Twelfth Dispatch 22.05.15

I’m so happy that I live in these days. The days of portable culture, made possible by globe-shrinking broadband. I’ve been slumped on my couch for hours, transported to John Roderick’s Seattle home in 2010 during a quasi-weekly search for songwriting inspiration, and sat in a studio with Silversun Pickups as they reminisce about their songs and my favourites from the last decade. My partner slumped beside me, dozing with odd hybrids of Silversun Rodericks in concert on a mountaintop playing behind her eyelids. It’d have been a perfect afternoon back home in Auckland, but getting to have this experience in Xuzhou, China, and to forget I’m even there, is a gift and a blessing of this charmed age.

Were it not for a VPN this experience would be closed to me, for reasons I can’t begin to articulate without losing the fuzzy glow of this afternoon mood. I’m writing not to talk about the wonder I feel for the utility provided by a VPN, or even because I have much of anything to share of value about living in China, but due to a sense of guilt for not having put anything out into this channel for weeks. I’ve had many experiences, but none of them I feel are shareable, despite having potential uses. If you find yourself wanting to celebrate your partner’s birthday in China I may have useful advice for you, but feel free to contact me directly when that would be of use. My father and I did a good job seeing Hong Kong from the perspective we’re interested in, from above massive construction sites and between the tanks and piers of a working fishing boat dock. Again, I’m not feeling the urgency to share this.

Instead, there will be a VPN article I’ve researched and written which is both for the overseas living curious and the imminent arrivals going up shortly. I just wanted to blow the water out of the pipe and check the seals in the meantime.

All the best friends,

Mark.