China Blog by Chinaorbit.com

Recently there were some updates on the agenda: typo3 has a new version with a lot of improved features, phpBB3 had to be updated, dolphin and of course wordpress. The wordpress update is finished now and I have to admit that it will take some time to get used to the new backend. But in general it feels looks like a big improvement.

Chinese New Year - Part II.

Beijing really gone crazy – unbelievable

Beijing welcomes the Year of the Rat! Enjoy this video taken in Beijng.

My friend left last night, well really early this morning, and he had such a huge hassle with the weight of his luggage. Because he’s going back to France, he could only carry back about 40 lbs per bag and he was only allowed one luggage bag. This is crazy. I’m so happy the USA has a limit of 50 lbs per bag and two allowable luggage bags. More than double other places. It’s so hard to not buy things here in China. Everything is so cheap and you want to show everything to your friends and family back at home. If I could bring back an old Chinese man that yelled out “Fapiao” all day I would, that’d be great….I’d also bring back as much meat sticks and bottles of baijiu (horrible Chinese liquor) as possible. Since I have a higher weight limit, when I leave I’m going to see how much I can fit in my bags. I have a feeling some baijiu and maybe even some meat sticks will reach the “land of the free”.

I went to Xian this weekend and really noticed how bad the pollution is here in China. I know Beijing is high but I usually dont smell it or feel it in my lungs however in Xian I did. At one point my felt light headed as if I was breathing in car fumes. Not good. I might need one of those painter masks or a gas mask, geez.

There are a few new changes in the Beijing subway. I’m posting this to let everyone know what the two updates are. Good news is both changes are positive. First is the new subway line 5 which is a north to south line crossing through Yonghegong line 2 and Dongdan line 1 and then Chongwemen on line 2 again. This is great and traveling to other places can now be easier and faster. This line is also suppose to have new lcd screen inside the train cars and mobile phone service which is amazing! Now I can finally talk on the subway ride, although I believe it’s only on this 5 line. I wish this service could be available on all of the lines. Maybe soon? The other change is that subway fares are only 2 yuan now instead of 3. Hey saving 1 yuan per trip will add up. As Buddha said “even tiny drops of water in the end will fill a huge vessel”. Hopefully this change won’t increase the already congested subway cars.

In my opinion, you can find the best chocolate cake in the world in the “Cafe Bros”. The owner is Korean, you can find the cafe near Wudaokou Subway Station. Just walk about 500 m into west direction towards Beijing University at Chengfu Lu, you find it at the left side (and no, I do not get any money for this post)

北京市海淀区

五道口华清商务会馆底商 E 号 ，

Tel. 82863198

chocolate cake in Chinese: 巧克力蛋糕 “qiaokeli dangao”.

Some good news for Wikipedia Fans in China. The popular online encyclopaedia seems to be available at least in Beijing, I don’t know about other parts in China.
Wikipedia has been censored in China since October 2005 (with a short interruption in October 2006).
At the moment, nearly all articles can be accessed from China, only a few China-related articles (the main article about China, of course some articles related to human rights) are still blocked. If you search for Falun Gong, event eh search function does not work.
The popular blog platform blogspot.com is still blocked from China.
I have read nothing about it in newspapers yet - maybe it is no longer worth mentioning it, because the Chinese censorship department somehow can not make up its mind - to keep it blocked or not.
Probably, this is also a sign, that the Chinese government has improved its technology to block websites again, especially the filter to block content (not IP-addresses or IP-ranges) seems to work better now.

Censorship in China

A lot of people still think, that China is just blocking the internet somehow and trying to prevent people from using the internet. Actually, just the opposite is the case:
The internet is a perfect tool for the Chinese government to control the news and spread its propaganda – not only offline, but now also online. And it is a perfect tool to inform people, especially in rural areas about their rights (e.g. to control corruption).

The most popular news websites are controlled and censored by the government. Most Chinese are not interested in non-Chinese websites anyway (chatting, online games, blogging seems to be the only thing, Chinese do in internet cafes), so the Chinese just seem to be content to block foreign websites about human rights, Tibet, Falun Gong and somewhat for fun a few big US-newspapers. For blogs, it still seems to be different.

If Chinese want to have a blog in China, they have two choices: They need to register with a Chinese blog hosting services, which means, their blog will be controlled by the company or they can host a blog on their own website – which means, they need a license for their website.
Therefore, something the Chinese government seem to be quite concerned about, are of course foreign blog- platforms like blogspot.com, because they want to prevent Chinese bloggers from using those platforms instead of Chinese ones

I am curious, how long Wikipedia will stay unblocked in China this time.

It seems, that at least in Beijing, it is not so easy anymore to extend your F-Visa. Until now, it was never a problem to extend it for another 6 month, now a few people I know had problems even getting a 3 month extension.

Probably, teh guidelines changed, because the Chinese government wants more control because of the Olympic Games next year or maybe more control over foreigner coming to China with an F-Visa and working here without a proper working permission.