I was chatting online with Qingchen, a schoolteacher friend of mine in China. I helped her install a patch on Flickr that allows her to view otherwise censored content. (Flickr, along with many other websites, are filtered in many parts of China).

We usually talk about current events and culture. She asked, "Did you hear about the Olympic torch in France and elsewhere?" She also showed me a video of "hooligans" attacking a handicapped girl who was trying to carry the torch.

What was our usual good-natured tête à tête somehow turned bitter as I asserted the usual Western line that China is crushing Tibet's culture--and she carried on with "CNN is all lies," "we are helping Tibet to modernize," "Tibetans are violent hooligans," and that the Dali Lama (sp?) is fomenting this "separatist" sentiment.