By A Guai (阿怪)
Page 23
Issue No. 551, Jan 5, 2012
Translated by Song Chunling
Original Article: [Chinese]
The microblogger who goes under the name General Secretary of Mount Huaguo (花果) must have made some officials fearful of checking the time in public.
Mount Huaguo, an expert in luxury watches who has kept his identity secret, examined photographs of officials and their timepieces and posted hid findings online, embarrassing those with expensive tastes and moderate salaries.
His name, which translates as the Mount of Flowers and Fruit, is taken the 16th century Chinese novel, Journey to the West, whose hero fights off the mountain’s demons to become the Monkey King.
Huaguo the mircoblogger accepts that a Rolex isn’t proof of graft, but like most Chinese, he hates corruption and wishes that he’d heard more replies from the officials whose expensive watches he identified. He only ever had three replies from officials, and questions the effectiveness of communication between the public and the government.
Although his identity is a secret to the public, it’s not a mystery to the police who tracked him down using IP address and paid him a visit at his home in Shanghai.
Despite the care he had taken to avoid targeting top officials, apparently his growing online following had made some people feel uncomfortable.
His undoing came with the decision to zoom in on the wrist of one official whose profile had been raised at a social event. After identifying the official’s fourth watch, and getting his post republished by dozens of other microbloggers, Mount Huaguo’s account was shut down.
The watch expert, who owns a software company, has now started blogging under a different name, but he mostly avoids discussing watches. As Mount Huaguo, he had intended to take part in the public’ supervision of government, but he realized that everyone had their own purpose and interpretations for his posts.
The “game” is out of control to some extent, he says, arguing that trust is scarce in society - the public don’t trust the government and the government worries that people don’t believe its explanations.
Recalling last years’ experience on Weibo, he still feels a little disappointed. “Weibo could have been used effectively since everyone including the government has a say. The identification of the watches is not supposed to be taken literally. If one official in a poor county has an expensive watch, it’s unreasonable. However it makes sense if other officials buy one after working for 5 or 6 years. If you don’t explain, but try to stifle people’s free speech, it forces the media to report, I was therefore also forced to be the hero.”
