I hope I will not get in trouble for this post.
I love living and working in Shanghai but one thing that peeves me the most about being in this country is the inability to access all the content on the web. While some content shouldn’t be posted on the web in the first place, there are plenty of really useful websites out there that we, as in the people living in China, could benefit greatly from.
Wikipedia was unblocked recently, but the site was blocked for several years! Blogspot and Blogger were also unblocked recently, but Xanga, Live Journal, and blogs hosted on WordPress.com are still blocked. There are also many blogs that I follow using Google Reader that are blocked otherwise. I am unable to visit their blogs directly and leave comments. YouTube and Flickr at various point in time have been blocked. They work fine now but I have to be extremely careful about using the “right” search keywords. Picasa Web Albums works fine except I can’t view any of the videos because the videos are hosted on Google Video, which has always been blocked. Recently, all the Feedburner feeds have been blocked as well. Technorati used to be blocked but it is working okay right now.
BlueHost, the web hosting company I use for all my websites and blogs, was also unblocked recently. For a while, I wasn’t able to manage my websites from cPanel, but FTP worked okay. I’m thankful the website and cPanel work now and I can resume all my website-building activities.
I have mentioned only a few websites so far. There are many other news, university, religious, and political websites that are inaccessible in this country.
And the one thing I miss the most . . . being able to watch TV shows directly off ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox websites.
Why, why, why?
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no one answered my question…. is 10 K RMB per month a good salary in Qingdao…pls give details….
May 6th, 2008 at 10:40 am
There is speculation that many web sights have been “unblocked” due to the Olympic’s and the spotlight it brings to China. The Chinese government’s official line is that it does not block websites, but living in the country brings many to different conclusions about the government’s stance. If it is not the government blocking the sights, then it’s the communications companies under them, China Telecom or China Mobil. The government is over all forms of public utilities including communications, so it is ultimately responsible, though actual government officials are not doing the programing to block or unblock sites. Pretty clever semantics but it does not meet many ethical standards of communication. Why? It’s all about control, harmony, and stability in a country with a large population. Something as westerners we don’t value as highly as free speech. Most Chinese have accepted it and even value it as an appropriate practice.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
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July 3rd, 2008 at 12:11 am
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July 12th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
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