Moved to new blog address!

As some of you know wordpress is officially blocked in China…thus I’ve been using a proxy to get to it. Alas, as I have been building up more and more Chinese readers, I thought it was best that I just get my own domain, thus avoiding this problem altogether. If you read this blog via feeds, it should automatically redirect…otherwise the new address is http://meiguanxiblog.com

Smart is the new ‘cool’?

raise your hand if you’ve laid claim to anything similar to the following:

“All the girls in our class had the biggest crush on boy xyz because he always got the best grades”

or equally classic

“I duped my wife to go out with me because I told her that I was in this prestigious physics competition. Actually， it was my little brother that was in the competition, not me.”

Hey…I don’t see any hands?!? But yes, true accounts told to me by some of my friends here!

It got me thinking, what if overnight, smarts really became the new cool? And the ‘popular’ kids in school were the smartest ones in school? Far-fetched I know, but it makes me wonder what kind of people we’d be churning out instead.

———————————————-
说实话，来了中国之后我听到几句话让我大吃一惊。。。

“在我们班里，很多女孩都喜欢上莫莫男孩因为他读书都很棒！” 或者
“当时我老婆愿意跟我交往是因为我跟她说我参加了莫莫全国物理大赛，其实不是我，而是我弟弟！ ”

第二句可能有一点夸张不过我的意思是在美国少数人会这样说（至少如果他这样说人家都会取笑他）。 小时候，受不受别人关注（无论同学或家长），运动好远远超过成绩好。 反而，有时候成绩好的学生会被别的学生排斥。哇，观点确实不一样。。。

我们的网站上线了！过来看看！

过去半年的努力终于有一点成果了！ 今天网站正式上线了 http://www.ken1ken.com

简单的介绍一下：
垦一垦是一个个人化的网页分享站点,它可以然你：
-发现有趣味的网页，视频，音乐，等等。
-看跟你爱好一样的人都在看什么内容。
-消磨时间。
-分享你喜欢的网页。
-收藏你喜欢的网页。

我的主页 http://www.ken1ken.com/user/neb72/

Chinese New Year in Beijing – highlights and impressions versus Shanghai (lots of pictures)

Happy Chinese New Year from Beijing!

It’s amazing to think that it’s already my second Chinese New Year in China, though instead of spending it in Shanghai, this year I spent it in Beijing.

The last (and only) time I was in Beijing, I didn’t have much of a chance to get my bearings since it was such a whirlwind tour with business school shuttling around between company visits and major tourist spots. This time, I had the chance to navigate the city on my own and I must say that I came away liking Beijing a lot more than going in.

First of all, the tourist stuff, here are a few recommendations if you plan to be in Beijing for a few days:

Sights:

• Great Wall – there are a few major places to see the Great Wall like ba-da-ling八达岭 but I’ve heard that if you want to avoid the crowds you can go to the ‘wild’ spots which just means that it’s unkept (read: free) but more ‘dangerous’ since it literally isn’t maintained
• Forbidden City – the emperor’s palace
• Summer Palace – where the emperor would hang out
• Lama Temple – used to be where once of the emperors lived but is now converted into a temple
• Tiananmen Square / Front Gate
• Temple of Heaven – I’d say the temple is just ok, but the more interesting part is the park because you get to see people dancing, playing chinese chess, writing calligraphy, etc.

There are others that I’ve been to, but I’d say these are the ones I’d recommend if you were to spend 3 days in Beijing.

Beijing delicacies

• Peking Duck
• Hotpot
• Egg pancakes

There are more traditional Beijing foods like fermented tofu soup, fermented green bean paste, and assorted internal organs soup, but there is a very high probability that you won’t like it. I tried them all and can’t say I was a fan of any of it. Even most Beijing people don’t eat that stuff anymore (unless they grew up eating it). But if you’re feeling adventurous or just want to say you’ve tried it, go for it.

Impressions:
I think the best way to sum it up is that Beijing is very much like Washington DC while Shanghai is more like New York. Here is why I say that:

Geographically more spread out – even though cab rates are cheaper in Beijing (10 rmb for 3 km and 2 rmb/additional 1 km) vs Shanghai (11 rmb for 3 km and 1 rmb/additional 0.3 km), people end up paying more in Beijing because places are much more spread out. In Shanghai it’s rare that I pay anything over 30 rmb but I would say that 30-40 is more of a norm in Beijing.

