Behind China’s Censorship

July 1, 2011 by Joshua
in Blog, Freedom

I had heard of the Great Wall of China. Now I’m behind it.

They block Facebook, Youtube, plenty of Wikipedia pages (like pages on internet censorship in China), and links to software to get around the firewall. There seems to be a paid service to circumvent it.

I can’t say I understand the strategy behind blocking these sites. It seems counterproductive to my concept of what government is for — something like enabling people to live the lives they want and protecting them from the opposite.

For my  experience, I’m turning lemons into lemonade by using the experience as an opportunity to go without those time vampires for a while anyway. I don’t get to post about my articles, so if you like something I post, please re-post about it so others can see it. And if you feel like getting me a copy of freegate (EDIT: whoops, turns out that program is for Windows only. I’d need a Linux program, preferably with a free software license) or know some other way to help circumvent the firewall, please let me know.

Meanwhile, Chinese food in China is much better than Chinese food in New York. Tonight my colleagues took me to an all vegetarian restaurant connected to some temple. The food was amazing, all the more when I didn’t have to check each dish for little pieces of meat and be skeptical when people would tell me the soup broth had no fish in it after they tried to tell me shrimp was egg.

Inside New York City “vegetarian” means “without meat.” Outside New York City “vegetarian” usually means “with extra vegetables.” This failure to communicate makes not eating meat a challenge and continuing to love New York City easier.

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3 responses on “Behind China’s Censorship

  1. Pingback: » Closing event for my solo show at Crossing Art gallery with Leaders in Software and Art Joshua Spodek

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