from a promo tent near XuJiaHui

Living behind the Great Firewall, and with Australia planning a Ruddywall of it’s own, I have begun to wonder, are there websites that are simply too big to ban?

Take Facebook for example. First China bans YouTube – annoying, but you can get video content from many places. Twitter is still young, with fewer users here – but Facebook is a giant.

The thing is, you’ve always been able to punch through the Great Firewall using the software originally designed to secure corporate private networks (VPNs). But the average apolitical Joe previously had no need for one (myself included). But like how the anti-Napster ruling helped educate people that you can download music for free, the Facebook ban may educate people that you can visit banned sites. By banning something people have been using on a daily basis (dare I say, addicted too), you educate these users that the firewall exists, and encourage these users to seek ways to get around the ban, which then makes them educated on how to do this. Once you setup your VPN for example, now nothing is banned. All for the sake of Facebook…

So I think it is probably a mistake to ban high-profile sites with millions of users.

This guy has a great writeup on how to get PinYin accents on Mac

Once you have the U.S. Extended keyboard enabled you can use the following key strokes to do the accent marks:

* Alt+a for the first tone – ā
* Alt+e for the second tone – á
* Alt+v for the third tone – ǎ
* Alt+` for the forth tone – à
* To type ü, type Alt+u then u
* To type ü with tone marks, use the same Alt+[aev`] from above for the tone, then type v. For example, to type ǚ, type Alt+v then v – ǜ is Alt+` then v

Here’s what US$3.30 buys you in China:

And it’s so delicious. Without the drink it’s only US$2.20.

In most of the world I struggle to find nice food to eat (even disregarding cost), here it’s impossible not to find something delicious, and probably cheap.

I thought this was pretty funny – iPhone form China preloaded with images

Back in China – and the Family Mart’s now have the Japanese style Rice Triangles!

These are the best snack. Costing next to nothing, delicious, fresh and (I think) healty. Great if you’re waiting for transport, great if you’re out drinking, great if you need an afternoon snack.

I am very happy :D

Rice Triangles

Here’s some really useful information I wish I knew from the start.  Most of it was rather painfully obtained, through trial and error (lots of errors).

• Firstly, the English support is really good.  Ring 12580 [NB: I was told today that the correct line for changing plan details is 10086].  The automatic menu may not be, but the people are.  Use it!  It’s far better than getting a chinese speaker to ask the questions for you, and then translating for you – unless they are *really* good at english.  Telecommunications lingo isn’t exactly the first thing they teach in english class.

Plans and Expiry

• When you walk into a shop and get a SIM card, you are put on a prepaid plan.
• You may be told “your number will not expire so long as there is money on the account”
• This is true.  Sort of.  What I didn’t know is that China Mobile will deduct money from your account every month as a monthly-fee.  So if you want to keep your number alive for when you return – make sure there’s enough yuan in the account to pay the monthly fees until you return.
• Also, there are expiry dates – I think it’s half a year for a 100 yuan card, up to a maximum of a year or something.
• I think it would be possible to recharge from abroad (if you already have a prepaid card), and you could certainly ask a local to do it for you.  There are some websites offering this service, but they all seem a tad dodge.
• If your credit is exhausted, I believe you get 90 days to recharge before the number is recycled.

Data

• Data rates China Mobile without a plan is 0.01 yuan per KB.  0.01 yuan is almost nothing.  But so is 1 KB.  That’s actually 10 yuan per MB – which is expensive.
• You can subscribe to a data plan.  20 yuan gives you 150MB, 50 yuan gives you 500MB.
• The data plans are activated on the first day of the month – so if you want a plan you must ring BEFORE the first of the month to set it up, then wait (so potentially you could do this before arriving in china)
• Actually, the plan is activated on the second day of the month.  Yeah it’s bizarre – everyone told me the first of the month.  But the money is deducted at midnight in the morning of the 2nd, and that’s when your data plan is active – don’t use it on the 1st or you will still be paying 10yuan per MB.  Go figure.
• To setup data access on an iPhone, go into Settings -> Network -> Cellular Data.  Set the APN to cmnet. Leave the username and password blank.  Your iPhone must be unlocked to see this option.
• If you want data on your iPhone – don’t go with China Unicom.  I could not get them to work with my SIM.  Go with China Mobile instead.
• What I plan to do is call China Mobile from abroad a month before arriving next time to set this up so I have data when I arrive.  Yeah… I’m a geek.
• There is no 3G access in China

