I need my Sesame Street
Living here, even as a foreigner, I've gotten used to certain websites being blocked all the time, and the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't blocking of other websites. I've even not been surprised (or all that upset really) when I've lost CNN or BBC news. We usually cope and find other ways to access the information. I mean, nothing tells me I need to know more about something than a blank screen when I turn on the TV.
However yesterday I reached a breaking point because I absolutely could not understand why something was blocked. I promised Myles that he could watch Sesame Street. Play with me Sesame is carried by one of the English-language channels from Hong Kong. Only a few minutes after 4 I turned on the TV, expecting to find Grover and instead what I see is a Mandarin-language infomercial.
Huh.
I turned to the other English language channel, and Caillou was just starting. Not my favorite, but Myles was appeased, but only for a few minutes. Right after Caillou, instead of Charlie and Lola, came yet another Mandarin-language infomercial.
What about Charlie and Lola is so subversive that it needs to be pre-empted by a commercial for home security systems? Is Sesame Street--no, not even the real Sesame Street but the half-hour all entertainment Play With Me Sesame--that dangerous? Or was what I experienced truly commercial? Had these companies paid my cable provider to show their infomercials instead of Sesame Street?
This being Shenzhen, I really could believe anything.
However yesterday I reached a breaking point because I absolutely could not understand why something was blocked. I promised Myles that he could watch Sesame Street. Play with me Sesame is carried by one of the English-language channels from Hong Kong. Only a few minutes after 4 I turned on the TV, expecting to find Grover and instead what I see is a Mandarin-language infomercial.
Huh.
I turned to the other English language channel, and Caillou was just starting. Not my favorite, but Myles was appeased, but only for a few minutes. Right after Caillou, instead of Charlie and Lola, came yet another Mandarin-language infomercial.
What about Charlie and Lola is so subversive that it needs to be pre-empted by a commercial for home security systems? Is Sesame Street--no, not even the real Sesame Street but the half-hour all entertainment Play With Me Sesame--that dangerous? Or was what I experienced truly commercial? Had these companies paid my cable provider to show their infomercials instead of Sesame Street?
This being Shenzhen, I really could believe anything.
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Ann-marie