Blog Archives 060816 to 060717

Old pointless chatter instead of new pointless chatter.

 

060816 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
As with anything that has been around for a while, tea drinking has developed its own lore and culture. I have been talking to tea shop employees about the "proper" way to drink tea. There is more than you would expect to it. For example, there were a number of recommendations as to the precise temperature of the water used for brewing the tea: For black teas (including Pu Erh and Oolong), 95°C water should be used. For the flower essence impregnated teas like Jasmine, 85°C water should be used. Finally, for the light, fresh green teas (including Kuding and Bamboo), 75°C water should be used.

Also, the "proper" brewing method is not the dump-in-some-tea-and-water-and-let-it-sit method that most everyone uses. Here in China, home of the tea culture, most everyone has some sort of big-ass mug. They throw in a handful of tea leaves, a batch of water, and then slurp it all day, occasionally topping the thing off with more hot water. Even the tea aficionados do this with their inexpensive "daily drinking" teas; modern life does not leave time for the "proper" method. If you have a very nice tea, the "proper" way to drink it is with the little pots and little cups of a tea set. Here is the protocol:

Before starting, briefly rinse the two pots and the cups with hot water, to make sure they are warm and will not cool down the small volumes of tea being used.
1) Add a small amount of tea to a small teapot.
This is a pot capable of holding just enough leaves and water for 4-5 tiny half-a-shotglass-sized teacups.
2) Add proper-temperature water for just a brief moment (2-3) seconds, and then dump out the water.
This is a wash step, primarily removing the highly bitter, easily extracted polyphenols. Probably, even cheap loose teas may taste better if they were briefly washed.
3) Add hot water for about 35 seconds and then decant the liquid from the first pot into a second small pot.
This second pot is the one that will be used for pouring the tea into teacups. Having a second pot for this duty means that the tea is not sitting in hot water for any longer than you wish. You can sit and relax and sip your way through this first extraction of tea without worrying about the tea being overly extracted.
4) Add hot water for about 25 seconds and then decant the liquid from the first pot into a second small pot.
The first extraction will be very lightly flavored while this second extraction will be more flavorful.
5) Add hot water for about 40 seconds and then decant the liquid from the first pot into a second small pot.
This third extraction is typically the most potent one.
6) Add hot water for about 50 seconds and then decant the liquid from the first pot into a second small pot.
This is the fourth extraction. The high quality teas can be extracted about eight times.
For each extraction past the fourth, add 10 more seconds to the extraction time.

All this precise detail sounds ridiculous, but it makes some sense: essentially, the aim of tea brewing is a hot water extraction of plant polyphenols, carbohydrates and proteins. If you follow the procedure and you have a good tea, then it does result in a number of really good cups of tea. The flavors you detect within the tea change slowly from extraction to extraction. Some of the teas, like the Pu Erh teas, show distinct color changes, with the first extraction being light yellow and the color deepening to amber and then rich brown over the course of the extractions.

Anyway, assuming you have the accoutrements (little teapots, little cups), the time, and a quality loose tea, it is worth trying.

060815 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Since I now can plan on living in Davis for the next few years, hopefully, I have been looking into housing options. I read a NYTimes article (sent by a coworker from Davis) about the fiscal calculations needed to better estimate the the true financial cost/benefit of renting versus buying. It takes into account interest rates, appreciation rates, etc. The precise circumstances of an area can be a big influence and, unfortunately, for Davis the fiscal calculations postitively scream "rent". So, most likely for the forseeable future, the dream of home ownership will remain out of my reach. Oh well.

High tech jobs often mean living near big cities or in one of the tech concentration areas. Of the Novozymes sites I've visited, Bagsvaerd would have meant the smallest living space, followed by Davis then Beijing. Franklinton is a major exception. Working in Franklinton, I could probably buy a mansion. Anyway, I'll be going to Davis and likely renting either a mid-sized apartment or a small house. There are apparently a number of small, older houses for rent, according to a coworker.

I have been looking at reviews of a number of books that seem appropriate for my immediate future: "Space: Japanese Design Solutions for Compact Living" by Michael Freeman "Blueprint Small: Creative Ways to Live with Less" by Michelle Kodis and "Compact Living" by Jane Graining. However, these are all pretty much useful only if you are building a small house or if you can do structural rearrangements within a house. These are not possible for a renter.

