Setting up Communications: Can You Hear Me?

Sunday turned out to be a day of communications.  Well, maybe not.  I got up early to start the process of communications with friends and family on either Guam or in the United States.  I now had my computer which would be a huge tool for staying in touch with and staying sane while I was at such a distance from them.

I had foreseen the need to communicate the best I could when I was still on Guam.  When I'd announced my moving to China I had a number of Chinese students at my past school who were, because of necessity, experts at dealing with the Internet and they had given me some new information which I might need.

They had told me that certain sites which were common in the rest of the world were blocked by Chinese censors for a number of reasons.  My mentioning this has nothing to do with my own writings.  I am quite non-political.  My only purpose was and is to be able to communicate in the same manner as I had in the past as a person who lives in the US Internet systems.

My Chinese student friends had told me that when I arrived I should go on line to find sites called proxy sites.  This was a new concept to me.  Since a particular site is blocked, there are ways to circumvent that blockage.  The user connects to the proxy site and then through that site connects to the blocked Internet site.  What is an example of a blocked site?  Most notably Face book is blocked in China. That had been a mainstay in the US.

So, I sat down to my computer and.......I put in some of the names of sites that from my students.  Nothing happened.  Oh, great what should I do now?  So, I googled proxy sites and found a few and read through them.  It is a big business in China to create and maintain these sorts of sites, but most were pay sites.  So, I got out my credit card and signed up.  It was crucial for my own wits' sake to be able to communicate.

I found one which stated confidently that it was a superior proxy site.  I immediately had access to sites that were not allowed.  I turned to Facebook......and Yes!  Did I say yes?  Well, it was Facebook but it was very, very slow.  From this day forward this "slow" Facebook would be my friend.  This was my first adventure in Internet for China, at least trying to reach outside of China.  I would start my day with checking in on Facebook which is the regime of a person living alone, far from family and friends.

I think that my friends were surprised at my move to China.  But, this was now the beginning of their seeing my entries on Facebook and living vicariously through what I might post.  As I've said before, my Chinese friends especially were watching and reading my posts.  I suppose they wanted to see how I would react to the culture, the food, and their home country in general.  I was happy to make the first Facebook post from China.

Especially for this first day of internet I went crazy with its use.  The television was all Mandarin language programming except for the one CCTV English language news channel.   At this point I didn't know any better than to watch that one channel, so I accepted that to be "the way it was".  It was going to be channel 20 and internet.  CCTV English Channel

Late in the afternoon Linda called and said that she'd meet me at Walmart.  Suzhou Walmart  This meant getting out my direction giving cards and showing the driver "Walmart".  Again, a new experience.  I would see a Chinese Walmart store.  When I got there I found Linda by the rack of motor scooters outside.  She had ridden her motor bike to this place as many, many people do in China.  More about these bikes in the near future.

This Walmart was similar to what I'd dealt with in the states, but the mix of items was a bit different and that was going to take a bit of getting used to.  I needed two items specifically, one was an alarm clock so I wouldn't oversleep and the other was a cell phone.  The alarm clock was easily acquired.  Now Linda and I went to the counter for cell phones.  I needed a phone, but it didn't need to be fancy.   Linda helped me in that I still was not used to the exchange rate from US dollars to RMB (Chinese Yuan) especially when it came to large amounts.

I selected a phone that made me happy enough and asked the clerk to change its setting to English.  It took a whole conference of clerks to figure that out, but when they were through I had a working cell phone.  I just needed to buy some phone time which I would again need assistance for that procedure.  It's amazing how handicapped we are when we can't communicate clearly through the use of language.  I was happy to have my Chinese helper to assist me.

The day was moving by quickly and the next day was my first day of school.  Linda and I said goodbye and she set off on her motor scooter and I to my taxi ride home.  As the day wound down I ironed my clothes in my office room where I had an iron and ironing board and I laid my clothes out for my early morning rise.