Chinese internet idiosyncrasies

So it's Friday afternoon and this is my first blog post from Beijing. One could assume that I needed to wait til the end of the work week to have time to write. And they'd be wildly incorrect. I've actually had so much free time in the last few days that I've watched my first Bollywood movie, the 5 hour Lagaan, read more books (one half of one) than I have during the entire school year. I really had my first day of work today but even that was very casual. No, the hurdle I have only just managed to leap has been internet access and firewall scaling.

The Great Firewall of China is widely known in the US if only by reputation. The last time I was here, blocked sites mainly included Wikipedia, CNN and anti-China groups. Basically places where one could learn about the not-so-great sides of the People's Republic's governing body. So I could live with that. Now the list includes Facebook, YouTube, only the Chinese-language Wikipedia, Google Groups, Google Documents and Blogger. These I would really prefer not to live without.

So I learned about VPNs, Virtual Private Networks that basically give remote users access to one's network. So I can have my computer surf through an American address and bypass the firewall. But the reliable ones are not free. The place I wanted to use required $7, fine by me, but only acceptable through Paypal. And only through a bank account wired to Paypal, which I hadn't setup yet. In the process of setting this up, I get an email notifying me of restrictions placed upon my Paypal account because of suspicions of 3rd party activity. So I couldn't add bank information to my account meaning I couldn't pay. So I got my dad to use his account, but he didn't know his bank account number and when we did find it, it didn't work. So eventually he had to call their support, which we had to wait a day for because of time differences, and finally got it squared away. And voila, Facebook had never seemed so life-sustaining. I posted as my status that I had triumphantly conquered the firewall.

We were still apartment hunting then though so I didn't have time to blog. Eventually we find a studio a block from where I'm working and the subway station, so awesome. It's small but the queen-sized bed is a luxury to me after a year on a top bunk. The one stovetop is an annoyance and the shower drain seems clogged, but its home and I love it. However, it had no internet ports. When questioned, the owner was like, "why don't you get a wireless card?" Why don't we. To those unfamiliar with these, like me, wireless cards are plugged into your computer and essentially give you internet access wherever there is cell phone coverage. So basically it transforms my MacBook Pro into an iPhone. Whatever, I'll take it. We remembered seeing these cards on sale in Carrefour, the French superstore where my dad and I bought apartment goods, and so returned. The China Mobile card they offered seemed good, but we wanted to try it out to be sure. However there was no cell signals in the store basement. So my dad and I, dragging our salesman along, went up 2 floors until we found a signal. I installed the device and searched for a signal. Switching between English and Chinese on the program, neither I nor my salesman were able to get internet access. My dad looked on the box and attributed this to the device's listed compatibility with Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, but my device running 10.6. While we were trying to troubleshoot the problem and running late to an engagement, my dad said we're not getting these and went back to get a refund. The salesman protested the entire way and insisted that it would work but we weren't taking any chances. So that night I went to bed with no internet.

I woke up at 6am jetlagged. The only places with wireless around that I knew about were coffeeshops in the mall, and NONE of them opened until 10am. What kind of Starbucks in the US would not open until 10am? None, absolutely none. Btw coffeeshops here are very overpriced - whereas every other basic good here is much cheaper than the US, coffee and tea are as expensive or more expensive. So in relative terms, they're outrageous. You could get breakfast 7 times over for a large latte, and I've bought a bottle of Evian for 18 kuai, and a larger bottle of water at the Carrefour for 1.5 kuai. Yeah. So I had 4 hours to kill without the internet. Hence Lagaan.

Finally I got on the wireless and checked my email and smiled again. But now my VPN wasn't working! It simply wouldn't connect. I didn't know whether it was the site's unworthiness or Chinese surveillance punishing me for my hubris, but I was denied once more by the Great Firewall. To compensate I wrote a very long Google buzz post. Later I went to the electronics center of Beijing, which happens to be very close to where I live. Like an American who doesn't know his way around, I went to a store and asked where I might find a Wuxian Wang Ka, or a no wires web card. Someone at this desk heard my accent and asked if I was American. I nodded. He was like I speak English! and came out to assist me. His English was only so so though, largely the product of two 3 week trips to the US where he had family. My Chinese was only slightly worse, but I went with him and spoke English. We found a card and I tried it on my laptop and behold! it worked. Plus they could give me a 3 month plan (as opposed to the 7 month I was offered previously) and I got a cheaper price. However, the wireless card apparently would take one day to get setup, meaning I still didn't have internet. This sounded very fishy to me and my Chinese-people-are-trying-to-rip-you-off sensors were blaring. But I got the phone number of my friendly guide and tried to give the impression that "I know where you work. If you fucked me over I am going to give you hell. Plus I'm a nice guy and can help you with your English."