The renter is primarily forced to use "style" or "fashion" solutions, like those proposed in "Living Large in Small Spaces: Expressing Personal Style in 100 to 1,000 Square Feet" by Marisa Bartolucci & Radek Kurzaj or "Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure" by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan. I'm pretty sure that no place I live is going to have that sleek, modern Manhattan studio look. If I'm living there, then it will have that rumpled, books-everywhere look. I look forward to that.

060813 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Er, I didn't mention one of the more surreal moments of yesterday: being lectured by a drunk waiter about the greatness of Mao as compared with George Washington. You see, after the shopping, I went for a late lunch in a nearby noodle place. Since I'd split off from the others I was eating alone and a waiter wandered over to practice his English. Not that unusal. Anyway, after the usual "where are you from" sort of stuff, the waiter mention that he was a student from the countryside but he had come to Beijing to get a good job. He was studying business management, but wanted to go into politics. He wanted to do it in Beijing, instead of near his home town, because it is easier to rise through the ranks if already at the center of power.

By this point, I'd already figured out he was a bit drunk or messed up for other reasons... Anyway, he'd gotten warmed up to his subject, politics, and wanted to talk about the Taiwan issue. I wanted to eat my lunch. He started talking about how the US was causing problems for China and not letting them "finish unification". By that he means that if China bombs the crap out of Taiwan and then conquers it in a spray of bullets and blood, well, the US (the provider of military equipment to Taiwan) is unlikely sit on the sidelines or cheer on the Chinese.

Anyway, I just wanted to eat my noodles in piece, so I didn't let his prodding draw me in; I just said "It is a complicated situation." He nodded and told me that he had the solution to the "Taiwan problem" and the government needed to do it before the Olympics. He wouldn't tell me what the solution was, though; he wanted to keep it a secret. He told me that it guarenteed his political future. He wanted to give the Taiwan solution to a powerful political patron, so that he could rise high in the government. I wished him luck and went back to my noodles.

Lacking further Taiwan stuff to discuss, he switched over to talking about what a wonderful leader Mao was. With little response coming from me on this topic, he proudly announced that he knew of George Washington. "George Washington. Great leader like Mao. Strong like Mao." I responded to the bait and sort of agreed, saying "Yes, George Washington was a good leader. He did not want to be King and he did not want to hold power for too long. He refused and stepped down." The drunken waiter was very pleased by my actually responding to something he said. "Very strong, very strong. China bigger so Mao had to be stronger, but both powerful. Mao very powerful. Know what to do. Stop people who not want to obey. Great man."

The noodles were good, but that was one long-ass lunch.

060812 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
This morning, I met with L. and H., the Danish and German (respectively) high school graduates with whom I went to Suzhou. They had just arrived back in Beijing and wanted to buy some art as souvenirs for their parents. They called me up and wanted me to show them around the traditional art district, since they knew that I was the one who knew the art district the best... My Chinese coworkers are great sources if you want modern stuff, clothing, DVDs, etc., but I'm now the expert on the local traditional art scene. Heh.

Anyway, my haunting of the art districts paid off for L. and H.. With a few questions about what sort of things they wanted, I was able to close in on just three shops out of the many dozens in the maze of alleyways. H. wanted something really nice for her mother and spotted a really expensive scroll of a blooming winter plum, with a price tag of well over 1,600 RMB. The woman who runs the shop (who knows me pretty well) was able to pull out several other blooming winter plum scrolls by the same artist as well as a number of other blooming winter plum scrolls by less famous artists. She offered a big discount off the list price (big enough that I knew I was seeing the positive side of 关系, guanxi, in action) of the scrolls, but it was still a very high price for a high school graduate. I know I could never have considered it at that point in my life. We stood and stared at the paintings for a long time.

It was very difficult to put your finger on the precise differences between the less expensive paintings and the expensive ones, but somehow you could feel the difference. I kept trying to convince myself to like the less expensive ones better, but somehow the subtle differences in stroke weight and detail added up to one painting feeling semi-abstract but very alive, while the other one simply lacked that breath of life.

