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"I'm not Chinese nor do I have a particular stake, but I was there for three weeks this summer and was overwhelmed by a kind of social optimism" It is normal t

"I'm not Chinese nor do I have a particular stake, but I was there for three weeks this summer and was overwhelmed by a kind of social optimism" It is normal to fall in love when you meet a different culture. It takes 6 months or so living on a country to start seeing caveats and "not so good things" in any country. "the shared assumption that services are getting better, progress will happen, and a relentless cycle of innovation" It is called a "bubble", I traveled frequently to Spain(my native country) and Ireland while the shared assumption that everything was getting better was at full power and all media was talking about those "economic miracles". When those miracles reversed it was not(and it is not) pretty. My father lived the Japanese "economic miracle" of Japan, the country that was going to rule the world. I lived 5 years in China at the beginning of the bubble. It is an entire world in itself, but they have BIG problems. I continue traveling and doing business in China, and it is getting worse day after day. When I was there I could use a normal VPN without problems, and Chinese authorities could not care less, as it was necessary for the business. But now you have to use like 6 layers of VPN, change patterns of navigation...because people in power is desperate to control their own people.

eva1984 11y ago
Literally 6 VPNs? OMG, I haven't come back to my motherchina for 2 years...Cant believe it get so bad...
- erics32 11y ago
  As a counterpoint I visited in October this year and used ExpressVPN, which worked fine and was fast. No 6 layers of VPN required.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    9 weeks (October and November); ExpressVPN and VyprVPN worked pretty well.
- sdm 11y ago
  He is exaggerating. You just use Astrill or ExpressVPN or one of the other VPN providers that specialize in getting around the GFW. Other than the one week of the year, around a certain anniversary, when the GFW decides to shit on everything you don't really notice it.
jewbacca 11y ago
> But now you have to use like 6 layers of VPN, change patterns of navigation Please explain further.
- analyst74 11y ago
  Since Xi Jinping took power, the government has stepped up their internet censorship efforts, banning many well known VPN. According to some accounts, they also utilize some sort of dynamic filter to determine if you are accessing censored content or using non-blocked VPN. How exactly they do that is unknown, but the fact is, it's much harder to visit censored websites now than before.
  - Laforet 11y ago
    The otherbl commentor was probably using OpenVPN which is easy to target. Most other protocols continue to work well as long as your provider is not being targeted.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      You may also have problems if you're connecting through corporate firewall. I won't name a certain Chinese well-known corporation using certain McAfee shitware that managed to block ExpressVPN and VyprVPN within a week for me, making it significantly more difficult to do my job there.
      - gozo 11y ago
        If you are flying in through HK get a china unicom hk cross border SIM. Somewhat expensive data but a life saver in those situations since there is no firewall.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        I did for the second half of the stay. Absolute lifesaver.
- 11y ago
Apocryphon 11y ago
It's funny, because the caveats you're describing is exactly how I feel about the SF Bay Area.
- r00fus 11y ago
  As opposed to where?
muddyrivers 11y ago
"because people in power is desperate to control their own people". I agree with this comment. One has to use VPN to access some websites. The restrictions are definitely getting tighter. But 6 layers of VPN? I don't know about this. I was in China for 3 weeks this past summer. VyprVPN worked very well for my and my family.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
There's a difference between a bubble and social optimism, and even if they're having a bubble, maybe it's better? Because compare to the West, always feeling like they're one day from Armageddon, creating economic crises out of thin air (i.e. 2008 in Europe, people hearing there's an Economic Crisis and concluding they need not invest until it's gone, therefore creating a crisis where it wasn't before). Hell, maybe it's sort of a rose-colored view of the history, but I look at the communist propaganda in Poland from the times of my mother, and I think I liked it more than what we have now - in the past, the government would show you movies how everything is going forward, how industry is performing over expectations, how hard work of people created prosperity, etc. Yes, they lied to you. But so is every single "free" media station every single day, but now the narration is that everything is going to shit and will probably explode before the commercial break.

eva1984 11y ago

Literally 6 VPNs? OMG, I haven't come back to my motherchina for 2 years...Cant believe it get so bad...

erics32 11y ago
As a counterpoint I visited in October this year and used ExpressVPN, which worked fine and was fast. No 6 layers of VPN required.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  9 weeks (October and November); ExpressVPN and VyprVPN worked pretty well.
sdm 11y ago
He is exaggerating. You just use Astrill or ExpressVPN or one of the other VPN providers that specialize in getting around the GFW. Other than the one week of the year, around a certain anniversary, when the GFW decides to shit on everything you don't really notice it.

jewbacca 11y ago

> But now you have to use like 6 layers of VPN, change patterns of navigation Please explain further.

analyst74 11y ago
Since Xi Jinping took power, the government has stepped up their internet censorship efforts, banning many well known VPN. According to some accounts, they also utilize some sort of dynamic filter to determine if you are accessing censored content or using non-blocked VPN. How exactly they do that is unknown, but the fact is, it's much harder to visit censored websites now than before.
- Laforet 11y ago
  The otherbl commentor was probably using OpenVPN which is easy to target. Most other protocols continue to work well as long as your provider is not being targeted.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    You may also have problems if you're connecting through corporate firewall. I won't name a certain Chinese well-known corporation using certain McAfee shitware that managed to block ExpressVPN and VyprVPN within a week for me, making it significantly more difficult to do my job there.
    - gozo 11y ago
      If you are flying in through HK get a china unicom hk cross border SIM. Somewhat expensive data but a life saver in those situations since there is no firewall.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        I did for the second half of the stay. Absolute lifesaver.
11y ago

Apocryphon 11y ago

It's funny, because the caveats you're describing is exactly how I feel about the SF Bay Area.

r00fus 11y ago
As opposed to where?

muddyrivers 11y ago

"because people in power is desperate to control their own people". I agree with this comment. One has to use VPN to access some websites. The restrictions are definitely getting tighter. But 6 layers of VPN? I don't know about this. I was in China for 3 weeks this past summer. VyprVPN worked very well for my and my family.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

There's a difference between a bubble and social optimism, and even if they're having a bubble, maybe it's better? Because compare to the West, always feeling like they're one day from Armageddon, creating economic crises out of thin air (i.e. 2008 in Europe, people hearing there's an Economic Crisis and concluding they need not invest until it's gone, therefore creating a crisis where it wasn't before). Hell, maybe it's sort of a rose-colored view of the history, but I look at the communist propaganda in Poland from the times of my mother, and I think I liked it more than what we have now - in the past, the government would show you movies how everything is going forward, how industry is performing over expectations, how hard work of people created prosperity, etc. Yes, they lied to you. But so is every single "free" media station every single day, but now the narration is that everything is going to shit and will probably explode before the commercial break.