SchizOlympics: Chinese and English Tibet Tweets

As news of the turmoil in Tibet reaches Chinese netizens, reactions on Chinese Twitter-clones Fanfou.com and Jiwai.de are mostly of astonishment according to a search on Twifan. Meanwhile, on Twitter, whose users are mostly from other countries, reactions are less surprised, according to Tweet Scan. Again, I’m not a pro translator, so by all means, send corrections. [Thanks wgj, twice, but I’m keeping “underdog” cuz I like it; thx kdobson]

ＴＡＮ 大家现在知道拉萨的新闻吗 [Everybody now know the news on Tibet?]

乱云/Akay 不知道拉萨今天的情况怎样了，哎。[Don’t know how the situation is in Lhasa today, whats going on?]

sprife 拉萨暴动，很担心！[Tibetan rebellion, really worried!]

李清扬cherry 达赖集团在拉萨策划骚乱活动 [Dalai Clique scheme behind Lhasa riots]

effie 拉萨到底怎么了？？？[So what’s the deal with Lhasa???]

kaixintao07 香港流感，西藏骚乱…… [Hong Kong Flu, Tibet riot… …]

虫仔 拉萨·西藏，台北·台湾：中国永远的刀痕。[Lhasa Tibet, Taipei Taiwan: China’s eternal scars.]

zbright 惊愕，西藏出现动乱 [holy crap, Tibet in turmoil]

Zola 支持西藏人民的抗争。[supports Tibetan People to stand up and fight.]

兽兽 拉萨情况不明朗，朋友的弟弟在拉萨旅游仍没有消息。今早BBC请西藏问题学者分析此次骚乱，他不认为是达赖策划的；而且与20年前相比，发生藏人攻击汉人和回人的事件，这还是第一次。他批评了北京谈判策略上的失误：拖延时间，等达赖去世。可是现在除了宗教问题，又出现了种族和发展的新问题。

[Lhasa situation unclear. Still no news from friend’s younger brother in Lhasa on tour. This morning the BBC asked an expert on the Tibet problem to analyze this disturbance, he doesn’t believe its a plot by the Dalai Lama; moreover, unlike the riots 20 years ago, for the first time Han and Hui people have been attacked. He criticized Beijing for poor negotiation tactics: for too long, simply waiting for the Dalai Lama to die. But now besides the religious problem, there emerges new problems related to ethnicity and development.]

vinwolf 西藏 应该定性为恐怖袭击？[Tibet should be classified as a terrorist attack?]

无名 西藏这帮秃驴居然敢在两会期间制造不合谐因素。[Tibet’s bald weasels dare not to conform to a harmonious society during the Two Congresses.]

Qiushi 西藏喇嘛示威咯～给奥运会和两会的礼物 [Tibetan Lama demonstrators give Olympics and Two Congresses a present]

jobirn.com 据拉萨前方(在西藏旅游的朋友)发来的报道: 今天拉萨大暴乱 我刚刚逃回宾馆 我们已开始躲在一个藏民家里 他说几十年没有看到过这么严重的了 杀人,烧车 …

[From the Tibetan Front (a touring friend in Lhasa) comes this report: today in Lhasa huge riots I just fled the guesthouse We’re hiding out with a Tibetan family He says in all his years he’s never seen anything this serious – killings, burning cars…]

meadow 弱势群体永远正确吗？何况还不知道谁是弱者呢？在南昌读书那会，本地人说附近有个中学有西藏学生，经常打汉人学生，家长去投诉，学校劝家长息事宁人，因为从老师到学校到教育局到地方领导，对他们都是“迁就”。说这个的同学是汉人

[Is the underdog always right? While at university in Nanchang, local people said that a local high school has Tibetan students who regularly beat up Han students, parents complain, school administrators said not to cause a fuss, because from teachers to the school to the education bureau to local leadership, the watchword is “accomodation”. It was a Han student who told me this story]

Meanwhile, this is what’s being tweeted in English on Twitter:

atosdps : When can you show us the real Tibet, my violent government!!!

quanmengli : Reading: “(可怜的美国佛教徒) Actor Gere calls for Olympics boycott if China mishandles Tibet – Yahoo! News”

lonniehodge : My professor friends in schools in regions around Tibet called into emergency meetings and warned of internal pro-independence spies

wwwdotjenna : wow, tibet. the world is watching.

thijsjacobs : @sioksiok everyone tweeting about Tibet = Twitter soon to be blocked.

squidlord : Oh, goodie, Tibet is in political upheaval again. Maybe they’ll kill enough people to get things straightened out, one way or another.

borekv : thinking about Tibet and also remembering Tiananmen Square Massacre http://tinyurl.com/2sa7o8

Watching the build up to the Olympics has been, for me, like watching the world’s biggest, slowest traffic accident. For a while now its been pretty obvious that alot of contentious issues about China were going to come to the front as we approach August 8th, but the problem is that there are two completely separate parallel worlds on these issues: the Chinese one, and the rest of us. Westerners have been exposed to rhetoric and information about Tibetan discontent, Darfur’s international and Chinese dimensions, and of course old chestnuts like Tiananmen provide a larger context of long term, ongoing problems. Meanwhile, Chinese mainlanders by and large have no knowledge of these events or issues. While for the rest of the world the Olympics will be largely a referendum on China’s ability to deal with what everyone else has talked about for years, for Chinese citizens it will be about China winning a beauty pageant of sorts.

Two Worlds, Two Dreams: prepare for the SchizOlympics.

Note: Chinese blogger Beifeng was relaying SMSes from a friend in Lhasa, but since only one message about the military headed to Jokhang Temple, there have been no further updates.