Even with the discount, H. had to pass and I was given pause. We left and went on, next visiting a calligrapher I like. He specialized in a script I am not excited by, but he is also very good in a running hand script I like. L. had been unable to find what she wanted before, since she wanted several traditional elements combined in an utterly non-traditional way: she wanted black ink bamboo (traditionally on a dark matting) on a white matting with a lot of calligraphy alongside the bamboo (traditionally, you get either a picture and minimal calligraphy, or calligraphy and picture). Since I knew where the calligrapher was (in a shop on the main street) and where his blank scrolls were (in his wife's shop in a back alley three blocks away) I managed to get him to paint L. a scroll with exactly what she wanted. It was really neat to get to watch exactly how the painting was done as he carefully balanced and remixed the ink to get exactly the right darkness for a given brush stroke. His brush would hover over the paper in several painting gestures before his mind's eye had firmly fixed exactly the weight and course of the stroke. The brush would then descend and a single stroke would appear, followed by several more strokes in the air and another single stroke. The whole painting developed rapidly and was finished in maybe 15 minutes with the calligraphy taking a few minutes more. The result was nice and unique enough that I requested one after he had finished the one for L.

For the calligraphy on mine, I had him write 养心莫若寡欲, 至乐无如读书. I'll have to get back to you on the precise translation, since I'm dissatisfied with the several loose translations, none of which capture the feel of it, quite.

After that, L. and H. returned to where they are staying in Shangdi, but I decided to go back to the shop selling the blooming winter plum scrolls we had looked at before. H. had decided not to get any of those. She decided to instead return Sunday and have the calligrapher do a unique piece. For me, I had been intending to get something nice before I left and I was thinking a blooming winter plum scroll would fit that description. When I'd been thinking about that "something nice" before, I'd been thinking of something that was more clearly tasteful and expensive. The scroll I was now looking at was not anything special at first glace: the matting and paper was the same as dozens of cheap scrolls, the subject matter was one of the more common traditional scroll subjects, etc. The proportions, long and skinny, were not ideal. Pretty much the only thing going for it was that ineffable feeling of life.

So, I dithered and stared. I hemmed and hawed and debated. And then I bought it, after a little further bargaining. I now have my "something nice", an order of magnitude more pricey than anything else I have bought. It does not particularly stand out above the other scrolls I have, nor look that impressive, but I'm OK with that. I like looking at it and that is reason enough to have it.

060811 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Here is a link you may find interesting: Steen Riisgaard interviewed by Dr. Moira Gunn, the host of Public Radio's Tech Nation. They talk about bioethanol, i.e. plant-source ethanol produced for fuel needs. The interview is an mp3 23:46 long, 10.9 MB, recorded 2006-08-01.

And here is a link you might not find interesting: Triumph of the authoritarians, an op-ed piece by John W. Dean, a self-described "Goldwater conservative". Essentially, he argues that the current dominant Republicans are not Conservatives. I said you might not find it interesting for two reasons:
1) I have noticed that people have generally made up their minds; either they dislike the current administration and therefore like reading critiques or they like the current administration and chose not to read critiques. If you like the current administration, then you are unlikely to be interested by this piece.
2) The piece is short, containing far less supporting detail than I would like to see. Perhaps I'm wierd this way, but I wish all op-ed pieces came with lengthy footnotes so you could find the source information for yourself.

060810 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Well, I did it. I sent of the letters applying for the Davis position and declining the Bagsværd position. No amount of dithering was changing the basic choice. That said, while being very happy to get the Davis position, I'm sad to not be returning to Denmark. I really liked life in Denmark and I was looking forward to going there for the next half-year. While I had the option of going there for a year and then moving on to a final position, there were no guarentees about where that final position would be. Being "in transition" for two years was enough and stretching that to over three years would be too much.

Still, I can't help but wonder a bit about the choice. I made the "safe" choice rather than the "exciting" choice. I have family in California and friends nearby, there are no language issues, and I know how things work (social security, taxes, interaction with government agencies, etc.)... How boringly safe. However, two years of moving around and constantly needing to learn new things has made me ready for something nice and stable and known. Give me a few years of stability and I think I'll be postitively enthusiastic about taking a 1-3 year posting in Bagsværd.

With nearly equal weight, I can wax enthusiastic about life in California (good weather, wine country, etc.) and life in Denmark (great public transit, clean, easy travel to the rest of Europe, etc.). For now, though, the presence of family in California and simply being tired out by all the moving over the last two years has helped make the decision a little easier. I'll miss Denmark, though.

Random thought: a recent misreading of the news shows my current level of cynicism with regards to the so-called "war on terror": I glanced at the Yahoo news headlines and read "US raises security threat level to 'election'"... The actual word was 'severe'.

