February 13, 2013
If the government does not offer a space for free expression, the people will make one.
Chat corners in China
Chat corners in China provide a public platform for discussion and information. This chat corner in Fuxing park, Shanghai features a ‘book bench’ where people can buy articles and uncensored books. Photo: Yu Lam Chan.
It has an innocent name: Liaotianjiao, or chat corner, but the police know that it is not a harmless chess or tea corner. At the chat corner, emotions are stirred up, curiosity is awoken, and the spearheads point to the authority.
Yet, somehow there is acquiescence from above. The government realizes that the accumulated dissatisfaction of the people needs to have some kind of release valve. If they shut down the facilities serving as that release, an explosion would be inevitable. Of course, chat corners are monitored by cameras, plainclothes police are everywhere, and the organizers are warned from time to time.
Despite the surveillance, chat corners have flourished in many large cities in China. They provide ordinary citizens a way to get uncensored information and allow them to express their opinion publicly. Indeed, the existence of these self-made facilities in a totalitarian country is a paradoxical phenomenon.
Chat corners emerged in Shanghai about eight years ago, first in Fuxing Park, in the city center, and then spread out to several other parks. The most popular and hilarious corners are in Fuxing and Hongkou parks. People come every Sunday, rain or shine, and even in snowy December. The early birds are so involved they arrive before 7 o’clock and begin to arrange chairs for the audience.
My friend Mr. Chen has said that the chat corners differ from one another. For example, the one in Fuxing Park has set up a book bench, in which good articles from local and Hong Kong-based newspapers or magazines are copied and laid out. They are for sale, at one to three Yuan ($0.48) a copy. Banned political books can be found here, too. Most of the time, the items are sold out within short period of time. Beside these two parks, there are a handful of others in Shanghai. Cities like Beijing, Chengdu, Jinan, Xi’an, and Guangzhou all have parks with chat corners as well.
The Chinese people are creative and practical; if there is a demand, there will be a supply. In the past, people used certain areas in the parks to serve their personal needs. Those looking for a marriage broker, a new apartment, jobs, or a foreign language tutor used the park as a community center. Parents of kidnapped children even used the parks to beg the public for help.
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