Documenting bilingual China, what websites to use?

[flray]

Hello all,

 

     I recently obtained my visa to travel on an L visa to sightsee and to study a bit of Mandarin. I am going to stay in Yanbian. The reason I find this area compelling is that as   most of you know is it is  bilingual in both Putonghua and Korean. This dual use of language extends to the street signs and advertising as well. My main goal is to improve my Mandarin but also I want to obtain a basic competence in Korean. I think it will help my Chinese . I will be able to see  the juxtaposition of languages of what is similar or different  in the lexicon. Korean is also a written alphabet unlike Chinese. 

 

   If I am going to document this I do not just want to do this for myself but to put it in a format that others can use as well. This could also be an asset to Chinese learning Korean and vise a versa as well as English speakers. I would like to start doing this in country and not wait to come home. What would the best sites to serve as hosts to accomplish this? There is Blogspot, instagram and Twitter etc. There is the complication that some could be blocked in China but also I would like to have some level of control of the content that I create. I would like to put it on a site easily accessible to westerners but also possibly use Chinese and/or Korean sites as well. I wonder if I just need to create my own simple website. Can I only accomplish what I want to do with a VPN?

 

   I see that xiaozhou just put up a post about specifically Chinese websites that I definitely go through. I think my question is a bit different though as I want to mainly use western resources. 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Ray

[fabiothebest]

If you want to make a website and you don't want to pay for having your own domain name and hosting, you may use Wordpress for example. I personally prefer it to Blogspot. I think it's a bit more customizable, though the free version hosted by Wordpress for free doesn't have all the functions that you can have if you host it yourself or pay Wordpress to host it for you. Some people also like Medium, I didn't try it though. If you want to have a normal (paid) hosting and install anything you want, then there are more options that you could consider.

 

Blogspot (Blogger) is owned by Google and I don't know if websites hosted on it are accessible from China or not, anyway for logging in for creating content and managing the website you'd have to connect to Google anyway, which is blocked in China. Wordpress isn't blocked in any way as far as I know. Anyway you asked if you can accomplish everything with a VPN: the answer is YES. Just make sure the VPN you use works. Some are currently working well in China, while others stopped working. Chinese government doesn't like VPNs and tried to block them. Now well, according to a new law it'd be even illegal to use one, but I wouldn't worry too much. If you are interested in VPNs that work in China I can recommend a couple that I personally tested recently.

[iekkim]

Wordpress is a very nice site to start a blog. Once you think you've picked up the interest of people, for a few dollars, you can upgrade it to have your own domain name. You can also just buy a domain name at a cheap price from GoDaddy. 

 

When you learn a bit of Korean, you can see how they have several borrowed words from China. Words like exercising, bank, and other words are so similar to Chinese making it a little bit easier to guess what certain Korean words mean. In my opinion, it's easier to learn Korean than Chinese because of the alphabets. 

[Mati1]

If you want you can now start your own blog on Chinese Forums, see this post for more info.

 

As for posting a ton of photos, this would be a candidate for your own photo gallery. @roddy hasn't opened this functionality (yet) though. Maybe if you ask nicely

[flray]

Thanks fabio, iekkim and Mati,

 

I am checking out wordpress. I would be very interested in the names of the VPNs. I just need to get something up quick so I don't have to think about it. Now I think I am going to do a separate post on goals for 3 months of study. I think it will be good to keep myself honest…...

[fabiothebest]

I recommend in this order 1) VyprVPN 2) ExpressVPN

[flray]

Thanks I will do research on the use of these VPNs as there is a lot of content on the forums.

cheers