More random thoughts. My hotel room now smells like a Buddhist temple. You see, I bought some incense at a temple, to cover the smell of the acrid cleaning products used by the hotel staff. Rather than get some of the fancy high-priced incense, I specifically requested the cheap stuff that is most common at the temples: I know I'm not allergic to it, it is not super-potent, and the scent fades with reasonable rapidity. This makes it easy to control how much scent I'm putting into the room.

A coworker from Davis, staying at the same hotel on temporary assignment to China, came by my room and commented "Wow. Your room now smells so much better than ours." Heh. Now the room she and her boyfriend share will smell like a Buddhist temple as well: I gave them a bunch of the incense and they are using it. I wonder if the hotel staff is going to think Americans are often Buddhist.

060809 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
I have been given my choice of permanent postings: Davis, California, or Bagsværd, Danmark. These are both excellent choices and I have a few days to make my decision. Due to project needs, one option that is not on the table is a final few months rotation in Danmark followed by permanent assignment to one of the two locations. There is an option to take a one-year posting in Danmark, followed by permanent assignment to one of the two locations, but I really don't want to continue to be "in transition" for that much longer. It's time to put down some roots.

My assignment choice is 85-90% likely to be California. Even though this is true, I'm going to mull things over for a day or two so that I can mentally let go of Denmark. I was fully prepared to move there and I really liked living in København. Yes, Davis is my number one choice, but I'll miss Danmark.

060806 Suzhou, CN 苏州, 中国
I have lots of thoughts and things to say about the trip to Suzhou. For now, though, I'm just going to write up a bit on Chinese historical artifact stewardship, since I just got back from seeing the biggest Taoist temple in China, the Temple of Mystery in Suzhou. Click the link to read the piece.

060804 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
My sister-in-law, C., sent me a link recently to just the sort of thing I think is super-cool: a Synchrotron is being used to uncover the writings of Archimedes from a tattered old prayer book. It is a case of modern science serving the help reveal lost history and philosophy. Here's a link (again from C.) to the manuscript curator's website.

When I was a post-doc in Utah, I went to a conference in Italy on copper biochemistry. This old German guy gave a talk on copper biochemistry through the ages, ranging from early greek medicinal formulations, to alchemical formula, to Victorian ointments, including actual inorganic chemistry of the formulations and the biological effects... I was enthralled. I thought it was one of the more interesting talks of the whole conference. I asked my boss at the time what he thought of the talk. I was disappointed to hear he thought it was a "waste of time". Several of the other researchers agreed, wishing the the time had been spent on some of the cutting-edge research being done today rather than a history talk. I can understand wanting a different use of time, but, still, how they could fail to find the talk interesting, I don't know.

060803 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Plane tickets for my return to the US have now been bought. I will be flying back to the US on United flight 888 leaving Beijing at 12:05 PM Tuesday 05 September 2006 and arriving in San Francisco 11 hours 42 minutes later, at 8:47 AM. Then I have a bit of a wait before boarding United flight 6366 at 11:33 AM for the flight to Sacramento, landing at 12:14 PM. From my hotel in China to my apartment in Davis, the total travel time is estimated to be about 18 hours plus.

Once in Davis, one of my first tasks will be to start visa applications for the trip to Denmark. As far as the length of the stay in the US goes, things are currently fluid. This stay in the US may be more or less temporary. in about a month. When I'll know more, I'll update the information here.

060802 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
So... I'll be going to Suzhou (苏州) by train this weekend. About two weeks back, I agreed to travel at some point with a Danish summer student. She came up with the plan to go to Suzhou with a few (Chinese) coworkers, two of her friends from Germany, and me. The Chinese coworkers agreed to help with the arrangements, then when it came time to buy the tickets, they decided not to go themselves, but bought one-way overnight train tickets to Suzhou for L., her friends, and me. This is the end of her trip to China, so she has the next two weeks free and is planning on wandering further south from Suzhou, along with the two German teens. I'm going as far as Suzhou for the weekend and then finding my way home.

L. and her friends do not know Chinese, have a guidebook, have a phrasebook, or know anything about Suzhou, but they are all nineteen, so they are certain something will work out. However, China is not like Italy; there are no helpful government-run tourist guides or any government-certified youth hostels. What's that smell, you ask? Oh, that's just the scent of impending disaster.

