China trip 9 - Creepy Internet Stuff

I’m going to digress into Internet Geek land for this post, apologies to those who aren’t interested, but I do have some friends that I think will be keen to read about my experiences, and I tried to keep it pretty non-technical, so it may appeal to others as well.

As you’re no doubt aware, PRC has a love-hate relationship with the Internet. They want to embrace the technology and the connectedness it represents, but they view it as a threat because it is a means for people to undermine the sovereignty of the State by exposing its citizens to “propaganda” in the form of ideas that run counter to the official State view of the world. Access to many things that the censors deem unacceptable is blocked via the “Great FireWall of China” which is in the path of nearly all Internet traffic entering or leaving the country. Things that are blocked include most social media sites, sites considered to be injurious or dissident to the Chinese government (see also my experience when researching Tian’anmen Square on Wikipedia), obscenity, etc. Further, traffic is usually logged and sniffed, so that they know who is trying to reach things that they ought not be looking at. In the past, I had heard that common VPN tunneling techniques were blocked, because this encrypted and therefore obfuscated the traffic, allowing the end user to bypass these controls. However, until the conference started, I’ve been using the hotel network, which allows VPN, so I can connect back via my company’s network in the US and use the Internet as if I was sitting in my office. Obviously, latency to go from Beijing to Kansas and back out to my destination is high but manageable. Probably won’t be streaming any Netflix, but VoIP works passably – called home via my company's MS Unified Communications and only noticed the occasional artifact. Now, I’m not sure if they started allowing VPN in the more international tourist-friendly hotels because it was becoming so commonplace for international travelers to need to use a VPN to reach things at work, or if they simply don’t care anymore because they have devices capable of breaking the crypto. I’d like to hope that it’s the former, because the latter gives me the heebie-jeebies. I’m still changing passwords on the sites I accessed while I’m here when I get back, just to be on the safe side.

Along those same lines, IETF has had to do things a bit differently in the way that they set up their networks for the conference. In most locations, the IETF brings in dedicated access, sets up open wireless in all of the common areas, and often takes over the conference hotel’s in-room connectivity, because well, you can’t have 1000+ Internet geeks descend on your average hotel with its average assumptions about how much bandwidth is enough and have it end in anything but tears. Our average usage is somewhere north of 50mbps now. They’ve been making a secured (WPA2) network available for those who don’t use a VPN and would like to not have their wireless in the clear, but it’s not used as extensively as the open AP. This time, there is not exactly an open network. There is a network that you can connect to without authentication, but it redirects you to an authentication page where you have to enter your credentials from the conference to gain access, sort of like when you have to sign into a paywall on a non-free wireless network. There is also an 802.1x authenticated network in both the hotel rooms and the conference area. This is because one of IETF’s requirements is that their network be allowed unfettered access to the internet – i.e. no firewalls allowed. I’m not convinced that this translates to no sniffing or logging, but there’s at least no blocked content. Therefore, the Chinese government is requiring IETF to limit access to attendees only. While there are a lot of Chinese nationals attending the conference (over 1/3 of the attendees), I guess that the assumption is that they would have the same level of access if this was being held elsewhere, and therefore there is no additional risk. Plus, I remember seeing news items that the Chinese government was requiring its citizens to run filtering software locally on their computers, so perhaps they’re simply controlling it that way.

Additionally, the conference is having to be much more strict than usual in controlling access to the meeting itself. Normally, people don’t much care if you aren’t always wearing your badge, especially if you are well-known as a regular attendee at IETF meetings – you won’t be challenged as to your registration when you walk into a meeting. Here, there are hotel staffers posted at the entrances to the conference areas that are checking badges to ensure that only registered attendees may enter. I’m thinking that this may have had something to do with an early contract scuffle that the IETF had with the conference hotel.

