Giving in to the Great Firewall

This site has been run on and off since the fall of 2006, today it is basically dead. It was murdered by the Great Firewall of China, which has blocked blogspot continuously since early June. The crime committed? Originally locating this blog on blogspot.

I've been critical of the government from time to time on this blog, but I've always kept an open, rational mind and tried to see things from the government's point of view. I've never been negative to be negative and I've never attempted to score cheap points by taking the easy way out. I love China, it's my home, and I want to see her get even stronger.

At the same time, I feel beaten down by the government. I can no longer access sites like facebook, blogspot, or twitter. I know how to access a proxy and can get around these bans, but the hassle of it all has made visiting sites that were once part of my daily routine, now they are sporadic at best.

I'm not an enemy of the state, I don't intend on writing things to embarass it, but due to the government's blanket ban, I've fallen victim to it. I get asked at times why the government tries to block information, knowing that things like proxies and VPNs are readily available to get around them.

The answer, because the Great Firewall works. Most, like me, will start to fight at first, but as a site block goes from days to months, we slowly lose the resolve and only the most vigilant continue bothering. I want this site to continue, but the writers outside the Firewall have given up because the number of readers dropped severely after the block, at the same time, writers inside the Wall can no longer write on the site, so everyone just gives up.

If this is the death of this site, then so be it, we'll see if I can continue the good fight. But, if indeed this is the end, for all you "out there", please remember us buried inside the Great Firewall.

No I Don't Want to Have Relations With My Mother (ie Let's Make the Grass Mud Horse Extinct)

Recently, over a glass of wine some of the editors of this blog had a discussion with close friends on Chinese politics. These friends are white collar workers who are enjoying the fruits of the Chinese economic miracle and are equally now concerned about how harshly the economic crisis will attack China. Neither were familiar with the "caonima" craze and both were dismissive of Charter 08. Despite some debate, at the end of the day we all came to the conclusion that too many of these phenomena are focused on the ivory towers of Beijing's campuses and rarely disseminate down to the masses.

In China, revolution comes from the countryside and the feeling is that nothing has changed, despite China's advancements and globalization. If those in the countryside are happy, or at least not taking up their pitchforks, the country (and the Party) will remain safe. No matter how hard the economic crisis hits China, no matter how many middle management types in cities like Beijing and Shanghai get fired, the general feeling was that these people will not protest or cause problems for the government. For many, who are making tens of thousands of RMB a month, the feeling is that they know they're fooling their employers and would be perfectly happy with far less.

Intellectuals will always stir things up and create documents like Charter 08 and net-savvy, snarky young people will come up with things like "caonima", but neither will be very effective or be known widely. If you stop people randomly on the street in Beijing, less than 25% would understand "caonima" as anything other than a vulgar swear word, even if you stop people in the CBD, where many are considered more "world-weary" the number wouldn't be much different.

The "caonima" video/story is vulgar, juvenile, and can only elicit one or two small tee-hees. And unlike a lot of instant internet hits, this one got on the government's radar and was shut down fairly fast. The opinion of these friends, who feel the Chinese government has weathered the storm of the crisis well, was the same as what you'd hear in China a lot over the past 18 years after what happened in 1989, "why bother with politics, things are good now."

The Last To Know

So we interrupt all this election talk to give a shout out to some great software, though its all stuff that I'm sure most of you have been using for years. Yes, I'm feeling like the last one to the party, no idea why my other co-editors didn't enlighten me, but right now I'm obsessed with two great programs that have been incredibly helpful, Google Reader and AnchorFree's Hotspot Shield.

Google Reader is great to keep track of all my RSS feeds and has made daily blog and news reading a hell of a lot easier. Hotspot Shield is an excellent private VPN, allowing those in China to get around the Great Firewall, and doing so for free. Both have been around for a dog's age and both are phenomenal, if you aren't using them, it's time to check them out.

A Wired City Isn't Just a Pipedream

I previously heard about Shanghai's plan for wireless internet access around the city by the Olympics and didn't have a lot of confidence in the idea. In the US, many major cities discussed the idea of wifi, some even proposed citywide free wifi, but most of those programs turned out to be failures.