I could get all uptight and worry about the details, but that won't change much. Instead, I think I'll just get a bit zen, relax and go with the flow. Should be interesting. My only preparation at this point is I told my coworkers I'm not sure if I'll make it back before the end of the workday Monday and I made sure to write down how to say "I would like to buy a ticket from Suzhou to Beijing." Honestly, things should work out. It is just a question of how uncomfortable it will be along the way and how much time it will take for things to work out. When I was 22 and traveling solo in Taiwan (with less Chinese than I know now), I ended up sleeping in a bus station or two, but everthing worked out eventually.

060730 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Today, I went out to the Great Wall (长城, chang2cheng2), to the Jin Shan Ling section. I was taking a visiting Dane and some German friends of hers to see the wall. I have now seen three different sections; Si Ma Tai (司马台, si1ma3tai2, with a fellow ex-pat.), Mu Tian Yu (慕田屿, mu4tian2yu3, with my parents), and Jin Shan Ling (金山岭, jin1shan1ling3, with L. and her friends). Since each of these is a full day trip with several hours hiking on the wall, I'd say I have definitely seen the Great Wall. Jin Shan Ling was beautiful, but I will have to write more about it later. I'm tired.

060729 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
This past day (Saturday), I went down to the old arts district again, this time to have the calligraphy I'd bought last weekend be properly mounted so that it would be safe, rather than having it remain a delicate whisp of paper. I ended up chatting with the shop owner for a bit and then the calligrapher came in. He offered to write any saying I desired, in whichever of two styles I liked. I decided I liked his "running hand" style a lot and I chose the four character phrase "美德無價" (mei3de2wu2jia4, virtue is priceless). It looks nice. He signed and dated the scroll, and stamped it with his seals, along with a seal that reads 万事如意 (wan4shi4ru2yi4, may your wishes come true).

I also bought two more scrolls that he'd written earlier, each with a single main character and a poem. One reads 静 (jing4, tranquility) and the other reads 壽 (shou4, longevity). I sat there for a bit wondering what it said about me that I did not chose the one for happiness. I mean, I knew I would not bother choosing the one that says "wealth", but choosing "tranquility" over "happiness"... Eh, it is probably less telling that I chose one scroll over another and more telling that I sat around thinking about this.

On the subway, riding back from the expedition, I was listening to my iPod really quiet, on random play, as usual. On came "Pictures At An Exhibition" by Modest Mussorgsky. Specifically, it was the piece "Samuel Goldenberg And Schmuyle", where those echo-y high trumpets enter half-way through... cool and kinda creepy. Maybe it was just my state of mind, but I give high marks to any music that can creep you out when in the bright sunlight on a crowded subway.

060728 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Ugh. Tired. Ended up not sleeping much last night and taking myself to the hospital this morning. I'm now on Cipro again. I have never in my life had ended up spewing from one end or the other on such a regular basis as here in China. The food is tasty, but there is almost no food safety control. I really don't enjoy being ill so frequently.

060727 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Various reasons mean that I'm starting discussions of my permanent placement about 10 weeks earlier than expected. This means I have not been able to follow my plan of taking a week of vacation to ruminate about where to end up. Things are not clear cut and making big decisions while feeling a bit rushed is non-ideal. I'm a little stressed. So, I think I will distract both you and me by changing subjects.

In addition to the calligraphy scroll, I picked up a painting of Zhong Kui. Zhong Kui was apparently some sort of minor folk hero before being popularized into a big folk hero / popular guaridan spirit during the Tang dynasty. During the Tang dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong had a dream in which he met a small demon who stole his favorite concubine's embroidered perfume bag and his own jade flute and then a large demon (Zhong Kui) who came to the emperor's aid by not only catching the small demon but gouging out his eyes and eating him. When Xuanzong questioned this helpful demon, the demon introduced himself as Zhong Kui, a man who had committed suicide by smashing his head against the palace steps decades earlier after learning that he had failed to place first in the palace examinations. His suicide fated him to becoming a demon, but in death Zhong Kui chose to be a benefactor, ridding the world of mischievous demons. This is how he became a god of literature and examinations, as well as a protector against evil spirits and demons.

As a bonus distraction, here are small pictures of the caligraphy scroll and the Zhong Kui scroll.

060725 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Sorry for the problems you may have been having in attempting to connect to this page. My brother is hosting this site on his home computer and he has been having frequent power outages. That has got to suck a bit.

