Blog Archives 060916 to 060817

Old pointless chatter instead of new pointless chatter.

 

060916 Davis, CA
Well, I have made my first-ever pilgrimage to an IKEA store. I was impressed. Anyway, I went to get a couple of lamps. The apartment I'm in has only a few wall-mounted lights and the rented furniture included only two little low-watt reading lamps. Over-all the place was very dim in the evenings, with a dim reading lamp being the only light in the living room, another room lacking any light at all, and the other dim reading lamp being the only light in the bedroom.

I can only assume there must be some sort of cost savings involved in building apartments / houses with no overhead lighting. Frankly, there really ought to be a darn good reason for not having it because overhead lighting is a major convenience. Overhead lighting is now one of the things going on my checklist of things I'd like to see in any house I consider buying.

Anyway, IKEA provided several shockingly inexpensive lamps and my apartment is now much nicer in the evenings. Sitting around in the dark was depressing.

WARNING: Politics follows. Read no further if you dislike my political commentary.
Right, you were warned. Anyway, if you have been paying attention to the news of late, you'll have seen talk of the Senate not cooperating with a piece of legislation Bush Jr. claims is necessary. And it is necessary... to make torture legal.
There was a US Supreme Court decision to require the US at least minimally attempt to follow it's own laws and the Geneva Convention where it applies. Bush Jr. has decided to circumvent the Supreme Court by having legislation passed that, in essence, unilaterally redefines Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention to allow the US to regularly use practices the entire world views as torture. This way, Bush Jr. can claim to be in compliance with the US definitions torture and of the Geneva Convention. This legislation is coming several months after the Bush administration attempted to redefine anything not leading to death as not-torture (i.e. redefining things so only outright intentional murder could be considered torture).
The House has decided to help Bush Jr. play these semantic games, but the Senate has balked: folks like Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner, US senator and military judge Lindsey Graham, and Vietnam veteran Senator John McCain seem to believe that you can rename an act all you want, but torture remains torture and a bad idea even when it has been legally redefined as "happy fun information time". Also entering the discussion are folks like General Colin Powell (retired, former Joint Chiefs of Staff) and General John Vessey (retired, Regan's former Joint Chiefs of Staff), weighing in with letters suggesting that a pro-torture policy is unwise.
Tony Snow has put forward the theory that the torture opponents are "confused".

As for me, I'll satisfy my need to comment by just giving you a few quotes to consider.
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression: for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach unto himself." - Thomas Paine
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." - Lyndon Baines Johnson

060912 Davis, CA
So, I found out something interesting this morning: my apartment does not have phone service for calling out, but does have service for 911 calls and can receive calls. I knew before that I had 911 access, but I didn't know that I can receive calls (and, no, I still don't know the apartment's phone number). I discovered this when I received a call from the "Dove Foundation" and they asked to speak to the lady of the house. What follows is a very loose transcription of the conversation.
HER: "Hello, can I speak to the lady of the house?"
ME: "That's me."
HER: "Oh, well, I'm from the Dove Foundation, that's D O V E, and we are calling for a survey on the state of media today. The violence and sex bombarding our children has gotten out of control and it is not possible for parents to protect their children from the content on TV and in the movies. Wouldn't you like to do something to help parents protect their children?"
ME: "No."
HER: "Um... What?"
ME: "No, I don't agree with with your claims. You have implicitly linked the idea of protecting children to the idea that it is not currently possible for parents to control what their children are watching. I don't think you are correct in claiming that parents can not influence their children's viewing habits. Therefore, I have to reject your implicity linked question even though I am in favor of the general principle of protecting children. Honestly, starting with the assumption that parents are helpless or incapable seems like an excuse to take the decision out of parents' hands."
HER: "Oh. Um. We are not advocating censorship but it is time to send Hollywood a message about the things they are subjecting our families to. The films and programs being produced today do not reflect the Family Values of America. These days, it is almost impossible to find any films or programming that reflect Family Values. Don't you think it is time that Hollywood needs to produce films that support Family Values?"
ME: "Well, you have two problems there. First, it seems that your question contains the inherent assumption that Hollywood does not produce family-appropriate films and programs. I can think of several big-budget films that have been released in the last year or so that seem appropriate for viewing by small children. Because I don't agree with the assumption underlying your question, I can not answer 'yes' or 'no' since the question itself is not valid, in my opinion. The second problem is that you have not defined your terms. Even if I agreed with your assumptions, I'm not sure what you mean by 'Family Values'. Until I know that, I can't determine if the implicit assumptions are valid, much less answer 'yes' or 'no'. What, exactly, is meant by 'films that support Family Values'?"
HER: "..."
ME: "Hello?"
HER: "Goodnight." click!
I guess she couldn't define 'Family Values' either. Oh well.

