- China's "yellow censor" has shown there are
limits to new-found social freedoms by banning a book describing the encounters
of the country's best-known sex diarist.
-
- The exploits of Mu Zimei, a 25-year-old "rock chick"
from the southern city of Guangzhou, have become the internet's hottest
property.
-
- Since the "blog" or web diary in which she
recorded her numerous boyfriends and one-night stands was discovered, she
has been analysed by sociologists, attacked by state propaganda and interviewed
by magazines.
-
- She became an overnight internet sensation with her description
of an encounter behind a restaurant with a well-known pop star.
-
- But the publication of a collection of extracts and musings
on lost love has proved the final straw, despite the government's acceptance
of a wider degree of sexual freedom for women than China has seen for centuries.
-
- Her publishers have been ordered to withdraw it by the
office dealing with matters of taste, known popularly as the yellow banning
room.
-
- Mu has been transferred from the gossip magazine where
she wrote a sex advice column to another department of the same company
producing in-house company newsletters.
-
- Last week her publishers, 21st Century Publishing House,
were told not to distribute her book, though copies were already on the
streets.
-
- A spokesman claimed yesterday that the company had made
the decision itself. But Mu said she had been told the yellow office had
been "irritated".
-
- "I can't see any reason why a book written by a
good girl like me could annoy high-ranking central government officials,"
she said. "It's ridiculous.
-
- "I heard they decided my book is of low quality
and only caters for lowly interests. I only thought that my book demonstrated
my lifestyle, which is quite common to today's young people."
-
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
-
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/09/w
blog09.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/12/09/ixworld.html
|
