#gd i can't even tag this with m*ssacre because WHAT IF

[achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily]

in other news i’ve always been like, very flippant on this site about chinese government censorship and my need for a vpn, but the past few days have been kind of sobering because the government just...erased tiananmen from the history books. that’s not a new thing that they did, but it wasn’t real to me until now.

wikipedia was banned a few weeks ago - the chinese language version was already blocked, but they just blocked english wikipedia. wikipedia. like. what the fuck. this is terrifying.

and like...compared to most people, i’m relatively safe. i’m a foreigner, with an american passport, the government can’t do much to me. but then a classmate was telling me about a guy who just...went missing. hasn’t been seen since last week. he didn’t even do anything political, he was just teaching english without a work visa. and now the foreign student union is freaking out because what the fuck a student is missing.

don’t get me wrong. i love living here. like, genuinely, i love love love china. but it’s just...i don’t even know how to put it into words. i’m afraid to talk about some things. i never talk about chinese politics on campus (i’m a poli sci major at a poli sci focused school. it’s literally all we talk about, even at parties). at friends’ apartments, a little bit, but not too much. here, not a lot. i saw a much more comprehensive post on tiananmen and debated reblogging it but decided not to. i don’t even have my real name tied to this! the people i know irl don’t even know i have a tumblr account! and still! some things are Not To Be Talked About.

and as a fucking poli sci major one of my favorite things is talking about politics. and i can’t to that here. did you know that the government has regulations on what you can talk about in group chats in wechat? yeah. that’s a thing. you can’t criticize the chinese government in wechat groups.

hell, it’s entirely possible that some Big Shit went down on the anniversary three (two? it’s 4am and i’m tired ok) days ago, but i have no idea because the government just. blocked all information about it. (i doubt it though because my news apps haven’t said anything)

idk where i was going with this. but yeah.