A quick web search after the phone call showed that the Dove Foundation is a "non-profit" ratings organization that has gotten into trouble repeatedly for their phone calls that claim to be "surveys" but tend to offer services and mention their products or products / services from allied 'Family Values' organizations. Am I the only one who finds it ironic that this organization, which claims to be all about morals, seems so careless of ethics?

060911 Davis, CA
It is nice to be back in a country where it is OK to talk politics. Speaking of talking politics, I continue to be surprised by the lack of general outcry over the federal government's use of torture, domestic spying, secret prison camps, etc. Is it really possible to violate every traditional American value with impunity, so long as you do it while chanting "9-11"? Here is a quote I find interesting:
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
- Charles-Louis De Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) in The Spirit of the Laws, 1748

My brother, E., sent me an article link recently. Bush Says EPA Immune From Protections for Federal Whisteblowers. Now, this link is to an article in Mother Jones magazine, a very left-leaning magazine. Another link was to the article "Bush Declares Eco-Whistleblower Law Void for EPA Employees" by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This group could also be accused of having an axe to grind, since they care about the environment.

Time to go to orginal sources. Taking a look at the scanned Department of Labor opinion we see that what it really says is that Department of Labor believes that "the federal Government's sovereign immunity has been waived with respect to the whistleblower provisions of the Solid Waste Disposal act ("SWDA"), 42 U.S.C. 6971 (2000), and the Clean Air Act ("CAA"), 42 U.S.C. 7622 (2000), but not with respect to the whistleblower provision of the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act ("CWA"), 33 U.S.C. 1367 (2000)." However, the opinion stresses that things are not clear-cut with the CWA, stating that the language in section 1367 implicitly waives sovereign immunity. The opinion which says that CWA whistleblowers lack protection from discrimination or firing is based on the fact that "section 1367 does not unequivocally indicate a waiver of sovereign immunity with respect to section 1367 as required but Supreme Court precedents." Implicit waiver of immunity is insufficient, therefore the sovereign immunity remains, against CWA whistleblowers.

So, ignoring any spin or hysteria, what we really have is a finding that, by a technicality, CWA whistleblowers lack protection. This opinion was requested because the Bush administration is attempting to protect itself from lawsuit when it takes discriminatory and punitive actions against EPA employees who blow the whistle on violations against the Clean Water Act.

I will leave it to your immagination as to why the Bush Administration (an administration with the worst environmental record of any since James G. Watt was Secretary of the Interior) would like to have immunity from those seeking to see the federal environmental laws enforced.

On the lighter side of things, my buddy Ed sent me a link to an NYTimes opinion piece, "A Little Learning Is an Expensive Thing" by William M. Chace. It's short and interestingly points out that most modern Universities compete on the "spa" model (nice grounds, rooms, and facilities) rather than the "monestary of learning" (education über alles) model, a choice which is what people want but results in the ever-higher college expenses.

060910 Davis, CA
I'm now in the US, but still out of contact. Several things were not arranged for my stay, including phone service, internet, or TV service. I don't care about the TV, but the lack of phone service is a real pain in the ass. Think about it: you need phone access in order to be able to arrange phone access. It is a crappy little catch 22 that I may not be able to get around until work on Monday. Oh well. At least I'm not in a Chinese jail cell due to Visa violations.

