27. Keeping in touch.

VPN

I had a view of China's internet restrictions as being akin to a 1986 Big Brother-esqe world before coming over. There are restrictions on such popular sites as Facebook and Youtube. China supplements this craving for serial internet procrastination by providing you with baidu for all your downloading needs, taibo for all your shopping needs, weibo the equivalent of Twitter and I thought I'd chuck in nciku if ever dictionary.com got blacklisted, unlikely.

Or you can get a VPN, a virtual private network, allows you an access all areas pass for the net. VPN's are readily available. They come at a price. Usually amounting to about £5 a month, not bad really. I would wander who in China would get a VPN, the more better off, the more Liberal?

My VPN is Astrill. Despite the odd hiccup, I'd thoroughly recommend it.

Keeping in Touch

Have I told you before that the 3:00pm Barclay's Premier League games are broadcast on our regular TV here. Its great. You can watch three BPL games on a Saturday night.

Being away from home has been made a lot easier to bear with modern technology.

Here are some examples of things which would not have happened 10-15 years ago and now we are able:

Last night, I was on Skype, my head being placed at the Christmas table. A bit odd but it felt great to have a slice of family Christmas in my day, although a slice of Turkey would also have been greatly appreciated.

I'm writing a piece for the University of York Careers service to use in one of their Job fairs. They apparently have seen my blog and got in touch via Facebook.

However nothing beats the more old-fashioned ways like writing cards or getting the class to spell out a message and then send that picture over.

  

Can anyone guess the message!

And finally.....

I have been given a Chinese name by my colleagues. Its very easy to spell and pronounce /wung/. Plus it has a pretty cool meaning.

It means 'King', naturally.