Government vs Commercial – there is a pretty stark contrast in that Beijing has much more of a government feel to it, whether in the sense of buildings (I passed by the mint, epa, etc) or the denizens’ mindsets

Suburban vs Urban – like DC, there are many regulations against high rises in certain places in Beijing so it ‘feels’ much more open than Shanghai. And like DC, you can forget about trying to navigate the city by foot. Even though 2 places may only be separated by a few blocks, it may take 5-10 minutes to walk an entire block.

Culture – On average, I’d say that Beijing’ers are much more politically and culturally aware. I’d guess it’s a function of the environment, but probably has something to do with self-selection. Most people who like Beijing tend to not like Shanghai and vice versa.

Weather – It can get really cold in Beijing. Lows were in the single digits while I was there, plus it’s windy! But it’s a dry kind of cold. I know, I know, single digits is cold no matter how you slice it, but in Shanghai even though it’s 40 degrees, it can feel super cold because of the humidity. Though people say weather sucks in the spring in Beijing because of the dust storms – which come from the desert up north. Luckily for me, it was really sunny the whole time I was there and I didn’t feel like pollution was much of an issue. My Beijing friends told me it’s only because it’s windy. Otherwise, it can get pretty bad.

Traffic – Since I was there for Chinese New Year there wasn’t much traffic to speak of, but I hear typically it’s horrendous. I think it has to do with the fact that you really do need a car to get to a lot of places. Luckily, I didn’t have to suffer through any of that gridlock. Oh, and there are a LOT less motorcycles – like almost none.

Misc
I hate getting 1 rmb bills because I feel like the denomination is just too small to be dispensed as a bill, but for some reason in Beijing everyone uses the 1 rmb bill whereas in Shanghai people predominately use the 1 rmb coin. It didn’t really occur to me until I realized that in the ENTIRE time I was in Beijing I didn’t get a single 1 rmb coin whereas I’d say in shanghai I’d get a 1 rmb bill once every couple weeks, tops. I wonder how these things happen?

There are lots of changes going on in Bejing due to the Olympics – most of them I find interesting because they are public announcements about how to be more ‘civilized’ and ‘refined.’ These things range from ‘don’t litter’ to ‘keep to the right on the escalator’ to ‘don’t buy pirated stuff.’ Overall, I must say I commend them for it, I just hope that people keep it up after the Olympics!

Receipts – as opposed to the standardized receipts that you get in Shanghai that just say you spent x rmb’s, beijing’s receipts are now all electronic and like the ones we get in the US. I find the system in Beijing better because it’s probably less prone to tax evasion for both the consumer and the business.

Temples auction the right to be the first one to light incense in the new year – I heard from the cab driver that a certain temple auctioned off the 1st spot for 170k rmb (~$24k USD!).

Here are some highlights from my trip!

Check out all the people at the temple on the 1st day of the new year waiting to light incense!

Lots of old style buildings getting torn down…which I think is unfortunate

A Chinese New Year fair… saying that there are a lot of people here would be an understatement

Crickets in a gourd – I am not really sure how they get them in there

Paper art – these are all paper cutouts!

You’re supposed to eat dumplings for the new year – so here is one filled with sesame seeds.

Seated ice-skating for lazy people

More incense burning

The local polar bear club

A local Beijing eatery – Mmmm….internal organs

Chairman Mao looking as fine as ever at Tiananmen Square

The front gate to the city

Beijing map – the city is basically square with the forbidden city in the center. It’s a pretty logical setup with higher numbered ‘ring’ roads as you move out from the center. Ie. the 3rd ring road is farther away from the city center than the 2nd ring road

A restaurant offering 爆肚 (bao-du) which means exploding stomach. Yet another Beijing delicacy…but I didn’t eat it

Another restaurant offering donkey meat

For 10 rmb, you too can ring this bell 3 times. Supposedly if you ring it 108 times your worries go away.

