Great Firewall of China keeping me out

[rob07]

I live in Australia and in the past, I've read with sympathy the difficulty people living in China have with getting unrestricted internet access. So it seemed a bit ironic to find that Chinese internet restrictions are restricting what I do online in Australia.

As with most Chinese movies 建国大业 can be watched online but only if you live in China (presumably because it has had cinematic release overseas). When I try to watch it on sina, it tells me 很抱歉， 你所在区域不观看此节目，请选择其他节目观看。

I appreciate the way sina gives it to me straight however. sohu first makes me sit through ads for cars and that disgusting 王老吉 stuff before telling me that there is no movie, maybe because it is only available in China, maybe because there is a problem with the internet connection and recommending that I answer a lot of annoying questions about how I surf the net, use some site to test my internet connection and give it my email address.

Ku6 on the other hand will play the first few minutes that have the cameos. It looks like everything is fine but then it stops to load at the start of the movie proper ... and never loads.

[whereishunter]

There are ways around this problem.

http://chinachannel.hk/

Will move your ip address into China for you! Not too sure if it works as I have not done this outside of China yet. So let me know how you get on.

[anonymoose]

I don't think this is the Great Firewall. Many websites only allow viewers in their own country to view certain parts of their content. This is more likely because of licensing restrictions.

[rob07]

Whereishunter - Thanks for the tip but it is in cinemas here and I have already seen it.

anonymoose - you are right that it is (presumably) because of licensing rather than censorship but the effect for me is the same. It is funny though, I can watch 赤壁 OK here despite the fact that it has been in cinemas, if only in an abridged form.

[wushijiao]

Try this:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI5OTEzODI0.html

[rob07]

Thanks Wushijiao, the youku link works here.

[Erbse]

It's not the great firewall keeping you out, it's that company that only accepts users from certain locations.

Why? Because they earn money with advertisements, however these advertisements only pay for users of certain areas. A Chinese company who puts advertisements on other peoples websites only pays if Chinese viewers view and click them. You as an Australian are worthless to them (and so am I as an European). So they don't want to give you access to their material, which costs them money to create.

[Ah-Bin]

Google book search does it too for users outside the US. ...you have to use a tool like e t a g e e r f (backwards with no spaces) to look at them. Even if you get rid of your country's address (.au, .uk etc.) it will still give you limited results. I had a lot of full view books in "my library" accessed through the above program that suddenly became snippet view in Australia.

Just try it and compare the number of full view results for "Chinese Dialect" outside the US with those you get when you access the site inside from inside the US.

I somehow doubt it's to do with copyright. The books that they restrict are over 100 years old!

[student]

While the links for 建国大业 at sohu, youku, etc. have been blocked in my region (though many if not most other films are not blocked), it is possible for me to watch the film online at http://www.cntv.cn.

In particular, http://bugu.cntv.cn/movie/other/C13662/classpage/video/20091218/100865.shtml has a version with bilingual subtitles, while http://ent.cntv.cn/movie/other/jianguodaye/videopage/index.shtml has chinese-only subtitles.

It can also be found on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=82A57FACEC1638B7 with english-only subtitles.

[mcgau]

Same problem happens when i try to watch news in tvb.com or browse a newspaper in appledaily.com.hk.

Only local people are allowed to access it.

[joneeboy72]

There IS no Great Chinese Firewall. That is ridiculous. If you are being blocked, it is either your own country that is doing it, or because you are trying to download from a subscription site without being a member. Apart from that, there ARE other reasons why you might have technical difficulties with certain Chinese websites, purely related to signal strength etc.,or related to your own ISP.

As far as movie or TV streaming is concerned,the best site inside and outside of China is PPS. The software is easy to download, but it is all in Chinese, so if you have a problem you will have to look can look for help on forums via Google etc.Some of the other sites are slow to load outside of China, but can still be seen if you are prepared to put up with the speed.

Someone mentioned TVB.That is a Hongkong channel, and is owned by that American citizen ex-Aussie Rupert Murdoch. It is certainly not blocked by freewheeling HongKong, and I can get it perfectly. Chinese Channels CCTV5, 6, and of course, CCTV international, Channel 9, are also easy to get. So are a lot of China's regional or city TV stations.

If you have a problem in your country, trying calling the cultural department of the Chinese Embassy, or look for a Chinese Society in a city near you. I took the easy way and got a Chinese student to set up most of mine, though I did PPS myself.

Good liuck with your listening/viewing.