Posts Tagged China
After years of censoring their search results to operate within the law in China it seems that Google might have finally decided to live up to their motto “Do no evil”.
It seems there were some attacks on the gmail accounts of Chinese Human Rights advocates and Google have now decided it’s time for a new approach to China.
Of course if google stops censoring their results they will just be blocked by the “Great Firewall of China”. Baidu, the current number one search engine in China, will take a greater hold of the market. Being a Chinese company there is no chance of them ever returning results the government don’t want the people to see.
Having lived in China I know how difficult it can be to find uncensored news and opinion without employing proxies or vpns to get around the blocking. Google’s censorship however wasn’t 100% and whilst useful things like Google News and Google Cache were unavailable you could still find things the chinese would probably prefer you didn’t see. So the question is; Is no Google in China better than a Censored Google?
It’s a tough one.
This has been a fairly long week. Admittedly the piss up on Wednesday night to celebrate the election win for Obama didn’t really help matters.
I’m still really enjoying the teaching though am finding it hard to make a good connection with one of my classes. The other class I teach is great and we can have a laugh and a joke, but this class is just dead. Having never taught before I don’t have any well practised tricks up my sleeve to turn the situation around and without verbal feedback from the students it’s hard to know how well I’m doing as a teacher.
In a week or so’s time the University will be asking the students for feedback on us so they can decide whether to extend our contracts or not. I’ve got my fingerscrossed.
As for this weekend, I need to mark 28 reading and vocabulary test papers, 30 creative writing stories, write a pre-mid term test and the mid-term exam paper for grammar and writing. Thankfully next week should be fairly straight forward as after the tests I’ll be helping them revise for the mid-terms.
The Mid-term week, the week after next, means no classes so for the first 3 days we just need to invigilate a few exams, but the thursday and friday will be marking time. Hopefully by then we’ll know if we’ll be staying another term or not.
November 8th, 2008 by
Alex Stansfield in
Teaching
Tags:
China,
exams,
NCIST 229 views |
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We headed back to Kunming for one night and then took the bus to the border with Vietnam.
The bus journey was pretty horrible, at one point we were stuck in a hotel lobby for 3 hours after the bus broke down. I’m not sure what the problem was but they got it running eventually. We made it to Hekou at just coming up to midnight. the next trick was to find a hotel that wasn’t crawling with prostitutes. The next morning we got up, grabbed some breakfast and then headed across the bridge that separates China and Vietnam.
Once on the other side in a town called Lao Cai we grabbed a minibus up into the hills to Sapa.
Back in Dali we found an awesome hostel called the Dragonfly. We’d seen it advertised in one of our favorite cafes in Lijiang (Prague Cafe: wonderful fruit, yoghurt and museli breakfast and english breakfast tea) and thought we might as well check it out.
Located out of town down near the lake and run by an Irish guy, English girl and a Kiwi guy it was one of the most chilled out places we’ve stayed so far. They even had a tepee in the garden you could stay in for free. We were only going to do 2 days but stayed for 3 in the fantastic mountain view room. More bike rides, exploring and good old fashioned chilling out. Didn’t want to leave at the end.
April 4th, 2008 by
Alex Stansfield in
China,
Travels
Tags:
China,
Dali 107 views |
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We got back to Beijing to stay with Helen and Adrian for a few more days. First stop was the Westin hotel for a very boozey champagne brunch.
We also finally got to see the Temple of Heaven as it was being repaired when we were in Beijing 2 years previously and we were far to lazy to see it when we were here in January.
Quynh bought a Nintendo DS to keep her amused on long journeys, it came with about 5 CDs worth of games and a little cartridge to load them onto the DS. I helped pick which ones she should load on the cartridge so I can play with it too 
We made plans to see Helen and Adrian again in Thailand and then said goodbye and headed for the airport to catch our flight to Guilin. Yes breaking the no-fly rule for the third time but this was a no-brainer. The flight was cheaper and 18 hours quicker than the train. Sorry Earth but we’re on a budget 
Luoyang it self is a fairly plain city with not too much to write home about. The sights nearby are what make it worth it.
The first day we went to the the Longmen Caves. According to the Longmen Caves Research Institute, there are 2345 caves and niches, 2800 inscriptions, 43 pagodas and over 100,000 Buddhist images at the site. Many of the images were damaged by the Red Army and other anti-buddhist groups over the years. What remains is very impressive, the images range in size from about 2cm tall to about 40 metres. We spent most of the day looking around the site and then headed home.
That evening we went to a restaurant that is supposed to be famous for it’s beijing duck, very tasty it was too!
