Freedom of chess in China

In the middle of a 16 hour layover in Wuhan China. It appears Chess.com is the only site I use that is not blocked here. 

Wonder if C.c staff have some special 'relationship' with China.

16 hour layover? Ouch! Brutal!

You'd think so. But I was actually able to sleep for about 6 hours and am splitting the rest of my time between studying My System and reading a great book called Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker.

2 Things I never have time for in my regular life.

Some obversations:

Coffee - Very good. 

KFC - Not very good.

Toilet - Interesting. The seat is covered with a plastic sleave. You push a button and the sleave slides around so you have a clean place to sit. And, it's heated.

Smiling - People seem to be caught off-guard by smiling. So far, it has mostly been younger people who smile back.

Loud - Chinese people can be quite loud. At first, it sounds like anger. But you can quickly realize it is just normal conversation.

This sounds a lot like Thailand. 10 people for 5 jobs.

kleelof, ask someone what they think about Cao Cao.  Hero or villian?

I would. But my Chinese is limited to the following:

"What is your name?"

"My name is Lee"

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10"

"Thank you"

"Beer" (this one is easy because it's the same as English. 

I made it alive. 

Pretty uneventful.

The first plane I got on and, as I was sure would happen, there was someone sitting in my seat.

It was a woman and the man with her started speaking Chinese to me. I guess telling me what special reason his wife needed the window seat. I looked at him and said, in Thai: "This isn't China, we don't speak Chinese here.".

Okie, just kidding. I just smiled and took the seat by the isle. A few minutes later the steward came along and asked me if I wanted to sit by the window in the exit row. That's Karma baby. 

16 Hour layover in China. Not too bad. I actually managed to sleep, get some reading done and study a little chess.

On the second plane, I had a window seat again. There was a Chinese couple next to me. Not sure what happened, but before the flight started, they got up from their seats and never came back. So I had an empty seat next to me for the 12 hour flight. 

Got to S.F. and it was friggin cold. I left Thailand during the hottest time of year to arrive here during the coldest time of year. But it was OK. The second day I was here I helped my buddy bottle some home-brew he was working on.

A bit of adjusting going on. Found a job a couple of days ago. Found a place to play weekly USCF rated games.

Yes kleelof, change your flag and join Team USA so you can represent S.F.  against the Russians in the World League.

I'm very flexible.

Nearly 3 weeks in and I'm still adjusting.

10 Years in Thailand have certainly changed me. Lots of adjusting is me adjusting to myself in America. 

The cold is still getting me a little.

The large portions of food are still often too much for me. I never realized how big our portions of food are here.

Crazy people. Now I ride public transit everyday. So I am seeing lots of wackos.

In Thailand, people were often either curious about me or scared to talk to me. But, either way, it was very easy to start conversations with Thais. Here, it is a little more difficult. Except, of course, with the wackos. They're pretty much always ready to talk. Even if you don't know waht they're talking about.

The quiet is a bit strange. Thailand is a pretty loud place. Old cars, motorbikes, karaoke until 2 in the morning, trucks driving around with ads blaring over loudspeakers...etc...

It was strange hearing English everywhere. Now it is strange not hearing Thai any longer. My friends here have a Siamese cat. So I speak Thai to him. He has not yet responded so I'm not sure if he understands Thai.

Physical work. I worked as a teacher and programmer for the last 10 years Neither of which requires much physical effort. Now I am back to cooking. ugh!

And, now, I'm addicted to cable T.V..

Not chess, Chess.com. 

If chess.com is open in China, why are there so few chinese players here?  I always assumed they had no access.

Me too.

Perhaps it is not popular enough there.

Maybe they can only play if they play the kings gambit. 

a search for wuhan led the bunny to his old friend's thread.  wonder how lee is doing these days ...

I would say chess is way less popularise compare to Xiangqi, Weiqi, Wuziqi(gomoku) and even Shogi in China. Chess.com policy is considered friendly, healthy and neutral so that's why I think it's accessible in China.