Rates

• To call an international number, use the IP dialing, it’s way cheaper.  Just a little above SkypeOut for AU mobile calls.
• Dial 12593 then your four digit country code, e.g. 0061, then the number
• The guy on the phone said to “punch in the code” every time, and not save it to the address book or else it may use the standard, non-IP (read: expensive) dialing.  I’m not sure if he’s right but I’m not game to test it.
• Apparently this incurs a 5 yuan per month service fee
• Rates on the IP line is 1.5 yuan per minute.
• Intra-China rates are rock-bottom.  0.1 yuan per minute.  0.1 yuan per SMS.  If only every mobile carrier was that cheap!

SMS Commands

• You can SMS certain commands to 10086
• YE is ‘balance inquiry’
• CZ <recharge pin> is ‘recharge with this pin’  (only works if you have a positive balance)

Recharging over the Phone

• dial 13800138000
• 2  [for english]
• 2 [to recharge]
• 1# [to recharge current mobile]
• 1 [to confirm]
• enter PIN
• # [to end]
• All done…
• more info

If this was useful for you, perhaps you might like to buy my iPhone App – GPS Log ;-)

I have a mega RTW Start Alliance (*A) ticket, ticketed on Air China Paper. I picked Air China because:

• You must be ticketed with a carrier who flies your first leg – sucks, because UA has cheaper taxes which would have made the ticket about a grand cheaper
• Air China allow free date changes, as does UA (but I couldn’t pick them). Air New Zealand does not – they charge NZ$50. As I have 16 flights, and plan to change 14 of them – I don’t really want to pay $50 a pop.

I was a little worried the ticket change process would be a pain – however it is easy. I just called the Melbourne office (at least I know they can speak English!), and put through the change.  And I picked a more civilized departure time to boot.

So I’m going to max out my visa, and stay in china a massive 1 extra day!  woot.  Still, it was a good dry run of the rebooking system – now I am not worried for the remaining 13 rebookings that I will have to do.

Here is a current (as of now) take on Visa extensions in China (specifically, Shanghai PSD) – what the other websites and the phone help doesn’t tell you (maybe they don’t know)…  This cost me 3 hours of my life to learn so maybe do me a favour and download my iPhone App: GPS Log if you find this useful information ;-)

• I was trying to extend a Tourist ‘L” visa.  These extensions are for 30 days (I think you can get up to 2)
• A visa extension is actually a NEW visa. It replaces your old visa, and you need to fill in a new visa form.  I believe this would be a zero entry visa (i.e. exit only).  I read many websites about extensions – and none mentioned this, I have no idea why.
• So it’s not really an “extension”.  Sucks if you have a good visa (like my Multi-Entry) which you don’t want to lose (bottom line from the PSD man: leave and re-enter the country to refresh).
• You need 2 passport photos, and a copy of your temporary residency registration.  This is the registration form that your hotel filled out when you signed-in, so get a copy.  If they can’t provide one you can register at any police station, and get a copy from them.
• I had to wait over an hour at the PSB – then after waiting for this time with my queue-ticket – all of a sudden everyone rushed and formed lines at the individual counters.  There was no announcement in English.  It seems after a certain time (maybe at the end of the day) this happens – I think it was about 4pm, so if you see everyone get up and run, do the same!  Your queue ticket is worthless at this point, you could have rocked up that minute (if you know when it happens – I would recommend it, hang around the counter and jump the queue!).

To save all this hassle – extensions, re-entry or whatever, I suggest if you apply for a Multi-entry VISA, go for the 90 day limit – I wish I had.  If you’re just getting a single-entry visa this might be harder because of the proof you have to show – but then with a single entry visa you can renew it OK (you just have to waste an afternoon).

I wish I could have read this blog post this morning!  Hopefully I’ve helped someone out.