One of the advantages of Communism is central planning, the government and thus the government run telecom company isn't so concerned with making profits and so the idea has potential, however the one thing the article doesn't mention is whether the service will be fee based or free (I have a feeling it will be the former).

My biggest concern is about how slow the network will be, China's internet is already infamously slow, but when the entire city can get on it, what will that do to speed? Also, unless they're really throwing money at this program, signal strength in buildings and apartments is unlikely to be very strong and could make for a very maddening experience.

For all those concerns, it will be interesting to see how this experiment turns out and if its adopted more widely. I've been saying for awhile that I think, with relatively minimal investment, much of China's rural areas and smaller towns can be turned into places with full internet connectivity and give the masses new found access to information. This is definitely a step in the right direction.

Celebrate!

It's as if the GFW knowns my pain after the defeat and wants to console me, surprisingly, blogspot is back online, we'll see how long it lasts, but its a nice attempt at helping me get over the defeat...

The Earthquake, Rumors, and What Might Be Coming

First, here at A Modern Lei Feng, our heart's go out to all those in Sichuan and around China who were affected by the 7.8 earthquake that hit near Chengdu yesterday. We will be donating money and doing what we can to help and encourage others to do the same.

There is not much we can add to the earthquake reporting, while it was felt in Beijing and Shanghai, it didn't create real damage and only those in high rises knew that it was even happening. I do agree with others, this is yet another bad sign in what was supposed to be a very lucky year for China. Beyond the snow storm, the T!betan protests (and the torch relay aftermath), and now this earthquake, there is hand, foot, and mouth disease that has been spreading through interior provinces, the Qingdao train accident, the thwarted terrorist attack in Xinjiang and the possible "terrorist" attack on a Shanghai bus, plus rumors about potential terrorist attacks against transportation targets in Beijing. At this point, China has been struck with so many disasters, both natural and man-made, what's next?

So what more can we offer? For those in Beijing and Shanghai, the earthquake wasn't so scary, but fear spread when rumors started circulating widely about aftershocks that would measure between 3 and 6 on the Richter Scale and would take place between 10 pm and midnight. This was sent as a legitimate SMS and was received over and over again, it even made it onto some reputed (if there is such a thing when talking about Chinese media) media websites, though it was quickly removed.

In the US, usage of text messaging is relatively limited while in China it is used by everybody as its cheaper than a phone call and often more convenient, especially when on a packed bus or subway. Usage of SMS is one of the main ways rumors spread so quickly (ie the AIDS Kabab rumor as another example). Rumors tend not to spread so much in the US because they often are sent through email and the reader has full usage of the internet to check the veracity of the rumor. In China, even when the text message defies logic (ie being able to predict the time of an earthquake, AIDS spread through food), the number of times you receive them and how they are often sent from otherwise highly intelligent individuals makes it harder to ignore.

On the Subway 2: Improvement or Nightmare?

Waiting for a train in a Line 1 or 2 subway station you get a phone call, your friend is looking to meet you, but you haven't decided where yet, the train comes and you get on, your friend is babbling about a trieste he/she had the night before and just about to get to the juicy details when...The train leaves the station, enters a tunnel, the line goes dead, and you curse loudly, drawing the ire of your fellow riders, who are squeezed against every possible part of your body.

The above scenario has happened to us all, probably countless times, right? Well, no more according to the Beijing government, as they are expanding cell coverage in the subway tunnels meaning that by June, there will be no more dropped calls on the subway.

Whether or not this is good news, it depends on your outlook on mobile phones, are they a gift or a curse? For those who think our world is already too connected, you have one more thing to complain about as you are attempting to enjoy the "peace" (yeah, right!) of a Beijing subway ride.

Am I Dreaming?

As of 5 minutes ago, blogspot is once again accessible in China, I'm not sure how long that will remain the case, but hopefully it will be a long time, so I won't have to switch this blog to another server and go through all those hassles...

Like When Everyone Discovers That Indie Band You Love...

You know when you really love a band (or restaurant or store or book or whatever) and they seem to be floating sort of under the radar? You keep going through an internal debate with yourself as to whether you want to tell the world about them because they deserve the wider audience or just keep them your own personal secret so that you can enjoy them....

