Hello to anyone that is still reading. I am typing this entry on December 16, 2009, about seven months since the last post. To say the least, much has changed since then. I will try to get people up to speed in a few postings.
First, in this post I want to explain why the blog postings stopped. Recently after Mother's Day, China blocked blog websites, including ours. They did this under the 'Golden Shield Project', which is a censorship and surveillance project operated by the Ministry of Public Security division of the Communist government of China. This censorship is how Communist China controls 1.3 billion citizens. Blogs were targeted because, in my view, they foster free speech and the exchange of ideas. China views this as a potential source for revolt or undermining of the government. As such, they keep their citizens ignorant for the greater good. In talking with some Chinese, many people dislike this, but many more people understand this as the Chinese way. This type of internet censorship has actually been around since 1998. When we arrived in China shortly after the Olympics, the censorship was relaxed, supposedly so that China could look more friendly in the world's eyes. As a result, we were able to get our blog up and running (thankfully). After the Olympic hype died down, the censorship increased, and the blog websites came down.
It was because of this block that the blog sat idle for so long. As people in America could view the blog to see that there were no updates, in China I could not even see the blog, much less update it. We are back home now (spoiler alert), so I am updated the blog to add a bit of closure. This entry explains the lack of communication for so long.
Another update will be made very shortly.
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