Cool looking lion

I am not sure why people were tossing coins at this thing

…I guess this sign wasn’t very clear, it says “please do not toss incense or coins”

Grass that look like worms

Expensive ginseng

Bird’s nest – for eating of course

Egg pancakes

Clockwise starting from the left – cold tofu in sesame oil, fermented green bean paste, fried dough, fermented tofu soup

My buddy giddy in anticipation of eating the duck’s blood (currently in a jello-like state)

Noodle twirling – who needs a noodle making machine when you have this guy

I’ll cheat a little and include pictures from my last trip (which was from a few years ago)
Forbidden City

Great Wall

Tell me if you’ve already heard this…”Don’t be afraid of failing”

Yeah, easy for you to say.

Today, I opened up our application to my friends and started soliciting their feedback. A part of me is relieved that we made it this to milestone, but to be honest, my mind is much more preoccupied with “what if this app sucks and no one likes it?”

Of course, this is the prefect time to heed the advice of “don’t be afraid of failing,” but put it this way. After spending months of time, money, and effort and telling all your friends about it, failure seems that much more devastating. Though, the irony is that the risks are actually lower now than they were when I first started, because at least now I have the beta version out. But the truth is that once you put yourself and your product out there for all to judge, the stakes feel much higher.

Anyway, this got me thinking, are some people better at it coping with this fear than others? What about people who’s taken the big risks in life and failed? Are they more risk averse because they know how crappy it can be to fail? Or are they more immune to it because they’ve already experienced it. What about the reverse – people who’ve never taken big risks? Are they better at coping because they are ignorant of the consequences of failure? Or do they make the failure out to be worse than it really is?

想创业之前我听过好多次，“不要怕失败。”

当然这个理论我很清楚，不过现在已经投入了那么多心血，时间，金钱，加上到处跟朋友宣布了我要创业，失败的后果就不像那么一点小事了。

我正在深思熟虑这个问题因为今天我们的网站推出了测试版。 虽然我比较安心终于有一点成果出来了，但绝大部分还是担心如果没人喜欢我们的产品怎么办？

因为这个问题，引起另外个问题。 哪种人才能够克服这个担忧？失败者或未失败者？不是“一朝被蛇咬十年怕井绳”吗？还是有了失败的经历就会更坚强？

Pedicab ride does wonders

The topic of “do you like living in Shanghai?” inevitably surfaces in conversations with expat visitors and friends alike. I tell everyone I really like it here. It’s true. I wouldn’t rather be in any other city. Those who know me know I have a perpetual grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side syndrome, so this is no small feat for me. But to be honest, even I have bad days where I wish it was a little more ‘refined’ or ‘developed’ for a lack of better words.

The day I put my servers in the data center was one of those days. I’ll spare you the details , but basically it was a string of unpleasant events after another, all of which I think wouldn’t have occurred if people were a little more mindful of their attitudes and more professional overall.

Anyway, despite being super pissed off the whole entire day and having to walk our way back to ‘civilization’ (the data center is a bit out of the way) we stumbled upon a pedicab.

Check it out:

For some reason, riding the pedicab with my co-worker back to civilization (or at least some place where we can actually get a cab) was a blast. Plus, this lady seems really happy in this picture…so that’s all it took to cheer me up. It got me thinking – it’s moments like this that make my life fun and interesting here.

Les I give you the impression that everything is ‘ghetto’ here – here is a good counter-example. What’s the most popular phys-ed class in the top Chinese universities? Golf. (it’s in Chinese – sorry)

Laziness actually pays – $1.38 to be exact

Since getting an ayi (maid) I’ve been getting lazier and lazier with chores around the house. It’s gotten to the point where I am even too lazy to put my plastic bottles in the recycling bin in my building.

Then I found out from my ayi that there are people willing to come to you and pick it up. Moreover, the guy not only picks it up, but also gives you a cut of the money he makes from selling the bottles back to the recyclers.

After 3-4 months, I amassed this many crushed bottles. Kinda makes me feel bad about buying plastic bottles. But at least I am recycling…

So for the fruits of my labor…er…laziness, I got this. Who says laziness doesn’t pay

Friend from Taiwan came to visit…and all we did was eat lots of snacks

Before leaving on her trip to Shanghai from Taiwan my friend asks me, “anything you want me to bring from Taiwan?”

I couldn’t really think of anything worth toting over because you can pretty much get anything you want these days in Shanghai. So the only answer I could come up with was “how about some taiwanese snacks?” I threw out things like 咸酥鸡 (salty peppery chicken nuggets) or 肉丸 (it’s a big savory meat patty in a rice flour wrap topped with a sweet sauce), but knowing she couldn’t actually bring those, she brought these!