Well, that's sort of how I felt back in December 2006 when I stumbled across Dianping after having returned to Beijing and wanting to find out if a favorite restaurant of mine had been felled by a wrecking ball or was still going strong. It was Beijing, after all, and places were (and are) constantly closing or being chai'ed. Unfortunately, that restaurant had already met its maker, but I had a new go-to tool whenever looking for a restaurant and also something to waste an hour (or three) when I was bored.

Dianping is THE resource on the web for Chinese (and those who can read Chinese) who like to eat out on a regular basis. The website, launched in 2003, offers visitors the chance to write their own Zagat-like reviews about restaurants they visit, and allows other visitors to send reviewers flowers or leave comments about a review. Some reviews are simple, some are extremely in-depth breakdowns with photos, others resort to poetry, and some (read mine) even are in English. Almost every major (and even some minor) cities are represented and it seems that almost every non-hole in the wall tiny restaurant (and even some tiny ones) are listed. There also are a huge variety of groups where one can go to discuss everything under the sun, but usually focused on food (sort of like the US sites chowhound or egullet). Often, these groups will hold gatherings referred to as "FB"s (for 腐败, corruption in English, as these events typically are about eating and drinking a lot and having fun). Dianping has even spawned local imitators like chilema.com in Shenzhen, but as of yet none of them can compare to Dianping for depth of information.

So why am I giving up this "secret"? Well, City Weekend already exposed the joys of the site with their interesting interview with the site creator, Zhang Tao. I figured at this point, it really isn't much of a secret, but its still relatively unfamiliar to many expats, so its time to let everyone know. If you love eating out, if you're looking for a new place to eat, or if you need a restaurants phone number or address quick, Dianping is the place to go!

The Chat Software Divide pk The Social Networking Software Divide

I have a confession to make, I'm too harsh on Ben's Blog much of the time, no, no, its true. His blog does serve its purpose and from time to time makes me think, and, like in this case, it sometimes leads me to come up with an entry of my own on a day my mind is blank.

Today, Ben offers a good introduction to the chat software, QQ (previously talked about on this blog here). The QQ craze took over China in the late 90s, the country was awash in penguins, and it even led to the introduction of a clothing line, amazing success when we're talking about nothing more than a chat software. Can you imagine guys buying the MSN person logo for their girlfriend? Or tshirts with the ICQ flower on it? But that indeed is how powerful QQ was at that time. Since then, like all fads, it has died down, though the majority of teenage Chinese still regularly use and exchange QQ numbers.

The QQ trend ends at the teenage years, though, as the majority of urban Chinese outgrow it right around the age they enter university. After that, the majority of white collar Chinese university graduates would never dare admit to having a QQ number and, if they do, they will have "forgotten" it a long time ago. Why? For the urban, white collar employee, MSN is the choice. This is for a number of reasons, namely foreign (and increasingly Chinese companies) use MSN for intra-office communication, MSN is more stable, and MSN fails to have the annoyances that go along with QQ including lots of pop-up ads and random people adding you. Its as if part of the tradition of entering college nowadays is shedding your QQ number and not looking back.

That said, look at what people in the 3rd-tier cities or what the staff in urban offices are using and you'll often times find that penguins (QQ) outnumber people (MSN). This is even more apparent than the oft-discussed Myspace-Facebook battles in the US. It shares some similarities in the High School (Myspace/QQ) vs. University (MSN/Facebook) sense, but there is also the overwhelming white collar (MSN) vs. blue collar (QQ) battle that goes on in China that doesn't exist in the US.

I'm not a sociology major and so I can't go into all the issues this divide will bring about, though I think a very interesting research paper/study could be done on the issue. For all you Laowai who are arriving as students or have studied and are now starting to work in China, your choice of chat software says something about you, be careful that its saying what you want it to!

A Week Can Make All the Difference...

A week ago I was getting ready to post an entry that started out like this:

According to a source Sinobyte says that the iPhone could be out in China as early as Spring 2008. As an aside, it looks like Sinobyte's going to be a great new blog for anyone interested in technology in Asia.

