I knew before I got to China that I was going to have trouble accessing a significant part of the Internet. According to Wikipedia, there are about 2600 blocked URLs in China, ironically, including most of Wikipedia.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, uncensored news sources, and websites dealing with human rights, Tibet, Taiwan, Amnesty International, the Nobel Peace Prize, and Falun Gong are blocked.
I don't have access to this blog.
Luckily, I found a way to e-mail posts, but I have no way to know if it is working, what the posts look like, or if the pictures are showing up. So if the blog looks funny or there are random errors or something, I have no way of fixing it. Sorry.
China also doesn't seem to like anything to do with Google so access my e-mail is a little sketchy. Skype seems to work most of the time. Feel free to Skype me @ jjohnson4249.
I thought I was being clever by purchasing a VPN before I left, which in theory re-routes the IP address of my computer in China to an IP address in another country, thus allowing me to bypass the firewall. Apparently, China is catching on to this, and my VPN doesn't work. Bummer.
Bottom line: One of the things that we take for granted in the USA is the ability to access information. I didn't realize how dependent I was on Facebook and YouTube until I didn't have access to them.
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