Internet censorship, cocktails and Pyjamas in the street…………….

I love my Senior 2 students. They are the closest in age to the group I am used to teaching back home. When I allowed them to select their OWN topics for presentations in pairs of students, the class got super-interesting. ( Silly me - what was I thinking in the beginning…..?)

 Friday morning at 8 a.m I got a surprising and extremely interesting presentation on the Great Internet Firewall in this country. I knew a little about it, but HOW the censorship works was amazing!
Some interesting facts: key words are picked up by those listening and watching - BUT ONLY IN CHINESE ( so my students reported). Those same words in German, English, Japanese- whatever- are not blocked or censored. At which point, "Jerry" said-"So of course I have a Facebook account"

The  way the censors monitor Pornography sites is even more interesting. They cannot look at each photo, so they just estimate the amount of "flesh tone" in the picture and censor it if there is too much.

Yup, you guessed it. The pig farmers with web sites get really upset when their livestock gets censored. My students reported that recently one 40-year-old pornography censor of 25 years  asked for and received compensation from the Chinese government because his job left him "without any sexual desire". Who knows?

The second presentation of the morning was on cocktails and their history and origin and ingredients. These students claimed that is was part of their socialization when they go abroad to study to know the different types of cocktails students drink in the bars. They instructed us on eight: Martini, Sex on the  Beach, Mojito, White and Black Russians, Long Island Iced Tea, etc. I didn't have the heart to tell them that most students only have "beer money"

 Because I am still wary of randomly taking pictures of my "hosts" here in China - EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT TO STARE ME DOWN EVERYWHERE I GO-  I have taken these from the Internet, but they could very well have come from my camera.

I don't think it is with a sense of "irony" that middle-aged ( and sometimes younger) Chinese feel perfectly fine out on the street in pyjamas. With matching slippers, sometimes. I see this every day.

 The first time I saw and older woman shopping in her Pjs - way back in September- I thought she might be developmentally delayed- and that other Chinese were not staring out of politeness. I was wrong.

I have had to take a good hard look at myself to understand why people look at me and sometimes stare hard and long ( like the middle-aged business man on the bus in the seat in front of me, who turned around four times to look at me - like eight inches away!!!). I am a middle-aged woman (not a young non-Asian person- who is usually a student at an International University)- with streaks of YELLOW in my hair (after the botched dye job at a salon), who wears white blouses with black jackets ( just plain boring here in China - no polka dots with stripes for me and shiny cocktail 8-inch heels). I wear over-sized peacock blue glasses - not for fashion anymore- just to keep the constant dust from getting into my eyes and I carry a laptop bag- not a fake Gucci purse. Of course I am an oddity.