Chengdu Trip #4 - Sanya, Part 2

Arg, speaking of flaky Internet connections, I just got dropped and lost some of my edits.

Anyhow, Sanya is on the southern portion of Hainan Island which is in the south of China. Sanya has been called the Hawaii of China because of it's tropical weather and it has prices to match the reputation. The flight from Chengdu to Sanya was RMB1820 or ~$250. I'm staying at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Yalong Bay which has a whole string of 5-star hotels, including a Mandarin Oriental opening in Q2. My room is about $200/night which is really expensive for China but it's pretty nice. There are actually a lot of foreigners staying at the hotel and they look mostly Eastern European; all the signage at the hotel has Chinese, English, and Russian. There are also a lot of business meetings here as well. I saw a lot of people in Nestle polo shirts and a group from Singapore sat next to me during dinner. I think the 2007 Miss World contest was held at the Crowne Plaza in Sanya.


View from the room's balcony


The hotel definitely has a Chinese architectural theme


Inappropriate beach attire


Coconut juice for RMB5. Basically they hack off a coconut with a machete and drill a hole in with a power drill (visible in the picture... the drill bit was pretty gross). Add one straw and you have a tropical drink!


Night view in Crowne Plaza's shopping/dining village. Since Yalong Bay is pretty far from Sanya City and only has large resort type hotels, Crowne Plaza built a shopping/dining complex next to the hotel. It looks like a bunch of different shops and restaurants, but everyone is a hotel employee.

I'm headed back to the cold and gloom of Chengdu tomorrow. The weather in Sanya has been either overcast or rain showers, hopefully it will be sunny tomorrow for one last beach day. Leon is arriving in Chengdu on Monday so it's mostly PMI related work next week.

Chengdu Trip #4 - Sanya

I've been having Internet problems since I arrived in Chengdu. The Treo worked fine in Hong Kong but I can't get a data connection so I can't check email. Next, my work PC won't connect to the Internet using my friend's ADSL connection so I have to use a computer with Chinese Windows... no fun. I am finally connected from my hotel in Sanya but even here, in a 5-star hotel, the connection is flaky. As before, the Great Firewall of China is still blocking Blogger.com so I have to connect through work VPN to access my own blog.

I've been in Sanya since Wednesday night and the weather is much nicer than Chengdu. Even though it's mostly overcast, the temperature in Sanya has been around 20 degrees Celsius; in Chengdu, it's just above freezing earlier this week. I was staying with a friend in their studio apartment and there appears to be no heat so it's been a miserable three days in Chengdu before coming to Sanya.

The flight from Hong Kong to Chengdu was pretty uneventful. Dragonair provided the same lunch selection as my previous three trips, with unexpired orange juice this time. Since I'm on the same flight each time (KA820), I think I'm beginning to recognize some of the flight attendants. To my surprise, Kevin from one of PMI's vendors came to the airport to pick me up. I've been chatting with him on MSN Messenger since he wants to practice his English, and I mentioned that I was arriving in Chengdu on Sunday. I feel bad that he dragged his company's driver along since Kevin doesn't drive, but he saved me about RMB50 on a taxi ride.

The next couple of days was spent hanging out in Chengdu, checking out department stores and eating at local restaurants. My friend's apartment is across the street from a large Buddhist temple (Wenshu Temple). Since it's still Spring Festival (continued from Chinese Ney Year), there are extra lanterns and food stalls near the temple.


Rabbit heads... there were other gross things being sold as food


Pineapple stick rice... it wasn't very good :(


My friend's apartment building

Needless to say, I didn't eat very much at the food stalls. Most of the time we ate at a restaurant on the first floor of the apartment building. You can order cold dishes displayed behind a counter or order hot dishes, and have all-you-can-eat congee/rice. I also had the best mustard green and pork noodles at a place around the corner for RMB5.


I tried a Korean restaurant in Chengdu. It wasn't as good as our normal Korean BBQ place in Garden Grove.


There were a lot of non-Korean looking stuff on the menu. We order a bunch of stuff and it came out to ~RMB300 for 3 people.

