Monday, July 17, 2006
on being spied on and blogging in India
No, I'm not being paranoid. So I'm staying at this fairly fancy hotel (a Sheraton, but think a step or two above the average Sheraton in the states. Pretty darn swanky.) They're very big on service and have a little questionnaire they want you to fill out stating your preferences for food, flowers, beverages, etc. For their "long-term" guests, such as myself who has to suffer the hardship of staying there for six weeks, they are particularly solicitous. They even took my picture so that the staff could learn who I was.
I experienced the first byproduct of this when I was having breakfast yesterday morning. I got up to get my food from the buffet, and one of the servers comes up to me, "good morning madam (everyone is madam or sir, throughout India). You like mangos, correct?" Having temporarily forgotten about the questionnaire and the picture, I was quite baffled by this question, but agreed and the woman promptly offers to get me some (since there were none on the buffet). Two mangos come out, beautifully cut and presented and perfectly ripe. They were delicious.
The second experience of being spied on happened yesterday evening. That morning, as I was leaving, I accidentally hit the "do not disturb" button on my way out the door. (Nothing so crude as door hangers for this hotel. Here they have two buttons by your door, one is for "do not disturb", one is for a housekeeping request. If you press it, then a light outside your door comes on indicating what your status is.) A very reasonable result of my carelessness was that my room did not get cleaned yesterday (don't really care too much. It's not like I clean my room every day at home.) But, when I got home I realized the light was on and turned it off. Not two minutes later housekeeping is knocking on my door asking if I need anything and if I would like them to make up my bed. (oh yeah, they change your bed twice a day. The nice, decorative daytime spread goes on the morning, and then sometime around 5 or 6 (I think, I never back in my room in time for this), they take that off and put the less pretty, but more functional, sleeping comforter on the bed.)
It is all very strange getting used to this type of service. It does have it's advantages, but I can't help but cringe most of the times things like this happen. My politics don't really encourage being waited on, by anyone. However, since I know that I can't exactly tell them to leave me alone for the entire time, I tip generously instead.
Next topic: blogging in India
It's a good thing none of you are in country trying to read this. You wouldn't be able to. The GoI (Government of India) has decided that terrorists are using blogs to communicate, which is a less traceable method than email. In a very logical attempt to keep this from happening, they have asked all Internet Service Providers to block access to many of the major blogging sites, including blogspot. From looking online, the news coverage on this is relatively minor, which is quite surprising given the level of censorship.
I experienced the first byproduct of this when I was having breakfast yesterday morning. I got up to get my food from the buffet, and one of the servers comes up to me, "good morning madam (everyone is madam or sir, throughout India). You like mangos, correct?" Having temporarily forgotten about the questionnaire and the picture, I was quite baffled by this question, but agreed and the woman promptly offers to get me some (since there were none on the buffet). Two mangos come out, beautifully cut and presented and perfectly ripe. They were delicious.
The second experience of being spied on happened yesterday evening. That morning, as I was leaving, I accidentally hit the "do not disturb" button on my way out the door. (Nothing so crude as door hangers for this hotel. Here they have two buttons by your door, one is for "do not disturb", one is for a housekeeping request. If you press it, then a light outside your door comes on indicating what your status is.) A very reasonable result of my carelessness was that my room did not get cleaned yesterday (don't really care too much. It's not like I clean my room every day at home.) But, when I got home I realized the light was on and turned it off. Not two minutes later housekeeping is knocking on my door asking if I need anything and if I would like them to make up my bed. (oh yeah, they change your bed twice a day. The nice, decorative daytime spread goes on the morning, and then sometime around 5 or 6 (I think, I never back in my room in time for this), they take that off and put the less pretty, but more functional, sleeping comforter on the bed.)
It is all very strange getting used to this type of service. It does have it's advantages, but I can't help but cringe most of the times things like this happen. My politics don't really encourage being waited on, by anyone. However, since I know that I can't exactly tell them to leave me alone for the entire time, I tip generously instead.
Next topic: blogging in India
It's a good thing none of you are in country trying to read this. You wouldn't be able to. The GoI (Government of India) has decided that terrorists are using blogs to communicate, which is a less traceable method than email. In a very logical attempt to keep this from happening, they have asked all Internet Service Providers to block access to many of the major blogging sites, including blogspot. From looking online, the news coverage on this is relatively minor, which is quite surprising given the level of censorship.
# posted by Disease Cowgirl @ 9:37 PM 
