Access denied

This week I wanted to write something about the Chinese students I have. Last week I gave spoken English exams at the middle school, and it was interesting to talk with some of the students individually. However something else came up so I’ll leave the Chinese teenagers for another time.

This week someone decided that blogger, (which is a really nice site helping people like me host a blog for free on the internet, allowing for photo’s and video’s with as good as no advertisement) should be blocked. This means that I now have to use proxy sites to view my own blog here in China. Although I’m still able to read and update my blog, it does bother me. I don’t like it that someone just decides from one day to another that a certain blog-host is unwanted. Because on one of the blogs someone wrote something bad about China? It stops other bloggers to blog, and so there are less interesting things to read on the web. Besides that, it does stop a lot of Chinese people reading the blogs on blogger. This definitely doesn’t improve the understanding from China of the rest of the world.

The first time I experienced China’s authority on the web, was at the site hyves.nl, which is a Dutch social networking site like facebook. It’s really strange that they blocked this site cause, one it’s in Dutch and two there is nothing political about it. It would make more sense to block facebook, since there are a lot of support Tibet, Taiwan is not China and similar groups on it.
Since the end of March China is also blocking Youtube, and this one is really annoying me. This was (is, in most countries) one of the most useful websites of the internet in my opinion, and although I can access the site using the same proxy sites, somehow I can’t view the videos anymore. So this does make it impossible for me to view anything on Youtube, which indeed makes the site completely useless. They probably blocked Youtube because in March it was 60 years ago that China “liberated” Tibet, and Youtube has a lot of videos about protesting Tibetan’s being….. (I’ll leave that one to your imagination, oh no wait maybe you can go to youtube, if you’re not in China.)

Other sites which are most of the time blocked, include the BBC, CNN, Amnesty, independent critical political blogs, and pornographic websites. The last one is because pornography is illegal in China, although you don’t really notice that apart from the internet. Dutch news websites are not blocked, the Chinese seem to have forgotten that there are smaller languages as well. Or maybe they think that Dutch websites will not be harmful for the Chinese citizens cause they don’t speak it anyway. For me it’s an advantage though, cause it’s nice to be able to read the more critical Dutch news sites without having to use a proxysite. So far the only Dutch site, which I couldn’t access was Hyves, and I’m sure they made a mistake with doing so, cause I can’t think of one reason why they could have blocked it. It’s nice to appreciate my native language again and it does show me that it can be a real advantage to know a smaller language as well. The English and the French in China are forced to use those proxysites if they want to read news.

They’ve probably blocked Blogger because, another sensitive date is approaching. The 4ht of June. This year it will be 20 years ago that the Tiananmen demonstrations were cracked down by the Chinese government. I don’t want to be another foreigner complaining on the internet about China’s policy regarding the freedom of speech and the freedom of press. But briefly said, I think it’s sad and disappointing that China after the Olympics is still not able to allow for a more liberal policy on the internet and more important the media. Maybe now that China’s power is still rising they’re even less influenced by the West and will be even more strict about things like this. I’m not able to understand the Chinese media yet, but looking at the topics they are definitely avoiding some more sensitive topics.

A topic they are definitely not avoiding though, is the swine flu. I guess it’s because it’s only a couple of years after the SARS epidemic, but they really seem to be afraid of it. It really makes me wonder what is written in the Chinese newspapers. What are the newspapers telling them? The new American teacher is suddenly not coming, cause the boss thought he could have swine flu. He comes from a country with the most people infected, so it didn’t seem to be a good idea to hire him. I’m not sure to believe this though, cause it does sound a lot more realistic that the American just changed his mind, and doesn’t want to go to Wuhu. But since they are really afraid of the swine flu somewhere it does sound possible that the kindergartens don’t want an American teacher who just came out of the US.

Since the American is not coming the boss has asked me to keep working until the end of June. Since I already made travel plans for June, and I don’t want to change them, I told her I could work for her until the first week on June, but not longer. She was not very happy to hear that, but well it was her decision to end the probation period wasn’t it? The good news is that I keep my apartment in these last weeks in Wuhu.

So let’s hope that China stops blocking internet sites as soon as possible, cause using the proxy sites, is a lot slower than usually. Apart from that I'm not able to change the lettertype or to post images... I like to keep this blog, but I'm afraid I do need to find a better proxy site, else I'll have to move to another bloghost.