Daniel Cooper

In case you were not aware, there is a “Great Firewall of China” that blocks access to Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and all the other fun social media sites in the U.S. It’s not that we don’t love you all, but we just can’t answer your wall posts or accept friend requests at this time!

Without classic time-waters such as Mafia Wars or watching the latest episodes of 30 Rock on Hulu, the only digital diversions we have are CCTV (China Central Television) and a channel that only plays bad made-for-tv movies featuring Sean Astin.  Thankfully, since we are constantly on the move, we have little time to be laying around doing nothing. Personally, I’ve found this “unplugged” experience refreshing!

However, the Chinese Internet service has impeded our workflow at times. With top download speeds slower than molasses, server outages, and finding work arounds for posting video; daily blogging has proved to be challenging. Additionally, the Chinese filtered version of Google makes background research difficult, since most of us can’t read Mandarin.

Despite these technical challenges, we are still able to bring you great stories. . .  just not on Facebook! Rest assured, we’ll be updating our Facebook status and Twitter feeds when we return home. Until then, have fun playing Farmville and Mafia Wars without us.