Good morning, China!


 Posted on June 9th, 2024 –

First off, huge confession: I keep stats on this blog.

I like to see how many people are dropping by, what they’re looking at, and where they’re coming from. For quite a while the numbers have been pretty steady … a mix of visitors from around the globe who typically view a few pages per session. Occasionally I’ll get bursts of obvious bot activity but most of the time the site’s traffic looks like regular people just poking around and exploring.

For the last little while, however, I’ve been noticing a certain trend:

You get the idea. So what to make of this?

In my mind there are two main possibilities.

First, China is a big and populous country, the state hasn’t blocked my site (or people are breaking through), and TCL is simply gaining a bit of traction there. If the idea among readers is to gain some exposure to proper English then woe be to them, but I try to take interesting pictures from time to time so maybe that’s the allure. If that’s all there is to this then welcome, 中國人民!*

The second option is a little more sinister: the ostensibly Communist Chinese government has taken an interest in my site, scraping it for any and all content. It’s not as if I haven’t been critical of the Canadian government and its many tendrils, something I imagine the CCP’s domestic propaganda outfits may find appealing.

I suppose that I could also just be cynical and/or jaded. Maybe I’m just misreading the stats. It could also be that I’ve encountered bureaucracy and have scried the truth by gazing into its abysmal maw. Either way, I won’t be singing the praises of the Chinese government, or the Communist ideology any time soon. Socialism, no thanks. I have a few things to say about a few other systems too and if I ever I sing any of their praises, rest assured it’s been coerced.

* if this is wrong then it’s Google’s fault.

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