No Chair, No Information

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So...since Monday, December 10th, is International Human Rights Day, as well as Nobel Prize Award day, I decided to take it upon myself to tell my students about the day and about Liu Xiaobo. I showed pictures of Mo Yan accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature yesterday, and showed them a video of it as well, which included mention of Liu Xioabo. I stopped the video to ask if any of them had heard of China's only Nobel Peace Prize winner. No one had. I told them he couldn't attend. They asked why. I told them (and showed them in English words on my powerpoint) that it was because he was in jail at the time and for the next nine years for writing about democracy (no one recognized the word in English, so had to look it up on their phones) in Charter 08 (look it up) and enforcing the rule of law (all blank faces, and my translator software doesn't do well with phrases) in China. I showed them a picture of the empty chair and photo of Liu Xiaobo in Oslo 2010, where he was supposed to have sat during the award ceremony. In the chair were the medal and diploma he was to receive (what became of the $1.2 million, I don't know). Then I showed a picture of the Chinese artist, Meng Huang (living in Germany), who sent the chair to China to Mr. Liu. It never arrived. Mr. Huang sent another chair to Stockholm to Mo Yan, along with a note (of which I showed a picture and had a student read--in Chinese) asking him to please give it to Mr. Liu when he returned to China.

I really don't know how much they understood. They understand less than I think, I've painfully come to realize. When asked why they believe they did not know this man, I several times got the response that the Chinese government "cut" the news. Fair enough. I'm sure my students are not comfortable talking about this in Chinese, much less in English, their familiarity with which can't begin to cover their thoughts about it.

I finished off by showing them a list of Chinese Nobel Laureates (11, by the way, of which the majority are living abroad). I said they should be proud of all of them.

I asked them if they thought the chair would be delivered to Liu Xiaobo. Those who understood said "no".

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