Nanny does it again
The yin and yang of blocking.
I've just been over to Danwei where the news is that at least from Chengdu and Beijing blogspot is unblocked, but blogger is allegedly inaccessible. Previously, you've been able to post to blogspot even if you can't read it afterwards unless you use a proxy. The Internet Paranoia Squad are going to need to sort that because hordes of foreigners are going to want to post on their blogspot blogs while they're here. (Not to mention Live Journal and any other blogging services which are still off the menu.)
Although things relaxed a bit immediately after the earthquake, local paranoia is apparently trying to prevent people from discussing the destruction of schools during the earthquake (although I've yet to see whether schools really were disproportionately affected or whether this belief has been coloured by parental hysteria). I was expecting something like this to happen eventually. The pattern is the usual one. The Party lets the people scream and shout for a bit, and then expects them to be quiet. "Of course we'll look into the matter," says the local 夫人 who isn't really about to do anything.
Anyway, this summer I'll be briefly giving up one paranoid self-deluding country for another as I return home to the UK for a couple of weeks for the first time in three years. Apart from the language, I'm not sure whether the two countries are that different. They're both surveillance states; they both have education systems which are all about exams and little else; they both have governments that believe they know best. This is mostly a shopping expedition: bookshops and perhaps a new laptop.
I've just been over to Danwei where the news is that at least from Chengdu and Beijing blogspot is unblocked, but blogger is allegedly inaccessible. Previously, you've been able to post to blogspot even if you can't read it afterwards unless you use a proxy. The Internet Paranoia Squad are going to need to sort that because hordes of foreigners are going to want to post on their blogspot blogs while they're here. (Not to mention Live Journal and any other blogging services which are still off the menu.)
Although things relaxed a bit immediately after the earthquake, local paranoia is apparently trying to prevent people from discussing the destruction of schools during the earthquake (although I've yet to see whether schools really were disproportionately affected or whether this belief has been coloured by parental hysteria). I was expecting something like this to happen eventually. The pattern is the usual one. The Party lets the people scream and shout for a bit, and then expects them to be quiet. "Of course we'll look into the matter," says the local 夫人 who isn't really about to do anything.
Anyway, this summer I'll be briefly giving up one paranoid self-deluding country for another as I return home to the UK for a couple of weeks for the first time in three years. Apart from the language, I'm not sure whether the two countries are that different. They're both surveillance states; they both have education systems which are all about exams and little else; they both have governments that believe they know best. This is mostly a shopping expedition: bookshops and perhaps a new laptop.
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