O-pen Magazine was set up in March 2011 by Annie Baby, a popular novelist who got her start on the internet. On 1 November she announced on her Sina microblog that O-pen had been forced to stop publishing. In China, magazines need a national periodical registration number, which enables the government to control magazine output. Like other magazines without a registration number, Annie Baby opted to use ISBN from a publishing house.
Local speculation suggests that shutting down O-pen because it had the wrong registration code was just a pretext. The state has begun a cultural campaign to ‘rectify and purify content’ on TV and other forms of cultural expression is taking place.
Magazine censorship is nothing new — China’s No. 1 blogger Han Han, also a novelist, launched Party in June 2010, it was shut down after just one issue. On November 2, Han Han wrote a blog post that was later taken down by the authorities. However, University of Hong Kong brilliant China Media Project had already posted a translation:
I’ve been involved in this work [of writing] for around 13 years now, and I now understand just how powerless and of no account cultural workers (文化工作者) really are. Owing to a richness of restrictions, people in this line of work are unable to produce anything truly special.
Even though Han Han does not explicitly state it, he is referring to Annie Baby. Han Han compares censorship to castration.
As for myself, while every single essay I write goes through a process of self-censorship and castration, sometimes unavoidably the fashion of my castration is still insufficient to pass muster. This has to do with the level of sensitivity at various publishing houses. For example, my most recent novel has been killed outright, because the protagonist in the novel is surnamed Hu [like China’s president]. So even though I have only written 5,000 characters so far, the publisher assumes there must be political allegory somewhere. By the time I realized I had to avoid this name and changed the character’s surname it was too late.
I haven’t written anything since [my July post] “Nation Derailed.” In point of fact, I’m not very diligent about my writing, and each time I do finish writing something and then can’t see it [after I post it, because it has been censored], I get despondent. And there are just so many government departments [to get past]. Even if the propaganda department and the General Administration of Press and Publications are fine with something, any department issued with Passats and above can wipe your essay away with a simple phone call. Of these, the most merciful are in fact certain local public security departments. Back in 2008 I wrote an essay that wasn’t deleted until a after a lapse of a whole year. No wonder people complain about slow police response times. It’s true. There are so many places that delete articles that one doesn’t know how to begin writing.
I’ve been involved in this work [of writing] for around 13 years now, and I now understand just how powerless and of no account cultural workers (文化工作者) really are. Owing to a richness of restrictions, people in this line of work are unable to produce anything truly special. Allow me to share a few stories.
China’s publishing industry actually isn’t so subject to official censorship. People will find that strange, because it goes against the common understanding. But I can tell everyone that there really is no censorship in the book publishing industry. This is because tens of thousands of books are published every year in China, and it’s actually impossible to censor them all. Moreover, I believe that most of those comrades charged with reading books [to censor them] don’t really enjoy reading books, so book censorship has actually been left to the publishing houses themselves.
But this doesn’t amount to the opening of one-hundred flowers. Of course it doesn’t. To put it rather more expertly, this is what they call a system of post-facto censorship (事后审查制). In fact, post-facto censorship is stricter than prior censorship, more lethal and having more adverse reactions. This is something of which those who have used postcoital contraceptives have a rather deeper sense.
Only if you obtain a book license [or “book number”] can you publish, only publishing houses can issue book licenses, only the authorities can operate publishing houses, and so from the very fountainhead publishing freely is impossible. Owing to the fact that the vast majority of state-run publishing houses are of no use, many privately-run cultural enterprises (民营文化公司) have gotten into the book publishing business. The method of publishing is either joint publishing [with a state-run house] or purchasing a number of book licenses from publishing houses. This, however, cannot change the situation facing publishing, because the publishing house still has the ultimate decision.
