As somone who has traveled to China with my mother to adopt my 3rd sister, I have a few instances I remember of internet communication being impacted by the countries policies. Because of the excitement of traveling to a new country and adopting another child, my mother wanted to share photos and stories of our trip with friends and family back in the United States. This is where she began to encounter issues.
My mother wanted to use her Facebook to communicate with friends and family, however despite our best efforts she was unable to access Facebook at all. At the time my mother also was writing a blog, however she was unable to publish new posts while we were in China. Eventually, she simply resorted to E-mail. I also recall E-mails being slower than usual, resulting in a much larger delay. This could have been caused by a number of things, like long distance, but we assumed that it had somthing to do with the Chinese internet policy’s.
In addition to internet communication, I also noticed that using Google was different. It functioned identically, however it was very apparent that search results were missing or skewed. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but now that I understand how China’s internet censorship program operates, using Google is the most obvious example of the enforced policy.
My trip to China was very fun and interesting, and I can remember a lot of great experiences. However, the way that China regulates its internet communication was very apparent and did cause problems for us foreigners. Anybody traveling to China should be aware of potential problems they will encounter in attempting to use internet communication services while away from home.
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