The next day we grabbed a tour bus to the Shaolin Monastery. We got to see a few uninteresting sights along the way but the final trip up to the complex was pretty cool. We saw a large training field with hundreds of Shaolin students doing their exercises. We walked though the Pagoda Forest, an area with over 240 tomb pagodas for eminent monks and abbots of the temple. The Temple itself was pretty impressive though by this point Quynh and I are starting to suffer temple fatiugue and find it hard to get too excited. The highlight of the day was the 30 minute martial arts demonstration, certainly wouldn’t pick a fight with any of these guys! One the 2 hour trip back from the Temple we watched Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle, classic.
Tomorrow we have a 5am train to Xi’an so early to bed.
When in Xiamen we caught a travel program on the english language channel about a city called Keifeng. It seemed like it had some interesting sights and we could fit it in to the schedule. Not many foreigners here, lots of stares as I walked out of the train station.
One guy who was trying to sell his services as a guide for the day asked where I was from, “London” I replied. He then pointed to Quynh, who was queuing to buy tomorrows train ticket, “and her?”. “London too” I replied. Suddenly he looked very confused, “But she looks Chinese” he said. “She is Chinese” I came back, at which point he looked even more confused. Luckily by this time Quynh had finished and saved me from having to explain about the millions of Chinese people who don’t live in China.
After checking into the hotel we went to a nearby Temple that was one of the sights mentioned on the TV. Although being in the middle of the city once inside the complex all the noise disappeared and calm was restored.
We then rode in what could be best described as a box attached to a 3-wheel motorcycle up to the Iron Pagoda. Not actually made of Iron but the colour of the tiles make it look like it is. We walked up the very narrow staircase to the top and back down again. Meeting people on the way down meant having to crouch in the window bays so they could get past.
We then met some students who were fairly curious about Quynh:
S: “Where are you from?”
Q: “The UK”
S: “You look and speak Chinese”
Q: “My parents are Chinese”
S: “So you were born in China?”
Q: “No, I was born in Vietnam”
S: “So you are Vietnamese”
Q: “No, I’m British”
S: “Is he your boyfriend”
Q: “No, he’s my husband”
S: “Oh, so you are studying in Britain?”
Q: “No I’ve lived there most of my life”
S: *confused*
Next we got another box on wheels and went to a local park. In the park is a large lake which you can walk across to reach a palace. During the walk across the lake Quynh over heard some old local men talking about her and that she was with a white man. They said she must be “one of those modern shanghai women”. We’re not entirely sure what they meant but we think we have an idea.
We only stayed one night and now head to Luoyang.
February 28th, 2008 by
Alex Stansfield in
China,
Travels
Tags:
China,
Keifeng 122 views |
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Having failed to find a cheap replacement for my jacket we headed back to Hangzhou to pick it up from the airport lost and found. That evening we headed back to the Eastern Venice Sauna for another relaxing pampering. We only planned to stay one night but as we like Hangzhou so much we decided to stay another.
On the second day we got chatting to some other travellers (two brit girls and a german guy). After drinking the hostel dry of TsingTao we all decided to go for a quick drink in a bar. At 7am we returned from a fairly heavy night of drinking and clubbing. I took a few shots of video in the club before being asked to stop:
A couple of hours sleep and we were at the train station to catch a train to our next stop.
Guangzhou certainly wasn’t one of our favorite cities in China. It’s pretty badly polluted and stuffed full of people, cars and dirt.
It’s one saving grace is Shamian Island, this used to be a French and British concession and traffic access to it is limited so it makes for a very peaceful getaway from the noise of Guangzhou.
The island covers an area of 0.3 square kilometers and is a gazetted historical area that serves as a tranquil reminder of the colonial European period, with quiet pedestrian avenues flanked by trees and lined by historical buildings in various states of upkeep. The island is the location of several hotels, a youth hostel, restaurants and tourist shops selling curios and souvenirs. (Wikipedia)
We went there pretty much everyday and enjoyed the food and drink of Lucy’s Cafe. One night we met a fairly interesting american guy who was teaching english in the North East of China. He told us all about it and we’re quite interested in the idea of doing it now.
We ventured into the main city area a few times, once was to visit a massive Dim Sum restaurant with over 200 items on the menu. That was pretty cool and we were sat with another chinese family who chatted with Quynh whilst I scoffed my food.
Onto Xiamen and hopefully something a little more peaceful.
After a scare when Hangzhou airport was closed due to snow a few days before we flew, we made it to Hong Kong in time for the Lunar New Year.
Unfortunately Quynh’s luggage didn’t make it in time and we need to go and pick it up from Shenzhen airport in China when we head on to Guangzhou. I also left my jacket at Hangzhou airport so looks like we might have to go back to our favourite city if we can’t find a cheap replacement, shame
So far we watched the New Year parade, New Year fireworks and took a walk up one side of Victoria Peak and down the other. Other than that I’ve been looking at lenses for my camera and we’ve eaten lots of food.
