Apologies to My Censor Read Free Page B

Wang, a nervous little fellow with glasses, a bowl cut, and an oversize University of Tennessee sweater-vest. Mr. Wang, who was in charge of all foreign staff, hunched over his plate and studied the fish we were eating. He determined that it was a lake fish—“some kind of carp,” he said. He went on to talk at length about Norman Bethune, the Canadian doctor who joined Mao Zedong’s communists during the Revolution and who is a legend in China but barely known outside of it. I asked him about his vest and he told me that he had once been a visiting scholar at the school, studying mass media. “It is very polite,” he said of Tennessee, “but conservative.”
    Mr. Wang told me I’d be working the night shift, at least to start, editing the business pages. My heart immediately sank. Editing the China Daily business section’s “torrid prose,” as the Rough Guide put it, was one thing, but doing so at night, while I wanted to be out diving headlong into Beijing’s boom, was a whole different ball game. I made a mental note: this will need to be remedied.
    After lunch, Jenny whisked me away for a tour of the office. China Daily ’s headquarters were in a four-story, faded yellow building near the fourth ring road in north Beijing, far from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, located in the center of the city. Guards who looked no more than twenty, wearing poorly fitting green uniforms and armed with walkie-talkies, stood at lazy attention at the front door. Everything about the place looked drab and dated, from the water stains on the outside tiles to the bizarre cubic architecture throughout. The interior was as bleak as outside, with humming fluorescent lights, gray cubicle walls, and the constant waft of onion drifting in from the canteen down the hall. Jenny sat me down at my cubicle. The chair squeaked and there were enough crumbs in my ancient keyboard to feed one of the young guards working out front.
    I wandered the streets around the China Daily compound that night. I could hardly believe I was there. The setting sun had turned the sky purple, and the streets were busy with locals walking in and out of brightly lit restaurants. The air smelled of garlic and burning meat. Potbellied middle-aged men with their pants pulled high smoked cigarettes on the sidewalk while mothers fussed over small children. I was energized. I felt more optimistic about life than I had in a year.
    The next day, my second in China, I started work. I was told to shadow a balding, nervous Scotsman, a China Daily veteran who introduced me to some of the foreigners around the office. There seemed to be a clear divide in the expat staff. Some were young and international, here for an adventure and to experience the Olympic buildup. A few were wandering professionals who had spent a career bouncing from one developing world English-language paper to another. Others were lifted directly from a Hemingway novel—heavy drinkers, bar fighters, frequenters of prostitutes. Many were career expatriates, some having been in Asia for a decade or two.
    My cubicle neighbor at China Daily was a well-dressed young Chinese reporter who went by the English name Harry. He had a firm handshake and a flattop brush cut, and he spoke in robotic English. On one of my first days of work, Harry showed me a Flash presentation he’d made for his former employer, a political magazine.
    â€œThis is for propagating at the beginning of a campaign,” he told me.
    I had no idea what he meant. The video was slick, with pictures of Chinese leaders throughout history mixed with images of battles and slogans. Chinese characters and English words—totally out of context—flashed on the screen. victory. history. I would have thought it was a joke if Harry’s facial expression didn’t betray such pride. He was beaming.
    â€œI love this Flash,” he told me. “It is one way in China we have of