Is the above term new to you? I chuckled at its cleverness, but is it still true?

Yes. Very true. Without a VPN many of the sites I wanted to access - even thoroughly innocuous ones like the Internet Movie Database are blocked.
Other sites such as anything associated with google are incredibly slow and many search terms in search engines produce no results.

A VPN solves it all though.

Doesn't the government realize that, Bob? It seems odd to go to all that firewall trouble when there are work arounds?

They shut down the VPNs when they can and the restrictions are more aimed at the average Chinese user than the few foreigners.

I thought something might be going on since you've never responded to the email I sent a month ago!

I sent one to Bob but it was misdirected to North Korea and now I wonder about the uncle.

Bob's your uncle?