The Most Magical Hotel in China

Say you’re sitting at home frustrated that China’s Net Nanny (or Great Firewall) has once again prevented you from receiving subscribed feeds to (some of) your favorite podcasts. Or you’re at work, hoping against hope that the Nanny will let you – just this once – see your “authority” ranking on technorati. Or, you’re at the local Motel 268 (I’m beyond 168 these days), feeling homesick and hoping to see that cute website maintained by your fair-trade-coffee-drinking park ranger friends that – for some inexplicable reason – the Net Nanny hates so much. Or, you (ahem) are in Beijing in desperate need to see the latest news on the Vatican-Beijing relationship – but the Nanny just won’t let it in.

What on Earth do you do?

Well, like many others, you could go through the trouble of downloading and installing some of that fancy software that gets you past the Nanny’s clutches. Or you could skip all of that trouble and check-in to the Sheraton Wuxi Hotel & Towers for a night of almost totally unencumbered (by gov’t firewalls) web surfing. True, the rooms start around RMB 888/night (without breakfast, even), and the broadband runs an additional RMB 50/night – but that’s a small price to pay for an evening of direct connections to feedburner.

How did I find this most magical of hotels? I was in Wuxi, on assignment, and I’d just returned to my room (at the Sheraton – paid for by others, believe me) to retire for the night. Before retiring, though, I decided to check my email, and while doing so I noticed that itunes was suddenly – and very unexpectedly – downloading updates to several podcasts that I hadn’t been able to update (except manually) in months. This piqued my interest. I opened my browser, and started typing names of websites that – in China – are only accessible via the use of proxy servers and Tor. And, sure enough, they started popping up, no problem at all. Lots of sites, on lots of topics; sites that – for the sake of this blog, and out of hope that I won’t have to change hosts, again – I won’t be linking.

And yet, at the same time, some major blog sites remained blocked. For example, blogspot was accessible; wordpress was not.

I have absolutely no explanation for any of this. And, because I was pressed for time in the morning (due to staying up late viewing a Nanny-free web), I didn’t have the chance to inquire of management about their wonderful relationship with — who? I’d love to know. And I’d love to know if any of this blog’s readers have found similar Nanny-free hotels in China – and – whether they can explain the phenomenon. Perhaps I’m making too much out of this?

[Addendum: If, while staying at the Sheraton Wuxi, you hope to drink bottled water in your room – be prepared to pay for it. Inexplicably, unlike any other five, four, three or even two-star hotel in China, the Sheraton Wuxi does not provide free bottled water to its guests. Go figure.]

[Addendum 2: In response to an emailed question: I called a friend in Shanghai, and asked him to try logging into the same websites that I was accessing in Wuxi; he could not. Also, I was unable to connect to the same blocked sites from two totally separate wireless hubs elsewhere in Wuxi.]

[Addendum 3: I can’t believe that I’m about to post this, but … Richard Deutl, the GM of the Sheraton Wuxi has written to say that “we do provide complimentary water in each room but either we must have forgotten to put the water in your room on that particular day or placed in a manner that you could not locate it.” The cost of the water that I drank has been refunded to my credit card.]