The international Olympic committee (IOC)'s not-so-secret deal with China about internet censorship. Read all about it here.
I'm getting really really tired of all the Western countries being ignorant and making up sh|t about China. It really is a joke.
I just stumbled across a Facebook group. This is what it said
Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Search results re-routed. Websites blocked.
Try to search for blacklisted sites like Amnesty International in China and you will get an error message or be re-routed to an authorised government site.
The same thing happens when you search for terms like democracy, Tibet, Taiwan or Tiananmen Square – timed out, connection reset.
The Great Firewall
That's Internet censorship, China's 'Golden Shield Project'. The Government is watching you.
Behind what has been dubbed the 'Great Firewall of China' citizens can be imprisoned for sending emails, posting blogs or passing on information deemed to be sensitive, a threat to national sovereignty or a state secret.
In China the Internet has become a new frontier in the fight for human rights.
Thousands of Internet police
China has reportedly employed between 30,000 and 50,000 special Internet police who, with the aid of Western-provided technology, read private emails, conduct surveillance, remove blogs and block banned websites.
On screen, Internet users looking at China's most popular websites will see a cartoon cyber-police officer appear every half hour. The cartoon officer reminds them not to view censored material.
In Internet cafés users have to give their full name and an identification card before a using computer. Many cafés, which are subject to random checks, have installed extra censorship software to make sure their customers don't break the rules.
New rules are regularly created to keep up with the pace of the Internet. In January this year licence agreements came into force dictating – in reaction to video-sharing sites like YouTube – that all video material on the web must be approved by a government regulatory body.
Breeding fear
There is no list of what is censored or what authorities are looking for – it's kept deliberately vague and is constantly updated – this instills fear and uncertainty in Internet surfers in the hope that, on top of all the other controls, they will censor themselves.
China is helped by the Internet companies – global giants Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft, and Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Baidu – who have signed a pledge with the Government, the contents of which have not been made public.
The pledge allows the companies to operate in China, but only under conditions that involve censorship of their users.
For more information, go to: http://www.uncensor.com.au/
(OMG The Blogger firewall has been turned off! Woohoo!)
"Lynn", a brand new landmark in Shanghai's restaurant industry. To enjoy delicacies in a modern atmosphere will certainly make you relaxed and happy.
Lynn Restaurant, located in the intersection of Nanjing Road West and XiKang Road. The six feet high ceiling gives extensive vision to the restaurant, the two rows of floor-type wine cabinet at the entrance collect not only vintage wines from all over the world, but also Lynn's home-made top-grade wine. The huge tangerine fresco transmits warmth to every guest. Elegant pieces of antiquity furniture and beautiful ikebana set off low profile but luxurious atmosphere. The semi-closed separate rooms ensure you to enjoy the elegant environment of the restaurant as well as adequate
privacy.
Lynn restaurant tries to create new Shanghai Cuisines. Here, Chinese cuisines are prepared in a western way and western foods are enjoyed in a Chinese way. It's wine flavored French goose liver, Italy jellyfish with vinegar and red wine, Heilongjiang smoked egg with roe, golden pomfret, Belgium chicory and arugula salad, eight treasure hot sauce mixed with butter bean curd, smoked pomfret with jasmine flower and salad juice, all these dishes are perfect integration of both Chinese and Western foods whether in terms of ingredients or in preparation. The "Five Flavor" cold dish integrates all tastes in one dish and the seafood crispy rice with abalone juice treated in Korea-type stone wok makes you intoxicated till the last bite.
The lunch dishes are custom-made for the white collars, healthy and tasteful. Varieties of fresh fruit juices with delicate cold dishes and Shanghai and Hong Kong snacks are not only healthy but value added.
...
Lynn is busy and big and a comforting din all but drowns the contemporary lounge music. There's a film set, New York slickness to the overall effect.
As prospective diners enter and climb some cool marble steps, a decent wine selection lining the walls, greeters welcome at the top of the short flight.
