tell me more

The Great Firewall of China doesn’t need much introduction. Western social networking in China has essentially come to a halt this year, with the most popular sites (Blogspot, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter) all behind the firewall. Of course, many continue to visit these site with VPNs and proxies, but having to turn on my VPN before watching a Youtube video is a seemingly-minor annoyance that is, in actuality, quite inhibitory.

Do I really want to watch that video? Nah, not really. How badly do I want to respond to this or that Facebook comment? Eh, I can live without.

There is not much I can add about the firewall that’s not already out there, but what I have found to be surprising and interesting are:

1) the ever-changing nature of what I can access day-to-day,
2) what sites are blocked, and perhaps more so, what sites are not.

When I first arrived in Beijing, I continued to read blogspot posts through my Google Reader. RSS feeds were, surprisingly, not behind the firewall despite the fact that the blogs themselves were. Then, last week, Google Reader threw errors for all of my blogspot subscriptions. Turning on the VPN promptly fixed the problem. I thought the censors had finally wisened up to the RSS work-around.

Except, by the next day, access to all feeds had been restored. The catch? Pictures embedded in posts no longer display in RSS feeds.

So now I also ask daily, “How badly do I want to see that blog post picture?”

Then there are the blocked sites that completely baffle me. Doing some research at work today, I wanted to access a series of .org websites, one site for each study commissioned by the EU on a specific consumer product. All of these sites were blocked. Why? I can’t come up with any logical reasoning.

Then, on the other hand, Flickr access is still free as a bird (knock on wood).

The view out of my office window on three different days over the last week or so:

Blue skies Beijing yesterday!

A so-so day last week

And a day early last week … an optimist might call this fog

That last one was probably the worst day I’ve seen so far. A friend said that it smelled like kerosene outside. My initial thought was that it smelled like being on the wrong side of an big BBQ grill, except there weren’t any burgers to eat afterwards.

I have two roommates, an American and a French, and we speak English in the apartment, but both roommates also speak Chinese.

Yesterday, while talking about visiting a construction site, the American asked the French if he had to wear a hard hat. The French didn’t understand the term “hard hat,” which is probably a very American English expression.

As I thought of ways to gesture and describe a hard hat, the American roommate simply said, “You know, an 安全帽.”

Literally, “You know, a safety hat.” What the Chinese would say for a hard hat.

The French immediately knew what he meant, saying “ah ah ah,” and the conversation carried on. That’s pretty cool.

And … I am in Beijing. It took about 22 hours door-to-door, Boston to Chicago to Beijing. Since the flight was arriving in Beijing in the late afternoon, I tried not to sleep that much on the plane to get started on fighting the jet lag. In turn, I got some pictures of the amazing views out the window throughout.

Lake Michigan

Swirling clouds somewhere over Canada

Ice crystals on the window glass

The Arctic Ocean

Somewhere over frozen Siberia

Mountain peaks, still over Russia

Some rivers coming off of the above mountain range

Gorgeous basins

Flatter terrain, though it’s hard to tell how flat it actually is

First signs of civilization amidst all the white!

Cold cold settlements in the mountains about 30 minutes before Beijing

Geometric settlements in the outskirts of Beijing (terrain is now very very flat)

Health inspection booths are before the immigration counters

Home! Looking out my bedroom window

My aunt and uncle came up to Beijing from Hangzhou to meet me at the airport and help me settle in. I now have a phone, internet, and leftover Peking duck in the fridge. I also successfully took the bus to work this morning, though I had a hard time waking up on time (bye bye jet lag?).

Final note: it is COLD here. I’ve yet to derive any meaning from Celsius temperatures, but I’m told it got down to -5C yesterday. I converted that to 23F before responding, “Oh wow, that’s below freezing.” Hahaha.

A little delayed, but here are some quick thoughts from the debate last night by the Democratic candidates looking to fill the seat left vacant by the late Edward Kennedy. I should note that going into the debate, I was a strong Martha Coakley supporter.

Overall impressions
I was most impressed with Alan Khazei, least impressed by Stephen Pagliuca, turned off by Michael Capuano, and still support Martha Coakley in the same way I blandly supported Hillary through the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primaries.

The debate was pretty much a snoozer. All four candidates spouted off buzz phrases like “create jobs for Massachusetts” and “comprehensive foreign policy” and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. They all claim to want a public option in health care reform, and if I remember correctly, all four oppose giving illegal immigrants drivers’ licenses**. Khazei was the only one not to waffle his answer on the stimulus package. He came out strongly for it, and good for him for actually taking a position when all the others seemed afraid to.

Why I loved Khazei
Yes, Khazei was inexperienced (from the “okie” preceding his answer to the moderator’s first question to the rather long-winded lead-ins before he would answer any question), but it was exactly this inexperience that I liked. He didn’t come across as a sleazy politician. In fact, he was the only one who seemed genuinely passionate about the issues and spoke from his heart & soul rather than what he thought people would want to hear. A-

Pagliuca is a bore
The only thing I remember from his answers was something about having benefited from the Bush Administration’s tax cuts for the rich. It was to the tone of, “I would know. I’ve been there myself.” Usually, politicians utter these phrases to connect to the general public, but Pagliuca just sounded like he was gloating. “I made riches in the past decade that I shouldn’t have been able to, so now I want to change the rules and not let others make the same riches that I did.” Hmm … C for effort.

Capuano, oh Capuano
I don’t think arguing with the moderator is ever a good thing. When you’re being called out for not answering a question, raising your voice and getting defensive/angry only highlights the fact that you’re still not answering the question, and oh by the way, you’re now a sore loser. He touted his 10+ years of House experience a couple of times, but the only concrete thing he could point to having done was to bring NIH funding to the Massachusetts area. Hmm … last time I checked, scientists and doctors apply and receive NIH funding all by themselves. F for abrasive personality, and not in an adorable way like Barney Frank.

Martha is Hillary
Essentially, Martha knows what she’s doing. She knows how to play the game, for example going to lengths to thank the crowd and the organizers before answering her first question (I don’t think any of the other candidates did). She was however, also a bore. Her answers to questions were good, but sounded rehearsed and overly professional. Because no passion came through in her answers, even if she does believe in them, it just sounded like she was spewing phrases she knew the public would want to hear. B for eh.

Quote of the night
“Get the hogs out of Capital Hill!” From Alan, citing some Italian proverb in his answer to the first question.

Most surprising fact
Capuano went to Dartmouth College, and got a law degree from BU. Good for him, except at one point, he claimed to be part of Massachusetts’ working class. Hmm …

**I don’t really understand this strong objection to illegals getting drivers’ licenses. Maybe I live too gentrified a life, but but I’m not really sure what services one gains from having a license that everyone wants to keep illegals from getting. The ability to get into bars? I just don’t get it. It seems that we have so much to lose forcing illegal immigrants to drive on our roads (because you know they’re driving still) without a license or insurance. Am I missing something?