Originally, the hotel had a line in the contract saying something to the effect of, “if any attendee says anything prohibited by law, we reserve the right to terminate the contract and kick you out.” IETF obviously balked at this, and did a survey of its members to find out if they would attend a meeting held in China with that condition. The overwhelming response was no, because IETF is very much a meeting where open discussion is important, and that would have a serious chilling effect on the tone of the meeting. This gave them the leverage that they needed to tell the hotel in no uncertain terms that they could either have that line in the contract and have no conference, or they could remove that from the contract. Since the proceedings of the meetings are very much on the record (posted on the internet), I can see why they would want to ensure that no one outside of the conference be given open access.

Memo to all of the people who are quick to accuse members of our government of being socialists, fascists, or Nazis simply because they support an agenda you disagree with: Go to visit an actual socialist country with a truly repressive regime for a little while, and stop taking your freedom to complain about the government for granted, especially when you use that freedom to say things that are chosen for their hyperbolic impact without much thought to their veracity or their ability to advance rational debate on the matter.

As it is, part of me wonders if this blog won’t eventually lead to me showing up on some dissident watch list and being denied a visa renewal should I ever want to return to China.

China trip 8 - Vehicles

No travel blog from me would be complete without some notes on cars:

China is left-hand drive, so the JDM vehicles don’t all make it over here directly.

Taxies are mostly either Hyundai Elantras or Jettas, with the odd Citroen every now and again. Note that the taxis are not exactly what we’d think of when we think of Jetta. They are old Jetta (Mk. 2) body and seats, but the switchgear is more modern VW (including the blue instrument lighting). To make matters even more confusing, they also sell the newer Jettas (Mk. 4) as Bora, and the latest Jetta (Mk. 5) as Sagitar here. Plus the Passat (Mk. 5), plus something called the Santana 2000 (which Wikipedia tells me is the Passat Mk. 2, which was called the Quantum in the US), plus the Polo. Sheesh.

Lots of black Audi A6s with tinted windows, including a lot of A6 L’s, which I assume are long-wheelbase for livery use. They seem to be the “hotel car” of choice here. I knew they made an A8 L, but didn’t realize they also made the A6 that way. I also saw a nice cross-section of Cayennes, including a Turbo, MLs, a 911 Turbo, and lots of Mercedes including several AMGs, and even one Rolls Royce, parked outside of our hotel! Now you know where all of your Wal-Mart money is going I guess…

I also saw a couple of Hummer H2s, which given the traffic and drivers here, is probably a good choice. I don’t know whether fuel economy is a consideration… On the other end of the spectrum I saw a Chevy Uplander minivan badged as a Buick, and did you know that Buick makes a Hybrid here? The LaCrosse (not the one we know, this is a different car unique to China as far as I can tell) comes in a hybrid version with GM’s Belt Alternator Starter system that was seen in the Saturn Vue mild hybrid.

I mentioned the tinted windows – oddly, even the most deep-tinted windows leave an approximately 2 square foot trapezoid of glass un-tinted on the front driver and passenger windows right near the side mirrors. I assume that it is so the driver can see the mirrors better, but the tint didn’t seem so deep that this would make that much of a difference, so perhaps it’s some sort of law, because every car I saw with tinted windows was done this way.

Interestingly, like the US, almost all of the cars are gasoline-powered, very few diesels outside of heavy trucks and busses. There are also some buses here that are combination electric and diesel, but not self-contained. They have a pantograph to pull power from overhead lines like a trolley, but they can drive under conventional diesel power if they have to deviate from the powered route.

The police use all sorts of interesting things, from vans to Hyundais to Jeep Grand Cherokees. They also have a small electric van (about the size of a Mini Cooper), and at least two different models of Honda motorcycle, a CB250 and an ST1100.