Update: I now have a working phone. It's a crappy little cell phone, but it is now all activated and such. I'm back in communication.
1-530-204-8758
I bought a paper and sat in front of the office doors for two hours this morning. When a coworker came in, I was able to get in and activate the prepaid phone account. It's nice to be able to contact people once again.

060907 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
By 4 PM today, I'll know if I can leave at 9 AM tomorrow. I'm tired and I want this resolved. The visa I was granted at the start of this trip to China was not quite right, but I was assured by the Chinese Conulate in California that I had the appropriate visa for my planned stay and I was assured by the Legal department at Novozymes China that it would be OK and they had used that visa in this way many times before. However, a policy change by the Chinese government (on 060518) meant from that point forward enforcement of the specific visa subprovisions would be strict... This change shifted me from the category of "Eh, close enough" to the category of "Naughty non-compliant non-citizen who needs punnishment".

I have learned it before in my world tour and this is just teaching me the lesson again: Do not listen to other people or get secondhand information from people. You are the only person with a really big stake in making sure things go properly for you. Do your own research and, if something seems odd, take matters into your own hands to push things though and make everything follow the proper regulations. Whether they are from the Legal department or not, they are not going to care as much as you about making sure everthing is done correctly because they are not going to be the ones in trouble if something goes wrong.

Only you are responsible for you and you are the only one you can count on to make sure the things you need are in place and done properly. It is true in all aspects of life (once you leave your parents' care), not just work or travel. The only times I have had troubles are when I have forgotten that rule.

I have had several coworkers or hotel employees express surprise when I thank them for their help. They say "I'm just doing my job.". I have not found a reasonable way to explain that this is exactly the reason why I'm thanking them: They have chosen to aid me when it would have been easy for them to delay, pass the buck, or just do a half-assed job in a case where it is important to me that it be done effectively and rapidly. I'm happy that the people I thank don't realize how many people consider it reasonable to just shrug and say "Not my problem" rather than help.

060906 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Two full days of filing paperwork and visiting government offices and there is a chance I could be issued and exit visa soon. I have paid the necessary fines, visited all the proper offices, and pressured all the proper people to move rapidly. As of this evening, I filed the proper paperwork and contracted an expediting service to help the forms be attended to rapidly. I have done my best to follow all the proper regulations and now tomorrow's office visits and paperwork need to go well. If everything is in place, then I may be issued a visa allowing me to return to the US in the next day or two. If there is any problem with the paperwork, then it is not clear how much longer things will take.

060905 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
I am still in China, since I was not allowed to check in to board the plane this morning.

I have spent the day visiting various government offices. The basics of the situation are as follows:

The Chinese government has decided, after a long period of lax regulation, to tighten control of the length of stay of holders of multiple entry multiple exit (F) visa holders.
I am in violation, having significantly overstayed my 30 day allowed stay time.
Although the Chinese Consulate in California had assured me that I could stay for the proposed times and durations with the visa they issued, the fact that they misinformed me does not change the fact that I am in violation of the visa provisions.
Being in violation results in two penalties: 1) a significant monetary fee and 2) being forced to get a new visa, even though the current, over-stayed visa is still valid.
Getting another visa requires all the paperwork and time delays involved in getting a new visa, with multiple passport photos, documents, forms, fees, etc.

To make a long story short (yes, I'm leaving out a vast array of blood -pressure -increasing encounters with bureaucratic stupidity), I am not being allowed to leave China until a new visa is granted. Unless something unexpected happens, it will be at least a week before I am granted a new visa and am allowed to leave China.

With other countries, if there is a problem, then they kick you out. With China, they make you stay longer. I guess they consider staying in China to be a form of punishment. Wish me luck shoveling paperwork.

060831 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
I'm back from my brief vacation in Guilin and Yangshuo. It was very beautiful and I must post the pictures at some point, but it will be a little while: on the last day in Yangshuo I picked up a goodbye-China case of "oh- sweet- baby- Jesus- why- have- my- guts- turned- into- twisting- hurting- snakes". You know it is a bad one when the weather report says 40°C and 95% humidity, but you find it comfy and whenever you go inside, you just have to put on a sweater and a knit cap. 101°F is my temperature today, a full 36 hours after the worst of it (when I had no thermometer, but I pretty sure I went a good bit hotter than a mere 101°F). Anyway, blog updates will have to wait for a while. I have far too much to do and too little time before I go. I was going to be packing tomorrow, but instead I think I will be sleeping in and trying to shake this bug.

