Power Shortage In Nanning???

[jtaylo69]

Hi Every one.

 

I can'thelp but ask those of you here that are either from Nanning, or are living there, But is there some kind of power shortage there?

 

For the past 2 weeks, my Fieance has been telling me that her reasons for not being able to get online is due to some kind of power shortage. She has been telling me that many of the people as well as businesses are having to go without power of have to now rely on electric generators for several hours a day. She says that here lately, the power is turned off from like 8am - 11pm or 10pm - 9am every day.

 

To me, this sounds kind of crazy as there is just so much of various businesses and medical facilities that require electricity to be forced to be with out it. Not to mention that since she lives so close (within just a few city blocks) to sevral Government facilities, she would be on the same power grid as they are.

 

What is also strange is that there has been times when she says that she has power for her home, but says that the worker there says there is no power for the internet, but there is power for the telephones and cell phones.

 

Now, with me being a telecom engineer, I know that the two power sources for the standard home & for the telephone are two different voltages and require differefnt sources.

 

Please, can someone tell me if I am going crazy, or am I actually getting the brush off from her just her wanting more time for herself to be able to do more things on her own & not be tied to the internet chatting.

 

Thanks

[warpedbored]

My wife talked to her mother in Nanning last night and calls Nanning almost every day. she didn't say anything about a power shortage to me but she did lose the connection once and had to call back Sounds fishy to me.

[jtaylo69]

That is what I was thinking, but I am just not too sure as to what to believe. I know that she lives in the Xinzhu zone of Nanning. If someone from there can please help me to find a way to verify this, it would help me to understand the situation.

 

I am thinking that it may be because she has not paid her power bill or something

 

Thanks

[Guest Gene]

My wife is still in Nanning. She occasionally will tell me of power outages and explained that they happen in different parts of the city at different times, she says "no water many days" a couple of times at her home it has happened, once when she went to the "hospital" and a few times when she has gone to internet bars and a few times her work has been cut off. I have always been in contact with her by telephone, even during these times and had no reason to construe it as an excuse for anyhting. She has told me in the past that these are commom occurances, at different times through out Nanning. I have never had a reason to doubt it.

[jtaylo69]

I just spoke to her again today and dhe says to me now that it is her internet company. She says that when she calls them, they tell her that the are aware of the problem and there is nothing that they can do to turn the power to the internt back on. This is really strange. It sounds like to me that this internet company that she has is one of those 2 man opperations & they are not paying thier bills or something, so its their customers that suffer

[olemanoman1950]

Ah yes the old power shortage.......... Both times I was there either the Water or the Power was off for Extended Periods of Time. We had a family dinner once and the power was off when we got there and came on like 3 hours later. Talk about a CandleLight Dinner. Nothing like waking up in the Morning and there's No Electric or Water ( Coffee I need Coffee) Glad I don't Smoke any more Geez.. But not to worry now it does happen I have been there when it does. My wife always Phoned or Called her translater to try to contact me when she couldnt get on line.. Isn't Love Grand ????? Happy New Year!!!!

[danswayne]

Trust your fiance almost half the country is short on power right now. My wife has been back for two weeks and has only had power every other day. They do not have grids the same as we do. They can turn power on for some things and leave it off for others for days at a time. She has not been able to get the computer to log onto the internet when the power is on because everyone is using it at the exact same time and it is way too slow. China is growing too fast for the technology they have now. Just trust your fiance and take her word for it we were thinking we might move back to China one day, but this trip has shown Diana she is way too Americanized already, won't even think about moving back in the future.

[leejcandle]

When I was in Nanning for 3 weeks in September, the power went off routinely. It seemed to go out at the same time in the morning, be out until the afternoon. I figured there was some sort of construction going on. One time the power was still off when we returned to the apartment after dark.

 

The water was out once or twice.

 

I found that my sweetie had already developed a routine for dealing with the power problems; especially on hot afternoons. She would either nap on the cool concrete floor with a tatami mat; or go out shopping. (I initially didn't understand why someone would want to get on a concrete floor with only a thin mat; but the coolness of the concrete helps when the AC is unavailable. Neat coping tactic.)

 

Sometimes even now the power will be cut off while we're chatting. If she doesn't come online at her usual time; I'll send her a text message and inquire about the power.

 

Today she went to a friends house to chat with me; because the power was out in her district.

 

So if anyone in Nanning tells you they often have power outages; I can vouch for it from personal experience.

[grenade]

I've had the power and water go off for short periods when I lived in an apartment next to a construction site in Beijing.

 

I'd suggest you give your woman the benefit of the doubt. If she is inconsistent in her explanation, it may be that she is not a technical person but nonetheless attempted to provide a techincal interpretation of the connectivity issues. Try not to be paranoid, but at the same time, don't be a chump. Keep an eye out for any other unusual activity.

 

If she is using ADSL, try unplugging the ADSL modem (as well as everything else on the same powerstrip) from the outlet, wait for about a minute, then plug it back in. Also, check the phone lines to make sure you can still make outgoing calls. Make sure all the network cables are connected to the computer.

[warpedbored]

Perhaps it is routine for parts of the city under construction. My own experience from talking to my wife on line nearly every day for over a year while she was still in Nanning is we seldom had a problem and never for very long. On the rare occasions we couldn't chat on line I called her on her cell phone. She has many friends all over the city and never seems to have any trouble now calling them on the phone. On both of my trips to Nanning (the second trip for 3 weeks) I never experienced any power outages.

[leejcandle]

My fiancee lives in the Northern part of Nanning. I think it's older, and maybe the infrastructure is outdated.

 

I thought maybe they have substations that have breakdowns. Or maybe in fact they were having planned outages for construction.

 

This wasn't always a problem. We've known each other since October 2003. I stayed in a hotel in December-January; never a problem. I was there in her apartment in March, and there was only an occassional problem.

 

She got her computer in May. The power problems seems to have becoming annoying sometime during the summer. I initially (from my seat in Texas) attributed that to overloading due to air conditioning.

 

But having been there in her apartment for a few weeks in September, the regularity of power outages in her district was very inconvenient. (I could see lights on in neighboring districts during the night outages.) Certainly, she can have power outages for days in succession (not continuous; off in the morning, on again in the afternoon). I remember at least twice the power being off into the late evening darkness.

 

So depending on where the young lady in question lives; the power can be on all the time, or cut off regulary.

[chuckandshuping]

I just got back from 3 weeks in Nanning. There are numerous power outages there right now and yes, many businesses are running on generators for many hours at a time. Take her word for it. As many others have said, the grids are different there and a lot of the system is very old and not capable of handling the demands of all of the new technology. I don't think there are too many problems with the phones however. Phone service seems to be very good in Nanning. Internet there is horrible, no matter who the provider is. I think we are all very lucky to even be able to talk to our SO's most of the time. It is hard to be patient, but there isn't much anyone can do.

[warpedbored]

There you have it. It appears to be a matter of where you live in the city. Apparently Bing and I were fortunate. In retrospect she did live in a group of buildings that housed mainly government workers. Perhaps they are less suseceptable. I would have her get a cell phone so you can still reach her during the outages.

[leejcandle]

I had my SO get a cell phone early in our relationship; so that we could use text messaging, and not be dependent on paid translators.

 

So when her electricity goes out (did again this evening, no surprise), we trade SMS messages as our fall-back.

[MikeXiao]

Talked to my wife this morning, and they do seem to have frequent power outages. She read my email, but lost power before she could send a reply. Before her computer broke, we would always chat. Then in the middle of chatting, she would go off line. I would call her, and she normally would tell me, "No Power".