China: A Shanzhai Country

Windows 7 launched today formally, however, three days ago, you could already find W7 Ultimate in the corner of Shanghai streets, only 3 dollars.  It seems that Microsoft still has a lot to do in China if it wants to transfer the second large PC market to its second lucrative market.

Because of Chinese internet censorship, most of wonderful websites cannot be visited from China.  Before, some simple proxy tools or free VPN service could help Chinese netizen get to websites blocked easily, However, most of them doesn’t work now. To make things worse, a new version of anti-censorship tool will lose function in a few hours after it come out. So now, to visit YouTube or Twitter from China is a difficult task that only very senior  net users can complete.

This change has made me crazy, because I cannot survive without Titter, YouTube, Facebook, though I still have way to access them . If some day, even Gmail would have been blocked, I have to go onto street to protest regardless Chinese government forbidding it.

If all the Chinese netizen were against internet censorship, situation would not be so bad. In fact, there is little inference as to most of  Chinese netizen, many even know nothing about censorship existing. Because almost every wonderful foreign internet product has its own copy in China. Some is even better to use and meet Chinese. For example, you can find  almost any US movies and TV series  on Chinese YouTube-Youku.

I think it is impossible to find second country that like this.  Chinese internet environment has become its own ecological system isolated with outside.  Shanzhai is everywhere in China.

Original Version	Chinese Shanzhai Versions

Map, Citizen Journalist Tools

In last post,  I introduced the tools for a citizen journalist.  Now, I draw a picture to present them. It will be more clear to understand, I hope.

Twitter should be the center of the map above.  All the information can  gather on Twitter, then spreads further.

Tools for citizen journalism of China

Image via Wikipedia

New technical mobile  products making our daily life more convenient and some innovate internet services combining the whole world together have become useful tools for Chinese young men as a citizen journalist to report what is happening around them. I am the one of them and I believe it is a very meaningful action that makes every weak voice be amplified and injustice exposed in the sun, since China is still a news-control  country suppressing the dissent that government don’t like.  We deserve the truth.

To be a citizen journalism is not difficult. It is courage, enthusiasm and responsibility that are most important,  apart from some basic knowledge of tools which are easy to learn. I am introducing these tools basing on my own experience.

Twitter

Twitter is a microblog that allows users to publish any text message with a limit of  140 characters.  Messages, which can be delivered from the official or third party websites, Twitter clients,  or mobile devices are called tweets. That almost all the clone Twitter websites are closed by Chinese government after Xinjiang riots leads to Twitter becoming a very important platform of publishing news, though it has been blocked for months in China. However, that so many ways accessing to twitter makes it possible to block it completely. Besides, 140  characters in Chinese can twitter more than English because of high density of Chinese. It is even enough for a compete story including when, where, who, how by 140 Chinese characters.

For more information of how to use twitter, pls see  Twitter for Beginners.

TwitPic

TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter quickly and easily. When you post pictures via cell phone, email or Twitter clients supporting Twitpic  , TwitPic  twitters for you, so others will know and have a look. Except Twitpic, Flickr Pikchur, Twigoo, img.ly, yfrog also provide the similar service.

Youtube

Youtube is most popular and biggest video share website in the world.  It supports uploading videos by email now, which means any phone with email function can  post video easily.  Most time, the size of video is large and you may be charged a lot if upload  by mobile, also very slow, so it is more suitable to operate videos on computer.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a very powerful service that lets you edit documents by yourself or together online. than publish them as web pages. For example, Zuola(ZHOU Shuguang) once use Google Docs to report a traffic accident, happening Hangzhou this year, with a huge concern by whole nation because of police obviously taking sides of the guy with a rich father.

Blog

In spite of the disadvantage that posting entry untimely, blog allows each article with more details by inserting pictures, tables, videos, maps. It is more suitable to use blog to organize all collected materials to be a complete report or make a comment. Blogger.com and WordPress.com are both excellent free blog hosting services.

In addition, many websites including Twitter and Youtube are blocked in China. Some tools, like Freegate, Tor, Hotspot Shield can help you to access these websites.

Cell Phone

A smart phone with camera is useful and necessary for a citizen journalism, such as iPhone, Nokia Symbian, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile.  With phone on hand, you can record something unprepared everywhere and report it real time. It is most important that the tunnel from mobile to Twitter. Here are the ways that work in China.

• Opera Mobile + Twitter mobile website or Dabr, for Windows Mobile and Nokia S60.
• Opera Mini + Twitter mobile website or Dabr, for any cell phone supporting Java.
• Twitter Clients of Mobile. Gravity for S60, Twitterrific, TwitterFon for iPhone, TwitterBerry for Blackberry, Twidroid for Android, etc.

From the tools above, the Phone and Twitter are most important.  Phone sends your news to internet. Twitter spreads the news rapidly and widely by retweeting of your followers and other uses.

Amsterdam, the most healthy city in Europe

Amsterdam is a very hot city in the world. The pot and sexy girls both let everyone look forward to it.  Why does Amsterdam has such developed smoking and sexy industries. I find some cues from this article, Cycling is good for the mind as well as the body.

Amsterdam is unique city with the largest amount of bicycles in Europe. Most local citizens use the bike as their main vehicle in daily life. Bikes are full of sight in every corner of Amsterdam, in front of railway station,  along the canal towpath…

In the article, it is said that cycling is  “like flying, flowing along in the breeze". It kind of like describes the feeling of smoking  pot. Cycling is  “effective in the treatment of clinical depression”and “bring you joy”, which makes you want sex, and also “good for you body”, which makes you be able to have sex. Cycling everyday, Viagra goes away.