In other news, I picked up a nice little calligraphy scroll this past weekend because I finally found one that I could read. I think the Chinese calligraphy is beautiful, but I don't want to put something on my wall that says something with which I disagree. This one says 學無止境 (simplified = 学无止境, pinyin = xue2wu2zhi3jing4, English = "Knowlege is limitless" but it could also be interpreted as "Learning never ends").

060724 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
The karaoke was instructive... One thing is that the Chinese karaoke sober. The other thing was the realization of how much the karaoke experience depends on shared knowledge of the songs. If you have no idea what the song is supposed to sound like, then you can neither congratulate your friend for the great rendition nor mock your friend for the terrible slaughtering of the song.

I'd prepared for the karaoke by coming up with a long list of moderately singable classic American pop and rock. So I showed up ready to sing if the karaoke machine had any of those songs on the list. Out of some 37 songs, the machine had 6 of them, so I was able to belt out a few tunes. One that was chosen for me was "Hotel California" by the Eagles. It's both long and high (which is why I'd not put it on my list of songs), so after attempting to hit notes for the first few lines I called it quits. The next one I sang was "Love Me Tender" by Elvis. I can do a passable version of this, but the karaoke machine's version was slowed down to a speed that a valium addict might consider "relaxed" and the tune seemed to be played with one finger on a cheap Casio. Ugh.

The Chinese tunes, on the other hand, were pretty well done. They had full orchestration with the ability to turn on and off the vocals at various volumes to help guide you. There was also a scaling function to shift the vocals up or down in tone, so you could give yourself a good chance at hitting all the notes, even if the original singer sang it in a key out of your reach. The songs were backed up by the video playing on the screen and my coworkers were choosing some pretty rocking tunes, rather than some of the awful pop dreck I've heard on the radio. Three out of five of the coworkers were real regulars at the karaoke and they were darn good singers.

Honestly, I enjoyed the Chinese songs more than the English ones since there was a lot more group participation (because they didn't know the English songs, there was dead silence for those) and the songs were simply better done (the English ones were never the original artist and usually minimally picked out on a cheap synthesizer). For a couple of the Chinese ones, where there was a nice repetitive chorus or I recognized significant fraction of the characters in some of the lyrics, I joined the group in singing along.

Overall, it was fun... But it is clearly dang important that the group have a shared music knowledge base.

P.S. The other songs I sang were "Yesterday" and "Please Please Me" by the Beatles, "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Don't be Cruel" by Elvis, and "Mary Jane's Last Dance" by Tom Petty. The only one I didn't slaughter (other than "Love Me Tender") was "Yesterday". I'm pretty sure the rest were mind-bendingly bad renditions.

060722 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
I have been doing an assay of late, where the whole point is to follow changes over time. Unfortunately for me, the time frame is over 2.5 weeks long and the timing has worked out so that I have to do something every day, in the middle of the afternoon. So, I have had to go in to work every day for the last three weekends and it has been a bit annoying. Well, the assay is now over and the weekend is my own. It feels good.

Some coworkers invited me to out to Karaoke on Saturday (this evening). I'm not much one for public singing, but I agreed to be social. Of course, after agreeing, my head was filled with the thoughts of what my coworkers would think of some of the songs I know... Let's see, I could lead off with "Sweet Transvestite" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, move on to "Murder By Numbers" by the Police, and then go for a high energy finish with something by Marilyn Manson. Yeah, right. It is a Chinese Karaoke place, so I'll be lucky if they have anything singable in English. I'm just hoping for something like "Yesterday" by the Beatles, because otherwise I will probably be stuck singing along to something by Britney Spears.

Oh, in a recent news article, the Chinese government announced that it is cracking down on intellectual property rights violations by Karaoke (or, as the locals call it, KTV) places. They are going to start requiring copyright fees to be paid based on the size of the Karaoke facility. It just so happens that the government has just introduced a new service (the National Karaoke Content Management Service System) that will provide access to a government Karaoke song database, with automatic tracking of songs and a reduced copyright fee structure. Participation is voluntary, for now, but the government has made it's plans clear: they are hoping to make the NKCMSS a monopoly over the Chinese KTV business sector and one of the "benefits" of this monopoly will be control over the contents of the KTV songlists. The government is planning on removing "unhealthy" songs from the songlists, with "unhealthy" being defined as anything sexual, anything political, anything from Taiwan, anything that makes the database "too foreign" (i.e. large numbers of western songs) or simply anything that doesn't feel right to some government censor.

