Daily Explorations

2009-03-08T18:43:00.001+08:00

MUAHAHAHA.

THIS IS JUST TOO FUNNY.

I'm blocked from my own blog because of the post I did earlier.

-__-III

Thanks to Kathy who is posting this for me in Paris.

I'm jumping over to http://meiyilu.blogspot.com/

2009-03-08T15:39:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I seriously hate China.

One of my political science/history books on China was burned at Customs because Tiannanmen Square was mentioned in 2 pages. Why couldn't they just rip those pages out instead of destroying an US$80 textbook written by a Chinese Harvard professor? And you know what made me laugh? The Amazon page for that book is blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

Oh, and the presence of this formidable invisible barrier is always felt when I browse the web.

Hm, let me just point out just a few that have gone beyond being merely irritating. And these offences, from my perspective, go from mild to worse.

1) Xanga is always blocked. This is why I started using Blogger in the first place.

2) Most Wordpress blogs are blocked. Time Magazine's online blogs recently switched their platforms to Wordpress, so suddenly, their blogs are inaccessible, including their blog from China. The reporters of that blog who I believe live in Beijing, realized that a few days later after their expat readers in China starting complaining about not being able to access the blog.

3) Typepad blogs are blocked.

4) Websites on taboo topics are blocked.

5) Newsarticles on taboo topics from Nytimes, Yahoo, Google, and Time are blocked.

6) My Gmail account was blocked for more than 3 months. I've only been able to log in a week ago after trying everyday since the end of last year. I am still trying to go through the 4000+ emails in my Inbox. I really should unsubscribe from some stuff I don't even read anymore.I think the reason for the block is because I have email subscriptions of Xanga and Wordpress blogs, as well as the Time China blog, so even though I couldn't access the actual sites, I still got them in my Inbox.

7) And now, and the impetus for this entry: iTunes is blocked. And all information is blocked when I Google about it. I have checked with some expats over here, and they just shake their heads bitterly. It has been blocked for a week now and I am getting angry. I hope Apple and and China are negotiating over it right now. iTunes was blocked during the Olympics last year because the US Olympic team downloaded a music album named "Songs for Tibet." I wonder what is up this time.

On second thoughts, "Hate" is too strong a word. Plus, I have never really liked that word. I always feel the need to justify it properly when I use it, and even if I do, the word still seems to harsh.

China is a fascinating place.

But sometimes, sometimes, it really. pisses. me. off.

I wonder if this entry is going to result in me being blocked from my Google account again. Because I have entered several taboo phrases already: "iTunes is blocked"; "Xanga", "Typepad", "Songs for Tibet", and the biggies "Great Firewall of China" and "Tiannanmen Square."

2008-12-01T14:25:00.001+08:00

On Earthquakes

2008-11-17T19:01:00.000+08:00

When you see the rips in the landscape, the disturbing cracks in the mountains, and collapsed roads that have dropped to the valley floor below, you can't help but feel powerless in the face of nature.

Reminds me of the 9/21 Taiwan earthquake. I remember how I felt really disturbed when I saw what had been the 6th floor of a building become the 1st floor. Or, or, when we couldn't drive further because the road we were on had split. The separate part had risen and was taller than me. There were roots poking out of the earth. And the crack! Such a crack! It's difficult to describe the scene and convey the confusion of feelings and thoughts of that time.

Oh! We always see such stuff in the movies, apocalyptic movies, war movies, alien invasions, the earth being destroyed, etc. But when you're actually there, and you see the ground cracked, ripped apart, well, I definitely felt really small in the world. I felt this primitive sort of fear, not overwhelming, just an undercurrent feeling. And at the same time, I felt that wonderful feeling of hitting an epiphany, except this epiphany was terrifying! that My God! All this is an illusion. We've got all this technology, all these powerful concrete, steel buildings that make us feel invincible! But when it comes down to it, we're just small creatures on earth, in the universe, at the mercy of nature.

I mean, I knew it all along.

I was just shocked how sobering it was to reacquaint myself with this knowledge.

Whilst stumbling through webpages...

2008-11-12T13:36:00.000+08:00

After I typed the title for this entry, I immediately had reservations about using the word "whilst." For as long as I can remember, I have always used the word "whilst" when circumstances demanded it. Or more like, I get this gut feeling that, yes, I must use it now. Other times, I just use "while."

I never had problems using the word "whilst." Not until one day I had one of my political science papers proofread at the Writing Lab by a professor. She had crossed out the word "whilst" and scribbled "while" over the rejected one. I forget what my professor said about the situation, although my impression of that incident was that there was something wrong about using the word "whilst."

