Lock Down

It's now been over a week since my last post. In the meantime, our host country has in all its paranoid wisdom decided to block all access to blogs. That means I can't post for our home computer, nor can I peek in on the blogs I usually follow.

It's frustrating. Especially since I have gone to great lengths over the course of our time in China to only send out mass communication that has favorable info about our Asian home. I have had friends who have written disparaging blogs, or perhaps just ones that are particularity accurate, and they have been very promptly blocked. I've tried to keep ours upbeat, positive, and discuss things in terms of differences and culture. But, apparently to no avail.

For like two seconds I was flattered that we had been blocked, because sometimes it's a sign that you've said something profound enough to get noticed. But, it's a mass block, not a slap on the wrist for the foreign mom blogging from the Middle Kingdom about outdoor naps and book week.
Of course, since I've not been able to post, I've been all the more keen to do so.
Here are some topics I considered:

Beijing Bound—which would have featured cute pics of MGJ pulling her faux (but fairly close) Louis Vuitton roller case down the sidewalk in front of our apartment home, bound for her first ever spend-several-nights-away-from-home-field-trip.
“Mom, would I have been able to take a trip like this if were still living in Lisbon?” she had queried. I answered no, that it would be a Cubs game or a day trip to the state capital. I think she got the significance of the event, although when she called after her first day and a trip to Great Wall she still said her favorite part of her day was chillin’ in the apartment suite @ the hotel with her friends. (Which Sean thought was saying something, since she'd just been to one of the Seven Wonders of the World!)

Flowers and Gardens and Snails--There would have been pics of the flowers we planted in our small backyard. You would have been regaled with a retelling of EHJ's love for nature both in flora (she is the only one who sticks with it ‘til every plant is in the ground) and fauna (at one point this week she had a snail in one hand and a lady bug in the other.)

Windex Clean vs. Bleach Clean – I've been ruminating on this one since we arrived in China. Just because things sparkle doesn't really mean they're clean!

Perspective- No matter how frustrating our day has been there is always something going on here that makes me thankful for the most basic of things.

Block Party
No… I’m not talking about firing up your Weber or joining a Conga line with your neighbors. Instead I’m proposing we take it back from the Great Firewall of China. Here’s how it will work: you vote on one of the above proposed topics, and I’ll generate something based on popular demand. We may be blocked; but we’ll try to publish anyway. (I won’t go into details as to how.)

Use the comment section to cast your vote. And remember, as they say in Chicago, “Vote early and often!”

Later, Tai Tai Johnson