Redneck_Buddha wrote:
So he could get to all these sites?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_we ... d_in_China" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I respectfully beg to differ, but living in China would be a frustrating nightmare if you had to live there as a proletariat Chinese national. I guarantee you that your son was very well shielded from the horrors.
Have you been there? They do try to block websites, but it doesn't work too well. I doubt he tried all on the list, but he definitely used some of them. He also speaks Japanese and he spent a lot of time on Japanese sites. I sent him youtube links he viewed with no problem. I sent him links to anti-Chinese articles and he viewed them with no problem. I wouldn't have a Facebook account myself, but he does, and he accessed in China. IMDB, yep, he's a big movie buff. The sites I see that wrere probably blocked are the Tibet Post and Falun Dafa. He knew the authorities were sensitive about Tibet so he stayed away from it.
You can't understand China by reading about it in the Western media. What looks horrible on paper is not so horrible in reality --at least for those in the developing middle class. It's too complicated to describe in a short post, so I'll give an example. You go to a park in Beijing and there are signs at the entrance banning just about every possible activity you can think of other than walking through it or sitting on a bench. No sleeping, no eating, no kite flying, no running, no dancing, no music, etc. However, no one obeys any of these rules. Right at the entrance there might be a dance class playing music on a boombox, further inside, people picnicking, people sleeping on park benches, flying kites, etc. This was one of the contrasts with South Korea, where nearly everyone was careful to obey all the rules --in China, people ignore the laws and the rules, and they are not enforced, except in those areas that are particularly sensitive to the regime, like protesting about Tibet.
"Journalism, n. A job for people who flunked out of STEM courses, enjoy making up stories, and have no detectable integrity or morals."
From the WeaponsMan blog, weaponsman.com