Re: China blocking Wired?

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On Jan 11, 2010, at 2:24 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote:


Methinks you are implicitly suggesting that the IETF's pages for a site should include some "getting along in the site's country" guidance as an on-going requirement. Methinks this is an excellent idea.

Happily, "Doing Business in..." types of books are common, as is online information.

For example:

  Chinese Etiquette
  <http://www.goingtochina.com/misc/chinese_etiquette.htm>

China (especially see the Appearance, Behavior and Communications sections)
  <http://www.cyborlink.com/besite/china.htm>

  Chinese Culture
  <http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/businessculture.html>



Excellent idea. Specifically, the IETF-type information should be focussed on those things that are likely to impact IETFers, as opposed to conventional business-folks, at a given destination. We aren't average business travelers: We dress more casually, carry much more electronic equipment, often sport unusual haircuts, have a broader array of medical conditions and food issues, have potentially more diverse reading habits, and so on. We're also a lot more likely to form in clusters that engage in loud debates about politically- sensitive topics. And obviously, we aren't ordinary tourists. How many ordinary tourists show up with a backpack full of wireless access points? Is that legal in China? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure one or more of us will do it.

And frankly, we're probably more blasé about international travel than "well prepared business people" might be. The pickpockets in Paris had an absolute field day with IETFers. I'm sure they were quite grateful for our lack of preparedness, relaxed-fit casual pants pockets, richly loaded wallets and expensive cell phones. We seem to have an assumption that every place is pretty much like every other place, they're all happy to see us, and one hotel conference room is the same as all the others.

The risks that a "typical IETFer" might encounter in Beijing are probably different from what you or I or Ole might encounter, given our ages, fairly conservative appearances, and past travel experiences. I think it might be very useful to think through the possibilities and see if we can pre-empt some of them.

I did do a quick scan on the references you thoughtfully provided above, and I found the "Appearance, Behavior, and Communications) reference especially interesting, because I just can't imagine a pack of IETFers complying with that set of rules.


This is starting to sound like it might be a good Wiki project. Who knows, maybe the IETF can collaborate to produce some useful IPR that isn't an RFC ;-)?

--
Dean
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