Up to this point, all blog entries had to be typed on my cell phone keypad and posted through the internet, or I emailed them to myself and then copied and pasted into a tiny web browser window. It’s a pain, a bit tedious and takes a lot of time, but my cell phone routes through a U.S. server and therefore gives us open web access.
The great firewall of China monitors very closely what we can and cannot view, and blogs are on the DO NOT VIEW list along with Youtube videos, Facebook and many news sites.
When we first moved here it was so frustrating to receive an error message from Google saying we could not view material on the topic we searched. Even subjects like “Hong Kong” are often blocked. Somehow Matt stumbled on a way to search using Google’s Canadian version and that worked for a while, but I guess someone (or something?) caught on to us and blocked us from accessing that as well. I’ve learned a few ways to get around, like using other search engines or trying many, many different words for the topic I’m searching, but it’s still not the same as having full web freedom.
The VPN (Virtual Private Network) is like a tunnel to a U.S. server. Matt could tell you all about how and why it works, but the way I understand it is we’re redirecting our internet connection to bounce off of satellites in the U.S. instead of China via a paid subscription.
OK, so here goes – a few of my favorite pics from the first week in September:
9/3/10 Kim and Dean look out from our living room. I imagine Dean is telling her in baby talk all about the boats he watches go by every day.
9/4/10 Matt and Dean on the balcony of the room we stayed in at the Dameisha Beach Sheraton. Thanks Kim for hooking us up!
9/5/10 Dean and his buddy Anson, my coworker Mavis’s son.
Welcoming my coworker Euan’s baby Zack Ma into the Plaid family. These are all of my coworkers, plus a few significant others and Kim, who was in town visiting from Atlanta.
The Chinese don’t do baby showers before the baby is born, but it’s a tradition to gather friends to welcome him into the world after turning 1 month old. We met for lunch at a delicious Chinese restaurant and gave red envelopes with money in them as gifts. I also passed along some of Dean’s clothes that are now too small for him. The style is very different from what babies here wear, but Euan’s wife Joyce seemed very excited about them.
We have no plans for today or tomorrow other than relaxing and enjoying our time together as a family. I love lazy weekends.
Yay for pictures!
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