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| How I felt while trying to use the internet in China |
Youtube. Facebook. Vimeo. Twitter. Anything with the word "blog" in it. Forget about trying to log on to any of them on Chinese wifi. One ex-pat in Shanghai told me that he couldn't even access a website about Irish real estate, though why that should be a threat escapes me. The censorship makes using the internet in China an incredibly frustrating experience, especially as you never know which sites will be blocked. Gmail was down
for a while why the 18th national congress of the Communist Party of China was underway this November. The New York Times earned its current exile after printing an
article about Premier Wen Jiabao's alleged family wealth. And Bloomberg News was put in timeout after writing
a similar article about the new party leader, Xi Jinping. It requires a tenacity bordering on obsession to access blocked sites; I finally ended up using a combination of 3G data roaming (my phone bill is now massive) and a "Virtual Personal Network" to allow me to connect to servers in the USA. Neither were particularly effective. While I did manage to get online when it really mattered on election day, and to watch Liz Lemon get married on 30 Rock, I was never able to upload video or get on this blog properly, until I finally got off the mainland and into Hong Kong today.
So my apologies for the lack of postings these last few months, but for once, it really wasn't my fault! I've been on a whirlwind tour of China, visiting Urumqi, Kashgar, Dunhuang, Xian, Pingyao, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Huangshan Mountain, Nanjing, the Yangtze River, the Three Gorges, Chongqing, Chengdu, Kunming, Yangshuo, and I hope to share some of the highlights over the next week or more on this space. But to make up for my absence, let me start with...
Pandas! A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center to see dozens of Giant Pandas and Red Pandas. Please enjoy this short video, though anyone who doesn't want to hear "Dirty Paws" by Of Monsters and Men should listen with the volume off.
Pandas from
Tina Cone on
Vimeo.
But wait - there's more! The zoo also had a collection of baby Giant Pandas so adorable, I defy anyone who feels pissed off and fed up like, say, someone who spends hours trying to get on the internet in China, not to feel better after watching the following footage. (ps. The lullaby you'll hear on the tape is playing 24-7 in the panda nursery, I felt really bad for the security guards.)
Baby Giant Pandas from
Tina Cone on
Vimeo.
red pandas!! =)
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