On my bus ride to school today, I realized there was more traffic than usual just before the busiest intersection on Minzu dadao. After about 10 minutes we pulled up to it and there were protesters lining the crosswalks blocking traffic in two directions. They all had signs and a bunch were sitting on the ground in the crosswalk. There were police men directing traffic away from them, down to another side street, and turning other cars back. I was thinking "Why aren't the policemen making them move??! This is China! Why isn't the government doing anything!??" lol. It was so frustrating!!!!! But nobody seemed too upset by it. It was almost like they were interested and happy to see something happen, besides how inconvenient it was for everyone else. From my bus, the only thing I could make out on their signs was "Dong Hu." Big help, right? Anyways, it was a huge mafan and made me 20 minutes late to school. But it's interesting to see how China excersizes "democracy" and freedom of speech these days.
(I have no idea what they were protesting. When I got home I googled it and found this: http://www.dossiertibet.it/news/china-one-thousand-protesters-block-roads-wuhan from a couple years ago. I wonder if it has any similarity to that. "In addition, on July 9 (2009) a reconstruction project initiated by the Wuhan city authorities to connect Donghu Lake and Shahu Lake also sparked a mass protest from residents who will lose their homes to forced demolitions." If it was anything like that, it makes sense why noone was too upset by what they were doing.)
haha... i also found this: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/china/AJ201212050074. another interesting protest this week in Wuhan...
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