I didn't take it too seriously, as I have used that word since, although it did affect me somewhat as I always hesitate a bit after considering the word. However, when the situation deems it, that gut feeling of mine always tips the balance with arguments of how "whilst" is more aesthetic, more fitting, etc.

Finally, now that I had the time, I quickly made a brief research on "whilst" through Wikipedia.

And this just made everything clear:

"Whilst is synonymous with while in standard British English and Australian English; in American English and Canadian English, it can be considered pretentious or archaic."

My childhood reading staples of Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl, and Brian Jacques certainly influenced me.

I'm sure I must have been encouraged by one of the teachers at my British and Australian schools to use the word "whilst."

And now a professor may secretly think I'm "pretentious or archaic."

U.N. Chief and African Leaders Seek Congo Peace - NYTimes.com

2008-11-11T15:50:00.000+08:00

U.N. Chief and African Leaders Seek Congo Peace - NYTimes.com
Hello? Why was Laurent Nkunda not invited to the meeting? How in the world do you try to come up with a peace agreement between two parties when one of them isn't present? I hope they come up with something good, though I'm really skeptical. This looks like another UN cosmetic solution. Hey, we're doing something! But the rebels won't stop fighting!

This is all too hauntingly similar to what happened with the Rwandan Massacres of 1994. But then, the storyline is so similar because it's from the same book of Central Africa's Hutu and Tutsi Conflict. The Congo War is just the next chapter after Rwanda's. The story hasn't ended! What started this gruesome story? What made this region into what has been repeatedly said the place of humanitarian disaster?

The early chapters of this book would probably start with the arrival of the European empires, who, in their attempts to colonise or in the case of Congo, loot (do read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness) the region of its wealth, also organized the African tribes residing there. The Central African kingdoms that the Europeans found in the 19th century were controlled by Tutsi warriors who lorded over Hutus cattle herders and peasants. Although it's difficult to tell them apart now, some characteristics of the archetype is that the Tutsis were light skinned, thin-nosed, and lanky; the Hutus were dark-skinned, flat-nosed, and stocky. The Europeans thought it was perfect, because it fit into the Hamitic race theory that had been sweeping across the Western world for a while. This is the same theory that was used to jusify slavery in America. Anyway, the Europeans divided up the Africans into separate Tutsis and Hutus, going so far as to issue id's that declared whether one was a Tutsi or a Hutu (this wretched system was then abused in 1994 when the Hutus used it to hunt down Tutsi minority in Rwanda). The Tutsis were the higher class, under the Europeans of course. Thus, originally, the difference between the Tutsis and the Hutus was mostly socio-economic. By the time Rwanda and Congo had become independent after WWII, the difference had become ethnic. After so many years being the lower class, Hutu anger was building, and two years after the Hutu Manifesto, that called the Hutu majority to kick out the Tutsis and regain control, was published, the first ethnic conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis exploded in 1959. This conflict has gone on ever since.

Jump to the ending of the Rwandan Massacres from 1996 on.
The Hutu government that had started the genocide had been toppled. A Tutsi general/president was in control and stabilizing the country. This general Kagame was determined to arrest/kill the ex-Hutu powers and their killer robots who fled to the neighboring nations surrounding Rwanda. One of the nations was Congo, which was called Zaire back then.

Because of time constraints, I'm going to cut this summarized history even shorter. Some ex-Rwandan Hutu murderers were captured, but a lot of the leaders remained free because of the way the UN and other countries dealt with Rwanda and the situation. What happened from this was a regional war in central Africa that was contained then flared up again in certain hotspots. Congo was one of the regions heavily influenced by the ripples from Rwanda. Civil was has been going on for a long time now. And unless the international community start taking Africa more seriously, things are just going to continue being bad, and the consequent ramifications may affect everyone.

Come on, no one would be this blasé if something like this erupted in Europe, or anywhere else in the world.

China's Melamine Woes Likely to Get Worse - TIME

2008-11-09T13:56:00.000+08:00

ChinaChina's Melamine Woes Likely to Get Worse - TIME
In other words, if you're really paranoid and up to it, you should turn vegan.
But then, I wonder how much pesticide is used on crops.

Sorrow Not Allowed?

2008-11-07T19:30:00.000+08:00

Cheer Up on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I'm not sure whether this Korean sign is photoshopped or not. However, a comment on the flickr site by nahkahousu does say that this sign can the found on the balcony of The Contemporary Museum in Seoul.

