Milk

Commenting on the latest media frenzy on China isn't my style because it feels like grandstanding. I'm not a Sinophile, so I'm not always paying attention to all the political dimensions at play, usually leaving me at a disadvantage to contribute to the conversation. But this business with the milk powder deserves some thoughts.
You don't have to be an expert in Chinese characters to be able to glean that the internal news coverage is being glossed over. Go to www.xinhua.net, the government's online news site. I've been visiting the past few days. This character, 奶, means "milk". Copy and paste the character into your browser's text search utility, and you'll find that coverage is far removed from the main headlines. Instead, headlines of China's space mission currently in progress reign supreme. In general I've picked up that China's internal news coverage is about instilling pride in the country and its place in the world. It's fun to follow this kind of coverage (usually through imagery for me for obvious reasons, but many Chinese article translations are also accessible), because I feel like I'm observing an important transition for a developing country. But if it happens at the expense of themes like the following excerpt, from an article by a Beijinger Cui Weiping, then it's not fair. This was accessed via the Washington Post, dated Sunday, September 28.

"What could I do after I heard something like this? Where could I go to report the problem? I can't think of any official in this vast country who would patiently listen to me and try to address the problem. Most officials would probably regard me as insane if I went to talk to them. They would glance at me arrogantly from behind their desks. I don't think I could stand the humiliation for even a few minutes. Why should I seek this disgrace?

"There are all kinds of things like this happening in the country. There's nothing I can do about it," I said to myself, trying to appease my conscience.

How pitiful I am. I already know that my effort will be useless even before I take any action. Is there a devil who lives in our hearts and sneers at our actions all the time? His mission is to deprive us of the ability to respond, to smother our enthusiasm, and to paralyze our will to take action. I am caught in the same situation as my imaginary, impassive official. Both of us are controlled by a curse and have lost the ability to take appropriate action . . .

However, my humanity has been hurt. The damage is immeasurable. Trapped in this kind of silence and not able to do anything about it, I feel bad about myself. I almost feel that I've become a pile of [dung], or a slave who only knows work but not how to speak. I chat and joke with people around me, but I am not able to talk about the biggest bewilderment on my mind.

To speak, or not to speak, this is the question. This is a question that is hard for our judgment. But what we've lost is the ability to make basic moral judgment.

-- Cui Weiping

(End quote)

At least one of the following links should allow you to easily access the full article in question.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/26/AR2008092603451.html
http://wordpress.com/tag/baby-milk-powder-scandal/

This excerpt reflects themes I've come across before, but mostly in reading about China in Western media. To the extent that Chinese news organizations still cover the tainted milk issue, I've been able to glean from poor automated translations that coverage focuses on blaming one company. There's little discussion of reexamining the regulation process at a higher level. And contrary to the excerpt, local Chinese folks I talk to as part of the everyday don't seem to be itching to get these kinds of thoughts off their chest. They know which milk to avoid, and that's all I hear from them about it. If they wanted to they would have no problem voicing such concerns since face-to-face conversations naturally aren't monitored.