Kind of Update

I just lamented that I cannot access my blog and now I am in. It is confusing. Yesterday I found a way via websurfing.cn and today I try the same but get error messages from google. Then I tried to comment on my last post - I am really glad that some readers care - and I realise I am kind of signed in! Now, while I am writing here, the post cannot be saved... it seems hopeless, at least today.
- Until later.

oups!
I cannot save the post, but I can publish it. But none of the tools above (insert link, image, spell check etc.) are available. So no pictures. I only have nice pictures to post!
Hello Mr. Internet P*licemen! Bring back my Blog !

But ... maybe .... if I try to surf back and forward, slowly, again and again, I might be able to dwell another hole in the Great Firewall ...

It is time consuming, but challenging. If anyone has an idea, let me know. Comments are forwarded into my mailbox.

Thanks for not giving up on my blog !

Update from Beijing

I am still here. I just lost my voice through censorship. And after pkblog.com and other useful sites could not help me to get back to blogspot I gave up. Of course I was angry and sad. Not only could I not write about my thoughts and little daily adventures, I had no access to all my favorite blogs hosted by blogger, blogspot, typepad etc. But after a while I almost get used to a blog free life...

Every now and then I checked my statistic (via statcounter.com) and wondered that I have still lots of hits although I am not updating my blogs.

And just right now, checking again, I see that a lot of hits come via ... www.websurfing.cn - and I followed the link and found this free proxy server that not only allows me to see again my blog - but also to sign in ! THANK YOU THANK YOU !

It feels great! I am back online !

I had so many little daily adventures to tell, that right now I do not know where to start. I see that my last post was May 6, more than three weeks ago (it felt longer to me).

Maybe I should start with what I posted last - about "the virus".
Mmmh.... tricky, I guess, politically not correct to talk about it, I can feel it.
Or why does no newspaper gives any update about it? In the beginning they promised weekly updates. Or was it only monthly? I read somewhere that they do not report statistics anymore (about how many kids have the virus and about how many died - in Beijing) because the blood test with HMFD (hand mouth food disease) is optional, so any reported figure will not give a clear picture. This explanation - I recognize the style - might have been given. So for now, nobody, including me, seems to know anything. Everybody pays attention to the kids hygiene (washing hands as often as possible) and hops that their own kid(s) does not get sick before they leave Beijing for summer holiday or before they move away.

Shortly after the virus subject, a far more dramatic nature disaster happened. The earthquake. I have been in the car on the 3rd ring road on May 12, at 2.28 pm when the earth shaked - even in Beijing. The epicenter was 1545 km away from Beijing, but the quake with magnitude 7.9 (or 8.0) was still to feel in Beijing. Some did not feel it, like me. But many, working on higher floors in Beijing office buildings, or even in schools could feel it and left the buildings or were evacuated respectively. Many people were seen in the streets while others still wondered why, until it was on the 3.00pm news on the radio and was spread my word of mouth and SMS. There were - apparently - thank god - no casualties in Beijing - and no news about what the impact was here in the capital. You get your picture from talking to many different people. Not from reading some newspaper.

I am glad that the Bookworm Beijing organised a donation for Chengdu. They were collecting clothes, blankets, dried food etc. until Saturday May 17, 4.00pm. I was happy to donate kids clothes and our blanket together with my son at the bookworm. It was impressive to see all the big boxes packed so fast by DHL and stored in several yellow vans and trucks - and knowing that the needed goods will arrive in Chengdu the next day to be distributed via the Bookworm Chengdu. I am glad to have been enabled to contribute a little bit, and thanks to the Bookworm, the goods hopefully have arrived at the right moment at the right place.

All other things since the earthquake appear minor and unimportant. That is why the newspaper concentrate on the earthquake, the rescue works, the survivors, the heroes. There seems (almost) no space or time for other news.