Tech giants promise to protect internet freedoms | Technology | guardian.co.uk

2008-11-07T16:40:00.000+08:00

Tech giants promise to protect internet freedoms | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Finally Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are going the right way.
I had no idea Vietnam censored the internet as well. Granted, I don't know much about that country.

Lost in Translation

2008-11-06T13:33:00.000+08:00

Despite my occasional culture shocks and annoyance at a lot of things I see in China - the horrible or lack of food safety regulations, the FIREWALL, the propaganda - I find myself constantly occupied and frequently amused as I try to understand Shanghai.

One source of amusement is reading the English translations around me.

A Conversation

2008-10-26T15:21:00.001+08:00

"That's so selfish. It's easy to die. The harder but more courageous thing to do is to fight on. And think of the people left behind; it hurts too much."

"You're spoiled. You can't even imagine how it feels to hurt so bad that you don't have the margin to think about other people's hurts."

"..."

No I don't. But if you don't give life a chance, how do you know it's going to keep going downhill?

XDR-TB

2008-10-04T01:48:00.000+08:00

Oh my goodness. Just watch this and be aware of it. Mind you, there's some disturbing pictures of extreme emaciation.

I've been studying pre-Communist era Revolutionary Chinese literature, and there have been many references to TB, so this came as a shock to me. I thought that TB was a disease of the past. My professor said that it was the "cancer of that age."

Apparently it's come back to haunt us again.

I got this from http://www.xdrtb.org/

Flight delays again!

2008-08-26T20:26:00.000+08:00

Thanks to the biggest rainstorm to hit Shanghai in 130 years, I am not on a plane flying to the US. We were stuck in one place (inching forward 1 meter does not count) for an hour and a half trying to get to the airport! Before that when we tried to get a cab, the flooding was up to our knees.
Anyway, flights were delayed, and because of Typhoon Nuri just 2 days before, and that the Olympics have just ended, there are no flights available for me until Thursday. Meaning that I won't make it back to Grinnell on the 26th as planned, with time to unpack and organize my new room. Instead, I'm missing the first day of class. As of now, if everything works out, I'll arrive at DSM airport 11:42PM Thursday (28th). Once I find a car and get back on campus, I need to get security to open my room, and I suppose I'll upack what I have with me, shower, and sleep if I can. And then my schedule for Friday:

8~8:50AM: HIS-105-01 Cultural Encounters in History
8:50~9:50AM: 1 hr time to buy textbooks and supplies for class.
10~10:50AM: PSY-113-03 Intro to Psychology w/lab
11~11:50AM: MAT-115-02 Introduction to Statistics
12PM~2PM: Lunch? Get my stuff out of storage and unpack and organize as much as possible.
2:15~3:05PM: IntSpTp: ENV-195-01 Environmental Challenges & Responses
Rest of day: Continue unpacking, organizing, running into town to get needed supplies. See friends, meet people.

Thanks goodness after this I have a whole weekend.

Good-Bye.

2008-08-25T00:40:00.000+08:00

The Olympic Games have been ubiquitous in China for the past 2 to 3 weeks. There are at least 3 national tv channels devoted almost 24/7 (I don't know if it is 24/7 because I have to sleep) to the Olympics. I've heard the Chinese national anthem at least 3 times every day since the Opening Ceremony. So many times because of the many gold medals the Chinese team have won, and also because the tv channels replay and replay proudly. Switch to the new channels, Olympics again. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed watching many of the sport these 2 weeks, but at times I felt China was giving it WAY too much coverage. Oh well, it is the host nation.

Well, tonight was the Closing Ceremony, and despite myself, I felt sad that the excitement of the past 18 days has ended. And as Beijing said goodbye to the Olympic flag, I couldn't ignore the feeling of dread, excitement, and sadness that's been slowly rising as today ended. Because today is my last day with my family in Shanghai. I hope I will be able to come back next year summer.

I still need to finish my posts on my Summer Flashbacks. Shall do that back in Grinnell.

I have finished packing, and now I just need to do another check: charge up my cell phone, ipod, and laptop, and I'm ready.

And now I'm going get myself 6 hours of sleep before I head to the airport.

Summer of 2008 Flashback Part 2

2008-08-21T22:36:00.000+08:00

For this post, I'm going to continue on highlights of my California adventures.