It’s hard to describe, but these are basically snacks I ate as a kid in Taiwan so it brought back so many childhood memories! Some are available in China, but some aren’t. I’ll try to describe them without making them sound too gross…they’re good, I swear!

From the top row going left to right
1) 鱿鱼丝 jerked squid
2) 鱿鱼丝 more jerked squid (i must’ve eaten umpteen packets of these between the ages of 5-7)
3) chocolate flavored wafers – I think we have these in the US too
4) 乖乖 – rice puffs. like kids cereal they took on the tact of offering a prize in every bag. it worked on me because even though I liked the shrimp crackers that my sister use to get better, I would still buy these. It’s worth commenting that the name of these snacks is 乖，which is the adjective for well-behaved kids.
5) jerked fish
6) jerked tofu
7) jerked beef
dried seaweed – sorta like the ones wrapped around sushi rolls, but these have more flavor
9) milk chocolate with nugget inside

yeah, so it’s a lot of dried stuff…but it’s good, seriously…no, really!

then it was off to go-karting…

The track was decent and 60rmb bought you 8 minutes behind the wheel. In typical China fashion, no forms, no waiver, no nuttin’. I came away unscathed, but given some mishaps or dangerous things I saw, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some serious injuries once in a while. But it’s ok, it won’t deter me from going back again.

Next was a trip to the teahouse…where we filled up with more snacks.

Top row from left to right
1) Fried peas
2) Sesame crackers
3) “cat ears” they are called cat ears because they apparently look like them? but no, no animals were hurt in the production of these cat ears. They taste sorta like the wafers above
4) Chinese grapefruit
5) Roasted beans – I think they are cooked similar to peanuts? and then salted

and lastly, I leave you with this semi-related picture. I took this at a local Dairy Queen – which use to frequent once every couple days before deciding that can’t be healthy. Check out the toppings you can get with your hot dog

Mmmmm…pepperoni on my hot dog please! I will confess though, when I was little, a waiter asked me what I wanted on my hamburger and I responded with, “ham.” doh!

too lazy to write a chinese version…

ok ok…so maybe the air isn’t so good

I decided recently that it’s a good idea for me to get some exercise outside ‘early’ in the morning (aka 10am) considering that I may atrophy away at any moment now. Coincidentally I was informed that I should be careful because exercising outside in polluted air can be quite harmful. Apparently so says here and here.

I shrugged it off and didn’t think it was that bad here…until these past couple days that is. Yikes.

Guess I’ll be exercising indoors for a while.

整天坐在电脑前面不见得是一件好事，因此我又下定决心早上早点起来出去锻炼锻炼身体。 不过有人建议外面空气不良的时候锻炼会对身体产生一些损害。 其实我也没觉得什么， 不过最近看起来有一点恐怖。。。我看最近还是在室内锻炼吧。

Yes, another year-in-review list but with a twist

I enjoy reading year-in-review lists – what can I say, I am a list kinda guy. I make lists for everything – actually I think it borders dangerously close to a disorder. haha

Anyway, I was watching a CNN year-in-review program last week and I realized since moving out here these lists have taken on a new meaning for me. Instead of a ‘review,’ it’s more like a cliff’s notes of 2007 since 90% of it is new to me! I joke with my US friends that if they ever make a Trivial Pursuit 2007….err….let’s just say you wouldn’t want me on your team.

So in the spirit of lists and this blog here is a fun list of the Top 10 ‘what is’ and ‘how to’ search queries from Google and Baidu in 2007.

Top 10 ‘what is’ queries in 2007 – note the translations are mine
Baidu
1) 什么是基金 – What are mutual funds
2) 什么是权证 – What are options
3) 什么是股指期货 – What are futures
4) 什么是股票 – What are stocks
5) 什么是电子商务 – What is e-commerce
6) 什么是爱 – What is love
7) 什么是3g – What is 3g
什么是企业文化 – What is company culture
9) 什么是科学发展观 – What is “scientific growth viewpoint” – I know I butchered this one – as you can see sometimes I feel like I speak english like a chinese person now. haha Anyway, it’s basically a mission statement/framework for how the government would like to see the growth and development of China and its people
10) 什么是oem – What is oem

