To My English-speaking Readers

* This article was written as a prelude as I re-opened this blog after a dormancy of one and half years.

Welcome to Prometheus. You might have been directed here from my homepage "Odyssey", and you might be disappointed that there are not too many entries on this blog. Well, thank you so much for your interest. If you happen to have browsed my MSN space, which runs mostly in Chinese, you probably know that I've blogged much more actively there since two and half years ago.

Then why still link to Prometheus? And why is it called Prometheus? I set up this place in June 2006, after my PhD qualifiers in economics at Washington University. It was named "Prometheus" because I used this blog to post articles composed by some sharp Chinese thinkers yet often blocked by China's "Great Firewall" (GFW) at that time. I wanted these very insightful articles, mostly on democracy and political reform, to be read by my friends in China, yet I didn't want my MSN space blocked. MSN space was such a popular blogging tool among Chinese students that we use it to share life experiences and carefully foster close-knit communities, often against the curse of distance. I didn't want it politicized. I believe that democracy is just a matter of time for China, and I hope everybody in my generation to be mentally prepared and do the smart thing, ahead of time, as soon as possible. Therefore I set up this place, posted "sensitive" articles, and provided a link on my MSN space.

Many more young Chinese, home and abroad, did similar things to get around the GFW. But it wasn't long before I realized that I didn't have to do this anymore. From January 2007, foreign journalists were allowed to travel, interview and report freely in China. There used to be a lot of restrictions on foreigners' movement in China, despite the fact that they are always treated exceptionally well. These journalists often have learned Chinese for many years, and are extremely capable and enthusiastic. To someone who reads the New York Times and Wall Street Journal everyday like myself, the change is palpable. Reports are much deeper, more detailed and cover a much wider range of topics. The marriage between Western journalism and China's intriguing social changes has borne fruits.

Meanwhile, almost all of a sudden, I found that the Chinese themselves are talking about "democracy" more and more frequently. The first noticeable change happened when President Hu Jintao visited the United States in the spring of 2006 -- he got out of his way to talk about democracy at each stop. But the talk was really just that, and I was under the impression that "democracy" was still a "key word" in the unfathomable, random working of the GFW. And then Yu Keping, a higher-profile adviser of President Hu published "Democracy is a Good Thing" in one of the key journals of the Communist Party. The outspoken newspapers in South China's Guangdong Province, Hong Kong's neighbor, didn't wait a second in grasping this golden opportunity to discuss democracy -- to face up to our own oddity in this globalized world. And then again, all of a sudden, I found so many people talking democracy openly, in China, not just about the ideology, but down-to-earth practical issues. None of these changes escaped the eyes of John Thornton, the Goldman-Sachs-Chairman-turned-Tsinghua-professor, who published the article "Long Time Coming -- the prospect for democracy in China" in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs.

Somehow I feel that the relaxation of restrictions on foreign journalists and the open talk of democracy are really two sides of one coin. I'm not suggesting that democracy will come anytime soon in China -- it's just not such an easy thing as you might think -- but with so many people talking and thinking, I feel both hopeful and a little lost -- how can I still call my little blog "Prometheus"?

Luckily we've got so many more meaningful things to do in today's world. I bet there are at least as many people in the world who are interested in China as the Chinese interested in the world. Then why not use this blog to communicate with English-speaking folks? After all, I already have a blog mainly in Chinese, and I can write in English reasonably well. More importantly, I can write BETTER.

So, here I am again -- still "Prometheus", just for history's sake.

Oh, was I talking about democracy just now? Final words on this issue: if you are American, the word is "patience", if you are Chinese, the word is "change".