Every summer, the 59-year-old Chinese blogger Zhang Shihe rides his bicycle thousands of miles to the plateaus, deserts and hinterlands of North Central China. In this Op-Doc video, we meet Mr. Zhang, known to his many followers online as “Tiger Temple,” as he goes to great lengths to document the stories of struggling rural villagers whose voices are seldom heard in China’s state-monitored media.
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In a country with one of the most sophisticated media and Internet censorship systems, Mr. Zhang and other bloggers must exercise great caution when writing about politically sensitive content — often skirting the label “citizen reporter.” But as Mr. Zhang told me during filming: “If they want to get you, they can find a way. Not even a wise man can be wise all the time.”
In 2010, he was taken by the police and put under house arrest for 10 days, during the country’s annual parliamentary meetings. News spread quickly. That day he received more than 2,000 text messages — good wishes poured in from concerned friends and readers who supported his efforts to help flooded villagers, defrauded farmers and the Beijing homeless. On this day, he said, he “felt the true power of the Internet.”
In 2012, Mr. Zhang was forced by the police to pack up his Beijing apartment and leave the city indefinitely. He now lives and blogs in the city of Xi’an with his elderly mother. As the summer months near, he prepares to set off on his seventh year of grueling bicycle trips deep into the countryside to continue his reporting.
When I asked Mr. Zhang why he continued his work, despite the persistent risks and challenges, he replied: “My blog is about hope. Having hope one story at a time.”
Stephen Maing is a filmmaker based in New York City. This Op-Doc expands on themes explored in his recent feature-length documentary “High Tech, Low Life,” which made its debut at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival and will have its television premiere this summer on the PBS series “POV.”