There are still plenty of bicycles (and variants) here, most roads have dedicated bike lanes, and the passenger overpasses that allow people to cross the major roads safely and without impacting traffic all have 2 or 3 foot wide bike ramps on either side of the stairs. Motorized bicycles and small scooters appear to be allowed to use the bike lanes and sidewalks, so they’re quite popular. A lot of the motorized devices are actually electric, which is probably good since they aren’t contributing to the pollution problem (at least not directly). The interesting thing is that a lot of local vendors and people who need some cargo capacity have either bikes or trikes with flatbed areas on the back of them. I even saw a full-fledged motorcycle that had been converted to a trike for the express purpose of cargo hauling behind the driver. It seems to be the Chinese equivalent to the compact pickup truck, because I haven’t seen a single real truck except for delivery trucks (and of course SUVs) the entire time. I also saw multiple scooters with these fur-lined vinyl covers over the handlebars. Think of a pair of hand mufflers for when you are riding the scooter. I guess that they’d be more effective than a pair of fabric gloves at blocking the wind, and you wouldn’t necessarily have to wear gloves unless it was really cold. Pretty neat idea.

Most of the road signs are of the European style – no words, just symbols, but there are a couple that I should mention. First, there is one that basically means “No entry for vehicles carrying explosives, inflammables or hazardous chemicals” but looks like this – a car with an explosion on the roof. The other interesting sign that I saw, that I can’t for the life of me find a picture of, including on the official Beijing traffic sign site, is basically a cartoon car with a giraffe sticking out of the sunroof. General idea is low clearance, and some of the references I found to it on the internet said that it sometimes includes the English words “Don't ride your vehicle too high”. I’m really kicking myself for not taking a picture of it, but when you see something like that in traffic while in a taxi, by the time you realize it’s something you should be taking a picture of, it’s too late.

Update - I sent a message out to our attendees list, and two different folks sent me links: This one (thanks to Ted Lemon) and  this one (thanks to Huub Helvoort). Hurray hive mind!

I rode in a good number of taxis while I was here, and there were a wide range of levels of aggressive drivers among the cabbies – some that would have been at home in NYC, others that were pretty polite and conservative in their driving. However, with only one or two exceptions, they were all horrible at driving a manual transmission, especially in traffic, and all of the taxis were manuals. There were some drivers that were really hurting my feelings with how bad they were at it – we’d slow down to 15 KPH for stopped traffic, and once they got around the obstacle, they’d be trying to accelerate in 4^th gear, with the engine bucking and protesting the whole way. I’ve taught 3 or 4 different people to drive manuals, and most of them weren’t that bad on their first day, let alone if it was their job to drive all day every day. Made me want to learn the Chinese phrase for “downshift, moron!”

China trip 7 - Longest...Saturday...Ever

Today is check-out day, so after breakfast, I took about an hour to walk back towards the dumpling restaurant I went to on Friday so that I could take some pictures; I had forgotten my camera the day before. Once that was done, it was time to check out, but my flight wasn’t until 5:45, so I just went down to the lobby to hang out. A friend came back from some shopping with a fake Android-powered iPad as well as an iPhoney (Chinese knock-off iPhone 4G with 2 SIM card slots) that also runs Android, so we played around with those for a little while, and then it was time to grab a cab to the Airport. Traffic was heavy considering it was Saturday afternoon, but cleared up once we got onto the airport express road. Interestingly, the airport express road has different speed limits (max and min) for each lane. So one lane was marked 120/90, the next 100/80, and the farthest right was 100/60, followed by a dedicated emergency vehicle lane. As with many traffic signs in Beijing, those all appeared to be mere suggestions. Other interesting sights on the way to the airport: a TRD (that’s Toyota Race Development) sticker on a Porsche Cayenne, and multiple cars with Transformers Autobot or Decepticon logos on them.

We found our gate and checked in, and they tried to put me on a Continental flight to Newark instead of my flight via Chicago because apparently my flight was oversold. I tried to talk my way into them just processing my pending systemwide upgrade on one of the two flights, but they wouldn’t do it, so I told them to just leave me where I was. That turned out to be a good plan, because the Newark flight ended up being delayed, and given the option, I’d much rather be stuck in Chicago for the night if I miss my connection. Security was uneventful, and like most non-US security, we were not required to remove our shoes, but most everything else was the same. No backscatter, just standard metal detectors.

