The Great Firewall of China

If you are in china, you cannot open a browser and expect this website to pop up on you. The Great Firewall of China efficiently blocks them as well as a few sites that I used to browse frequently. For a web savvy person like me, I find my way through the holes on the wall. That's how I can keep updating my blog. I just don't like to give people instructions that sounds like tips of breaking the prison wall every time I invite them to come visit my home on the web.

So my initial motivation of getting a personal web site is to have it mirror my blog site. Maybe people in China can access zhengminmin.com if not minimum12.blogspot.com. No, as it turns out, they cannot either.

I was not surprised though. As the Olympic Games approach, the wall has been much more fortified. Some sites that I checked daily to follow the US presidential campaign suddenly disappeared to the other side of the wall.

I was talking to my friend in Shanghai this afternoon. “Look, I have this website, but you cannot view it here in China.” Moments later, I got an email from her, “My girls (one 14 and the other 13) figured out how to get into your website. Here is how... ... They enjoyed reading your blog.” I was impressed. I will quit calling myself“web savvy.”

If a wall is built in front of me, it doesn't ruffle my feather much. I do my happy dance everywhere, even with the shackles on. I don’t mind taking a peak through the holes on the wall. It will never become a need that I submit a petition with a thousand signatures on it requesting that wall be torn down. My question today is why the wall still has the reason to exit when even two little school girls know how to walk through it like it doesn't exit.