High Security in Beijing

For friends following my blog, I have a very good reason for not blogging for the last week.

The reason is due to the number 60.

For the Chinese, the number 60 is a special number. It signifies one full cycle.

Every 60 years, your birthday will fall on exactly the same day on both the Chinese lunar and Western solar calendar as the day when you were born.

To the Chinese, the 60th birthday is a very special one.

It's no wonder, therefore, that Beijing is painted red for the country's 60th birthday. Lots of flowers, colourful banners and decorations adorn the streets. Tiananmen is decked with huge red beams and red banners.

But as with every big events in China, the capital is on high security alert. The streets of Beijing, and especially Chang An Avenue is filled with volunteer security teams, policemen, military police and anti-terror police.

The security measures extend to hotels, restaurants, offices and yes, even the internet. Access to more "sensitive" websites are closed in China. And Blogger.com is one of them, although I'm not quite so sure what's so sensitive about blogger.com.

Which is why I haven't been able to moderate comments, post blogs and view blogs for the last 6 days.