Getting the Internet in China

We've found that once you move to a new place, you don't really feel settled until your internet is hooked up. This goes for anywhere you move, doesn't it? It's so key to finding your way around and keeping in touch. As most people know, the way the internet works in China is very different than at home, so I thought I'd write a little bit about the process of getting it set up.

First, our school took us to a shop where we had to provide copies of our passports, our address, and a full YEAR'S advance payment in cash. This worked out to be about $350 for the year, which is maybe 25% less than at home but with about 50% less useful websites available. This is because the internet in China is heavily censored. Facebook, youtube, google, gmail, even this blog are banned. If you try to go to these URLs you will get a "this page cannot be displayed" message. So, to get around this, you have to subscribe to a VPN, which is a simple program that tricks the internet into thinking you're in another country outside of China. Of course, the sites where you subscribe to VPNs are blocked in China too, so we subscribed to ours before we left home.

 Back to how we got the internet: we were told that the internet guys would show up the next day between 4-5pm, which is a much more specific window than the 9-5 you get at home. We were really pleased, but when they hadn't shown up by 7pm we were getting less impressed. When they did show up, they mucked about for an hour- literally just shoving thermometers into phone jacks and stringing wires up all over the place. They didn't even bring a modem with them, which I should have taken as a sign. Then around 8pm, one of the guys said something in Chinese and started packing up to leave. We got someone from our school on the phone and he translated for us: it was too late, so the guys were going home. They would be back the next day between 9-9:30am. WTF.

The next morning, around 10:30am a different guy showed up with modem boxes in his hands which us feel much more optimistic! After about 15 minutes he had everything hooked up and we were good to go. He showed us how to use everything (we got cable too)and tried to speak English with us, and when he didn't know how to explain one thing (why my ipod wifi wasn't working- you need a router for mobile devices) he got someone on the phone to translate for us. It was sweet.

And then he walked out, leaving all this shit on the floor. But honestly, I hadn't been on facebook for 3 1/2 days so I didn't notice for quite a while.