September 4: Shanghai

I arrived last night, worn and tired after a 9 hour flight. It was my first return to China after 10 years. I still recall the various early trips to China starting in 2007 when I had just joined my previous employer. I have several old blog entries waxing eloquent about the level of development in China- how anyone that compared China to India had never actually been here else they would never bother to do so. This time the sky in Shanghai seemed much clearer than I remember it- all of china used to be one dense smog about a decade ago. Some time has certainly passed and a few things have transpired not the least of which is Covid. While the sky seems to have cleared considerably, some other not so positive things have happened. Almost all US websites or apps are now banned. I was worrying about internet connection quality in the hotels here- I needn't have to. Fat lot of good my connection is, given I cannot access Whatsapp, Youtube, Facebook, Google Maps, Google Translate or Gmail. I have never been so connected yet disconnected ever in my life. It is one thing to be disconnected when you are close to nature- you avoid devices simply to absorb all that is natural and real- switch off but only to tune in to nature instead. Here I was in the middle of Shanghai in an urban sprawl second possibly only to Tokyo. And yet I could bot figure out where I was as I had no Google Maps access. It is really most annoying and carves out in relief my over reliance on gadgets. I have also observed lately that I have become somewhat of a slave to Facebook Reels. I keep scrolling these and as it happens the algorithm at FB is quite adept at choosing the content of these reels for me- turning this feature into a veritable echo chamber. I have got to quit this- and maybe it is this week of abstinence that will get me there. On the other hand I cannot connect on some many pressing matters that I have to now simply suspend for the next few days. The only way to get around this is to subscribe to VPN- but obviously I wasn't going to try to do so just for a few days. In any case, my track record with VPNs was poor as I had  previously subscribed to many such services in Dubai- both free and paid services- to mainly allow for whatsapp calling which was banned in UAE but it was the only item banned. The VPN service was mostly not functional or at best patchy. The reason for this ban revolved around security, I was given to beleive. In China this was a radical step and was undertaken by Xi Jinping 5 years or so ago. I must say this has the power to transform Chinese people permanently- isolate them from the real world .