Thai means freedom?

I'm in Beijing for a week before going home to San Francisco for 3 weeks then on to Mexico. I thought it was interesting and thought you all might like to know that I can DIRECTLY access this forum in China without having to go through a proxy.

ajarntrade

[elephantspike]

I can DIRECTLY access this forum in China without having to go through a proxy.

I knew that. I thought of making it a point myself, but then I figured that if the theme of the board were "gay China", it might be different.

Actually, GayChina was blocked for a long time in the mainland -- for long enough that the core users moved on, and now it is only an advertising forum for moneyboys, most ads being only in Chinese characters.

The mainland also continue to block many web sites -- mostly Chinese language ones, but also some English language sites. For example, they block the "China" pages from our Hong Kong newspaper, the South China Morning Post -- surpising in that you need to have a paid account to access them, and mainland China credit cards are not (or at least, last time I checked) accepted.

Good point ajarntrade. I figure the Chinese are just as entitled to information about gay Thailand as any-one. In fact they are increasingly choosing places like Thailand for holidays. I am not sure if they are allowed to go there as individuals yet, but certainly "tour groups" do. It is my experience that the young Chines are increasingly discerning about where they want to go on holiday. Long gone are the days when they all wanted to go to HK to see the bright lights.

[elephantspike]

I figure the Chinese are just as entitled to information about gay Thailand as any-one.

The point of the original post, though, is that because this board is directly accessible in China, but not in Thailand, it would appear that China is, in some ways more free than Thailand is now. My point is that in all fairness, a site about "gay China" would be likely to be blocked in China, but not in Thailand. Maybe it is a sort of a "do what you want to do, but not in our house" attitude?

a site about "gay China" would be likely to be blocked in China, but not in Thailand. Maybe it is a sort of a "do what you want to do, but not in our house" attitude?

Elephantspike -- you are quite correct in your assumption -- a board similar to Sawatdee would likely be blocked in China, as it contains posts from people who do not agree with current government (probably the main reason why it is blocked in Thailand).

Like in Thailand, sites such as GayRomeo, Gaydar and Gay.com are not blocked in mainland China, nor are the myriad of Chinese language dating sites. Open discussion boards, however, are not encouraged, and may spur an unwelcome visit from the police. Chat engines, on the other hand, are the most popular of which is QQ, are the most popular means of communication amongst young gays on the mainland at the moment.