On the 10th of October, around 5:30 pm (Beijing time), I was pottering around on the computer as usual, Googling for something or other, and accidentally clicked on a link to a
Wikipedia article. Knowing that Wikipedia was blocked in China, I was just about to hit the stop button when, to my surprise, I noticed that it was connecting.
I was wiki-unblocked.
Being blessed with the ability to to do more than one thing at a time, I was also logged in to the very excellent
www.chinese-forums.com, and so I mentioned my discovery
there. Then forgot about it.
Today, to my surprise, I was contacted by a journalist who works for "The Wall Street Journal", which I have reason to believe is an American newspaper. She wants to ask me some questions.
She has tracked me down via
Slashdot.org, where my original report turned up.
Being a polite chap, I answer her questions to the best of my ability then go look at
Wikipedia's entry on the block. There, I read that
"The first report of a change was by a blogger in Liuzhou, Guangxi, who posted his finding to an online forum at about 6 pm on October 10, 2006, Beijing Time."
That was me! 1.3 billion people and I was first to report it?
I just wish I could remember what I was Googling for!
tags: china liuzhou wikipedia wall street journal
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