San Francisco

After wandering around Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39, we walked (yep, we walked the whole way) to Union Square. Because of my love and addiction to chocolate, we made a stop at Ghirardelli Square first, where we had some delicious ice-cream. And of course:

I bought so much chocolate that the Ghirardelli bag broke before we made it to Union Square.

Somewhere between Embarcaredo and Market St.

As we wandered about, we discovered a beautiful and peaceful park where we rested and tried to figure out what the ducks were doing.

Summer of 2008 Flashback Part 1

2008-08-20T01:33:00.000+08:00

A few days before...

Exams, all-nighters, papers, papers, papers. Complete! Sigh of relief. Rejoice!! Pack, pack, pack. Farewell floor-mates and friends.

Goodbye Iowa!

May 24 ~ June 23

Hello California!

1st stop: Berkeley.

2nd stop: San Francisco
Pier 39

3rd Stop: Laguna Beach

4th Stop: Orange County, and nearby counties such as Irvine.
Frankly, I did not really enjoy this first ever concert of mine. It was so hot, I cried. I'm not kidding. I literally started crying. Not wailing or sobbing, but tearing up and breathing hard crying. And I spent $20 drinking four slushies trying to cool down.
BBQ & pool party.
Photoshoot with friends.

Not included in pictures: lots of time spent on the car, reading, shopping, enjoying life in nice restaurants.

5th Stop: Camping near Death Valley
This was quite an experience. Not sure I want to go through it again. The heat was killing. As you can see, my first afternoon was rather miserable. We spent more than 3 hours trying to set up tent.

Next Stop: Shanghai, China.

Continued in Part 2 of my Flashback for this summer.

--------------------EDIT---------------------

Never mind, now that I'm going to start on my new post, I realize there's more to be said about my California adventures. So China will be in Part 3.

Who Needs the Tooth Fairy?

2008-08-19T03:50:00.000+08:00

I never got money for my lost baby teeth. My dad told me to throw them onto our roof in South Africa for luck.

The Great Firewall of China

2008-08-18T15:26:00.000+08:00

Thanks to the near invincible firewall of China, I see these 2 images almost every other time I try to view a foreign website.

Sites that I have never succeeded in opening up:

- All Wordpress, Xanga, and Livejournal sites.

After reading about the confiscation of 300+ Bibles from American Christians at the Beijing airport and a comment at Topix that said that people should just read them online, I decided to see if that was possible:

- You definitely cannot access Bible Gateway. However, I managed to open up Bible.org after about 10 tries.

- A lot of other foreign sites just take a long time to open up. You just have to try again and again. Major sites such as MSN, Yahoo, and other big newspapers are ok though.

- It takes forever to get onto Facebook, though it's accessible.

By the way, for news, I highly recommend BBC and the International Herald Tribune, which is affiliated with the NY Times, but with a more international focus. These two have yet to disappoint me, in terms of objectivity and journalism/writing standards. Topix congregates all published news around the world in one place. The main thing I like about it is that readers get to discuss and debate on articles. I've read and participated in a few highly charged debates.

A Comparison

2008-08-18T00:38:00.000+08:00

Different ideas of punctuality. What's yours? I'm proud to say that after a year of college, my punctuality reflects the left sided one: on time!! or even earlier!!

The picture on the right reflects queues or lines in China faithfully. Once, a few year back, I was first in line to get on a bus, but when the bus left, I was still on the streets. All the people behind me had pushed and shoved me to the back.

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

2008-08-17T12:55:00.001+08:00

One of the 30 books I read this summer was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. by Robert M. Pirsig. After I read the book and was researching for background info, I discovered a site where you can read the whole book online for free. So if your eyes can take the strain of reading from the screen for long periods of time, go ahead. Or you can print the whole thing out. I bought the book, because I love wandering around bookstores, and I often end up buying a book.

Anyway, I'm one of those people who prefer reading text on paper, enjoying the varying smoothness and roughness of different books I'm reading. Ask any of my friends, and they'll tell you I have a weird habit of flipping and feeling the pages of the books I read.

One point Pirsig talks about that I really like is from ch. 14:

"Peace of mind isn't at all superficial, really. It's the whole thing. That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it is poor maintenance. What we call workability of the machine is just an objectification of this peace of mind. The ultimate test's always your own serenity. If you don't have this when you start and maintain it while you're working you're likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself...The material object of observation, the bicycle or rotisserie, can't be right or wrong. Molecules are molecules. They don't have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed. The test of the machine's always your own mind. There isn't any other test."

DeWeese asks, "What if the machine is wrong and I feel peaceful about it?"

