Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Thank You, and Thank You

I haven't posted anything especially positive about the Chinese government lately, but that's changing today, because they've done two things that please me to no end.

First, most of Wikipedia has been unblocked by the great firewall! Yippee!!! It's not like I usually searched for anything especially anti-China on there anyway - I mostly wanted to know about historical figures, obscure subjects, or the history of small nations. I just hope at some point the Chinese government learns that censorships only adds credibility to those you are censoring. And people will find ways to get around the block (proxy servers, for one. And with Wikipedia, you can always just claim the articles were written by anti-China zealots.

Secondly, Shanghai has banned using the car horns in the city. I didn't even notice this till Ryan informed me of it, but we could really use this up in Beijing. People are more than liberal with the horn here - it's the mainstay of intervehicle communication. And if you're on foot or on bike, it's loud, obnoxious, and irritating as all get out. So thank you Shanghai for leading the way. Hopefully the rest of China will follow the example you and Chongqing have set.

Blogging has been light the last couple of days as I have been spending 12 hours a pop filming this promotional piece for BNU. Very boring. Will blog about it later.