If the government has its way, KTV will go the way of the internet: the list of censored sites/songs will not be published, but big fines will be awaiting anyone who allows access to the censored sites/songs. KTV operators will then face the choice of signing up for the approved database, or staying independent while facing higher fees and the risk of big fines.

Before I sign off for today, I'll just say two things: 1) Wish me luck and minimal humiliation with the Karaoke tonight, OK? 2) Isn't it nice that Americans have the constitutional checks and balances to limit government power? With a strong judiciary serving as a watchdog over citizen's rights, the government can not act like the Chinese Big Brother. Er, unless they are willing to trample all over the constitution and the judicial branch.

060718 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Hmm. Can't think of much for today, so I'll just assign you all homework (if you are willing to accept it, of course). Er, I suppose I ought to admit that the "homework assignment" (below), was partly taken from and definitely inspired by an email exchange I had with a friend (T.). I occasionally steal and reuse things from emails when I think they might be interesting to more people than just the one person to whom the email was sent. Call it lazy or call it efficient, it works for me, although this means some people end up reading the same thing twice.

On to the homework assignment: Write something short and appropriate for a blog, every day for two weeks. I think you might find your life is more interesting than you would otherwise imagine. Just the fact of having to come up with something can make you pay attention to ordinary things in a different way. You might think it would take going to a foreign land or some such thing to provide you with interesting material, but I think that going someplace foreign simply makes it slightly easier to find new things about which to write. Still, if you are not paying attention to the differences, then visiting a foreign land is no more interesting than going to a different coffee shop than normal. Staying in your same routine may sound boring, but if you switch over to observing and thinking about it, then I think you'll discover a wealth of potential material. Give it a try, if only as an excercize in engaging the mind more during daily activities. However, it will likely take energy and more time than you might think to write well about your thoughts and observations.

As it stands, the assignment is far too easy. So, let's punch it up a notch: You are not allowed to write just plain old something for the sake of writing something. When comitting something to the written page, it ought to be something worth writing. This doesn't mean you are limited to "Important Things"; it just means that if you want to mention something as simple as "I like crepes", it needs to have something more attached to it... talking about why you like crepes or the history of crepes or some other associated topic. Same goes for the usual statements about daily life. "I got cut off on the way to work this morning" also needs that extra something to make it writing-worthy. This is the same sort of thing that many good comedians do; they are not talking about anything unusual, but they offer extra (humorous) insight into it.

It is still too easy, so I'll add another rule: no unsupported statements. Plenty of bloggers post stuff along the lines of "Bush is bad" or "Liberals are weakening the US". These are just opinions and, by themselves, statements of opinion are not that interesting. Offering supporting statements explaining the topic statement and potentially bringing forth new information to the readers is needed to make things a bit more interesting.

One last note: Yeah, I violate my own rules, with a fair shaker-full of simple unexplained statements (e.g. I'm busy today) and plenty of unsupported opinions. Isn't that nice of me? I've made the mistakes, so you don't have to (Line stolen from The Show by ZeFrank.). Anyway, give it a shot. You may find the exercise makes your life more interesting.

060717 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Putin said something interesting in a recent interview with France's LCI television and a partial English transcript of the interview was in a China Daily newpaper article (which is where I read it). Here's the quote from the paper article:
"If you look at newspapers of 100 years ago, you see how, at the time, colonialist states justified their policies in Africa or in Asia," he said. "They talked of their civilizing role, of the white man's mission." "If you change the word 'civilizing' to 'democatization', you find the same logic, you can read the same things in the press of today."
I'm not saying Putin is correct, I just think the statement is interesting and perhaps worth examining. Putin is clearly making such statements out of a position of defensive self-interest, due to critiques of his anti-democratic actions. Still, supporters of the European and American democatization efforts ought to consider his point, both to consider the validity of individual programs and to consider the appropriate method of rebutting the critique.

Bonus section: Random links.
Olive, Inc., makers of high-end, MP3-capable stereo system components for wealthy audiophiles. I like their little "Sonata" units for spreading music throughout a house. Yeah, I have expensive tastes in things I don't buy. ;)
Davis local public radio from Tuesday, July 11, 2006, during which a fellow talks a little bit about Fuel Ethanol.
CalCars Plug-In Hybrids, a group converting hybrid-electric cars to run on bigger batteries that charge off of a wall plug. Just in case you decided to increase the efficiency of your hybrid-electric even further.

Page Last Modified: 2006 09 18, 00:55:27

 

 

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