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a few questions about life in China

hi -

I'll be moving permanently to Guangzhou before the end of the year, after 3 previous visits. I'm hoping I'll be able to find a lot of answers about the adjustments here, and for now I've got a couple of questions that I'd rather trust some people with personal experience, instead of random google hits.

Silliest (but some of you will totally relate) - is there a way to see NFL games in China, especially on the computer or TV at home? I'm realistic enough not to expect seeing them as they happen, but it would be great to see whole-game recordings, especially if they have English options, either vocal or sub-titles. In particular, it's my home team I want to follow, not necessarily just all NFL games.

A larger question that might connect to the other one - I know that some websites are blocked, but yet it seems to be common knowledge that people find ways around the blocks and the government doesnt care enough about it to do anything major. I'm talking about innocent non-political things like access to youtube, amazon, itunes, ebay, etc.

I've heard of something called proxy connections, and I've seen general comments online about people paying for something called a VPN connection (which may or may not be just another name for the proxy thing).

First of all, am I wrong, the government does take this more seriously than I thought, and I shouldnt ask about this? If so, please tell me it's just not appropriate.

If it really isnt a big deal, can anybody point me in a useful direction, or suggest a good plan? Should I just figure it can be done, and wait till I'm in country to figure out the details?

Sorry for the long post - any comments, public or private, will be welcome, and I'll be looking forward to meeting some of you that are in the Guangzhou area :)

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