In the meantime I went back to Starbucks and discovered a service that could provide access to Facebook in China. A free program, when turned on you literally cannot go to any sites other than Facebook. And even on Facebook you can't play flash games so no Farmville. Ugh. But that was nice. I spent most of yesterday in and around coffeeshops. This morning too I had to trek to Starbucks and wait for it to open before my day could begin, but finally in the afternoon my wireless card kicked in. Behold! The Facebook program stopped working. One problem fixed, a new one created. But what's this? The old VPN works again! Oddly enough I now have access to everything but Facebook. The idiosyncrasies here can drive one crazy.

But enough with my digital demons. What's life here like? Well for starters, the area I'm living in is pretty insane. The taxi ride from the airport reaffirmed to me that whatever I do in life, I will never drive in China. I have seen many cars here turn right on red, but I have not seen one of them stop before doing so. Once I got into the neighborhood, I saw that cars parked all over the place. On the side of the street, on the large sidewalks, in random alleyways, half on the street half on the sidewalk, directly in the middle of a road - it's nuts. In addition, my area is really confusing. Like not only is it confusing in the sense that it's China and my street name looks like 中关村三街 but also because it's actually a confusing area. I live next to a giant mall complex that I'm pretty sure wasn't here in '08. In fact I know that one of the malls opened in December. So basically this whole area is all new development, and there's still tons of construction ongoing, much of which is preventing me from taking straight lines to places. The malls are also super intricate and dizzying, and to a shopping newbie like me, everything looks the same. I can tell that the mall is very Westernized (I think the whole concept of a mall is entirely borrowed from the West) with familiar names like Lacoste, H&M and Reebok taking up the real estate.

I also went out for the first time this week, a glorious return trip to Lush with Vivian Chen, just like old times. We walked right into Wednesday night trivia. As a two-person team we had little hope to win, all of which were dashed by a 3 point performance (out of 11) in round 1. However, the following mythology round brought me 8 points and much glory, and we actually ended up finishing somewhere like 10th out of 13, embarrassing several larger teams. They also do scoring on an honor system here, where adjacent tables grade each other. We happened to grade the winning team, and so joined them upon their victory (grand prize was a bottle of Jack Daniels). Before the trivia even began though, I witnessed an event I had never seen before. The trivia announcer was a white male probably in his late 20s. His other white male friend came up and the announcer promptly pulled out a Smirnoff Ice, declaring, "you've been iced!" His friend responded by revealing his own Ice and saying "and you've been ice blocked!" For those of you unaware of the significance of this exchange, Bros Icing Bros (www.brosicingbros.com) has been a recent phase that men all over American colleges are talking about. Basically if someone presents you with a Smirnoff Ice, you have to go down on one knee and chug it. The premise is that drinking a whole Smirnoff Ice, the girliest of drinks, is the worst insult for a hard beer-guzzling bro. However, if you yourself present an Ice while being Iced, you have Ice-Blocked your offender who then has to chug both Ices. And yes, I saw this happen, in a bar in Beijing. Fads travel fast.

The rest of the night wasn't too exciting. We re-visited Pyro Pizza where I saw this guy standing pretty sketchily at the bar watching people dance. I asked him where he was from. In his first sentence he told me his nationality, Nigerian. In his second he told me his business in Beijing, selling drugs. This was certainly surprising, not the least because drug enforcement is so brutal in China. I told him I wasn't interested but that I hoped he evaded capture.

Other interesting exchanges included a conversation with a real estate agent. I told him that I was American and I had been in Beijing in the summer of 2008 and was just now coming back. He asked me whether I had gone back to the US since. At first I thought I misunderstood him, but when he confirmed that I hadn't, I was stupefied. Of course I had. My dad then explained to me that for most Chinese people, spending a summer in a foreign country more or less for fun was stupefying. When people left a country, they left for good.

My life so far seems rather adventurous in this blog post, but it really hasn't been. I don't know very many people in the city yet and still can't really drink or exercise because of my mono. Between setting up my internet and trying to get acclimated with the surroundings, I haven't done much. I don't envision doing too much sightseeing but there is a lot to do in Beijing that i have not yet done. My Mandarin is actually coming back faster than I expected, but I forgot how good it has to be in order to have real conversations. There's going to be a lot of grief and misadventures in that realm. But this is all stuff I've been exposed to before. The second time around really is easier. I remember the first few days I was in Beijing last time, in relative isolation. It sucked. I really couldn't get around with Chinese back then, I barely could eat, and I really didn't know anyone. It was pretty terrifying. But it got so, so, so much better. This time, I'm starting at a higher level, so who knows how good this summer could get?