In the past when a book was not allowed to be published, the reason given was that it was counterrevolutionary. But this term counterrevolutionary later fell out of use because while counterrevolutionary activity was still frowned upon no one wanted exactly to encourage revolution either. In the view of the authorities, the work of the revolution had already been accomplished, and so while counterrevolutionary behavior was a no-no, revolution was equally unwanted. The best thing was for the masses to just live their lives by staying put.
So now the reason for not being able to publish things is that they are deficient in taste (格调不高). My first book, The Three Doors (三重门), was dragged about in coming out precisely because it was deficient in taste. If something’s deficient in taste this can be fatal. After all, if the writing isn’t strong enough, it can be improved. If the logic isn’t there, it can be worked out. But deficiency of taste is a real headache, and you just don’t know how you can lift up your taste. If you ask them what they mean by taste, they don’t know either. Only now have I come to understand that taste actually means to cut out (割掉), so deficiency of taste actually means that not enough has been cut [NOTE: This is a play on words, as the words “taste”, gediao, and “to cut out” are homophones in Chinese]. So you think that just by symbolically smoothing out the calluses on your feet you can make it in the creative industries [in China], eh? No, you have to make sure you cut high enough. If you spare that part just below the waist, you might still be too manly for the creative industries.
I’ve long been subjected to the bitterness of censorship. But since I managed to raise my taste somewhat, I have fortunately been able to publish books. And because some books have enjoyed substantial sales, I’ve sometimes been able to get the publisher to push the taste down just a bit. Each time before I write I have to go through a process of self-censorship. Perhaps some who have never worked in this industry might feel that doing this makes us somehow cowardly, not MAN enough. For example, before my book Solo Troupe (独唱团) was published I went through all sorts of difficulties. Some of my friends couldn’t stand it. They said I was selling out, and if it were them they would say forget the book number, take it right to the printers, print tens of thousands of copies and start selling them. While I admire these friends for their deficiency of taste, they don’t understand that the printers can only run their machines once they’ve received a printing authorization from the publishing house. Otherwise you can’t print a single copy without someone informing the police. If your own grandfather opens up his own printing house and you manage to print tens of thousands of copies, without a book number no bookstore or newsstand is going to carry your product. Even those people who sell pirated copies won’t help you sell it.
These friends might say, well then, I would just put it up on the internet and sell it on Taobao. Let me tell you then that if you want to sell books on Taobao you first have to have the credentials, you can’t just tack a book cover right up there. You have to enter the book number, and once the system has verified the book number and the book title, only then can your book go up.
And so up to this very day, everyone and anyone involved in culture is engaged in a painful process of self-censorship. So can we look forward to publishing houses lowering their taste a bit? This is of course impossible. As soon as a publishing house shows any sign of notching down its taste — remembering that these are state-run units — the authorities will just send over a new publishing chief. The nasty thing about post-facto censorship is how it exacts penalties. It says, look, I’m not going to look over your shoulder, but if you publish something improper I’ll have your head for it. If it’s something less serious I’ll fire you from your post or disband the publishing house; if it’s serious I’ll lock you up. So, you decide how you want to do it.
As for myself, while every single essay I write goes through a process of self-censorship and castration, sometimes unavoidably the fashion of my castration is still insufficient to pass muster. This has to do with the level of sensitivity at various publishing houses. For example, my most recent novel has been killed outright, because the protagonist in the novel is surnamed Hu [like China’s president]. So even though I have only written 5,000 characters so far, the publisher assumes there must be political allegory somewhere. By the time I realized I had to avoid this name and changed the character’s surname it was too late.
I don’t know how a country where a writer trembles when he takes up his pen can build itself into a cultural great nation (文化强国), or how a country where you have to avoid using the names of [politburo] standing committee members and therefore can’t find the [Tang dynasty poet] Li Bai in a Google search can build itself into a cultural great nation. I have no idea how these cultural system reforms are supposed to work. I just have one wish, and that is that Mr. Han Zheng (韩正), [currently the mayor of Shanghai], is not promoted again. Otherwise, I won’t even be able to come up with myself in a search.
