The Great Firewall of China

Bottom line, internet in China sucks. Not only does internet in China suck, but we have to deal with “The Great Firewall of China”.  No, this has nothing to do with the 2300 year old, 13,171 mile long structure, which CANNOT be seen from space by the human eye.  The Great Firewall of China per wikipedia:  The Great Firewall of China (abbreviated to GFW) is the combination of legislative and technological actions that have been taken by the government of Mainland China (which is controlled by the Communist Party of China, CPC) to regulate the Internet domestically. It is the main instrument used by the government to achieve Internet censorship in China. These CPC regulations include criminalizing certain online speech and activities, blocking from view selected websites, filtering key words out of searches initiated from computers located in Mainland China, requiring international online service provider store their Chinese customer information within China, and slowing down cross-border internet traffic.

So much for freedom of speech, etc.

Basically, this means that technically, while in China, I have no access to anything google related, no facebook, no instagram and many other blocked websites.  How am I posting to facebook you may ask.  VPN, virtual private network, before arriving in China, I PAID FOR, downloaded and installed Astrill as my VPN.  This allows me to access these sites while appearing to do so outside of Mainland China.  Periodically, the PRC shuts down VPN access.  Generally, it is really just a pain in the ass to have to log onto a VPN each time you want to access these sites.

My only point being, I have been trying to post to my blog. I am trying to post an entry with photos.  Internet sucks, I have been trying for 4 days to upload a post.

This is just a little PSA to let you know I am still recording #mychinalife. I am just having some technical difficulties.  Please stay tuned.