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Variations of Chen's name in English and Chinese have been blocked as have Chaoyang Hospital, the U.S. Embassy and other terms associated with his case. After the generic phrase "blind man" was banned, some turned to a medical term for fat under the heart that looks like the Chinese character for blind. Liu, the professor, reposted his message, substituting "Chen Guangcheng" with "Chen Chuangchuang." The word "chuang" means "break into" in Chinese, a reference to Chen's entering the U.S. embassy. That message was left untouched With the Internet, many more people know about Chen though they don't want to risk government disapproval by admitting it, especially to the foreign media, said Hung Huang, executive editor of the lifestyle magazine iLook. "The problem is that there's a veil everybody wears in China," Hung said. "They don't want trouble." She said plenty of people are commenting about Chen on Weibo.com -- though often under pseudonyms, and the social media have forced the government to respond, even if in the form of denouncing editorials. The controls have opened a gap between a general public which knows little about Chen and a "small universe of social media" where journalists, academics and activists are abuzz about him, said David Bandurski, a researcher with Hong Kong-based China Media Project. "The story has been decapitated by media controls," Bandurski said. "There is no coverage in terms of news." Still, those active on microblogs, or "weibo" in Chinese, have large numbers of followers and so cannot be ignored, said Bandurksi: "A miniature population on
'weibo' can influence decisions." The government's biggest ally, however, is the indifference of many Chinese, who know to stay out of sensitive politics and who have been turned off by decades of propaganda. Back at the beauty salon near Chen's hospital, one barber said they only buy newspapers to wipe the windows.
[Associated
Press;
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