For the last four years, aside from about 8 weeks spent at home in Canada, I've spent every vacation period in mainland China which I calculated to be about 18 weeks off. Needless to say, I've traveled extensively in China, taken quite a few photos and made many friends. I'd like to say that they were all happy times but that'd be a lie, but like a friend said before, after the trip the hassles, bad weather and pains go away and you're only left with the good memories.

Nevertheless, I'm happy to say that I have finally stopped my addiction to traveling in China. For my Easter/Qing Ming 清明节 holiday I'm going elsewhere. It's been planned for awhile but I didn't want to announce it too early on this space in case something came up and I couldn't go. I'm leaving on Friday and heading to Macau to fly to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. The main highlights of my trip are to climb Southeast Asia's highest mountain, Mount Kinabalu at 4000 metres+, photograph heaps of wildlife in the rainforests and perfect my sunrise/sunset photography skills at the mountain and at a few of those white sandy beaches that Southeast Asia is so famous for. I'll be gone for two weeks returning in mid-April. Look out for my photos upon my return.

I'd also like to announce that I've decided not to renew my contract for the maskofchina website. That means that I won't be writing a blog anymore, at least not for the foreseeable future.

Since I moved to Hong Kong I've been losing interest in blogging as life demands inevitably increase when one moves to a city such as HK. At this point in my life, I'd much rather take, edit and look at photos, invest in the stock market, read politics/economics, hike and cook more than blogging. I will still be making quirky comments on other people's blogs and commenting on my own photography at flickr.com but that will be the extent of it. I'm hoping my photography touches more people than my blog has.

I'd like to thank my family, friends and readers-those who randomly come by via google or links from other sites-for supporting my efforts. The biggest surprise of my four year run of blogging was that people actually liked what I wrote and came back for more. The greatest gift I received from maintaining my website was the fact that I was able to meet and converse with so many interesting people in mainland China, HK and around the world. Some of the friendships will last a lifetime.

Thanks for joining me on my journey through China.

I recently got an email from my American friend Tom's NGO, Nomadic Marketing. They provide marketing services to other NGOs located in Asia. I was particularly interested in a pilot library project in my old stomping grounds of Dalian in Northeast China. Nomadic Marketing will set up libraries in orphanages in China and other Southeast Asian countries to aid in literacy amongst the most neediest of students. It only costs $150 US to set up a library!

Please look over the Nomadic Marketing website and donate to their causes if you think it's worthwhile. I certainly do!

The common belief in HK is that the 'lion's share' of our pollution problems come from Guangdong province where the factories of the world are located about 50-100km away.

However, recent studies show that this isn't entirely true. At certain times of the year, wind patterns don't push the polluted air from Guangdong down here and HK generates plenty of pollution from marine, automobile and power plant emissions .

While many of my Chinese friends accuse the western media of having an anti-China bias, the Chinese media is doing a good job of reinforcing negative views on China. My retort is that while it may be negative, it usually is true. You can't argue with the truth can you?

This is one of the funniest stories I've read in awhile. Along with most stories that are 'funny' in China, you also have to stick the word 'sad' in there as well. Chinese journalists wanted to test the greediness and/or incompetence of some hospitals in Hangzhou, a wealthy city in Eastern China. They submitted tea as urine samples to ten hospitals and waited for a reply. Six of the ten hospitals came back with a urinal tract infection diagnosis and recommended expensive (by Chinese standards) medicines to remedy the problem.

From the Southern Metropolis Daily: "Healthy people are diagnosed with diseases. Small ailments are said to be serious problems. Patients have become automatic teller machines for the hospitals."

It's not good to taint all hospitals and Chinese doctors with a broad brush but patronising the Chinese medical system is hazardous to your health. Reason #257 why I will never visit a Chinese hospital if at all possible.

The sign says: "10 years after HK returned to China, business and government collude, black box exercises, health care and education are all messed up."

Sunday March 18 saw Hong Kong people take the streets of HK Island to protest for universal suffrage in 2012. Next Sunday March 25 800 Beijing-selected members of the chief executive electorate will choose Hong Kong's next chief executive. This "election" has already been pre-determined as a majority of those electors are pro-Beijing. However, there is another candidate that garnered enough nominations for the electors and he has been running a campaign that is calling for universal suffrage in 2012, the date of the next chief executive election.

I had a nice time playing photojournalist for one afternoon and supported the protesters in spirit. If universal suffrage were to be implemented for the next election that is the year I'd be eligible to vote in HK as well. I'm skeptical that it'll happen but optimistic nonetheless.

Happy first birthday Henrik! I'm looking forward to documenting many more...

After hearing of the One Man Bandwidth blog's banning in China, I read the following article about internet censorship in China at unlinkable South China Morning Post. It sheds some light on the internet censorship process in China as I've heard rumours and other info from other bloggers but never knew how authentic that information actually was. Enjoy

Internet police keep tight grip on blogs
Three layers of censorship, numerous agencies ensure Web is free of banned topics
VIVIAN WU
South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Surfers at a Beijing internet café read only what they are allowed to, with up to 100,000 messages uploaded to the sohu.com website alone deleted by internal censors daily. Photo: EPA

The only explanation Beijing lawyer Pu Zhiqiang received as to why three of his blogs were suddenly removed from the popular internet portal sohu.com was a vague message from a website administrator that "it was ordered by authorities from above".

Mr Pu has since launched a fourth blog and registered six others. He created his first blog last year to post articles about freedom of speech and publication, as well as to discuss contentious legal topics, but found many of the articles were quickly removed.

"Let's see how many blogs they can shut down without giving me a responsible explanation," he said.

