Baidu and Google
When Baidu was hacked, a lot of people on Twitter seemed openly pleased. When Google pulled back, the reaction swung the other way and turned into near-universal mourning. That contrast says quite a bit about what makes a company loved or resented.
I did not feel much of anything about Baidu being hacked. But if Google were truly gone, blocked beyond use, I would probably be the one wanting to cry. What bothers me more is the extremity of the reactions online. On the issue of Google shutting down its China office, the situation was never entirely clear. Official statements from a company can work a lot like political theater: two tears on cue do not prove sincerity.
About that upheaval
As has been said again and again elsewhere, the truth about that upheaval may simply be impossible to fully know.
Politicians may all have been performing. Students may have been driven by pure conviction. The state may have carried out a brutal purge. No one can really say with confidence exactly how it began, how it escalated, or how each side moved within it. Everyone seems to have reasons. Everyone is also, in the end, speculating.
What is tragic is not only that the truth remains out of reach, but that history itself has been buried. It is not just that people do not know what really happened; many do not even know that it happened at all, or who those people were.
What should have remained from that event was a lesson written in blood, something strong enough to keep people from repeating the same mistakes. And yet...
The outlook at home
Living in a country like this, it is hard to know what judgment to settle on. The current economic and political climate does not inspire much confidence. Going abroad is difficult. Finding work is difficult. If you are poor, then everything is difficult.
Even so, I still think it is better to look at things as objectively as possible. A one-sided view is too simplistic. Anyway, the only thing left is to keep trying to live one's own life well.