Guided round a partition wall diners are presented with a grand dining hall that looks somehow familiar and immediately aesthetically gratifying. Perhaps it's the dimensions, deep and with a high ceiling. The coloring is dramatic black and white with bold reds and light woods. There's a mixture of stand-alone tables and booths all classically set and during both of Shanghai Daily's lunchtime visits it has been packed.
Lynn is the Shanghainese-style restaurant that the busy Shanghai Center's environ deserves and, with hindsight, is long overdue. Let's face it going to Italy and eating Chinese food would just be plain daft.
The menu comprises many of those favorite dishes found in the earlier mentioned establishments, various dumplings, duck, minced chicken with pine nuts, soups and the usual suspects of seasonally-priced seafood. Lunchtime has set menus on offer with the 70 yuan (US$9.05) deal being the one to go for.
It affords four courses with the likes of a mixed platter: Smoked egg and caviar, fried fish, cold chicken; soup, double-boiled meatballs with freshwater crab; vegetables; fried rice and fruit. The Lynn drink, a stimulating combination of apple, grapefruit, grape and celery, is well worth the 20 yuan. Service is effortlessly accomplished.
On arriving in this fair city I was bemused, no startled, by the notion of re nao - bustling with noise and excitement - and how the Chinese valued this, above all else, in their restaurants. I bemoaned the lack of ambience but now I stand converted.
For the full effect of Lynn get there not long after midday but book ahead. Certainly don't leave it till 1.30pm when lunch is virtually over. After all, this is China.
Link
What the heck does the Taiwan presidential election have in common with Easter?
1. Both of them happened recently.
2. I feel oblivious to both of these big events, living in China.
I have to admit politics bores me to tears. Yeah yeah I know I'm going to be flamed from all the goody-two-shoes intellectual (or psuedo-intellectual) academic know-it-all so-and-so's but really I couldn't give a crap about politics and I freely admit this. (I also don't care much about religion either btw - I just like to think of myself as 'spirtual'). I was into politics for a brief 6 months or so while I worked on our university's newspaper and I hung around very smart law students a lot, and through subtle influences I sort of became interested and involved. I even participated in my first ever (and last) protest march down George Street (the biggest street in Sydney)! LOL.. those were the days...
Anyway, to the Taiwanese the election (every election) is almost as big as life and death. In fact it probably is life or death to them. They are fanatical about it. But can you blame them? - when the whole future of their country is determined by which party wins the election. My father, who basically never watches tv (except maybe half an hour of news each night) will sit in front of the tv watching cable for HOURS on end, watching any news about the Taiwanese election. It's like he's in a trance. It's quite scary. Many overseas Taiwanese pay thousands of dollars to fly back to Taiwan simply to vote in the election because they really want to make their vote count.
The elections are so emotionally charged you actually have candidates having fist fights on live television. It's so scary it's almost funny!
Anyway, living in China there's basically no news of this election. And since I have no interest in any elections I didn't even know the exact date of it. My mother just rang me and told me the 'great news' that Ma Ying-jeou (Mǎ Yīngjiǔ 馬英九) had won. Everyone in my family both on my mother's and father's side are jumping for joy (because they are all actually Chinese, living in Taiwan, as opposed to the 'real' Taiwanese people). Yay! I'm so happy that they are happy. Apparently this means that direct flights between mainland China and Taiwan are more than likely going to happen.
(getting off track a bit, his name in English means Horse-Hero-Nine, and to me it sounds like "My angel" when people say it, and people tell me I look like him and could pass for his daughter! but I can't see it..)
So (from Wikipedia)
The election for the 12th-term President and Vice-President of the Republic of China (traditional Chinese: 第十二任中華民國總統副總統選舉) was held in the Republic of China (Taiwan) on Saturday, March 22, 2008. Kuomintang (KMT) nominee Ma Ying-jeou won, with 58% of the vote, ending 8 years of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rule.