Other bicycle cities in Europe

Hamburg, with biggest red light area in Europe

A handsome on a small bike, in Hamburg

Munich people also like cycling. 

Morning, the road in front of Munich Residence

How about China

China is the largest bicycle country in the world, so it means Chinese people  have immense potential in sex and smoke. I am strongly asking the Chinese government legitimate prostitution and marijuana. If that, China will be a paradise in the world.

Telč, I will come back, surely

Every time, when I hear the song , 稻香 by Jay，one place will always hit my heart. That’s Telč with a water fort, where so many beautiful memories left.

Telč is small town in the south part of Czech Republic. Though Czech Republic is not big, Telč is damn far away from Prague if the distance defined by the railway. I took 7 hours to get there due to 4 times changes of train.

I love the place in the first sight. It is the right place that I wish I could live at till death. Everything is just perfect there, a small town with a fort around by water, ardent favors by local citizens when I got a big trouble of finding the bus information, most importantly, the a magic power that calm me down with the whole world in my heart.

The melody of this song match the spirit of place so well. I am just moved again and again…

Two forts with one in lake

I want to dive

more interesting and beautiful seen from the sky

View Larger Map

The final destination is destined

In the Slumdog Millionaire, the fortune of the young person who eventually got  a million of dollars, as the movie said, was destined. Days ago, I watched the Final Destination for killing time. This movie was really wonderful. It is a story that five college students and a tutor cheat death of airplane explosion thanks to one of them, Alex has a dream forecast of the crash, after that, they are killed one by one by a series of freak accidents like designed by destiny. Both of them, make me feel the power of destiny which seems nobody can escape from.

Though I am a little disappointed at the current society of China, where the government does not work for us, but against us, not help us, but hurt us, where a worker in sweetshop had to cut open his chest to demonstrate a vocational lung harm by silicon dust, where the college students in Beijing are forced to sacrifice their summer vocation and rest time to practice the background show for the 60 anniversary of P.R China, where someone may be put into jail due to speech or articles, I want to say that the Chinese government, communist party, stands on the wrong side of history. The power seized by cheating, corruption and suppressing the voice against it cannot stop the seeds of universal values, freedom, democrat, justice, sowed all of the world. They will come when they come. Because the final destination is destined.

Use Twitter, say what you want

Twitter is still blocked in China, however, there are more and more Chinese web-users are getting to know it and had the first tweet. So what’s twitter bringing us, especially for the mainland Chinese. Twitter provides a platform where you can say what you want and other people can hear your voice.

Though the web of twitter is only in English and Japanese now, it is very simple and to use it is very easy. There are many ways to update your message, via webs, clients, email, mobile devices which mostly provided by third party. So it makes the Chinese government impossible to stop their people twittering. I think twitter is a great product which is going to accelerate the process of democracy of China, though not everyone in twitter care about political issues that are not all parts of our life.

Now a lot of Chinese twitter uses are concerning about the condition of @amoiist (Guo baofeng) who was arrested illegally by the Mawei Police which claimed that Guo slandered the Mawei Gov in the internet. Guo’s twitter friends are making noise on twitter, such as “Guo Baofeng, your mother is calling you back home for dinner”, some sent the postcards to: Guo Baofeng, Cell 205, No.2 Detention House, Cangshan district, Fuzhou, Fujian, China 350018 (福州仓山区城门樟岚村下董自然村福州市第二看守所205仓郭宝锋收，邮编：350018), so as to tell the Mawei Police that the world is watching the case. Yesterday Guo’s sister(@guolihua)start to use twitter where she introduces the newest situation about her brother and makes way to get him free by legal approach.

I am enjoying using the twitter where I make my own opinion about what is happening in the world, share something interesting I just found, make new awesome friends. Twitter lets my voice can be heard by the world and feel the pulse of the world.

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Special birthday gift of God

Every birthday of years is nothing but a routine, a little boring. But this one is a little difference. I came cross a unbelievable and  interesting solar eclipse which is said the most spectacular one of 500 years. I believe it was a gift brought by God and my destiny will be changed.

The most exciting of the process is the part when the last sun remain is totally eat by the moon dog, which happen in one or two seconds, the sky is dark suddenly. How amazing the power of nature is!

China’s twitter websites are forced to die

Image via Wikipedia

After fanfou which was forced to close ten more days ago, China’s another two twitter clone websites, digu.com and zuosa.com, came across the same luck yesterday night. There are all not recovered yet.  Now jiwai.de, taotao.com, and buboo.tw, are the only available microblog services for Chinese web users, since the twitter.com are blocked due to the Tiananmen 20 anniversary.

Fanfou was the most pop microblog  besides Twitter. After the Xinjiang riot, it was asked to suspend by the Chinese government.  Maybe the Chinese gov got the lessons from the Iron election, where the Iron gov got a lot of trouble brought by Twitter.

We do not know when the fanfou will be back. Now the things seems get worse. The future of mircrblog developing in China is unclear.

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Don’t know twitter? No job!

Twitter is the most pop social website this year. It is a very useful tool to spread news and receive the information you are interested in quickly and  efficiently. Now some companies with a new sight  are using the twitter for market campaign. If you do know what the Twitter is, you maybe lose the change of a job.There are two interesting examples in the TV dramas.

Desperate Housewives, Tommy

Brothers & Sisters, Sarah

So the twitter is not only the young persons’ business now.  During the economic turndown, it maybe a good thing to know about twitter, which let you be more competitive among the job seekers.

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