Another post I found that I never officially posted. Probably because I say some very irritated personal opinions that do not see the whole picture. I only see my small foreign point of view. So please don't judge me. Thanks:
Today is the first day I have been able to view my own blog, let alone all of my friends' blogs, in more than a month. (And Facebook and Youtube, etc.) So I might as well do a post, right?
Since this coincides with the above statement I would like to talk about "The Great Firewall of China".
When we first came to China we realized that when we were connected to the internet we could not access any blogs, Facebook, Youtube and many other 'random' webpages. When we tried we would get this message, "Safari can't open [said webpage] because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection..." It goes on to tell you a blatant lie such as, "This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait a few minutes, then try again." No matter how many minutes you wait or times you try you will never connect to the desired server! Or it will try to blame the problem on the web site you wish to connect to by saying, "...the server where this page is located isn't responding."
This is a problem because these are the main ways of keeping in touch with family and friends from back home. Hence, we decided to purchase a VPN that reroutes our server outside of China so we can access said websites. So, even though China's internet is very splotchy as it is, when we had internet we had Facebook. Never thought much about WHY China would block those specific websites. As long as we could get to them I was happy.
Since moving to Beijing our problem has resurfaced. Naive me figured China would be happy having blocked the vast majority of people in China from "dangerous" websites, but they are not. More than a month ago our VPN would/could not connect to any other server. We figured it was just a glitch but have since found that China is actively seeking out and shutting down access to these VPN servers.
We contacted our VPN customer service about the problem and they opened a bunch more servers but we still cannot connect to them!?
It's amazing how much power China exacts and how desperate they are to keep control. Especially now with all the riots and unrest going on in the Middle East. I've been hearing about some people in China, foreign or not I don't know, who are trying to start protests. That the St. Patrick's Day parade was cancelled because it would be too dangerous to gather so many people together at this time.
All I want is to communicate with my far distant family and friends. I don't want any part of a riot. I've heard about what happens to those people, especially in China. They're either beaten, thrown in jail, killed or all of the above.
How careful our church is not to offend the Chinese government. They read/remind us of our promise NOT to proselytize to Chinese Nationals every Sunday.
I personally don't see how China has 'it' so bad. They seem to have decent lives. Standard of living is going up. They do seem to have some of the most disturbing 'beggars' I've ever seen: mutations, amputations, burn victims, birth defects, etc. But for the most part they seem happy...
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