"I expect to be told what articles might irritate the `invisible upper authorities', what censorship criteria are applied, and what prompted the removal of my blog containing all the articles - articles which should be regarded as my publications and deserve legal protection."

But Mr Pu has had little luck uncovering the identities of the "upper authorities" or what criteria they are applying.

The term "upper authorities" describes a secret labyrinthine world of dozens of administrative departments responsible for censoring the internet, particularly blogs. They censor the nation's online writers but offer bloggers no recourse when their works are suppressed.

Even with the skyrocketing growth of blogs on the mainland - 17 million and counting by the end of last year - the country's censors maintain one of the harshest grips on content in the world.

Industry sources say internet censorship is not a single barrier, but a multi-layered structure with messages and articles undergoing at least three layers of vetting by squadrons of internet police and officials from various administrative departments.

"Every day, up to 100,000 messages uploaded to sohu.com are deleted by internal censors," said one blog editor at the site.

Content is initially checked by censorship software that looks for key words that are deemed offensive.

"Each website has a filtering engine which automatically filters and blocks messages containing sensitive key words," he said.

This layer of vetting is usually apparent when a blogger cannot upload an article.

The second layer of restriction is conducted by a special team of censorship editors who read all chat room messages and blog articles and delete any offensive content that the software fails to pick up.

"This layer of censorship is initiated when the filtering software cannot decide whether an article containing sensitive words is offensive. There are many words which may have a bad meaning depending on the context," the editor explained.

Some of these words are gong chan dang (the party), zheng fu (the government or authorities), or Mao Zedong , and must be examined by editors.

He said articles containing such words were temporarily transferred to a database for individual checking by censors. These editors might delete a piece because it is offensive or because they are in a bad mood or bored.

Articles with sensitive key words are then subjected to a third layer of censorship, which can be conducted by internet police officers, as well as officials from the Central Publicity Department, the State Council Information Office, the Ministry of Information Technology, or local communications administrations. All are authorised to censor at this level, and, conceivably, all could do it at the same time.

Officials are stationed onsite at the most popular portals to monitor and "co-operate" with the website's editors and ensure no offensive messages are published.

If an offensive article reaches this stage, administration officials will tell editors to delete it or remove the entire blog, as was the case with Mr Pu.

Websites must also abide by numerous administrative rules and regulations determining what internet service operators and their staff can and cannot do.

Censors working at sohu.com constantly receive updates on banned topics via their mobile phones and instant messaging tools, the sohu.com editor said.

The blocking process is based on criteria drafted by officials, but in-house website editors are given nothing on which to base decisions except a list of key words. Instructions to delete content are conveyed orally or covertly so there is no paper trail if bloggers complain about the removal of their work.

A website manager at a popular blog service said the list of banned words was updated daily, sometimes within a single shift.

He said he received several e-mails daily from different administrations informing him about the latest key words, topics or events banned on the internet.

"I recently received an instruction saying [US President George W.] Bush had sent a Lunar New Year's greeting to Chinese migrant labourers, so the characters for `Bush', `Chinese migrant labourers', and similar phrases were blocked."

Peking University law professor He Weifang said the mainland's internet industry was governed by too many administrative organs eager to control and squeeze profits out of the industry.

Professor He said they could issue rules to govern content, but, generally, there were no unified regulations and all the agencies could waive their responsibilities due to the lack of explicit legislation in the area.

The ability to arbitrarily exercise power over content gives censors extraordinary influence over the internet on the mainland, but the censors themselves "live like rats", earning less than 3,000 yuan a month, according to one editor.

"Reading and deleting messages hour after hour, day after day, for little pay is menial work. Our faces are green from lack of sunshine and lack of self-respect," the editor said.

"The internal censors have no respect for their jobs. Deleting other people's blogs is like stealing. It's shameful and not worth talking about."

As the Japanese, Korean and increasingly the Indian film/TV industry dominate the Asian entertainment media, the Hong Kong film and TV market has lagged far behind.

The 80s was the golden era of Hong Kong film and television. Most people under the age of 25 may not remember the days when guys like Chow Yun Fat, Andy Lau and the like raced through the dark, mean streets of HK fighting the triads but those days are pretty much over.

However, in its infinite wisdom, the HK government just announced this week that they will be pumping in $300 million HK to aid the revival of the film industry. Let's take a look at what the tax money will be going to. Check out this clip on Youtube.

As a resident and a teacher in mainland China and Hong Kong, I have always found it hilarious how students and workers of all ages can fall asleep whenever and wherever they are. Even here in HK, some teachers sleep at their desks during breaktime!

I guess this extends to the annual National People's Congress a meeting of carefully selected pro-CCP delegates from the four corners of China to listen to state leaders boast about their accomplishments (if they really met them is another story) and set targets (that they rarely meet). Speeches, meetings and other important functions in China tend to drag go on and on because leaders extol their own virtues and in true dictatorial style set the rules, regulations and visions of the organisation with no discussion or debate. It would be hard for any eager subordinate to stay awake. No wonder rows and rows of delegates fell asleep at the NPC session yesterday. Apparently, it happens all over the country. Very harmonious society indeed. You probably won't be seeing that photo in mainland newspapers.:)

My incredible lucky streak with photography publishing continues with the email announcement I got this morning. The photo on the left has been chosen to be published in JPG Magazine.

For my efforts, I will receive $100 US and a year's subscription to the magazine (bi-monthly). Thanks for all those who voted for the photo. I'm on the verge of buying a very expensive Canon telephoto lens and I think it'll help me improve the quality of my portraits and street photography since I won't have to be so up close to the subjects. I can't wait...