Writing in China

I've managed to get access to the net, so here are a couple of random China pics whilst I can get on...

This is a small mining village I visited in Spring Festival. It's way up in the cold cold COLD north. Here we see burly manly miner types doing a lovely dance in pink and green outfits.

The red paper on the floor is from all the firecrackers.

I promised some pics of the eclipse, but they didn't come out very well on my little old phone camera. Here's about the best one, taken near the end of the event:

Since earlier this year China has been blocking more and more sites. I've already mentioned Blogspot, which makes my visiting other blogs awkward, but there are many more.

The other day I decided to compile a list. There's a lot!

Blogspot (blogger)
Blogcatalog
Typepad
Facebook
Bebo
Twitter
Youtube
Imageshack
Technorati

...are some of the more obvious ones.

There are also quite a lot of ad companies that I can't access, and it seems that every week there's another random blog that is blocked.

Since I started this blog (only about four months ago), the below (in no particular order) have been blocked:

Creative cafe, Caledonian-comment, IlovehateAmerica, SecondCup, RockersWife and Bangchoy.

All of these blogs I could access before. They've all slowly been restricted. (Over time).

As mentioned before, I can access them via proxies, but most proxies don't let through things such as Entrecard etc. I can also use a VPN program or TOR, but these are usually so slow they're not worth it.

So, if I don't return your drops etc, then it could be you're blocked by China.

There's a massive selection of places to buy stuff if you're in Beijing. Most laowai* tend to go to the more well known places, such as the Silk Market, but depending upon what you want, and how adventurous you are, there are plenty of other places to go.

Today we took the bike and went down to the south side of Beijing, to a large antique and brick-a-brack market. The place sold a variety of old style or antique furniture, some clothes and various other small goods, mainly stone and metal craft, though there was a paintings area too.

We went early, and it's Wednesday, so it wasn't crowded. What I was actually looking for was a second hand coffee table, but finding anything second hand in China is much harder than the west, so we failed in that. I did buy a new jacket though.

Some pics:

I bought my jacket from this shop:

Market area:

A variety of goods:

*foreigners

I'll say one thing for the Chinese people: They're certainly more active in older age than westerners. (On average!)

If you go out in the mornings, you can see groups of seniors doing various forms of gentle exercise in the many parks and exercise areas* that are scattered around in most Chinese cities.

The general life style here 'encourages' you to be more active on different levels though. Take apartment blocks for example.

I'd say 99.7% of people (in cities) live in apartment blocks in China, and many of these** are only seven stories tall. Why?

Because in buildings seven stories or less there doesn't have to be an elevator!

And there usually isn't one either. Even in buildings taller than seven, the lift may not stop until the eighth floor!

I've lived in various cities in this country, and quite often in an apartment on the sixth or seventh floor, and I have to say, trudging up fourteen flights of stairs several times a day helps keep some of the pounds off!

*I'll cover these another time.
**The buildings, not the people.

There's a joke I heard once:

If you sneak into MacDs to use the toilet, it's called a McShit.

If you sneak in, and someone asks you if you're a customer, and you say yes, it's a McShit with lies.

When I was in the west, I thought the strictness at which this policy was 'enforced' a bit OTT. However, these days I'm not sure sure.

The reason I recalled this rather crude joke, is that people in China use Macs or KFC as a place to sleep, chat, use the restroom or generally hang about and take up space.

What gets me, is that the Mac/KFC people just let them! Even if the restaurant is packed out, and there's nowhere to sit, they still let someone, who is obviously not a customer, just slump over the table and sleep. Or walk by as people nibble away at their own food, obviously brought in.

It drives me mad!!!

Okay, rant over. Thank you for listening.