While Sinobyte still looks like its going to be a great blog, I, like many others, am left playing Monday morning quarterback as to why Apple and China Mobile have halted negotiations on bringing the iPhone to China. Last week, I was contemplating whether iTunes would open up a China store and if it could lead to people starting to pay for music through high-quality downloads and other new features (I know this is basically an impossibility, but its something to ponder on a slow day). This week, I'm left wondering whether I will be able to get my hand on an authorized release of an iPhone in China before the Olympics.

These negotiations dragged on for a long time with more than a few fits and starts and this was mainly caused by the fact that neither party really needed the other. Sure, China Mobile is going to lose a bit of money, but they are still the biggest player in the world's largest wireless market. The Apple juggernaut isn't going to be slowed down by lack of entry in China at this point, either.

From all the media reports that have come out so far, it seems like Apple overplayed a relatively weak hand and China Mobile called their bluff. Now Apple can choose to wait things out, go to China Unicom, or crawl back to the negotiating table. Waiting it out seems like the most likely option, as Apple has only slowly started entering the China laptop/mp3 market, though the iPhone could serve as their first real mainstream entry and draw people toward other Mac products, much like the iPod drew people in the US toward Apple laptops. Grey market iPhones will still be readily available, but rarely purchased due to the high price tag and the glut of reliable dealers selling them.

I'm most interested now in seeing if China Unicom can capitalize as this could be the big draw they need to attract customers and take a bite out of China Mobile, but on the other hand, doesn't this make Apple look like the spurned prom date who waited too long and is now desperate to say yes to anybody? This isn't like being in the US and switching from T-Mobile to Cingular AT&T, its more drastic as Unicom is, for all intents and purposes, only a CDMA network. My guess is that Apple will attempt to first wrap up negotiations in other major national markets as not to weaken their position first and then come back to China Mobile accepting a lower percentage of the profits.

Back and Forth With Blogspot

Is it blocked, is it not? I heard rumblings that blogspot was unblocked earlier this week and yet today an attempt to open my favorite blogspot blogs (not to mention my own) ends up with me back at the ever popular MSN Live or Baidu search page. Oh well, this time around I didn't even get to bask in the "freedom".

Great Innovations: Nintendo Wii

I'd never previously played Nintendo Wii before this past Sunday, however I went over to a friend's for lunch and we ended up spending all afternoon playing Wii together. There is something strangely appealing about the system, forcing you to stand up and actually get (somewhat) involved in what you're doing, not just sit down and mash buttons. Granted, one of the games we played was ping pong, something we could have just as easily found in the apartment clubhouse, and another one was a fishing game. I've never gone fishing in my life (okay, not true, I went twice at Monroe Lake during my time at IU, but that wasn't real fishing) and would choose just about anything over going out fishing, however playing on Wii was (again, strangely) exciting and fun.

Nicely enough, the blog, Hotpoter, has provided excellent, succinct advice on how to buy a Wii in Beijing. I don't often agree with his other posts, but I really appreciate this one. My friend has had her Wii for awhile and it worked great, the only problem being that everything is in Japanese (read Hotpoter and find out why). While Hotpoter suggests Zhongguangcun, hers was purchased at Gulou DongDaJie. The price she told me for hers was above the Hotpoter price, not sure if it has come down, Hotpoter is a great bargainer, or Zhongguangcun is just cheaper. I'm currently considering buying my own (thoug PS3 is also tempting, when will someone come out with a buying guide for that?) and not sure which way I'll go (probably Gulou because its closer), though I definitely WON'T be buying it from XiuShui, Hongqiao, Yashow, or Wantong. Get your own Wii or come over and join in the fun, there isn't a much better way to wile away a cold, Beijing winter day.

Slapping Wu Yi in the Face

Back in my old "hometown", down south in Shenzhen, the local government, along with the central government, is striking hard against counterfeit products. An inspection team from the central government that is to include Wu Yi is set to visit Shenzhen and its electronics markets this week and in the lead up to this, the local government has been actively raiding and threatening stall owners and market managers in and around the most famous of Shenzhen's electronics streets, Huaqiangbei.

What is so stunning about it is the open defiance shown by certain stall owners at the markets. Rumors about the markets future have taken over causing even legit businesses to close their doors, including in some cases grocers (am I being overly optimistic in suspecting the grocers are legit and not selling "fake" goods?). While the counterfeit sellers are shutting up shop, they were also reported to be promising customers that this was only temporary, after Wu Yi and the central government comes through, they'll reopen, and some had the audacity to say they'd reopen stronger than before.

