You may see this screen a lot. I definitely did.
Yes, the Interwebs are censored in China. It's annoying. Chinese web-users call this "harmonization," after Hu Jintao's standing promise to promote a "harmonious society." Good times, no?
Even more annoying is that this censorship is really inconsistent. Yes, any sites related to Tibetan independence, Uyghur independence, Taiwanese independence (or the Chinese government, for that matter) and Falun Gong are censored. But some human rights sites load and others don't; almost all English-language media websites load, but Wordpress blogs don't. Indian government websites don't load. Sometimes YouTube works, sometimes it doesn't. Keep in mind this crazy, 300-milllion-computer censorship party is run by Party members who don't really have clear instructions on what they're looking for, and will often block things entirely arbitrarily.
Before I left, I thought the queensu proxy would allow me to see censored websites because the proxy server was blocking my IP address. WRONG. You'll be lucky of the queensu proxy lets you into JStor and Factiva.
I know there are firewalls out there you can get--I've heard good things about HotSpot Shield--but for some reason I could never get them to work for me. I chalk it up to my own incompetence.
One added annoyance you'll notice is that after searching for something that pisses off the censors
But you should be able to do all the research you need to do without too much hardship. Worst comes to worst, "The Net Nanny ate my homework" can be a fun excuse.