Google
1) what is love
2) what is autism
3) what is rss
4) what is lupus
5) what is sap
6) what is bluetooth
7) what is emo
what is java
9) what is hpv
10) what is gout

Top 10 ‘how to’ queries in 2007
Baidu
1) 如何减肥 – How to diet
2) 如何炒股 – how to trade stocks
3) 如何打开注册表 – How to open the registration form windows registry
4) 如何美白 – How to make my skin whiter (in the context of beautification)
5) 如何化妆 – How to apply makeup
6) 如何购买基金 – How to purchase mutual funds
7) 如何赚钱 – How to make money
如何创业 – How to be an entrepreneur
9) 如何接吻 – How to kiss
10) 如何理财 – How to handle my personal finances

Google
1) how to kiss
2) how to draw
3) how to knit
4) how to hack
5) how to dance
6) how to crochet
7) how to meditate
how to flirt
9) how to levitate
10) how to skateboard

Of course, it’s always dangerous to make generalizations based on anecdotal bits of data like this, but alas, I’ll do it anyway.

Based on the above list some Chinese netizens believe that it’s indicative of how Chinese people care more about money than Americans. I disagree – I think it’s just more indicative of the fact that everyone and their mothers are piling into the red-hot stockmarket in 2007, literally. To dig into this deeper I took a gander at the archives but unfortunately only Baidu had the same categories going back to 2006 while this was the first year for Google Zeitgeist to have these 2 categories. As I guessed, in the 2006 Baidu list, there are way fewer finance related terms.

Lastly, I think these lists are more interesting if you pretend that the Chinese list was compiled from the US population and vice versa. What would your reaction be then?

I personally think the “how to make my skin whiter” one sticks out like a sore thumb

What I did on Christmas

As I mentioned last year, it’s not that festive here for Christmas, but the tradeoff is that we get to have a good ol’ time in February during Chinese New Years when all you chumps are working!

It would’ve been nice to go home for the holidays but as a consolation prize I had a virtual Christmas Eve dinner via webcam with my folks back home. Santa had already made his rounds in China since it was already 7am here while my family back home were still waiting for Santa to come down their chimney.

On a related note, like many of you procrastinators out there I too spent my Christmas Eve shopping. Except it was to buy computer servers for my business. Try fitting THAT in your stocking! Well, all of this doesn’t sound that exciting, that is until you realize that with every purchase comes with a free ride on a motor scooter.

Check it out! In case you’re wondering, that’s not me.

So here was the deal, I bought the server from a local dealer to save some bucks and I originally planned to have them deliver it to my apt, but while I was double-checking the final product at the store they said, “do you want to take it home now?”

I said, “Sure, but how?”

She nonchalantly replied, “My husband can take both you and the server on his motor scooter.”

To be honest, I was highly doubtful this would have a pleasant ending plus comical thoughts of whacking pedestrians in the back of the knees with the server kept cropping up in my head, but apparently this is par for the course.

Luckily, my fear was unfounded and the dude was a pro so it went off without a hitch. Though it brings back memories of when my mom, brother, sister and I would all pile onto our scooter in Taiwan when I was little. Now THAT would be a good picture!

去年我说过了在中国圣诞节的气氛一点都不浓。 顶多有些地方会有意思意思的布置。不过没什么好抱怨的，我春节玩的很痛快的时候就会替你们郁闷了。

其实我一直以来已经习惯了自己四处跑但今年不知道为什么特别想家。 本来有抱着希望回家但现在脱不开身所以只能用webcam来跟我家人吃一顿虚拟巨餐。

另外， 像你们迟误者（可以这样说吗？） 我在christmas eve 也在购物，但我估计我买的电脑服务器不是典型的圣诞礼物吧。 其实也没什么大不了的，但没想到还配送一乘蛮有趣的scooter ride.

观赏以上的照片！说明一下，那个人是送我回家的，如果要我自己开的话这会就惨了！

所以这个有什么搞笑的？ 其实这种东西我在路上看了n遍了，但旁观者和参与者总是有区别吧！所以我买完服务器之后，那个老板娘就说“我先生送你回去吧。“ 随此就搭上了。 在回家的路上突然让我想起小时候我妈妈骑着一辆灰色的小摩托车带者我哥哥，姐姐，和我兜来兜去。 虽然这个节日不能跟我家人聚聚会但偶尔在中国可以让我回顾到这些美好的记忆也应该知足了。

World superpower ambitions…no doubt about it

I am a little late to the party since this ‘news’ is at least 2 months old, but doing a quick search on Google News for “china space moon” clearly shows that it didn’t quite make the splash that it did here in China.

