The internet and culture in China

how we live — By Bob Riel on May 22, 2007 at 1:11 pm

There is no doubt that technology can influence a society, but can it also change a culture? That question is part of an intriguing article in the Christian Science Monitor about internet use in China, which has grown rapidly in recent years.

In 1999 there were just four million Internet connections in China; by the end of last year there were 137 million. More than 70 percent of Chinese children between ages 7 and 15 had used the Internet at least once, according to a survey Sun’s center carried out last year. That was nearly half as many again as the 2005 figure, and the total rose to 87 percent when only urban youngsters were polled.

This increased internet use seems to be forcing at least a few changes in the Chinese educational system, which is slowly morphing from a teacher-centered style to one in which students are more involved in the learning process. A potential result of this in the long-term, of course, could be a more open, more decentralized Chinese state, one that is less amenable to top down control.

Excited and emboldened by the wealth of information they find on the Internet, Chinese teens are breaking centuries of tradition to challenge their teachers and express their own opinions in class.

Wearing jerseys emblazoned with the names of European soccer stars, downloading weekly episodes of “Prison Break,” listening to 50 Cent, and reading Japanese comic books, China’s current high school generation is plugging itself directly into international culture.

And it’s giving the kids ideas. Ideas that could one day transform the way this country is governed.

“The Internet has given Chinese children wings,” says Sun Yun Xiao, vice president of the China Youth and Children Research Center.

Many are using those wings to fly in the face of received wisdom about how and what they should learn, and about how much respect they owe to authority. “Today students ask you, ‘Why?’ And if you don’t have a good answer, they won’t necessarily accept what you say,” says Zhao Hongxia, a young teacher at a private school in Beijing. “In my day, if the teacher said something he was always right.”