman.

Hey TED, here I come with my ticket!  Gosh, I wouldn’t want you to be concerned that I might boo one of your presentations.  Wouldn’t want that, would we?

Lifting people out of poverty in China is not what we need to be doing. We need to be shutting these people out entirely. We need companies that do not fill their computers with Chinese parts. We need toys that do not come painted with Chinese lead poison. We need to treat this totalitarian country the way it deserves to be treated. A rich China doing business with every company on the planet is not going to advance freedom for anyone. China needs to be pushed into abject and brutal poverty. Only then will the conditions exist for a revolution.

I opened up my Dell computer the other day to blow some dust out. The first things I saw were multiple ‘Made in China’ stickers on various components. Screw Dell. Screw every Western company that buys a single circuit board from China. Screw China.

A Chinese Fairytale

by Cimaxion | 2 Comments

I’m going to be somewhat cryptic in this post because I’m attempting to get in underneath China’s diligent web checking people.

China has been kidnapping large numbers of artists and intellectuals who completely disappear.  They recently took the artist in this photo.  While he was being taken away he snapped the photo of his reflection inside an elevator.  He’s very famous.  He has been totally vanished by the Chinese.

Many others have too.  They are being taken and vanished because China is very afraid of something.

They are afraid of something big.  Something that was to be peaceful – the way it has been in some other countries recently.  But in China you cannot do it peacefully.  You will be murdered if you try to do it peacefully.

You must do it with an explosion.

You must do it quickly.

The Chinese can eliminate their problem.  The problem is usually to be found wearing a uniform.  It must be eliminated quickly and by any means at hand.  If you are in China, you are living in a massive slave camp that provides slave labor to Western corporations.  You might decide that you want to end your slavery.

That is my message to the people of China.

China: The Roots of Madness – 1967 Documentary

by Cimaxion

This film was written and conceived by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Theodore H. White. It covers 175 years of Chinese history, showing the turbulent forces that led to the victory of communism.  The film is rumored to have had CIA involvement with its making and it has been harshly criticized for being blatantly dismissive of its subject and casually racist.  But of course the harsh attitude toward its subject makes sense when placed within the context of a U.S. government trying to resist the spread of communism in the sixties.

Egypt Celebrates First Victory in Revolution

by Cimaxion

Egypt has begun to put out its garbage. It’s an amazing achievement for Egyptians that I have witnessed via the news video and photos coming from Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Congratulations to all the Egyptians who wanted to be free. They forced a raping, murdering, totalitarian criminal to resign his dictatorial position. The dictator Mubarak was and is an ongoing embarrassment and deep shame to the entire Middle East and to the United States that insisted on giving him respect and credibility even while he committed murder and oppressed a great civilization. Egyptians have made an incredible start to ridding themselves of the human garbage that was and is Mubarak. It remains to be seen if Egypt can become truly free and wrest control of the nation from its military.

Hopefully, the revolution in Egypt will spread to topple the rest of the governments in the Middle East which are nearly unanimous in their willingness to allow brutal thugs and criminal royal families to rule in bitter oppression. These savage despots straight out of the Dark Ages are specialists in murder, rape and complete suppression of all ideas and expression. They also have the absolute respect and support of governments like those in the U.S.

Beyond the Middle East and its ‘royal families,’ it would be astonishing and constructive to see the people of China put their own garbage out by removing their totalitarian government. Revolution is in the twenty-first century air. No one is immune.

Digital Underground in the People’s Republic of China

by Cimaxion | 2 Comments

Rachel Tejada shot and edited this film about independent and underground film in China. It was produced by dGenerate Films.  It’s in six short parts and covers the basics of independent film festivals and efforts to make films that will somehow survive the oversight of the repressive government.  I post this out of a measured interest, but I cannot overlook the depressingly passive sadness of everyone who so much as glances into the camera.  They consistently refer to themselves as independent filmmakers or underground filmmakers.  Underground they may be out of necessity, but they are most certainly not independent.  They are comfortably passive and have an absolute zero level of confrontation or rebellion in them.

I cannot muster significant respect for billions of people who want to express themselves and flourish but do not ever make the decision to pick up their totalitarian government leaders and drown them in the sea.  You can talk to me until you are blue in the face about your independent cinema, but until your cameras shoot something I’m not listening.