In a nutshell, China sent a satellite traveling a quarter million miles away to explore the moon, making it 1 of only 4 countries to do so (others being US, Russia, and Japan). Check out some of the coverage.

for those of you that are too lazy, here are some screenshots from xinhua (the link above)

Granted I wasn’t born when man landed on the moon in ‘69 so I can’t compare, but all I can say is that for a while this was all that was on TV – detailed shots of the moon, 3d virtual maps, interviews with scientists, etc. Appropriately timed, I then saw a documentary about China’s space expeditions and learned that in 2003 China became 1 of only 3 nations to send a person out to space.

Aside from all this hoopla, it got me thinking, why do some countries spend choose to explore space and not others? Here is my cut at a pros/cons list for any nation contemplating a space program (feel free to disagree)

Cons:
REALLY expensive (money, time, and expertise)
Citizens may consider it a poor allocation of resources (ie. education or alleviating poverty is more pressing)
0 practical benefits in the immediate future

Pros:
Builds national pride and boost morale
Shows the rest of the world how cool they are
National defense/offense (??)

Thus, it seems to me that it only makes sense for countries far enough along the development cycle with superpower aspirations. Otherwise, either they don’t have enough resources or the benefits simply aren’t compelling enough.

2 months in a blink of an eye

Updating the blog has been on my to-do list for a while…and finally signing on to post today did I realize that it’s been a full 2 months. Looking back to October 1st, it seems so long ago, not because 2 months is really that long, but that I’ve simply lost track of the alternating extremes of excitement and self-doubt doing this startup. Ultimately, I find that one measures time not necessarily by the literal time period, but by what one has experienced, and the truth is these 2 months has felt like more like a year – not in any negative sense, but that I’ve had more ups and downs in these last two months than the entire last year.

Babbling aside, the end of the research and development phase is coming to an end and I am currently trying to ride the wave of excitement as long as possible before the next problem surfaces. Though every once in a while when things do look down and waves of self-doubt surfaces, I simply ask myself, wouldn’t it be better just to find a normal job? Answering that question requires the same amount of time it takes my synapses to fire and I find that it’s enough to be motivated again. I can’t express how lucky I feel to have the chance to do what I want to be doing.

Lastly, there has been one downside of doing this startup though, my chinese has gotten a lot worse. I find that I just sit in front of my computer all day and with 2 of us both coding away all day, we don’t talk a lot so my chinese has gone to the crapper. Actually, I’ve gone as far as trying to make myself think in chinese! It’s not really working because whenever I meet up with my former co-workers, they like to make fun of my chinese. Hence, from now on, I’ll be doing my best to write this blog in chinese as well.

很久没写博客了，今天要写的时候才发现一转眼已经过了两个月了。 奇怪，想起两个月之前的我好像没什么深刻的印象了； 当然不是因为两个月是多么长的时间而是在这两个月之内已经经过无数的高潮低潮。 我发现人在衡量时间不只是用实际的时间而是用经历来衡量的。 因此对我来说，两个月之前的事情似乎一年前的事情。

创业进展得还可以，研究及开发阶段快要完成了所以特别兴奋但我一直做好心理准备等待下一个难关。很多人说创业就是这样像一个过山车一样，高潮的时候兴奋得不得了低潮的时候就觉得天很快就塌下来了。 不过不管怎么样我发现好的时候没你想得那么美好，低潮的时候没你想得那么惨。 偶尔，特别失落的时候看到我周围的朋友有了稳定的工作过的轻轻松松的生活心里难免会一点羡慕，然后就会想那我也找一份工作吧，但想也不用想我也知道我心里是怎么想的，有了这个小小的动机就够了， 再也不会疑问自己的目标了。 反而有时候我会觉得我还是蛮幸福的，能做我所想做的事情不是人人都能这么幸福所以也要好好珍惜吧。

另外，创业有一点坏处之前没想到过，就是我的中文腿部好几晨。 我跟我员工整天坐在电脑前编程也没什么机会长聊所以中文腿部也不可能避免的。 现在一旦我跟之前的同事聚聚会他们就会取笑我说像跟一个小朋友在说话一样。 好郁闷所以不得不逼我自己找办法练习中文， 所以就借这个机会用中文写博客了！

Apparently I wasn’t the only one tired of reality tv shows

I’ve come to accept that crackdowns come in cycles here particularly before big events. For example, the big congressional meeting was the driver behind closing down a bunch of chinese internet sites with user forums and bbs’ last month.

