My experience watching the US Election Results in China

Tuesday, November 8, 2016 was a relatively peaceful day for me. Being a day ahead of the US I gave little thought to the upcoming election. Wednesday morning dawned and again, I gave it little thought. Hillary was a shoe in and really I have enough drama in my life to worry about the election. And then my friend sent me a message saying Trump had won. I thought he was yanking my chain so I turned on CNN.
When I tried to log onto CNN, it was blocked. So I tried other news websites that I can typically access without a VPN. Tried and true sites such as: CNN, NYTimes, Huffpost, FoxNews, and Breitbart. All were blocked today. So I turned on my VPN and logged onto CNN
At this point it was 11 pm EST November 8 in America, the polls were tight. It was a back and forth game of numbers between Clinton and Trump. A true nail biter. As I watched the commentary and map change from shades of pink to red, yellow to blue my youngest daughter started chanting BYU, BYU, over and over again. I could see how she thought this was like a hotly contested football game.
Like many of you, I was shocked Trump won. Time will tell if he will be a good president or not.
But here in China, the government doesn't want any news of the election to get out. The news has been blocked for the last few days since the election. The only way I can get onto the news sites listed above is if I VPN in. I think the government doesn't want people to know about electoral process, that they can make a difference, create change.
Some of the headlines in the Chinese news announcing Trumps election were:

• Trump has become America's Mao Zedong! (I think it is ironic, they are in a way bashing Mao, someone they all worship, was the best leader, etc.)
• The whole world is celebrating right now because America voted for this idiot!
• Election day in the US is the one day that Chinese people finally get to discuss politics

Mr. Kungfuyankee had CNN on all day and co workers were crowding around his computer. Asking questions, intrigued. He even had a coworker take work off that day so he could stay home and watch the results.
November 8 he got home an hour and a half late. I asked if he had a late meeting and he said no, that people were comign to talk to him one by one saying how lucky Americans are to vote, that they would love to vote.
They told him they can kind of vote for local village chiefs. They elect someone to proxy vote for them, but the person they want never wins. They said that they never heard of their current president, President Xi until he became president.
In China, Elections are a little different. Only the National People's Congress comprised of 3,000 people get to vote. Their ballot only has one name on it, a name previously approved by the Communist leadership. , Sounds rigged? It is. Chinese leadership does not trust citizens with voting. Hopefully my Chinese friends will get to vote in the future.