Posts by Alicia Lui

A poem for national cat day – by Alicia Lui

Today a yellow-brown cat dashed across

As I walked with wind on my ears.

Surely you must be cold, I thought.

What a pity to be a stray!

My three cats at home sit and watch

As I latch the windows on approaching gloom.

Together they cry

Another Beijing winter to bloom.

From inside the machine – by Alicia Lui

It started simply, with those words, “Just hold me.” Normally he wouldn’t have taken a second look; after all, those words were harmless. As a censor at the largest social network in China, it was his job to scan thousands of messages daily to make sure “sensitive” messages didn’t get out. All the new hardware and algorithms his employers invested in made his job easier, but users were finding creative ways to bypass automated filters. Luckily so, or he’d be out of a job.

Every now and then, to alleviate boredom, he would read entire conversations: couples planning the weekend, company executives scouting apartments, teenage girls gossiping about cute boys, all manners of debates, jokes and puns.