I went to the supermarket today, but was blocked at the entrance by some dude checking his receipt and yelling at someone on his phone. Shrugged it off. Grabbed my gear and headed for the bus stop, but was blocked by some old lady super excited to bear witness to China’s mass-transit system in motion. Shrugged it off.

On the bus, we headed away from the bus stop but were blocked by a black sedan idling the world’s resources away in air conditioned arrogance. I shrugged it off. Arrived at my stop and pushed to the back of the bus to get off – blocked, blocked, blocked. Fell out the back door into an e-bike blocking the exit. Finally got home, hit the washroom to blow the China blocking my nose. Threw the tissue in the toilet, blocked.

Sat down at my computer to relax and catch up on what’s happening online: Twitter.com (blocked), Wordpress.com (blocked), Blogspot.com (blocked), Youtube.com (blocked), HuffingtonPost.com (blocked), Danwei.org (blocked), PekingDuck.org (blocked), Technorati.com (blocked), Gutenberg.org (blocked), Flickr (partially-blocked), Wikipedia.org (partially-blocked).

Exchange of ideas (blocked), impartial and freely critical media (blocked), creative development (blocked), self-empowerment (blocked), humanitarianism (partially-blocked), acceptance of China as a forward-looking developed nation on the global stage (blocked), national Chinese pride and self-respect (blocked).

What am I missing?
 

Ryan came to China in the wee morning of 2005 as a way to get to Australia. He assumes there's still a visa waiting for him at the Sydney airport. Lost Laowai and The Hao Hao Report are his brain children. He apologizes if they've caused you any harm.