I'm a bit surprised because there's yet to be much discussion of this in the English blogshpere or in the English dailies (especially Shenzhen Daily, or did I just miss it?). "Fake" mobile phones is a lot harder to deal with than fake LV bags. Everyone who is shopping at Luohu Commercial Center (Shenzhen's "Xiushui") knows they're buying fake goods, but when you go into the electronics markets at Huaqiangbei, you have no clue what you are buying. The phone could be an original Motorola, or a used one, or one reconstructed with a Motorola case and who-knows-what under the case. Only the briefest of looks at the repair shops they have in these markets lets you know the huge number of components and the skill the workers have with those items. Therefore, a crackdown on a market like this is much harder than one that is selling fake clothes and leads to confidence among stall owners of their success in avoiding the authorities. It's going to take a combination of harsher punishments and more diligent policing (it appears the Shenzhen PSB and other government agencies have been stepping up to the task so far) to shut them down entirely.

Until that happens, the cat-and-mouse game and trips like this central government inspection will only have a minimal impact at holding back the counterfeiters.

Is the iPhone taking over China?

Wired has a really interesting story on iPhones in China discussing how readily available they are now and how popular they've become. I know about the black market versions (ie most likely fakes) and when in Shenzhen I saw a few authorized Apple dealers that had unlocked iPhones in stock (this is not to say they don't exist in Beijing, I just haven't been shopping here that much). However, I've yet to come across anyone using an iPhone in China. My feeling is that Wired overstates the trend.

The number of authorized Apple dealers has certainly skyrocketed over the past few years and genuine Apple products are fairly easy to find, however the price still prevents many Chinese from purchasing them. In Shenzhen, where free wireless is abundant, it was common to see a number of foreigners using Apple, but you'd rarely see Chinese using them. Also, on the subway, foreigners seemed to be the sole users of iPods. In my short time in Beijing, I've noticed a number of Chinese iPod users, but that's about it. And when it comes to computer usage in China, it seems like there is only one choice for business people, Lenovo/IBM.

Apple definitely has room, and potential, to grow in China, but I think its still far from that point. Like in the US, I believe the cheaper, cool items like the iPod and iPhone will serve as a gateway, people will get hooked and then end up buying the computers, like in the US. The Wired story captures the iPhone/Apple popularity in China, but it is discussing a basically non-existent trend, though its easy to imagine that iPods and iPhones will be as ubiquitous in China could come close to matching the US if given more time.

Bringing Internet to the Masses

This post on RedKemp got me to thinking about my oft proposed plan to bring internet to the masses in the countryside. The Chinese countryside is often sort of different from what you have in the US. While there are the same miles and miles of open farm land, in China, due to its collective farm history, when you do finally come across houses, they are usually grouped together, instead of like in the US where they are spread far apart.

Seeing this got me to thinking, more and more people in the rural "suburbs" of big cities, in China's 9th tier cities, and in the countryside are purchasing computers, but very few are able to afford home internet access. So my thought is, why doesn't the government (or an NGO) or even just the people that live there step in and start doing more to provide wireless internet? These buildings usually aren't very large, a few routers would be enough to service an entire building and would be able to give them all in home internet acess for around RMB700 or less plus internet fees of around RMB100 or so a month (split however many ways). Internet exists in these places, as is obvious through the proliferation of internet cafes, so the infastructure seems to be there. It would take some money to buy the routers and some wireless cards, if necessary, but it seems like an excellent idea. I would stop worrying about making Beijing wireless and start focusing on this plan.

I always thought there were a number of problems with this. The biggest is obviouslly IP registration, if one router has the same IP but 10 people using it, it would make it harder to track what each user is doing. Also, and this is no small issue, China Mobile would not be too happy about the loss of income. However, as mentioned above (kind of) there has been some discussions about Beijing going wireless. It makes no sense to eat the fees in a major city like Beijing where many people can afford the internet and still charge full price in rural places where the majority of people can't afford the internet.

I'm far from a tech person, so I'm sure there are a number of problems that I haven't thought about (feel free to inform me of them by comment or email), but I think this could really work as a way to bring the internet to far more people in China.

