I'd love to follow the directions on how to access blocked blogspot sites, but unfortunately your link is a blogspot site and therefore...uhh...blocked.

Care to cut and paste for us? : )

When all of those reporters are in Beijing for the mass murder olympics, beijing will also unfurl its new VPN blocking technology.

Speaking of cat and mouse, I'm gonna post a random thought...the city that I live in here in Guangdong has recently implemented a TOTAL ban on new English teachers who do not possess BOTH a TEFL AND university degree. I'm wondering if this is becoming standard across the country or only here. I ask this, because the deep China cynic in me is starting to wonder if China doesn't want to keep out the "riff raff" and "trouble makers" before the 2008 Olympic Games. The credentials now needed to teach in my city make it so one has to be VERY serious about teaching...and not here to sew seeds of discontent (Ahem! knowledge) in the next year. I'm deeply suspicious of the reasons behind these new rules... thoughts?

Louise, use anonymouse to get there.

Y'all know there's an anonymouser plugin for Firefox, right? One right click, no problem.

Or even better than Anonymouse, use something like XeroBank A modified version of Firefox that will automatically get around the Great Firewall.

I reported this two months ago!
I wish I could figure out how to use Tor, though...

canrun:

Is this just for gov't schools? You know the private ones won't really care. Even if such regulations are enforced, China isn't going to consistently attract the quality of teachers that Japan and SK attract because of crap living conditions, bad pay and useless management.

"You know the private ones won't really care. Even if such regulations are enforced..."

Nanhe...strangely enough, this is for private schools as well and it is being strictly enforced here in my city. The number of acceptable candidates at my school has really plunged since this was implemented two months ago. The rat sure is smelly...

My boss offered to change my contract to an 18 month contract, because that would take me through the Olympics and in the run up to the Olympics all management of foreigners will be taken over by the PSB, and things like renewing residence permits and foreign expert certificates will be much more hassle than usual. He said this would happen to try and prevent troublemakers from stirring things up around the Olympics.

nanheyangrouchan,

Unless your teaching experience in China was unusually bad (I'm assuming that you have experience given the authority with which you made your most recent comment), it's unfair to call China's living conditions "crap" and pay "bad". I mean...I understand teachers elsewhere make more money in real terms, but earning about three or four times the average Chinese teaching salary, having an apartment thrown in for free with Western amenities, and generally being treated as an elevated citizen doesn't seem to justify your disgust.

Keir, Ortay isn't really difficult, and it's so effective in getting through, I don't like to talk about it online. It will even get the Eebay Eebay Eecay, which the anonymousers won't. A bit slow, though, because it throws all the bits through random channels and puts them together again at your connection. Try their website: I bet you can walk through the install and operation instructions.