Since one of the folks that was on the same flight as me is a 1K status elite frequent flyer on Star Alliance, he was able to bring me into the Air China lounge as a guest. We had some snacks and waited for our flight. I didn’t get my upgrade (thanks anyway, Elena!) but this was the same drill as on the way out, our jet wasn’t refurbished yet, and so business was just better seats and therefore I wasn’t necessarily missing a lot. I had an exit row, so I had plenty of legroom. I even was able to sleep a little. Food was basically the same as on the way out. Let me just say that it’s a good thing that they started charging for food on domestic flights, because it forced them to make it suck less so that they could actually charge for it. When you’re a captive audience and the food is complimentary, it’s every bit as bad as every comedian ever makes it out to be.

By the time we got off the plane, went through immigration (big line), got our bags (mine was waiting for me when I got to the carousel), went through customs, rechecked our bags, and went through security, it was 15 minutes until boarding started. I was supposed to go through the backscatter machine, but the person in front of me didn’t take off his belt, and therefore had to go through a pat-down, which for some reason caused them to close the backscatter line and wave me through the regular metal detector instead. I’m still not convinced that this backscatter thing is an improvement. The only time I’ve been through one it horribly delayed me, and while I couldn’t care less about the pseudo-nudity, I am a little concerned about the radiation exposure should one malfunction.

United had upgraded me on the Chicago flight, but since I was on someone else’s systemwide upgrade and it didn’t happen on the Beijing leg, I wasn’t about to let them waste it on a domestic flight, so I told them to pull that off of my ticket, which put me back in coach…for about 10 minutes, when my normal status-based upgrade came through. This plane, while also a 757, was not upgraded, so it was just nice seats and free drinks this time around, which was sort of disappointing, because I wanted to try out the lay-flat seats to see if I could get a little sleep. Either way, I got my bags, headed for the taxi stand only to find a 20 minute line for a cab. I think that my cabbie was having some trouble seeing in the dark, because he was doing a lot of weaving, especially when there were oncoming headlights. When we got to the house, he ran my credit card and gave me a slip without a tip line, and when I asked about adding a tip on the card, he said “can’t do it.” I responded, “I don’t have any US cash, I’ve been in China for 10 days”, and he said not to worry about it. I feel bad making him drive all that way with no tip, but I guess ultimately it was his call. By this time, it was well after 10pm, so I went inside, grabbed a quick snack, and then enjoyed being unconscious in my own bed for about 9 hours.

I should note that travel to Asia is always interesting because of the International Date Line. On the way out, you fly for 13 hours, but you leave Thursday evening and arrive Friday night. On the way back, because of the time change away from Daylight Savings Time, I actually traveled through time! I left Beijing at 5:45pm, traveled for 13 hours, and arrived back at Chicago at 4:40pm the same day, making it the longest Saturday ever.

China trip 6 - Thursday and Friday

Thursday

Today was a long day. I had a meeting over lunch, so it was more catered hotel food – good, but dull. Then, my working group meetings weren’t over until 7:30, and it appeared that the folks I normally go to dinner with had other plans. I hung out with some folks assuming that they were planning to leave for dinner any time now, but after an hour or so, it was pretty obvious that they had blown off some portion of the meeting and had already had dinner. I was involved in a conversation, and by the time I looked at the clock it was 9:30, and I wasn’t really that hungry, so I just decided to forget dinner – I’ve eaten plenty at every meal this week, so I figured I’d survive.

Friday

This is the last day of IETF conferences, and I’m pretty glad. You can’t handle more than about a week of this – trying to pay attention to dry presentations for 8+ hours, arguing minute technical details in a room full of alpha geeks, some of whom find making people look stupid a sport, then trying to catch up with home and work on a 12 hour time difference. I haven’t had to get up at weird hours for any meetings, and “catching up” mainly consists of dealing with the deluge of email I get overnight since that comprises the bulk of the US business day, but still, it’s pretty draining. Add to that missing your family, and you’re pretty ready to go home after a week. Last year when I went to Japan, and when Emily and I went to Stockholm last July, we were able to take a webcam and use Skype to call home. It makes a huge difference being able to see the people you’re talking to… This year, two things are different. First, my employer has decided that Skype somehow represents a security risk and will forcibly uninstall it from my laptop whenever I install it, and second, due to security concerns, they sent me to China with a travel laptop that is very locked down. I couldn’t install the drivers for my webcam if I wanted to. So while I have been able to call home, it’s been voice only, and it really isn’t the same.

