What do you mean: closed?!

Shanghai, China

I realise I've started taking net bars for granted. I've come to expect them everywhere and all the time. To give it a more mystical note: they just are. But seriously, most neighbourhoods have at least one; many are open 24 hours or at least until very late. Some people practically live there. After arriving in Shanghai today this habit almost exploded in my face.
I have the good fortune to have a friend in this expensive city, a Chinese girl (yes, another) who I know from my university days in UK. And since net bars are everywhere I had never bothered to write down her phone number nor her address. Get to Shanghai, go online, check your gmail account for the number - that was the plan.
Only when I got to a net bar outside Shanghai North train station they all shook their heads. "You can't go online here." I gave them a funny look. "Is this a net bar?" "Yes." "So, I can use your computers here?" "There's no Internet." I was very close to asking the guy if the Internet was closed today. In the end I gave up and left. There were a few words I couldn't understand. Maybe they were having technical troubles. But hey, there's always the next net bar.
Strangely, the answer was the same. "You cannot go online today." I got a bit impatient. "Do you mean to say that all of Shanghai has not connection today?" "All of China cannot go online." Something in my head refused to understand. "It's because of the earthquake", somebody outside told me. Now that one I know. I was in the damn quake. But that was about two weeks ago and several thousand kilometers away! I went up again to try one more time. It was true, both net bars were surprisingly empty. I could count the customers on one hand. Still, there were some. "How about them", I asked a girl that worked there. "They are not online." I pointed out I had seen Internet Explorer open but she insisted that they were not online at all. In the end, I changed my strategy. I just wanted to use a computer, I told her. It didn't matter if I couldn't go online. To this she finally agreed and I got my token and password. You could go online, of course. But seeing the same background picture on all screens - black with a few lit candles - I began to understand. I've had the bad luck of arriving here during the three-day national mourning period for the victims of the earth quake (the death toll is still rising - we're in the four figures). My friend confirmed this later. During this time the government discouraged or prohibited the use of net bars.
At least I managed to negotiate my five minutes net time and met Charmaine. Otherwise, this might have been a very complicated three days.