Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 3

by Neil Woodburn on

This is Part 3 of a three part series exploring the tremendous changes that have occurred in China since the author last visited as a tourist in 1995. To start reading from the beginning, click here.

On my most recent visit to China a few weeks ago, I noticed that Chinese communism is becoming increasingly schizophrenic. On the one hand, capitalism is alive and well in China as businesses boom and entrepreneurship thrives. On the other hand, the government stubbornly holds on to communist ideals and iconography that has been stripped from the rest of this planet. As a result, it was a bizarre disconnect to see an animated hammer and sickle icon appear every night before the evening news while a capitalist free-for-all was simultaneously occurring everywhere around me.

In addition, the government continues to idolize Chairman Mao, the country’s legendary communist leader. Statues of the former ruler remain in prominent locations throughout China, including a massive one I came across in Shenyang. And yes, fresh flowers appear every day to pay tribute. In this respect, China has changed very little since 1995.

Be sure to visit our gallery featuring detailed photographs of this amazing statue. %Gallery-10067%

Censorship and the Internet

Naturally, the internet did not exist in China 12 years ago. Today the world’s most populace country is indeed wired, but only to a limited extent.

Although the government has allowed the internet to develop within China, they have not allowed it to do so freely. Censors ensure that anti-government sites and negative content is kept from Chinese web surfers. In fact, the Chinese government operates what is undoubtedly the world’s largest and most thorough attempt to censor and monitor the web: the Golden Shield.

The Golden Shield is a $700 million firewall through which all Chinese internet traffic passes. Servers electronically monitor suspect sites and deny access when content is not appropriate. In addition, human censors surf the web in search of additional sites the computers may have missed.

And so one afternoon I found myself in an internet café in Shenyang. It was crowded, but no one was really online; the entire café was full of gamers. Out of curiosity, I did a quick Google search for the most sensitive of Chinese topics: Tiananmen Square. Up popped the typical links you might suspect for such a search, but something was slightly wrong; I was not able to click on a single one of them.

I switched to Google Image Search to see if I could find any man-standing-in-front-of-tanks photographs. In a non-censored country, nearly 75% of images that pop with a “Tiananmen Square” search are of that iconic photo. In Shenyang, only two photos appeared. I was shocked that even this many got through the censors. When I clicked on the links, however, I discovered why; there was no text about the demonstrations. It was just a photograph with no description of what was going on. Until censorship technology is able to recognize “dangerous” photographs, random shots of that brave, but now very dead protestor will continue to surface occasionally.

Lastly, I tried accessing Wikipedia. I was hardly surprised to discover this simply wasn’t happening. And I found it rather poetic: Just like some of the less scrupulous contributors to this online encyclopedia, China also writes its own version of history and politics.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, Gadling is indeed accessible in China.

Final Thoughts

Looking back on my recent time in China, I am left with a conflicting opinion: so very much has changed since 1995, while at the same time, nothing has changed at all. In other words, China has always been an enigma to the Western world and it continues to be so.

The Olympics, however, may be just what China needs to pull its head even further out of its shell–although there is still a lot more that needs to come out. In the meantime, the Summer Games are going to be very interesting times for this confused, schizophrenic nation.

Yesterday: Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 2

One-stop travel shop

by Neil Woodburn on

If you’ve ever had to run around to half a dozen stores to pick up your travels supplies, you know exactly the angst which motivated two entrepreneurs to create a travel store that has it all.

Flight 001 specializes in all things travel. And, with the recent restrictions on liquids, they have also become the one-stop-shop for those tiny bottles of toiletries that I can never seem to find no matter how many different stores I visit.

Flight 001 also carries travel gadgets, electronics, books, luggage, wallets, luggage tags, packing aids, and tons more cool items for the active traveler. And guess what; the stores are designed in the shape of an airplane just to get you in the mood. But don’t worry. If none of the seven stores are near you (New York, Chicago, LA, London, Dubai, & San Francisco) you can always check out their website.

An easier way to take notes while traveling

by Neil Woodburn on

I like to jot things down when I travel. In fact, just today while driving home, I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down, “I like to jot things down when I travel.” It was the idea for a post I was going to write later about a cool new service called Jott.

The problem with writing while driving is that it can be rather dangerous. In addition to the possibility of crashing, most of my notes penned under such conditions look like they were written by a third grader on crack.

Jott provides a simple solution for writers on the road. Simply call their phone number, record your snippet of brilliance on their answering machine and few moments later the automated service will transcribe your musings and email you a verbatim text message.

Perfect! Now, it looks like the only problem is dialing their number while driving.

Receive emails on your cell phone via text messaging

by Neil Woodburn on

Although I’m a big proponent of NOT staying in touch while on vacation, I understand why this is just not possible for most people.

And that’s why a stream of new products and software are constantly hitting the marketplace to help people communicate no matter how far the distance or how limiting the technology.

One of the more simple yet brilliant programs I’ve recently learned about (thanks to Vani Rangachar of the Los Angeles Times) is called Teleflip. This free service plucks emails from your email account and sends them via text messaging to your cell phone. This is perfect for those of you who haven’t yet purchased one of those pricey smart phones. In fact, this is out-smarting the smart phones by providing one of the same basic services for free.

The only problem, however, is that it’s currently only available in the United States.