But here are a few more entertaining ones in the spirit of ‘cleaning up’ society as of late:

1) Shanda, who produces online games, said that male players will no longer be able to play female in-game characters. Their method of validation? Proving their gender via webcam.

2) No more TV ads on bras, underwear, and ’sexual medication’ as well as TV shows on cosmetic surgery and sex changes.

3) Reality tv shows that are too vulgar also got the axe. A dating show (the name escapes me at the moment) got the axe midseason because SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television) said so. Ouch.

4) No more audience participation via SMS voting during the primetimes of 7:30-10:30pm. Not sure the reasoning behind that, but one unrelated conclusion I can draw from this is that maybe US people stay up later on average? since our primetime is 8-11pm?

Chinese Independence is upon us…which means lots of people

It’s that time of the year again, National Independence Day in China is on October 1st…and for the occasion, people get the whole week off. Well, sort of. Actually, it’s a 3 day holiday, which happens to fall on a Mon, Tues, Wed this year. But to promote tourism and consumerism (gotta catchup to the 1st world countries!) the Chinese gov’t traded last Sat and Sun for this Thurs and Fri. Thus the result is that people worked 7 days straight last week and then get 7 days off in a row (mon-sun) this week. This promotes tourism how you ask? Because people have a full 7 days, people are willing to travel farther and drop the big bucks.

Unfortunately, this year’s national holiday isn’t as eventful for me as last year’s escapades since I am pretty much spending it working on my startup. Thus, I felt a little bit like the loser that’s staying at campus at xmas break while everyone goes home (or on a trip). But that feeling quickly dissipated upon a quick trip to the mall – the party was apparently brought to me – in the form of a gajillion people taking advantage of the holiday bargains

Apparently your typical IKEA store

So it looks like IKEA has done downsized to a tiny boutique clothing shop in China….err….or the shopowner thought they’d just ‘borrow’ the IKEA name, with the full intention of returning it of course.

Typhoon 韦帕 (weipa) landing in Shanghai

Well, given that the Thailand Tsunami was a big catalyst to Youtube, I thought I’d do my part to help out the youtube copies in China like Tudou, 56.com, youku, mofile, etc but you know what I realized? citizen journalism just isn’t there yet. Which means across these top video sites in China, I can’t find a single good video showing the big storm making landfall…maybe that wenzhou just isn’t the tourist spot that Phuket is, thus not an army of people with videocams handy?

So the best I can do is pass along a few pics from Sina (one of the big 3 portals in china)

by the way, a few of you asked how I was doing….I am safe and sound in Shanghai. Luckily the storm weakened quite a bit before it got to Shanghai…they were projecting winds of around 100mph when it crossed the city.

Discriminated by Chinese people for looking Chinese in China…

…oh the irony

Maybe I’ve been lucky or maybe I’ve been oblivious but I’ve never once felt like I was at a disadvantage in the US because I looked Asian. But yesterday, I finally knew what it felt like to be discriminated against for something that you have no power to change. I am not so naive as to believe that it doesn’t go on in the world, but nevertheless, it doesn’t lessen the indescribable frustration that you feel in pondering that such injustice exists in the world.

So here was the situation: a month ago at this expat networking event one Russian girl (with a noticeable Russian accent) told me that she just moved here from Siberia and got a really nice gig teaching english. She was like, yeah, I signed up at this website and got tutoring gigs right away at like 200 RMB/hr. (Keep in mind the avg college grad makes a little over 100 RMB PER DAY!). So in light of me doing my entrepreneurial thing I was like, hmmm….maybe this is a good way to spend a few hours to make some extra dough on the side. Plus, I can teach business english, which would be even more money.