Later that month I had an issue with the Bank of China... I was at the ATM machine waiting for my money, that did not come out, but when checking the bank account it showed that 2.500 RMB were debited. It was solved in about 10 days, but with some minor headache as the customer service staff did a very bad job, indeed they did not do their job at all. Anyway, maybe later more. Maybe not.

The air quality last month was not good at all. It seems to get worse. Due to the strong winds all the dust from the many construction sites was blown all over the city (they are sill building like crazy, until there is no more between July 20 and September 20).

And last but not least the news that I have not told yet:
We are moving! June is my last month. In less then 4 weeks (!) from now we are moving. And this is another story.

I am happy to start this month with a new post. And I have many pics to post soon.
Good night from Beijing.

Beijing's Olympic Heroes

Today I found these pictures on TooManyTriples flickr page *) (via Danwei).
She named them "Olympic Heroes".
These two words say it all.

However let me add a few words: Around one million migrant workers are working in Beijing. Most of them (at least 90 %) are construction workers helping to build the 'new Beijing'. Among the several thousand construction sites are the Olympic stadium (aka the bird nest), the swimming stadium (aka the water cube), the new airport (already in operation) and many other modern buildings and infrastructure for the Olympic Games that start August 8.

Since March 20, all earthwork construction projects on windy days are suspended and all construction sites will latest close on July 21 for a period of 2 months in order to reduce dust and improve air quality. Then, while the construction sites are closed, most migrant workers will be sent home (rumours).

While googling 'migrant workers in Beijing' to provide actual data I saw this link http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/03/12/china18244.htm... but cannot open the website ... oh, of course not, because 'hrw' stands for 'human rights watch' ...

I found the article elsewhere unblocked. Sad, sad, sad.
I hope the smiling heroes above will be rewarded appropriately.

*) When I wanted to copy the link I found flickr blocked... the Net Nanny or Chinese Fire Wall is unpredictable. What was open a few minutes ago is blocked now. - However, for the Olympics the Internet will be open. This is a request by the IOC. (I will add the link as soon as I can open it. Meanwhile you could find TooManyTriples via Danwei above or go directly to www.flickr.com).

China Daily on Tibet

Yes, China Daily, the National English language Newspaper, is reporting about the latest incident in Tibet - on the front page.



Photos: China Daily, front page, March 15 - 16 2008

Update:
To be fair, I have to mention that since Saturday, every day, China Daily reports more. Today the subject was on the front page covering more than half of the page (the first half). I don't want to comment on the content.
However, what Western media reports (despite censorship one can find access here and there) seems biased as well.

I hope for peaceful Olympics.

Blogspot blocked in China

It is more than a week that all in a sudden I had no more access to my blog.

I know, blogspot has been blocked and unblocked and blocked again in China for a while. However I have managed to have access to blogspot here in Beijing from the moment I started my blog in December 2006. Back then, I did not even know it was blocked in China. Friends in Shanghai had no access and told me. So I wondered whether I am just lucky in Beijing or whether I have access via a proxy server. Until last week when I met the "Great Firewall of China" (GFC) that had swallowed my innocent blogs.

However there is this website that helps readers to go around the GFC that apparently exists not only in China but also in India, Pakistan and Iran. It is here at pkblogs.com where you type in the requested blog and it re-appears! Another more sophisticated IT support can be found at the lost laowai who posted a "quick fix" to use with Firefox.

At the moment I am using the first method (pkblogs.com) to read blogs on blogspot. However to write my blog I just need to go to blogger.com and access from there. Luckily Blogger is not blocked - (I just found out. The last three lines are an update).

It feels good to be back...

------------------
Update:

Surf around the Firewall with Anonymouse.org! With this help, I can finally read the China Digital Times (see blogroll).

If you want to start a blog and want people in China be able to read your blog then avoid the big free blog hosts (blogspot ect.) Better to get your own domain name.

Flickr Photos partly unblocked in China

Amazing! I see my flickr badge on the blogroll showing colourful pictures again! I immediately accessed flickr to see whether China's 'Net Nannie' has finally unblocked flickr... I couldn't believe my eyes: from all my sets only the one with the title 'China Style', the one feeding the flickr badge on this blog was deblocked. Well, the 'Net Nannie' must be really busy deblocking pictures/sets by tags or names... Amazing!

