VPN

Bored with our broken VPN (virtual private network) connection I decide to write a blog post about it. Not that I can upload it without VPN connection but I'll have it ready when it's back up. The Chinese Firewall. It's famous, but what's it actually all about? Let's try google it. Doesn't work, well of course. 

Every webpage that is blocked by the Firewall opens with the message that my internet is currently unavailable. Well hello, not really. Internet is up and running. Websites don't open, or take hours to open and always without pictures or movies. The most random search words such as 'river' or 'Zhou' are on the black list. 

I imagine a vast room full with censors behind old pc's browsing the web for dangerous content. They scream and giggle excitedly every time they stumble upon something. These guys know every negative opinion about government affairs in China at present. Because that is what it is all about: Chinese citizens shouldn't read or write critical about China. The aim of the firewall is to control the internet and through that the people. If this is really possible is under discussion, all dictatorships around the world are giving it a shot at the moment, China most intensively. 

Chinese government officials work hard to keep unwanted news out of the media. Weibo (similar to Twitter) users forward news at the speed of light, before the censors can even add search words or block access to certain blogs or websites. The media are then forced to issue a statement after all. It's only thanks to these daring citizens that we hear about demonstrations, uprisings and the like around the country. And even then only the official version of those events. 

There is a proposal to require Weibo subscribers to register themselves with their identity number. No more anonymity. The censors can then easily call their friends at the police when they discover too much freedom of thought. Already they don't only block at least 18,000 websites, but also internet access of individual users.

I must be so cranky because Facebook is down, and Facebook is addictive, that's what I've realized in the past few days. Never noticed myself using it so much until now that I can't. And all I want to look at are silly statements and pictures, nothing revolutionary if you ask me. 

Weibo is similar to Twitter 

Renren is similar to Facebook 

Baidu is similar to Google 

It's hard not to notice how similar all these websites are to their Western counterparts. Even though the government can never check all chat rooms, websites and blogs, they rely on self-censorship, the fear of being shot down as a website creates room for jobs as 'big mama', checking and deleting potentially sensitive content. 

Well, the VPN connection is back up, and I'm free to access and post everything again. Luckily there are still loopholes in the system, even if they require patience sometimes. 

Tea time

From two weeks of news headlines:

Greenpeace has tested Lipton teas in Beijing and found excessive levels of toxic rare earths. They are not up to European quality standards. Lipton reacts that they are well within Chinese quality standards. Consumers should not worry. The rare earth must've been in the soil, there's nothing they can do about that.

The Chinese government states that the pesticides must be coming from nearby crops. It must've been blown over by the wind.

Microbloggers on Weibo (Chinese twitter) wonder how much pesticide is used for it to blow over and still be beyond European quality standards. Bloggers are worried.

A Chinese tea farmer states that he grows tea for Lipton. They usually buy it off season (summer & autumn) when the risk of diseases is bigger and much more pesticides needed. It's called rough tea. He usually doesn't get more than 20 yuan per kg of tea (€ 2.40).

Lipton agrees that they haven't met the quality standards. They ran a report months ago that revealed this but they kept it a secret.

The Ministry who issued the statement about the wind gets laughed at on Weibo. Lipton takes its products back.

The story doesn't end here. In the same two weeks coca cola has been found to use the water for washing the bottles to make the actual drink, chlorine in the coke as a result; gelatin has been found poisoned in huge amounts; certain medical pills are wrong; a addictive additive for pork that is widely used in restaurants to cover bad flavor and get customers to come back is discovered, high levels of toxic heavy metals in Shanghai's drinking water... etc. etc.

I say, bon apetit!

ps, scary that multinationals apply different quality standards in different countries.
pps, interesting that 18 other Chinese brands who also failed the tests weren't scrutinized by media. (according to Financial Times)
ppps, A Shanghainese student of history took a year off to make a website about food safety, even though in Chinese, the graphic is very telling, and clearly I'm not the only one who is concerned, 230,000 people looked at it so far. ZZCE is Mandarin and short for 'throw it out of the window'.