My morning working group ended a bit early, so I was able to get out a little ahead of the lunch rush. My buddy at the concierge desk had a new recommendation for me when I told him I’d been to most of the usual places – today’s recommendation was a dumpling shop. I’ve had a lot of dumplings and buns here already because the hotel serves those in humongous quantities at every meal, and even at our afternoon snack breaks, but I figured it’d be worth going to a place that specializes in them to see how they are different, and that turned out to be a good idea.  I was able to match up the characters that he had written down for me for a change, and found it with no trouble. They had an English menu, and I ordered 3 different types of dumplings – pork with fennel, pork with pickled vegetable, and spicy pork. I had no idea what the portion sizes would be like, but the dishes were 7 RMB apiece, so I figured I didn’t have much to lose – I would either have enough, or I could order more. They didn’t look at me too funny, and I saw them bring two dishes to another person dining alone, so I figured I’d be ok with 3. They kept holding up 2 fingers when I ordered each dish, and the receipt also indicated a quantity of 2, but when I held up 1 finger, they shook their heads, so I think I was getting double orders. It was a lot of food, 3 full plates of dumplings. Probably would have fed 2 people comfortably for lunch, but the theme for this week has been overeating…

The dumplings were all tasty. In comparison to the hotel, I found that the fillings were more flavorful – it appears that mass-produced hotel food is the same everywhere: “least common denominator” bland; and the dough had a taste instead of just being a means to hold in the filling. As we got on towards lunch rush, I knew this was a good place to go. Nearly every table was full, I was the only tourist there, and there were two different sets of PLA Soldiers having their lunch while I was there.

One of the things that I have discovered here is that the dumplings are supposed to be eaten with vinegar. However, this isn’t the normal clear, delicate tasting rice vinegar that we get in the states “in the Asian food aisle of your local mega-mart” to quote Alton Brown. This is a deep brown – I mistook it for soy sauce for several days, and tastes more like malt vinegar than rice vinegar. I’m not sure if it’s simply fermented differently from the rice vinegar that I’m used to or what. Guess I need to do a little research. Either way, the food was excellent, and I paid 43 RMB including my tea.

I didn’t have a 50 note, so I paid with a 100 note, and I noticed that they had both a printout on the wall explaining common counterfeiting signs (well, I believe that's what it was - it was in Chinese, so I couldn't be sure) and a scanner that they passed the proffered 100 RMB note through to verify its authenticity. Unsurprisingly, mine was authentic (it came from an ATM), but I hear from other participants that it’s not a good idea to get 100 RMB notes in change from your average taxi driver or a vendor in a big tourist area.

Dinner was in the hotel, but not in the usual places. I was having a fairly lengthy discussion with some of the folks from my last WG meeting, and we decided that it made sense to continue the discussion over drinks. Well, apparently if you have elite status with Gold Circle or whatever the Shangri-La hotel’s affinity program is called, they have a special members’ only lounge on the 12^th floor of one of the two towers that make up the hotel. My hotel room is also on the 12^th floor, but in the other tower. Anyway, we got there just in time for happy hour, which includes free drinks and miscellaneous appetizers. I got an opportunity to try some Chinese wine, made by "Great Wall Winery" which was actually a pretty good Cabernet Sauvingon. I also had some Tsingtao, and some food. The appetizers weren’t exactly a new experience, because they were roughly the same thing that the hotel had served for the welcome reception on Sunday night, but they served as the correct amount of sustenance after my big lunch, so when we finally left the lounge at 8:30, I figured I was set, and headed back to my room to get ready to head out tomorrow.