The first question from the press, about the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing, was one that could not have been asked at a similar event across the border.
The first question from the press, about the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing, was one that could not have been asked at a similar event across the border.
“I was only seven years old when the incident happened and couldn’t understand it. But when I did understand it, I couldn’t read anything about it,” the 28-year-old said in Mandarin, referring to censorship on the subject.
Han Han has achieved mass popularity with a blog (http://blog.sina.com.cn/twocold) that offers a critical take on current affairs. A high school dropout and part-time rally racer, he has become something of a self-made media personality who writes books, produces music and is now the editor of a new magazine.
Party, a bimonthly art and literary journal that includes essays, photography and comics, was introduced earlier this month. The premiere issue also included a brain scan from Ai Weiwei, a top Chinese artist and high-profile activist who underwent brain surgery last year to stem a hemorrhage after a beating by the police. He had released the scan as evidence of the assault.
Han Han said that the majority of Party’s content would fall “outside the censors’ radar,” but added that “I dislike it when politics stall the development of literature and art.”
He referred to Hong Kong as the city where “you can say whatever you want.”
Later, he said in a Webcast that he was considering starting a Hong Kong edition of Party.
The fair, and the local publishing industry in general, has traded on the fact that it offers books, and open discussions, impossible to find on the mainland. In a show of hands, about 60 percent of those in Han Han’s audience said they were from mainland China, even though the fair attracts mostly a Hong Kong audience. The blogger was among 13 mainland speakers at the seven-day fair.
“Sometimes he says things that surprise me,” said Graham Lee, a Hong Kong native studying at Peking University, who had come across Han Han’s articles in Apple Daily, a Hong Kong newspaper. “His way of thinking is different from that of ordinary Chinese.”