Once back in the US, it will still be a while before I can write decent-sized updates. I land in the US on the 5th, I have a meeting to prep for on the 8th, and then I have the weekend to collapse and attempt to recover.

Till the next update, wish me health. Bleah.

060824 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
I sent out my "Goodbye to China" letter to the office today... It was short because I had decided to write it in English and Chinese. I had a colleague check the grammar to make sure it could be understood, and I fixed a few things like the fact that I had the word for "production" instead of "work" and "sensual joy" rather than "enjoy" where I was trying to write "I enjoyed working with you all". Still, my colleague mostly just gave it a brief pass to fix the errors that would render my translation incomprehensible or wrong. The odd phrases or word choices were left intact, so it was pretty clear it was written by a foreigner and was apparently fairly humorous.

For example, my version of "dear colleagues" came out something like "beloved comrade laborors" and my attempt at signing it with "best regards" was a classical Chinese court phrase meaning something like "bowing respectfully". When I said I was moving to California, I used the phrase that indicated travel by walking, rather than travel by car or plane. That would be a rather long, wet walk across the ocean. This one error I knew before sending the email, but I didn't know the right phrase. Combine all these elements together and you have something that can be understood, sort of. Needless to say, the email was a hit.

In random other news, your news may be corporate propaganda, but the FCC is investigating.

060823 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
It is one week until my last working day in China. The time has gone very fast this last month. I'd put off vacation for a long time and now I'll be taking the vacation during this last week. So, I work tomorrow, take a day off to pack, fly to Guilin Saturday morning, tour around the karst countryside around Guilin for Saturday through Wednesday, fly back to Beijing wednesday evening, and report for my last day of work on Thursday the 31st. Then I finish packing, ship the boxes Monday, have the weekend for last minute whatever, and fly to California the start of the next week. These last few days will go bye in a blur.

And in a random note, it was the poet Dylan Thomas who wrote "Do not go gentle into that good night". His stuff is worth checking out.

060819 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
I spent the day just relaxing and cleaning up a little. I went and bought some packing tape and reassembled a few boxes for the start of my shipping stuff back to the US. When I went to a shopping center to buy the packing tape, I encountered yet more proof that the Chinese secretly hate coffee. Coffee is around, because it is a trendy Western fashion drink. However, as far as I can tell, none of the Chinese actually want to taste the flavor of coffee. As a result, you have to be careful about what you order: I've been to UBC coffee a couple of times and ordered various coffees... The "Hawaiian Coffee" was not coffee from Hawaii; it was weak coffee with a whole lot of pinapple chuncks, pinapple syrup, and lots of whipped cream-like artificial frosting. The "Brazillian Coffee" was slightly stronger, but it too was buried under frosting and it turned out to be tainted by large amounts of honey.

Today's proof that the Chinese hate coffee came from a Starbucks. The Chinese Starbucks has introduced the Bananna Frapachino: a big dollop of bananna flavoring syrup is added to a mocha or vanilla frapachino base (your choice), then whipped cream and raw sugar are dumpped on top. I ended up with this desecration of coffee when the fellow taking my order mistook at which item I was pointing. I returned the concotion in horror the moment I realized what they were attempting to give me. Yikes.

Oh. On a side note, I bought my last scroll, last weekend. I'd wanted a long-ish piece of calligraphy, but I didn't want to hang up something if I didn't know what it said. Last weekend, I spotted one I recognized; the Heart Sutra. The brushwork is clear, but a bit "clean" and simplified. Also, it is on a patterned piece of paper with a printed grid and gold flakes worked in... I decided it was nice enough to get, but I'm still deciding how much I like the artistic choices. Anyway, I did not mention it in last week's blog entry because I had not yet worked up the rough translation and phonetics of the Heart Sutra for ya'all. Now it's in web format, if you are interested. I threw in the Japanese version as well, because that is the version I first encountered, when I stayed in a Buddhist temple in Japan almost 20 years ago.