When Pirates Kill...

It was a bit shocking this week when the story of a young man in Lanzhou who was killed when his mobile phone battery exploded was splashed all over the news. These kinds of incidents have gotten wide coverage in the US for awhile and it would stand to reason that many, many more Chinese use off-brand batteries (or worse) and yet this was really the first public case of a major mobile phone incident. That was quickly followed up, though, with news that batteries are exploding all over, including here in Guangdong. There was also another interesting story in the local papers on Monday, within 24 hours of the release of the iPhone, a local Guangdong company released an almost identical mobile phone.

As I have seen on a daily basis from work, mobile phone piracy issues are huge in China. Major multinationals put up huge amounts of money and investigators and lawyers go chasing after the pirates. Much of the time, the phones aren't totally fake, but contain a number of real parts or have just entered China illegally to avoid tariffs. The reality is that this is a huge problem, but instead of hearing about it, the focus when people talk about IP is always on movies and cd's. Are Motorola's lobbying forces not as powerful as Hollywood? What's more important, a RMB10 disc that a person may only watch once or a RMB2000 phone which they'll use on a daily basis?

When purchasing movies, a buyer and seller both know that they are technically doing something illegal. Yet, with mobile phones, often the seller, and sometimes even the buyer, won't be aware of the dubious nature of the goods that are being sold. Also, the problem isn't restricted simply to small, hole-in-the-wall locations, you can find fake phones for sale at large electronics malls and fancy shopping centers.

So why is the US so focused on movies and not phone? Is it because, with the exception of Motorola, most of the major mobile phone companies are foreign (often European or Korean)? Is it because in the case of movies, both parties know they are doing something "wrong?" But, wouldn't that be all the more reason to go after those who sell (and especially manufacture) the fake mobiles? Further, its a problem that touches the US more than movies, because many phone sellers on eBay are Chinese or selling (fake) phones that originate in China.

So why aren't we talking about this more? Is it the power of Hollywood's lobby or is it too difficult to catch the sinners because they are all around us and not as blatant?

Baidu Working With the Blind

Baidu is working together with the China Association of the Blind to create a "barrier-free" service for the blind (hat tip to China Challenges). I am very interested to see what this project, called the "Blind's Lane Program," will turn out to be. While the headline mentions a search engine, Baidu is far more accessible than its competitors like Sina and Sohu and already is very popular among the blind in China. In any case, its nice to see a major Chinese website taking interest in the disabled and helping out.

Stupid, Annoying, F%&^*ing QQ!!!

While it is so absolutely uncool to be a young, urban professional in one of China's main cities and still admit to using QQ instead of MSN (despite the fact that a large number of those same individuals in fact DO use QQ), I will come out and admit to using it on a regular basis (when I can actually sign on to it). For those who are unaware of QQ, you must either be outside of China or under a rock, because its by far the most popular chat software in China with huge market penetration, a major place in China's modern culture, and has even led to a spin off clothing line.

Unfortunately, as a Mac user, using QQ is not so easy. Tencent has yet to release a version of QQ that can be used by Mac users. Instead, those who are mac users and still hope to use QQ have a few choses, iQQ, LumaQQ, and Adium. LumaQQ is probably the best choice, though with Adium you can run both QQ and MSN. According to some, if Tencent and Mac teamed up to come out with a QQ version, Apple would instantly become far more popular in China.

For those in China who are Mac users, especially those who have computer problems, you may want to check out this post (as well as the comments) from Danwei, recommending places to go in Beijing, as well as Shenzhen, for fixing a Mac.

Blogspot Now Blocked?

In "researching" some upcoming blog posts, I checked out Chinalyst this morning only to see posts from some of the prominent China blogs, namely Peking Duck and Danwei, saying that Blogspot is now blocked in China. Great, why couldn't they decide to start this last week when I failed to write anything of substance? Instead, they decide to do this now, when I'm chock full of new content. It appears that only those who are overseas will be stuck with the boredom of my blog posts on sports.

This does bring up a good point, though. With my "potential impending move" to Shenzhen looking more and more likely by the day, is it time to bite the proverbial bullet and pay up for typepad? What, if any, blog hosting service has not been blocked yet (or gets blocked the least) in China?