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We all enjoy business tools such as Constant Contact and WordPress, as well as the ability to communicate through social networking. I had to fly 6,000 miles to China before I realized that as westerners we tend to take our freedom to communicate for granted. Of course we frequently hear about incidents of people being imprisoned, beaten, and accused of espionage in foreign countries for exercising freedom of expression—but I naively thought that censorship could never happen to me.

When I gleefully tweeted that we had made it to the top of the Great Wall of China, I was gratified to receive immediate comments from our friends at home. The tweets and Facebook posts continued….I’m skipping the trip to Ming Tombs, What is so forbidden about the Forbidden City? Tracy Kwiker sent us to her favorite restaurant The Green Teahouse in Beijing. These micro-blogs added a new dimension of fun to our travels: exchanging commentary across the Pacific via our miraculous mobile device.

Three days later the miracle ended. We were in Yichang, home of the Three Gorges Dam, when a big red X appeared on my BlackBerry screen. China Mobile had caught up with us. “Facebook Access Denied!” “Twitter Access Denied!”

The Chinese government truly tracks and censors communication—and there was nothing we could do. That old expression, “You can’t fight City Hall,” kept popping into my head—because you really cannot fight China!

Did Google really think that China would stop controlling access to information? I’m sure that the cross-cultural specialists in the ProVisors community would agree that Google could have benefited from their expertise. China is indeed enjoying modernization and global commerce—but the government is likely to continue blocking access to information. They view it as critical to controlling their 1.3 billion residents.

As a person who has always thoroughly enjoyed freedom of expression, I felt a bit crippled without it. This experience has reminded me to appreciate the freedoms that the western world continues to offer. At a time when a lot of Americans are voicing disappointment with their government, a trip to China reminded me to step back and enjoy the freedom we have.

This blog was adapted from Cindy Rakowitz’ Letter from the Editor, Trusted Advisor, www.Provisors.com (June 2010).