Wednesday, March 29, 2006

More from China

I was in the Carrefour, the Walmart of China today and had a look at the books. The titles are usually in English and Chinese. I was surprised to find a few books that have been banned or challenged in other places. They included: Lolita, Bible stories, Frankenstein, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer. Actually I was mostly surprised that Lolita and the Bible stories were available. The others have either become classics or are outside of the Chinese experience enough that they do not cause concern. The criteria for bring in literature or electronic data was that it could not do harm to the society by causing instability.

China places harmony above many other societal values. Can that be such a bad thing? How important is harmony in Canadian society?

Do you think there are works of literature that have either caused or could cause instability in Canadian society, in Chinese society, in any society?

No comments: