Political Meetings Behind the Great Firewall

China did it again. For the past couple weeks, I couldn't get on Facebook, Youtube, whatever. No matter what server I used with my VPN, nothing was happening. Turns out China is a lot more powerful with the internet than I thought.

In the beginning of March, China had a big political meeting happening in Tiananmen Square. It was so big that they upped the Great Firewall to a point where no VPN could get through. Anything remotely Western was blocked. It seemed like you couldn't even download anything. So there wasn't much to do internet-wise. I'm not clear on exactly what came out of this meeting. The only things I know for sure are that China started a new anti-domestic violence law, and apparently gay people are banned from TV. (As in TV shows can't show gay people anymore.)

Last night was the first night in almost two weeks that I'd been on Facebook or YouTube. And honestly, it wasn't that bad. A little boring, but it's not like I wasn't productive. I read a couple books, I managed to find some movies on Youku that were worth watching, which was a task in itself considering you have to pay for all the good ones on Youku. I even managed to start a contest with a co-worker on whose remembering more Chinese from an app he and I are both using. For me it's a refresher, and damn, it's a nice crash course in reading Chinese. And the best part? It motivated me to buy a plane ticket early.

The one other thing it made me do was realize how crap it would be if China managed to permanently shut down VPNs. If anything, it's made me really push the use of WeChat to people back home. Not a lot of people use it, but if China does this again, I'd have no way to talk to people back in the States. Except for a very small amount of people. So ever since, I've been pushing for people to use WeChat like crazy.

Moral of the Story: Discover the joys of WeChat.

A Somewhat Fresh Start

With Chinese New Year come and gone, I'd decided I was going to make some changes, myself. The biggest of said changes was finally getting out of the tiny apartment I'd lived in for the past two years for something a little newer, a little bigger, and a lot nicer.

When I walked in after moving all my stuff, my mood was a lot lighter. I'm in a good mood when I wake up in the morning, and I'm in a good mood when I go back to my apartment to sleep. It's amazing what a lot more space and an actual couch will do. There isn't a TV here, but honestly I don't think I even need one. If I get a lot of visitors in the future, I'll probably invest in a TV, but for now I don't think it's necessary.

With Heels, Come Balance

Valentine's Day. A day where couples everywhere are somewhat guilted into buying things for one another to proclaim their love, regardless of how long they've been together. The day that reminds you that if you survive it, your reward is discounted chocolate. So when you're in a country that has not one, but three different versions of this holiday, you're single, and it's the tail-end of Chinese New Year, there's only one thing you can do. Get some friends and go to a night club.

In reality, it's quite rare for me to go to a nightclub. I don't like being touched by people I don't know, nor do I like feeling like a piece of meat. But that night, I wanted to dance and see friends and simply have a good time. So I put on a black outfit donned some makeup, and a pair of heels. Pay attention to the heels. They're actually part of this story later.

That night, my friends and I went to three clubs and danced the night away. I, myself, realized just how shy I really was when out of the three men at approached me that night, only one of them I was comfortable with talking to. In fact, I was so unused to the attention that when one person invited me to dance, I grabbed one of my friends and had them come with me cause I wasn't sure what was happening. On the plus side, it was quite the confidence boost. So kudos to the confident men that kinda freaked me out at first!

Moral of the story: Learn not to be so shy.

But wait! Why did I say to remember the heels? They weren't brought up again to this seemingly pointless story. Well, here's the reason.

With decent parties come alcohol. With thirst-quenching, comes bladder release. With bladder-release in China comes one of the funnest games to play, especially when you're a little buzzed. Squat or No Squat? The game is actually pretty simple. When you go to the bathroom and look for a door, make a mental guess in your head if it's a Western Toilet or a Squatty Potty. Then when there's a stall free, you go in to see if your guess was right. I've never actually played this game with other people, so I'm curious to see how well this would play out as a drinking game, but I'm getting off-topic.

There I was, staring in the stall, mentally cursing cause I'd guessed wrong. My feet were already starting to hurt from the heels as I stared down at the porcelain hole. I already sucked at keeping a good balance when I squatted cause I tend to be on my toes. If I ever found myself at a squatty, I'd need to literally hold on to the walls because my balance sucked. And now here I was about to do this again, slightly buzzed and in heels.

In the two years that I've been in China, that was the first time I didn't have to hold on to the walls for balance. The heels actually helped. For the first time, heels had a real purpose in my life.

Moral of this story: Learn to keep my feet in heels so I can go out more often. But man, did it feel good to finally take them off once I got to my apartment.

Chinese New Year Behind the Great Firewall

On a normal Chinese New Year, I'd be traveling. I'd probably be exploring wherever I was at, taking as many pictures as I could then coming up with a witty name for the photo album on Facebook. I'd pick only the best pictures and post them while bugging whatever hometown friends who've kept WeChat to scan Facebook and like those same pictures.

This year though, I planned on a quieter Chinese New Year. This time around, I didn't really travel. Instead, I found myself curious on what Beijing looked like after the Great Migration. Was it really like a mini-hibernation? Or was I just talking out of my ass? I'd heard stories about how the whole city shuts down on Chinese New Year. Nothing's open. Buy your food the week before the holiday so you have something to eat during the holiday. While to an extent, that is true, staying in Beijing on Chinese New Year turned out to be not bad at all.

Except for when it came to technology. I found myself in two battles with technology. The first one I'll affectionately call the Battle of the VPN. The other one, the Battle of the Computer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Battle of the VPN

At some point, on this side of the Great Firewall, when I turned on my VPN, which will remain nameless for now, I'd had a notice right when I signed on saying that it was temporarily out of order. The Great Firewall had found out about it, and had slammed its fiery you-know-what on it. If I read the notice correctly, they were blaming journalists and said that it'd be fixed after the holiday. My slight Facebook addiction got the better of me. And, well, there are only three people back in the States that talk to me without the use of Facebook. So like it or not, I kinda need my Facebook at the moment. Fortunately, things have been okay with that, but it ended up being a short, but annoying battle for a holiday.

Lesson I learned from this battle: Get more people from home to add you on WeChat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Battle of the Computer

Exactly one month ago, my computer started slowing way down. To the point that in the middle of videos it would stop, and I would have to completely restart my computer. One day, my computer didn't even load, and I found myself running out to SanLiTun to figure out what was going on. Without my computer, I had no way of really contacting anyone back home.

The downside of going to the Apple Store is all the waiting. It's no one's fault. In fact, the service I received was wonderful. The problem is that everyone is very busy. In Chinese culture, even if there's someone helping you, it's very normal for people to just interrupt so they get serviced. As a downside, it takes longer for you to get helped because the people working feel obligated to help someone that's interrupting your service. As I said before, I don't consider it bad service. This is culture. And when they've got your attention, the service is wonderful.

After many many hours, we realized what the problem was. Turns out, my hard drive was taking a crap. So after attempting to save whatever I could on a tiny external hard drive, I saved what I could, which wasn't much, if anything at all.

When I got my computer back, it seemed okay. It was running faster, but there was still the pesky problem of it beach balling at times. It would still freeze a little at random points. Two nights ago, my computer started restarting on its own every five minutes until it stopped restarting all together. Back to the Apple Store!

Was it my hard drive? No. This time, there was a cable next to the hard drive the broke. It probably broke when my hard drive died, but it wasn't caught right away.

Lesson: Back everything up. Because of this, I lost a lot of pictures and music. :( Not to mention  I'll have to find a copy of my book just so I can retype it and put it in my computer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite the random battles, the Chinese New Year break wasn't bad. I bought so many books so that I could get back to reading. I didn't go out as much as I liked, but as I said, with all the reading I managed to get done this time around, I'm not butthurt about it at all.

Not only that, the one plus side to having the Great Firewall sometimes slam down on your VPN is that copyright in China is on a meh level. So it's surprisingly easy to catch up on any TV shows that you missed while you were in America. (I now know the joys of PC Principal, for starters).

This Chinese New Year was a lot more toned down than my last one, but it was still a decent Chinese New Year. :)

A World Map

When I was a kid, my grandma and grandpa traveled around the world. They were part of a group that would go to a different country at least once a month. They'd stay at that country for at least a week, then they'd come home and sometimes bring back something from that place. She'd decorate both her lakeside cottage and downstate home with the random souvenirs she bought.

In her house downstate, their basement seemed like a mini-shrine of all the places they'd been. The moment you were down the stairs you saw pictures on the walls of each country. Grandma's favorites from each place. On the other end of the basement, there was a bulletin board with a large world map attached to it. Grandma pinned every single place she'd been with a red pin. Every continent had multiple pins inside. Some places were  a more red than others.

Last time I was in Michigan, I went to her house and went straight to that world map. It hasn't changed that much since I'd been there last. My grandma was in a quad accident when I was in college, so she doesn't do a lot of international traveling anymore. A lot of the traveling is within the U.S. now. I still studied the map like I was seeing it for the first time.

When I travel, myself, I immediately think of that map. Of all the red pins on it, and how there would be even more from me whenever I decided to settle down. It's quite a challenge. But I think about my own world map like that. Every time I go somewhere, even if it's a trip within the country, I can add a pin to my own world map. Maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to have more pins on my own map. One day.

Some Days are just Days

Sometimes, regardless of where you are, there are days you just want to do nothing. Sometimes you just want to sit at home and finish that book that's been sitting in your apartment for months, or watch that movie that's been laying around for a while. Sometimes, you need a break from that excitement.

That's the one downside I've noticed from living in China. If there are blog posts to be had, or even youtube video. It's got to be exciting. Hell, you wouldn't get much notice if your youtube video was you sitting on your ass and talking. Unless you're funny as Jenna Marbles. That girl knows how to make people laugh. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The thing that no one ever mentions in blogs, vlogs, or youtube videos, is that there are going to be days that you need to do nothing. You need days to recharge. This is one of the reasons I only post once a week. I won't be able to have excitement every day. I tend to feel bad at times, cause I know that's one of the reasons people come to this page. They're curious about China, and what happens there. Well, things do happen. But not every day. The bright side is, when excitement does happen, it happens. And I have a ton to talk about.

Adventures in Hot Pot

Hot Pot. One of the tastiest, yet in some ways the laziest ways to use food to make money. You walk in with a group of friends, and you sit around a table that has a large stove in the center of the table. Everyone sees a menu, usually written in Chinese, and you write down what you want. Meat, vegetables, etc. A lot of the time, if you have a Chinese friend with you, you have them write and translate. Especially if you're not confident with your Chinese. (Two thumbs and not confident with her Chinese? Me!) Then a bowl with two halves is placed on the stove, which has been lit. One side is a regular, probably a little more bland broth while the other side is spicy as hell. While you're waiting for both broths to boil, the food arrives. When it gets here, and the broths boil, you place the food in the broth and let it cook. It's all fun, games, and great eating until someone brings out the duck blood.

A few nights ago, I went to hot pot with a few co-workers. There were four foreigners and two Chinese co-workers. We went to a lesser-known hotpot and ate our fill in potatoes, beef, lamb, lotus root, you name it. As we filled up, a white container was brought out with red gelatin-like cubes. Curious, we all asked, "What's that?" And they answered, "Duck blood!"

Even though I had no interest in trying it, I was curious on how it worked. I was expecting a red liquid, but instead it looked like red tofu cubes. They put some of it in when the foreigners were done eating. Instead of melting, it hardened up so that when you ate it, it would actually be chewy. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen.

Later, I found out that this isn't just a thing in China. In a European country that I can't remember, maybe Germany, but don't quote me on it cause I'm not sure, duck blood is  a thing. The more you know.

Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to try this? I don't know. But for now, I can only watch in fascination that something so strange can be thought of as a food.