When one thinks about the Great Fire Wall within the People's Republic of China, there is a misconception that what gets stopped at the Internet's "Pearly Gates" are the big boys. BBC. Wikipedia. Anything mentioning Tiananmen Square circa 1989. No one ever thinks about the little guy, the person that gets about 100 hits on a good day.

On Wednesday, April 16 2008, DeluxZilla, the personal Web site I had been running since arriving in Beijing that February was blocked in China. I wasn't even trying to get it censored this time. I was ecstatic. I had spent the previous month trying to get DeluxZilla picked up by the censors and banned in the People's Republic, just to see what it took. The results: nil.

I felt that in China there are simply too many controversial issues -- the Dalai Lama, Taiwan, Fulan Gong, AIDS -- to toe the party line and keep your Web site politically correct. I started aggregating all the news I could find about the Tibetan riots that were taking place around that same time.

No ban. Nothing seemed to work. Three days before, I ran a story about the migrant workers who were building the Bird's Nest for the upcoming Olympic Games, discovering that these people were actually living under the National Stadium in an underpass. A symbol of nationalism in China that everyone reveled and fawned over during those beautiful panoramic shots NBC cut to for commercials turned out to be constructed under some questionable pretenses. It was as if one were making the claim that slaves built the White House. Oh, wait...

Migrant workers living under the National Stadium seemed to strike a cord with China Network Communications, the corporation that is in charge of providing Internet access in the country, also known as censorship, because DeluxZilla was finally banned in the People's Republic of China. Not only banned, but I am under the impression that someone at the CNC reads my Web site daily.

After publishing what amounts to an "idiot's guide" to watching Internet pornography in China June 14, 2008 -- porn can actually get one in a lot of trouble should one be caught downloading naughty videos in the PRC -- on how to get around the censors to watch online gratuitous imagery, every method I mentioned was mysteriously corrected and blocked the next day.

DeluxZilla is still blocked.  But for all my antics and outlandish schemes -- I don't know any other netizen in this country that actually wants to get their blog blocked -- I do consider myself a professional journalist when the situation calls for one. In a September issue of City Weekend magazine, an English-language publication that caters to the expatriate cultures of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, I had to omit certain facts about the tainted milk scandal that left more than 300,000 children infected after it was determined baby formula products contained melamine.

I couldn't state how many were infected. I couldn't mention that six children died. I couldn't verify whether or not the Chinese government had actually been imposing stricter regulations on the food industry over the past few years. But I had to say the government had been trying harder. I had to, otherwise the September issue of the magazine would not be printed.

The Chinese government seems to know all too well that information is paramount and the ability to control the flow of it can maintain a complacent attitude among its population. I now know the easy part to all this is being censored. It is getting back on the right side of the Great Fire Wall that is the hard part.