Parts 2 – 6 after the jump

Continue reading …

1000 Years of Polish History Turned Into 8 Minutes of Xbox Hell

by Editor

Here’s how you obfuscate 1000 years of history. You animate it into an unintelligible eight minutes for an expo in Shanghai because certainly those Chinese are interested in how the Poles won their freedom. But the real problem with this animation that seems to place Poland’s entire history squarely into an Xbox game is the ending. All that history brings us up to the overbearing and rather creepy final images of the great corporate towers ascending into the heavens, completely taking over and creating the corporate citadel of wonder that houses only cubicle workers and offers relaxing courtyards where business people can take a mandatory lunch.  It’s as if the only thing the western world can figure out to do with cities anymore is to turn them into gargantuan corporate business parks unfit for any human habitation.

Freedom of Expression? Really? When Was the Last Time You Heard a Slave Speak Freely?

by Editor

I found this Amnesty International video over at Silliman’s Blog today. It’s about the power of words to help defend freedom of expression around the world.  I’m all for that.  But can you take me seriously as a wealthy member of the Western world’s corporate structure?  The Amnesty video mentions a journalist jailed for ten years in China simply for sending an email.  So let’s stop and think for a bit about this ‘freedom of expression.’ Take China as an example.  The Chinese are essentially slave labor for the entire Western world.  They make our shirts, pants, toys, radios, shoes, dinnerware, jackets, telephones, etc.  They produce almost every single solid object you will touch during your day.  Everything.  They take their instructions from our corporations and they build these things for pennies a day.  They are slaves.  No doubt about it.  Their government is simply middle-management working for us.  So, while we may pretend to be interested in freedom of expression, we most certainly do not want our slaves talking freely.  Slaves who can speak their minds will gain their freedom and their hourly wages will increase.  They will no longer be our cheap labor – our slaves.  They will become expensive free thinkers just like us.  Our corporations and our politicians do not want freedom of expression for China under any circumstances whatsoever.  Morgan Freeman’s blazer was quite possibly made by a Chinese slave making 30 cents an hour.  When the Chinese decide that they want to fight for their freedom, they will be fighting us.  The world will change when the Chinese people shoot their leaders and lift their wages.  You think you’ve seen a global economic crash?  Just wait until our corporations can’t pay for their slaves in China anymore.  The bottom line has not changed for at least three hundred years: the world economy cannot function without slavery.

So the Amnesty video asks us for our words to help in the cause of freedom.  I’ve just written some.

20-Year Anniversary of China’s Public Massacre

by Editor

Twenty years ago, on June 4, 1989, the Chinese government ordered its military to kill the unarmed peaceful student protesters for democracy gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The army then shot the students and ran them over with tanks. In its murderous effort to suppress any form of free expression or protest, the Chinese government and its military murdered the people in Tiananmen Square while the entire world watched. China is now preventing any sort of commemoration or discussion of those events or the twenty-year anniversary by almost completely shutting down internet access to any material that could possibly mention the murder of Chinese people in Tiananmen Square.

You can see the police with umbrellas blocking the view of the BBC news cameraman in the embedded video. The entire square is closed to the press on this important day in Chinese history. The government does not want anyone in China to know anything about or understand what happened in 1989.

It is an honor to have a web site banned in China. Candlelight Stories receives a large number of visits from China and is actually used in English classes there. However, Candlelight Stories urges the citizens of China to wake up in the morning and completely overthrow and eliminate their oppressive government. It would be enlightening to see the government officials of China dragged by Chinese citizens into the middle of Tiananmen Square where the world could serve as witness to the end of this horrendous period in Chinese history.  Why any company or country does any business at all with the brutal despots ruling China is a complete and pitiful mystery to any rational thinker.  And people who site see in China would have probably been perfectly comfortable touring concentration camps in 1944.

Now, China, press the red button and ban me.

Online Novels Boom in China

by Editor

In China, there’s a revolution in online novels.  Writers are uploading their books to be read by millions of Chinese readers who pay a small amount for each book.  The leading company offering online novels in China is Shanda Literature.  Their site, Qidian.com, is the most popular destination for novel readers.  Even regular bookstores are now offering print versions of online novels.  Apparently, the online universe is China is relatively free of censorship and authors find themselves with more freedom to criticize.

Here’s a CNN article about the online publishing boom in China.