This was the fourth direct election for the President of the Republic of China... Unlike the 2004 presidential election, the political rhetoric of the campaigns tended to focus on economic issues and government corruption rather than national identity and the political status of Taiwan, with both candidates endorsing the status quo in the near term. But much like previous elections, this election was also marked with island-wide mass rallies and much political mudslinging.
Mǎ Yīngjiǔ (born July 13, 1950 in Hong Kong) is the President-elect of the Republic of China (Taiwan), a former Justice Minister, former Mayor of Taipei, and the former Chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 2005 to 2007. Ma is newly elected as the President of Republic of China. His term will begin on May 20, 2008 and will end in 2012.
Taiwan poll result allows Beijing to focus on Tibet
BEIJING: Even as it battled domestic problems vowing to crush Tibetan rebels, the Chinese government got a huge relief from across the Taiwan straits. The Taiwanese people elected a pro-China president for the first time in many years.
A lot of China's energies have been spent on the Taiwan problem. The poll outcome in Taipei will release pressure on the Chinese government on an important front and help it concentrate more forcefully on solving the Tibet challenge. The Communist Party of China's mouthpiece, the People's Daily, came out with an editorial on Saturday calling for efforts to "resolutely crush" the movement for Tibet's independence. The government also released photographs of 21 ‘most wanted' protesters in order to flush them out of their hidings.
The statement showed that the hardline segment within the party has emerged stronger in comparison to the section that favours negotiations with the Dalai Lama. "We must see through the secessionist forces' evil intentions, uphold the banner of maintaining social stability ... and resolutely crush the Tibet independence forces' conspiracy," the People's Daily said.
I'm at my paternal grandparents' apartment now. Using wireless I am 'stealing' from a neighbour (tee hee hee - don't tell!). After not having internet access when I was staying at my cousin's place in 'woop woop' I feel like I've struck the jackpot.
I was staying with my 40+ year old spinster (bachelorette?!) cousin and am now staying with my 80 year old grandparents. I don't know which is worse or which is better but I won't get into that.. it's a bit too personal and likely to bore you.
I am constantly checking up on weather reports whenever I am online and can't believe it is snowing in Shanghai AGAIN! Man! I'm going to freeze when I get back. (ETA: I just saw the snow on the news on TV. Waaah... as much as I hate cold weather there is that magical fairytale quality about snow. The snow in Shanghai is very light, does not stay on the ground and melts quickly.. it is kind of like white, solid rain. Apparently it is snowing all over northern China right now).
The weather in Taipei is... I won't lie... shite. It is what my husband would call "England weather." Cold, grey, dreary and drizzling. Constantly drizzly. It never rains like this in Sydney. It's either dry or it's raining, really raining. But in England and now here in Taipei it's just sprinkling which is kind of frustrating as you sort of need an umbrella and sort of don't. It is about 12-16 degrees here.
Some of the things I really like about Taiwan so far: The variety and cheapness of food, the amazing food courts, the shopping malls and shops in general (where I am free to browse at my own leisure and don't have to bargain unlike in Shanghai!), the politeness and helpfulness of the local people. The non-smoking-ness is unbelievable. It's not just the non-smoking law but the fact that it seems people rarely smoke full stop! It is even better than Sydney where my lungs are accosted by stupid smokers whenever I walk along a busy city footpath. I also love the Japanese-ness of so many things from the shop layouts to the products that they sell to the quirky behaviour (like the elevator ladies who wear hats).. it's all pretty cool.
