Talking to my girlfriend online

[xionm]

Hi,

Not sure if this post fits here, but here's my problem. I know China forbids any sexually explicit material on the internet. The thing is, I'm going to be separated from my girlfriend for two months, and we wish to .. er .. capture a portion of our physical relationship on the internet (webcam/chat.) is this a firm no-no? Will I get into trouble for this? Please help!

[gougou]

Normally those posts start with "a friend of mine"...

To answer your question: it is not going to be a problem (and I leave it to your phantasy whether that is speaking from experience or not )

[Senzhi]

... and if you use Skype, everything will be encrypted ...

so that we can't sneak in.

[simonlaing]

Late at night on the weekend in many net bars I see Chinese guys (mostly) watching porn on their screens. These are net bars with registration of their ID cards and so would be easy to look them up.

They are minimally discrete in trying to avoid the wangban, net bar admin from seeing when they go to help.

Sometimes the multitask porn in the corner, with World or warcraft or Mario cart in the big screen.

I agree it won't be a big deal.

(Yes I am a recovering net addict hehe) Warcraft and now Grand theft Auto again.

Have fun,

Simon:)

[Lu]

As long as it's just between the two of you and you both watch it in private (which I suppose you were planning to do anyway) I don't see why it would be a problem. If you would go posting it on the net somewhere for all of China to see I suppose there would be a chance you could get in trouble for it.

[simonlaing]

Oh yeah, don't start a business with your webcam.

Things have changed though in China. I remember in 2002ish hearing about a bilinguagl french English woman in Shanghai who was calling long distance about trade to France who was interuppted on the line by the Chinese operator and asked to "speak in English" . (language skills what are you going to do)

This might be one of those urban myths, like in the early 90s every foreign having a security agent follow them around a interview every Chinese person they talked to.

As people said most chat is encrypted anyway so there won't be a problem.

Anyway, China has changed a lot an as with IP enforcement , other things which don't threaten the CCP are often not enforced strongly.

Have fun,

SImon:)

[muyongshi]

Things have changed though in China. I remember in 2002ish hearing about a bilinguagl french English woman in Shanghai who was calling long distance about trade to France who was interuppted on the line by the Chinese operator and asked to "speak in English" . (language skills what are you going to do)

Don't know about this one but I do know of one that is true. German guy studying in Harbin over 10 years ago. Operator came on and asked him to talk in English because their German translator had gone home.

[Lu]

Those are actually very funny stories. Not very professional espionage, is it. Why not just ask the subject straight away if they are planning to overthrow the government, saves the trouble of all the listening to phonecalls and reading letters and whatnot.

[Senzhi]

What if the other side of the line doesn't speak English?

[xionm]

Thanks for the replies guys! the one about the phone operator interrupting is really funny, lol...

anyway, this is going to be a strictly private affair, just the two of us, with no recording going on - at least, not by us. Actually, we were just planning to chat on the phone. Then at some point, I mentioned how the girls in Beijing dressed really well, mini skirts and all, especially college students, and how it was like any other american city ... now all of a sudden, she wants cam and mic. go figure...

i'm really enjoying Beijing.. especially since a bunch of my Chinese friends helped me order veggie food - which I thought was really hard to get in China. And the food.. just wow! nothing at all like the Chinese take out that is so ubiquitous in the good old states...

[gougou]

hen at some point, I mentioned how the girls in Beijing dressed really well, mini skirts and all

Oh come on, don't act like you didn't have an agenda saying that

[cdn_in_bj]

i'm really enjoying Beijing.. especially since a bunch of my Chinese friends helped me order veggie food - which I thought was really hard to get in China.

Sorry to stray off-topic, but would you mind sharing with us your veggie experiences in the following thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/4415-vegetarian-restaurants-in-beijing

In my experience, they have a different concept of "vegetarian" over here. I found that in addition to asking for dishes without meat, I had to be very specific and clarify my request with the following points:

-no seafood

-no sauce containing minced pork

-no chicken essence/broth

By the last point, the poor fuwuyuan would be so confused that the manager would be called over, and I'd have to explain it all over again. This would then be followed by a quick consultation with the chef to ensure that they could accomodate the request. This is my experience at least at some higher-end restaurants, and I appreciated their efforts and patience, but as you can imagine it was quite a hassle to go through the process for every dish that my vegetarian friends were interested in trying.

At lower-end joints, I'm sure they would've either told me flat-out it wasn't possible, or said no problem and then ignore my request anyways.

We didn't try any of the specialty vegetarian places because I was told by friends that those places most likely used chicken broth as well, but looking back now, maybe we should've given them a chance too.

[simonlaing]

Hi CDn,

I had several vegan and halal only friends come visit and I used to tell restaurants that they were allergic to meat. Even small pieces, Guo ming, and that used to solve the yuxiang qiezi, mapo doufu issues.

You should try this way,

have fun,

Simon:)

[DrZero]

I cannot say for sure how the Chinese authorities would consider your chat sessions without more evidence. If you could go ahead and get your girlfriend to hook up the web cam and show me exactly what she plans to do, then I would be able to help you. I live in The U.S., so there should be no problems here.