Fast forward to yesterday. I saw an ad in the Shanghai Daily (english newspaper in shanghai）that said they are looking for english teachers. I called and spoke to them in english (so they knew that I was a native speaker) to arrange an interview. The lady was quite accommodating on the phone and said “How about saturday?” I said fine, no problem. Then she paused and said, “actually we’re really in need of good english teachers, can you do today?” Sure, no problem.

I venture over to this company’s office and immediately the people look at me like I am some alien. The receptionist goes to the ‘boss’ and notified him that I had arrived. He looks over and says to her and says “what’s he here for?” she promptly replied, “to teach english.” Then he said “WHAT?!? but he’s chinese“

So after 15 minutes of him dilly-dallying around, he comes to meet me in the interview room. I introduce myself and he writes down my very common english name (misspelled, might I add) on a piece of paper as if to pretend to take some notes and then point blank says “actually, sorry, but we’re looking for white people only”

I was livid.

“I know that native english speaking chinese people like you are responsible and likely better teachers, but our clients want white people”

He went on to say all this about appearances of white people at schools or as teachers at an institute is what gets students in…blah blah blah.

anyway, let’s just say that I didn’t stay for very long afterwards.

I knew that there was nothing I can do. I am obviously lucky in the way that I don’t *need* this gig but nevertheless it doesn’t take the sting out of being discriminated against – for being Chinese in China no less.

Mobile isn’t the only thing that’s more ahead of the curve in china…Instant Messaging

It crossed my mind as I check my inbox everyday that I get most of my emails while I am sleeping and barely any while I am awake. Well, turns out it’s because I find that 95% of my communication with US friends is via email while 95% of my communication with Chinese friends is via IM.

I think that’s an interesting phenomenon, because I do feel like IM will only become more and more the main mode of communication – just look at the teenagers in the US these days who say email is too slow and a thing of the past. It’s the exact same sentiment that I get here, except it’s not from a select group, but more or less everyone.

My hypothesis on why that is:

1) Email has been rooted in the US culture for quite some time, way before the existence of IM. Whereas here, IM was introduced soon after email

2) Less separation of personal and professional lines along communication methods. For example, in the US I would never consider IM’ing or SMS a client because it seems too casual and unprofessional, whereas here, I do it all the time. Thus, on my MSN contact list here in China, it’s a good mix of professional and personal contacts. Companies even take this too the extreme and offer business services over IM such as ddmap – they offer 411/mapquest services.

3) Along with the last point, IM isn’t as fragmented here. People here use MSN, QQ or both. There is a general perception that the QQ’s demographic is teenagers and college kids while MSN’s is grown-ups. I would say it’s true for the most part, though I do see QQ contact info on customer contact pages from time to time. In the US, I’ve used IM in a corporate environment (Sametime) but it was strictly for professional use, like I couldn’t add my non-company buddies if I wanted to. Here, my MSN contact list has the whole kitten kaboodle, thus making it more useful.

4) MSN signatures – this is something that I love about MSN. I know you can sorta do the same thing on Yahoo or AOL, but it’s not really the same, and I never see anyone using it back home. It’s basically adding a signature next to your username (or replacing it altogether) so that you can customize how your buddies see you. What makes this cool? People end up putting up new 1-liners all the time about their moods or recent happenings. So for example, I put up “looking for recs for programmers” recently and people who had me on their contact list would out of the blue IM me and say “oh, what’s going on? what kind of people are you looking for? did you start your own company?” You could say it’s a question of push vs pull. ie I could’ve done the same thing by blasting out emails to all my buddies, but by simply adding a signature on my MSN, people who were curious or had recs could IM me.

On this last point, I think it’s worth dwelling into further in the respect that I think people are lazy and like to know what’s going on but don’t want to work at it. So by having a signature, I can get little mini-updates from the person without having to actively communicate with the person. It’s a lot more non-committal and this way I don’t even feel obligated to communicate back if I don’t want to.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think email is going away, but I think it’ll be more and more relegated to things where it’s about documentation or conveying something complex.

PS. somewhat related, despite the trend of moving to instant gratification in communication, push email systems (a la blackberry) haven’t really taken off here. For the most part, people feel like SMS is a sufficient substitute.

I keep getting the middle finger here…

…inadvertently

at first every time people pointed to something, like say on the menu, I’d do a double take and internally be thinking “why are you flicking me off?” but after a split second, I’d realize that they didn’t mean anything by it.