It’s only been a month since BBC’s English-language news website was unblocked by Net Nanny for the first time in the three years that I’ve been in China with regular web access.
And now today, more astonishingly, the BBC’s Chinese language news site has also been unblocked, quite possibly for the first time in the history of the Interwebs.
Here are the two front pages, as I wrote this now on the evening of July 31st. Somewhat amusingly, the front page of the English section blares that the BBC’s Chinese site is now unblocked within China, although that same ’shock’ news is not featured in the BBC Chinese part:
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Those who are in the know in China all say that a Virtual Private Network is the way to go if you want to get around the so-called Great Firewall in China. Most VPNs cost money, but I recently found this free one that works well, and I thought I’d share it with you guys. As you can see from the video, it’s a very quick and easy install and requires no expertise at all (my speciality!) to configure.
Spread the word among your friends in China. Screw proxies. This is friggin’ wonderful.
Watch the Video of the VPN install:
I recently spent four days in Hong Kong as the final stop of a brief Southeast Asian trip, and as usual I found the language situation there somewhat mystifying. Hong Kong, as we know, has three official languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. Because I don’t speak the former, I was reliant on the latter two to guide me through interactions with locals.
I was well aware that in the past ten years the prevalence of 普通话 has spread in Hong Kong, yet people tell me that the average native still feels more comfortable conversing in English. Feeling lazy, I used English exclusively during the first two days and communicated without undue difficulty.
I found the Hong Kongers to be neither polite nor …
© James Justin
Hey all you fellow laowai in China, Harvard student Wendy Lee is researching how we go about travelling in this big country, and due to the lack of stats about our expat habits available online she’s put together a little survey and asked I tell you about it.
Now, personally, I’m always eager to help Harvard when it comes a callin’, but I think Wendy realized early on many of you would need some additional incentive. As such, all expats that take the time to fill out the survey will be entered into a random drawing for a free trip for two to Sanya, including round trip plane tickets (from any …
Well, everyone and their grandma is calling the 2008 Beijing Olympics China’s coming out party, and they’ve just been given the biggest reason yet, as it doesn’t get any gayer than this.
Sorry, I don’t mean to offend or misrepresent the gay community, <em>Queer Eye</em> teaches us you all have far more fashion sense than this.
This fashion faux pas of the century (and we’re still early into it) is China’s official Olympic opening ceremony uniform.
I’m slowly developing a phobia for mid-afternoon taxi drivers. I’m not sure if they’re all absolute twats, or if its just me. Can’t possibly be me. I hope not anyhow…
Taking a cab between 3:30 and 4pm is easily the biggest pain in my relocated ass right now. My current schedule requires me to commute at this time of the day, and it very rarely goes smoothly. Taxis usually change from the day driver to the night driver around 4pm. And to do that they need to go pick up the second driver in a certain part of town. If your destination is not reasonably near that part of town then your shit outta good fortune, as I all too often …
When I read about the bus explosions in Kunming on this past Monday I was a little surprised that the local police weren’t calling it terrorism. I don’t believe that it was done by anyone with a political agenda. This was probably done, as the police are saying, by someone with a local grievance. But isn’t that terrorism?
According to Dictionary.com the first definition for terrorism is “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.”
Even if the person had a local grievance didn’t he terrorize people? He used violence to intimidate people — two people died. But since the local Kunming and most likely the central governments disagree with me, that makes me wonder …
There are a few things that no matter how long I’m in China will always bring a pleasant smile to my face - the elderly practicing taiqi, dancing or just walking backwards in parks is one of them. The above photo is by Shanghai-based photographer Stephane Ferrero.
I have to say that I was really surprised when I opened up a Sara Bongiorni’s A Year Without Made in China – the story about one family’s attempt to boycott Chinese products for all of 2005 — there wasn’t much about China in it.
The book is subtitled “One Family’s True Life Adventure in the Global Economy” but it isn’t really about globalization either. The book is a story about commitment China and globalization are just background players. Nowhere is this more true than looking at Bongiorni’s knowledge of China. She keeps talking about Chinese factories as sweatshops but makes no attempt to examine major retailers’ supply chains other than to call companies and ask if the product came …
It’s a damn good thing that I live in a city where the accepted legal tender is basically Monopoly money, because finance gives me the heebie jeebies. It always has. My pre-adolescent lemonade stands went bankrupt, the last time I balanced a checkbook was during a particularly awesome round of hacky-sack, and the merest whiff of an Excel spreadsheet gives me explosive diarrhea.
I have long suspected that this has something to do with my general aversion to math. I could never quite wrap my head around the idea that there was only one answer to any given equation. “Why does everything have to be so black and white with you?” I would ask my arithmetic teacher as she …
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