Some things I don't like at all: The masses of stairs everywhere. (Counted 75 steps from one MRT station exit to the street level). The stupid footpaths that step up and down and are narrow enough as it is but also littered with scooters, motorcycles, stands selling random things, it makes me feel so ugh and so claustrophobic. Not to mention if you have luggage with wheels, a pram, a wheelchair, am elderly with a walking stick/frame, heavily pregnant, or have a broken foot/ankle/leg you are stuffed. You have to go onto the road which is downright dangerous. Or just stay at home and become a hermit. And then when it's raining everything is slippery and disgusting. Also the steps on the bus. The first step is huge. When I came back from Kaohsiung my legs actually buckled underneath me while I was trying to get onto/into the bus! I had a heavy backpack on and a bag in each hand so no hands to hold the rail and gosh it was embarrassing. This man kinda pushed my bag up the stairs for me. and luckily the door didn't trap me I was taking so long to get up those damn steps!
It sounds pretty weird but the stupid up-and-down narrow, crowded footpaths are actually one of the things I remember the most about Taiwan.
I keep thinking I want to move here instead as so many things are better than in Shanghai but I think I still prefer Shanghai more because if I lived here we'd probably live in a tiny place and lots of things would go mouldy and mildew due to the year-round high humidity, we wouldn't be able to afford an ayi or take taxis very often, plus the crowded claustrophobic feeling I just don't like. Kaohsiung is nicer and more spacious (not to mention has warmer weather which is good in winter time) but the air pollution is really bad there, probably even worse than Taipei due to the industrial zone and shipping harbour there. I probably sound like a spoiled brat but after lugging my heavy bags back and forth I really miss the convenience of taking a taxi when I really need to. Besides, I am not 'allowed' to anyway due to my paranoid family. But that's another story.
PS Another great thing about Taiwan is that there is no TGF (the great firewall)!
OK it's taken me this long to figure out how to comment without using a proxy (which doesn't work) or Tor or some such.
* Firstly you view the blog's URL through anonymouse.org.
* Then you click on the time at the bottom of a post, that brings up the comments if it's not already loaded.
* Then you click on "Post a Comment".
* Then it'll start loading a new URL.
* While that is loading, quickly highlight the address bar and delete the anonymouse part so the URL should be something like "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1226965566032016527&postID=5747341705018688676"
*Then add your comment. Voila!
I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out. The other day I was reading someone's blog and clicked on the time that is listed at the bottom of their post and sure enough I could read all their comments. So that is one way to read someone's blogspot blog in China including their comments, WITHOUT a proxy. :)
Before I could not log in or view blogs without some third-party device
Then I could log in, view blogs AND comments without anything (woohoo!)
And now.. I can log in and write/edit posts but cannot view blogs (including my own) without the aid of a proxy.
ARGH! What the?!
Been having soooo much trouble accessing my Blog for the last few days, weeks.. Just then I finally got back into it and the language was back in Chinese - ARGH. Either my computer is stuffing me around or the Great Firewall is/was. Anyway.. these are posts I wrote ready for posting before.
--
China - the land of the fakes! Piracy
OK we all know about China's fake industry - LV handbags, Chanel sunglasses, Gucci wallets, Ralph Lauren Polo t-shirts, North Face jackets, DVDs, etc etc..
Little did you know that China has fake EVERYTHING. If this isn't enough to scare people off I don't know what is - hahaha.
Here are some fake things I have heard about recently.
1. Fake eggs
See this link
Makes me sick thinking about it but hopefully we haven't bought nor eaten any fake eggs!!
2. Fake Colgate toothpastes (which are genuine Colgate!)
Although there is a Colgate factory in China, apparently the ingredients of the toothpastes are not the same as in the US, Australia or other Western countries. Apparently there is a dangerous ingredient inside. Great! Just when I thought a reputable global brand meant that something was 'safe' and when we had bought about 6 tubes when we first arrived... <_<
3. Fake Apple iPhones
This one is quite ingenius actually. And note the Windows chime... hilarious! The Chinese have rebadged the iPhone as tPhone and included a removable battery plus a host of other extra features. At first glance it looks exactly like the iPhone too. Check out the YouTube video.
and now...
4. Fake "Harry Potter" books!
See this link
