Waking up in 中国

Rumours

2009-07-14T23:45:00.000-07:00

As in any other place where freedom of expression is, let's say, a little lacking, rumours are a very important source of information in China. With all national media under constant scrutiny, and an infinite number of hurdles set in place to keep people from accessing reliable media, a lot of important news still relies simply on people hearing something and relaying it forward to someone else.
As much as this annoys me, it really hasn't been something that's affected me too much.

That is, until now.

The latest rumour to hit my doorstep is rather unsurprisingly related to the PRC's upcoming 60th anniversary celebration. I currently live in a very well known and historically troublesome area (for reasons which I will discuss on a later post) of Beijing, known to any local as DaShaLanr.
Located in the heart of Beijing, its proximity to Tiananmen square as well as several government buildings makes it a focus of concern whenever there may be public unrest, and is therefore closely monitored. Though this typically only means that there are a few police cars keeping an eye out for trouble, and an accurate record of everyone, particularly foreigners, who live in the area.

This time around, however, the government has apparently found it necessary to take further measures to ensure that nothing fishy is going on. And so it seems that the entire area surrounding Tiananmen, Dashalanr included, will be closed off for about five days. This means that no one, foreigners and locals alike, will be allowed in or out of the area during that time.

Inconvenient? Yes.

But the major annoyance with this is that while everybody seems sure that it will happen (I've heard it from at least five different sources) nobody seems to know when. So if I continue to live in this area, which is by far my favorite part of Beijing, I'm facing the unexciting prospect of a 5 day lockdown sometime within the next two months.

Welcome to China.

One month later

2009-07-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

top picture is from my overnight stay at Heathrow airport on my way to Beijing, second one is a view from the door of my hostel during one of Beijing's very sporadic rainfalls, and last is my new $14 bike at the Beijing Art and Culture center.

I've been in Beijing for almost a month now and hadn't written a single post so I thought it was about time I changed that.
My first 30 days in Beijing have centered around dealing with China's immigration laws and visa procedures, which this year are particularly stringent due to a number of controversial anniversaries (being Mexican hasn't helped much either), a couple of which have come and gone quietly, but there's more to come which will certainly make the headlines. Along with the immigration bureau, China's great firewall (aka China's Net nanny) has also been hard at work updating its list of blocked websites, a list to which Facebook was added today, joining blogspot, youtube, twitter, flickr, hotmail, parts of wikipedia, and many others. If it was not for my trusty anti-firewall thingy I have on my computer I might be much less cheerful right now.

Anyway, the blacklist seems to have doubled in the past 36 hours, and if you've caught even the slightest glimpse of the news in the past two days I'm sure you have an idea of the events that triggered this response from China's net nanny.

There's a few other things I wanted to write about, but I've got to wake up for my chinese class in a few hours, and the 2 kuai beers I get around here seem to be catching up with me.

First post, still in Mexico

2009-05-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

KZ frat house, my home for the past 2 years
Biking in Vancouver on a deserted beach at sunrise, nothing beats this.

Hey, well this is my first post. I've started this blog as a means of keeping my friends and family updated on whatever it is I'm doing in China, or wherever else I happen to end up.
Despite not being in China yet due to a (minor) pandemic you might have heard about, I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog today, while still in Mexico, because my grad ceremony from UBC took place sometime this morning, and it seemed fitting that I somehow mark this day since I couldn't be in Vancouver for it.

The other reason I’ve decided to start the blog early is because the great Chinese firewall, aka China’s net nanny, has (as of last Sunday) added Blogspot to its list of blocked websites, joining youtube, amnesty international, and quite a few others. So I’ve been looking around for proxy servers to try out which will let me update my blog while in China.

In case you’re wondering why Blogger was recently targeted by China’s net nanny (although of course there is no official reason) most people think it might have something to do with the upcoming June 4^th, which marks the 20^th anniversary of certain group of people doing a certain something at a certain square in Beijing, which is as much as anyone in China seems to know…or want to.