This is my unblocked set at flickr.com. All other pictures are still not available in China.

Update: Thursday 2.30pm, the Censors are not that generous anymore... all gone again. However some minutes later some other pictures, not my China Set, were visible...Maybe the Censors play around or the filter does not work right. I don't know if you know how censorship in China looks like, therefor here the latest screenshot:

China: Internet Censorship and Observation

Wikipedia, at the moment unblocked, has a list of notable websites and blogs blocked in China here.

Danwei, one of my favorite blogs in China follows the 'Net Nanny Follies' here.


More about 'observation' in China:

In the fist weeks and months of living in Beijing, I somehow felt kind of sort of observed. You hear a lot of things and maybe that's why you suspect a lot of things. Chinese people look at you, because you look different. So you feel watched.

I even felt that someone is looking at the same thing on my computer like I did at the same time. Sometimes I think that someone just uses my email account as it is blocked for a moment. I also felt over listened on the phone. Whenever I was unhappy with my 'ayi' (maid) I told my family back home over the phone and two days later the problem was solved. Or when I was unsatisfied with the service at the Bank of China (once again) I used to yell in my house in hope that someone would listen to me and maybe take action and send some staff for training sessions ....

I talked to people of different embassies in charge for security or defence about how 'paranoid' someone should be about being observed. They all said, you can't be paranoid enough. Did you know that a switched-off mobile phone can be used to over listen you? That is why you have to drop your mobile phones outside certain conference rooms for certain meetings in the embassies.

Even our friendly driver seems to have a second job. To spy on where we go, what we do, what we buy, who we see and what we talk about in the car. My mom uses a hearing-aid in her ear that totally went crazy in our car and we could here another voice talking in Chinese.

We are lucky, we do not have to hide anything (or not much). So, sometimes, I 'used' the invisible ears and eyes to express my dislikes in hope of a change. Or just for fun. - After two years in China, I got used to all this and do not notice it anymore - not as much as in the beginning.

However, the censorship of the Internet is something I really disapprove as I feel handicapped. Handicapped in getting information. Not being able to reading the news I want, the blogs I like or working with my pictures at flickr is making me really upset. I totally understand the young Chinese people that go abroad for studying and then decide to not go back. What a pity and shame for such a great ancient culture.

BLIND IN CHINA !

Click here to stick a pin to torture the Net Nanny Voodoo Doll

How can they dare to block FLICKR ?
I have been quiet all the time.
I am a guest here in China.
I am not criticizing much.
Blogger blocked or unblocked did not matter much to me. I always had access to my blog to be creative. And not having millions of Chinese readers did not matter to me.
Blocking Wikipedia did not bother me too much either. I can get info somewhere else.
But now I am affected, badly affected. I AM BLIND IN CHINA !
Flickr is blocked since June 7. I cannot upload or work with my pictures at flickr where I paid 25USD to have an extended account that is useless since ONE WEEK already. I feel blind ! I cannot see the lovely pictures form one of my favorite blogs, Decor8 as the pictures are posted directly from flickr.

For the first time, since two years in China, I feel my personal freedom restricted.

Cannot they just block these pictures from the Chinese users that uploaded unwanted pictures? Why everybody had to be affected? And on the other hand, if Chinese people want to protest against a Chemical Plant they should do it on their own sites. They are affecting millions of people that are not interested in some demonstrations in China. Why don't they email their pictures around to news stations outside the country? Why do they have to abuse Flickr with their political issues ?!
Am I an egoist?
Well, no, I feel punished for something I have not done!
This is not fair. Okay. That word might be not known in Chinese government.
Did I say too much?
I punched three needles in that little Voodoo doll that symbolizes the Chinese 'Net Nanny' that blocks diverse websites that the China government does not like.

More links at Danwei