Running a international business from China – Middle Kingdom

In the Chinese language, China translated into Middle Kingdom – or middle land – and while Westerners feel Chinese are developing into the modern world, I believe Chinese feel they are the original race, and all people came from China at one point – so in essence it is the Chinese that are now allowing themselves to engage with the “outer world”.

I know it may seem “nerdy” (not sure how to write this for Chinese – nerd means like….geek or dork) but I love the movie “Lord of the Rings” – and I sometimes relate to my experience in china as being in the middle Earth (land of the movie) and seeing as I am trying to communicate with the outside world….and I am being watched by the eye of mordor in China.

But currently I am in Shanghai, and for some reason, the tools I use to get into twitter and facebook in Shenzhen are not working in Shanghai…..maybe because I am closer to Beijing, there are stronger forces and tools to block the systems I use.

And I am doing some online banking with my USA bank – the internet to the outside world is much slower these days, I think its because Shanghai’s underground internet goes through Korea and therefore its much slower – plus there are just such a high volume of people trying to access the outside internet, it clogs the systems. in Shenzhen, the internet seems much faster, and closer to Hong Kong, using that internet infrastructure system.

Yesterday I was in my friend’s ebay powerseller office, and he told me between 5 -6 pm, the internet is very slow in Shanghai, he is not sure why, but everyone in the office can notice a much slower connection….

just more COMPLAINING (I know, I know, I have to stop complaining) but Just expressing how amazed I am at myself for being able to still navigate a USA and international business while inside the GFW (great firewall of China). They really make you jump through hoops.