Shandong native Chen Guangcheng, for instance, hails from a flyspeck village 200 kilometers from the provincial capital of Jinan that barely gets a television signal. "If it rains," says the chatty 32-year-old, "no one can watch TV." In 1998 he traveled to Nanjing to study at the Traditional Medicine University; he majored in acupuncture and massage, while picking up a bit of legal knowledge on the side.