I reply, "That's self-contradictory. If you really don't care you aren't going to know it's wrong. The thought'll never occur to you. The act of pronouncing it wrong's a form of caring."

I add, "What's more common is that you feel unpeaceful even if it's right, and I think that's the actual case here. In this case, if you're worried, it isn't right. That means it isn't checked out thoroughly enough… You haven't completed the ultimate requirement of achieving peace of mind, because you feel these instructions were too complicated and you may not have understood them correctly."

It reminds me of my favorite Greek stoic philosopher, Epictetus' Enchiridion or Handbook in which contains one of his famous quotes:

What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things. We are disturbed not by events, but by the views which we take of them. I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?

I think that in this fast paced age of ours where stress levels are frequently too high for the well-being of our healths, more people should understand this concept and the importance of how our perspectives affect our moods and feelings.

Pets For the Busy Urbanite

2008-08-16T22:51:00.000+08:00

Crabs are delicious. But wow, hermit crabs look like fun pets to have.

I've seen them being sold a lot here in Shanghai. And I saw them back in Taiwan when I was exploring pet stores. According to one of the pet stores here, hermit crabs are getting popular among people in cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong. Hermit crabs are great pets because they don't need a lot of space, are cheap, and easy to take care of. Plus, I bet they're fun and interesting to observe. According to the shop owner, if you take care of them appropriately, they can live up to 30 years.

Maybe after I stop traveling around and if the weather permits, I'll get myself one of these critters.

Another Year Before I See My Brother Again

2008-08-16T20:11:00.000+08:00

Our family went to Hangzhou two weeks ago (Aug.2) from Shanghai via the bullet train. The trains usually run at 200 km/hr or 125 miles/hr, but because a train had almost tipped over while going around a curve (the driver forgot to slow down), they're going at a slower speed right now.

My brother left Shanghai for Taiwan this morning, where he will resume high school at the American school on Monday. I won't leave Shanghai until the 25th, and hopefully, if I don't have such bad luck as last year with horrible weather and awful delays with the tight security measures, etc, I will arrive at LAX around midnight, stay at a hotel, and then fly to Grinnell the next day.

After a year of not seeing each other, both of us agreed that we had matured. We are now able to have long, deep conversations. Although my brother points out that we were able to have good conversation last year before I graduated from high school, I think we still bickered too much over petty subjects, with me mostly nagging him to do his homework, chores, etc.

The Leica M8

2008-08-16T16:42:00.000+08:00

Every time I see one of these cameras, I just have to stop and admire their simplicity and beauty. I think I've loved Leica cameras ever since I played around with my dad's 80s Leica when I was 6. Leica of course, is a well-reputed and long time German maker of cameras. I like Leica cameras not only because of their quality, but also because of their design. While most camera makers today strive to gain customer popularity by creating modern, hip looks for their products, Leica cameras continue retain their classic, sleek mechanical look.

The Leica M8 10.83MP is a digital camera that allows you to fit different lenses to the body and shoots in RAW as well as in the more familiar .jpg size.

It doesn't come cheap though with the price of US$5,495 for the body alone.

I'm going to own one of these one day.

New Beginning & Goals for this Blog

2008-08-16T14:42:00.000+08:00

I've lost count the number of failed attempts to maintain a blog. I now know that that my top stumbling blocks are:

- Being lazy.
Laziness however, is a poor excuse.

Specifically:

- Being a perfectionist
I always feel that I have to type some wonderful, deep essay, taking at least an hour to come up with a post. The stress makes me want to avoid updating, forever coming up with other "things to do."

So, once again, during the lull of another vacation, I am going to create another blog, to practice writing, to record my life.

Thanks to the good advice of a friend, I will just write, and stop worrying.

I have used several blog hosting sites before including Livejournal, Xanga, Vox, and Wordpress. I like each of these hosts for different reasons, but I've decided to use Blogger again because it's simple and easy to use, and I also want to trust its many supporters who have voted it as the best blog hoster.

Most importantly, because I travel a lot, with China as one of my most frequent stops, I have to choose Blogger if I want to update frequently. Why? Because with China's Great Firewall, it's almost impossible to access all the sites I mentioned above except for Blogger.

Goals/Plans for this Blog:

1. As the site name suggests, this blog will be a journal containing all the fascinating discoveries in my life, with subjects including food, gadgets, great designs, food, music, and books.

2. I'll keep my posts short and include pictures or videos whenever possible so people will have a better idea of what I'm talking about.