I thought that it might be interesting to know that this forum is blocked by China's Great Firewall. I was there in August and could not get on. Whenever I was within China, it was blocked. In Hong Kong,it wasn't. Is the forum in the same boat as Facebook which IS known to be blocked. I wonder why the exmormon forum would be blocked in China.

I thought it was interesting recently to read that Christianity is booming in China because they believe it is what has made America great, an idea no doubt promoted by evangelicals and their prosperity gospel.

LOL! No doubt your statment would make many sincere Christian believers in China laugh (or cry); particularly those who have been arrested and persecuted for their Christian faith. I can assure you they are not Christians because they think that is what makes America great!

out

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-jesus-1-1-webjun22,0,2458211.story
"Christianity — repressed, marginalized and, in many cases, illegal in China for more than half a century — is sweeping the country, overflowing churches and posing a sensitive challenge to the officially atheist Communist Party."

"This rise, driven by evangelical Protestants, reflects a wider spiritual awakening in China. As communism fades into today's free-market reality,"

...evangelical Chinese

I'm from Toronto and we have a huge Chinese presence here. Chinese Christian churches seems to be sprouting all over the place. There are several Chinese Christian ladies in my office.

Well if it is blocked in China - then you know it must be good!

tapirbackrider Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I thought that it might be interesting to know
> that this forum is blocked by China's Great
> Firewall. I was there in August and could not get
> on. Whenever I was within China, it was blocked.
> In Hong Kong,it wasn't. Is the forum in the same
> boat as Facebook which IS known to be blocked. I
> wonder why the exmormon forum would be blocked in
> China.


Well don't you know that Mormon means 'gates of hell' in Cantonese?

See I learned a lot from Ed Decker.

Who really knows?

Actually, Chinese is more complicated than that.

Mormon in Chinese is 摩门 mómen but it rhymes with 魔门 mómen which could be translated as "demon gate". The characters vary ever so slightly. The character in Mormon is 摩 which means "to rub" (anmó is massage) and so Mormon is literally "Rub Gate" . The character for demon is 摩 . Interestingly enough, the character for Mormon is a combination of the character for "hemp", yup, "marihuana" and the character for hand, "shou".
The demon character 魔 is a combination of "hemp" and "ghost".
Think of it, for fun, "Mormon" could be literally translated as "Marihuana-hand door". No wonder so many minds are obfuscated in the Mountain West!

The site is not blocked. I have accessed it from Beijing. Tests using sites that give information on the firewall in China show exmormon.org is not blocked. The forum section likewise is not blocked. Are you sure you received the message usually given for blocked sites?

Below are the results for this thread:

Website Test Results
Tested From: Shanghai, China
Tested At: 2010-09-19
10:42:17 (GMT -04:00)
URL Tested: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1292
Resolved As: 216.64.99.48
Status: OK
Response Time: 8.989 sec
DNS: 3.128 sec
Connect: 0.282 sec
Redirect: 0.000 sec
First Byte: 1.278 sec
Last Byte: 4.300 sec
Size: 24294 bytes
Tested From: Seattle, WA
Tested At: 2010-09-19
10:42:17 (GMT -04:00)
URL Tested: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1292
Resolved As: 216.64.99.48
Status: OK
Response Time: 0.963 sec
DNS: 0.001 sec
Connect: 0.135 sec
Redirect: 0.000 sec
First Byte: 0.301 sec
Last Byte: 0.526 sec
Size: 24294 bytes

Most people know how to get around the Great Firewall anyway. I was in North Korea in August for most of the month. All sites are blocked there.

I don't know what to say. When I was in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, I was unable to access it. Whenever I tried to get on it , it would quite simply never show up, not unlike Facebook which I know for a fact is blocked. I tried every day, I really did.
There is no screen that declared that Facebook was unavailable. It simply never came up and the same for this forum. It simply never showed up. In Thailand, when you access a site that is banned (e.g. anti-monarchical), there is a screen not unlike BYU's firewall that tells you that the site is banned in the Kingdom for reasons of security or morality. I never saw that in China.

However, when I went to Hong Kong in August and later on in September, I was able to get on but as soon as I got back to Guangzhou, which is just across the border, the same problem occurred. I had the same laptop computer but was able to access the site (along with Facebook) in Hong Kong but not in China proper. In other Asian countries (Cambodia, Singapore), I had no problem. Strange.
I know some people who have proxies to get around the problem. Perhaps others who go to China can check into this.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2010 11:26AM by tapirbackrider.

LOL! Tapirbackrider. As a Beatles fan I appreciate the play on words.