And one more side note: That phrase I did not translate (from 060812, 养心莫若寡欲, 至乐无如读书) is an old two line poem that says "For a calm mind, have few desires. For happiness, the best way is to study.". Remember, they people writing this stuff were typically elderly scholars who had spent years of study to pass the imperial examination system. A friend here told me that there are also a number of old poetic couplets talking about how pretty girls like old scholars... I bet that the old scholars certainly liked to believe that pretty young women were attracted to their ink-stained fingers and knowledge of dead philosophers.

060818 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
This evening, I went out to a place that a coworker from Davis had found. She and her boyfriend had found a Sichuan place (Tien tien something) where there was both Sichuan hot-pot and, most unusual, their own home brewed beer. We ordered a pitcher of beer and attempted to order a hot pot. No one there spoke English and there was a lively pantomime as we attempted to convince them that we wanted the hot-pot when I could not figure out the Chinese for hot-pot. Heck, we had difficulty convincing them that we like spicy food.

As the food came, we found that they did not believe that we wanted the hot-pot or anything spicy. An array of very tasty things arrived, but they were all different from what we had tried to order. Oh, well. It happens. I have encountered lots of attempts to protect the foreigner from their food orders. It was all very good and we got a pitcher of really nice stout. It was by far the best beer I've had in China, being draft and really well done, it was better even than the imported beers. After finishing the pitcher, we decided to try one of the other house-brewed beers. Being unable to read the menu, we just pointed at something under the "beer" heading (we know the Chinese for"beer") and asked for a pitcher. It worked for that great stout... The waitress refused to let us order it, much like the waiter had refused to let us order the various spicy dishes. However, I had had time to think of a way around this: I insisted that the beer I was pointing to was my absolute favorite. I I just kept repeating "It is my favorite" and "He loves it too. We want it." in Chinese until they let us order the beer.

What arrived was a strange, very carbonated, dark green brew. Did I mention it was green? The name was 螺旋藻綠啤. After trying the beer, a very light beer with a sorta rich green tea after-taste, we whipped out the dictionaries and decided to translate the name. It translates to "Helix algae green beer". Yikes. The stout was fantastic and they managed to make a "helix algae green beer" that was palatable. I'm impressed. I will have to go there again with a few friends and see if I can work my way through that beer list. I've been told they have a nice amber, but I'm sure a few more surprises like "helix algae green beer" will be lying in wait.

060817 Beijing, CN 北京, 中国
Today is a random cultural notes day. I'm clearing out some notes on things I thought were kind of interesting. Since I thought they were interesting, maybe you will too.

When my parents were visiting, we heard a very odd sound as we were walking through an old Hutong area: a sort of whistling, humming, buzzing noise that seemed to be associated with a flock of white birds that circled overhead. We could not think of any birds that would make that noise or in fact any non-insect that would make such an odd continuous sound. I finally found out what caused the noise. Apparently some people who keep flocks of pigeons or doves tie small whistles to their legs. When the birds fly by overhead, the whistles produce the sound we heard.

Chinese symbolism has close ties to the sounds of the language. While bats are considered symbols of darkness in western cultures, there are bat symbols and pictures all over in the traditional woodwork and sculpture of China. The word for bat, "fu" sounds a lot like the word for happiness "fu". Thus bats are symbols for happiness in China. Similarly, the word for deer, "lu", sounds a lot like the word for large salary, "lu", making the deer a popular symbol for wealth. If you hunt for the symbols in the old palaces and gardens, you find them all over. There are other symbolic animals, like the magpie ("xi", which sounds like the word for bliss), but the bat is the most common one by far and I'm not going to bother with an exhastive list.

UPDATE: Corrected my web pages to make clear that the next rotation (Denmark) has been canceled in favor of going to Davis California as my final destination, after China, with no further rotations.

Page Last Modified: 2006 11 06, 11:53:16

 

 

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