The Great Firewall of China

For all of you that don't know, which I think is a lot of you... I've had to explain this many times so I'm just going to devote a short blog to it.

The Chinese government is huge on censorship. And yes the Chinese people actually call it the Great Firewall of China... well, in Chinese of course. In fact my colleague didn't even know the word for firewall in English. But that's off the point. The censorship here is extensive.

All social media from outside of China is banned. That means: no facebook, twitter, and youtube. This also includes blog sites and I'm pretty sure I was told gmail in general is blocked. Also normal media is clocked, a lot of news sources are blocked. I was told by a teacher at my school that am American once showed her the Onion but now even that's blocked over here.

Why? Because of China's communist roots I guess you could say but also because of revolution. What happened in Egypt - and the whole Muslim Spring in fact - is exactly what the Chinese government did not want happening to them. The censorship in China went back way before that ever happened, so some might say China predicted social media and revolution going hand in hand. Yes, this means the Chinese government is smarter than us - in some ways.

China's a big country with a lot of different levels of poverty and living standards. China also still uses something I would refer to as slave labor and doesn't give equal rights to its citizens. When people move from province to province in China they can lose their right to be a citizen. Yes - the East of China has refugees from the West of China, children who aren't allowed to go into public eduction. If China were to have a revolution it's something that the whole world should be afraid of. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a positive thing, but it would be felt everywhere. It would be felt a lot more than the crash of a few Mediterranean countries for sure.

So, why prevent the inevitable? (Because yes, I am an optimist and believe that a revolution in China is inevitable). Well you know, that's very Chinese. From living here I really believe that they think they can stop the country from having a revolution. Hey - maybe they can. They might be able to develop fast enough to be able to give increased rights to the oppressed people before they or the educated people in China are able to complain. But I think it'd dangerous. I probably shouldn't be saying this for my friends and family to read... But China's a ticking time-bomb, who knows when it'll blow.

Want to learn more about Qinhuangdao? Checkout this website my friends made. (There are even some pictures of me on there!) http://qhdconnect.spruz.com/