Chengdu Trip #4 - Hong Kong

This is the worst part of the trip, the flight from LAX to HKG. Cathay flies older 747's and in the past, the economy seats are really cramped. On their website, Cathay said that they were renovating all their seats, starting with JFK-HKG this year, so I was pleasantly surprised my flight already had the new economy class seats. The major changes are that the seats recline without leaning back into the seat behind you (so my knee is not jammed) and they have real entertainment on demand in each headrest. Additionally, this flight wasn't completely full like every other Cathay flight I've been on, so the seat next to me was empty. I even managed to get a few hours of sleep which is rare for me. I hope the 747 on the way back has been renovated too.

Right now I'm in the Cathay business class lounge near gate 65 waiting for my flight to Chengdu, and I think I just saw the same coworker again. He told me he's transiting to Singapore from Hong Kong. Leon usually goes to the other Cathay lounge near gate 4; I think this one has more food. :)


New larger LCD screen and detachable controller


Dinner: pork with mustard sauce... not very good. I'm sure my coworker is eating better in business class.


Bejeweled 2! If my parents were on this flight, they would be playing this for the entire 14+ hours.

Chengdu Trip #4 - LAX

I've said it before and I'll say it again, LAX is a disgrace. It took me forever to get my bag screened and go through security. They need to tear down Bradley Terminal and start over.

I'm sitting in the oneworld lounge waiting for my flight, courtesy of all the miles I got last year for flying to Chengdu. The elevator to the lounge is busted so I had to walk up two flights of stairs just to get here. The food is so so but since I didn't have dinner, I'm pigging out on whatever is here... the lobster bisque is not bad.

Surprisingly, I met a coworker in the lounge. I'm surprised because I thought everyone from work flies Singapore Airlines. For some reason, he likes Cathay better.




The lounge is not as crappy as the rest of Bradley Terminal because it's new.

Super Engrish

"Found on a bootleg Superman action figure from China."
Engrish.com

Wow, that's awesome! I think I need to hit the local market when I get to China next week to see if I can find stuff like this.

Monty Python and The Holy Grail - Scene 3

One more scene from my favorite movie of all time.


"Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system."

Monty Python and The Holy Grail - Scene 5

"Very small rocks!" Cracks me up every time.

Saudis to Execute a Woman for Witchcraft

ABC News

A leading human rights group appealed to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Thursday to stop the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft and performing supernatural acts.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the kingdom's religious police who arrested and interrogated Fawza Falih, and the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence in the face of "absurd charges that have no basis in law."

They can't be serious...

The Saudi court cited an instance in which a man allegedly became impotent after being bewitched by Falih, the rights group said.

Rules of evidence is kind of weak in Saudi Arabia, eh?

This reminds me of the scene in Monty Python and The Holy Grail where they accuse a woman of being a witch. I love the "Very small rocks!" line; I think it was John Cleese who played VILLAGER #3 in the movie.

BEDEMIR: Quiet, quiet. Quiet! There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
CROWD: Are there? What are they?
BEDEMIR: Tell me, what do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2: Burn!
CROWD: Burn, burn them up!
BEDEMIR: And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1: More witches!
VILLAGER #2: Wood!
BEDEMIR: So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3: B -- ... 'cause they're made of wood...?
BEDEMIR: Good!
CROWD: Oh yeah, yeah...
BEDEMIR: So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1: Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEMIR: Aah, but can you not also build bridges out of stone?
VILLAGER #2: Oh, yeah.
BEDEMIR: Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1: No, no.
VILLAGER #2: It floats! It floats!
VILLAGER #1: Throw her into the pond!
CROWD: The pond!
BEDEMIR: What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1: Bread!
VILLAGER #2: Apples!
VILLAGER #3: Very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1: Cider!
VILLAGER #2: Great gravy!
VILLAGER #1: Cherries!
VILLAGER #2: Mud!
VILLAGER #3: Churches -- churches!
VILLAGER #2: Lead -- lead!
ARTHUR: A duck.
CROWD: Oooh.
BEDEMIR: Exactly! So, logically...,
VILLAGER #1: If... she... weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood.
BEDEMIR: And therefore -- ?
VILLAGER #1: A witch!
CROWD: A witch!

I have the DVD at home so I'll rip the scene and post it later.

La Madeline au Truffe

$250 for a 1.9oz piece of chocolate

Rose Hills Memorial Park

My sister, Rebecca, Addy, and I went to Rose Hills on Saturday to visit grandma for Chinese New Year. We also wanted to see if they put in the grave marker as well. It took us a few minutes to find the right spot.




View towards downtown LA

Luxury Ride - Foxxi misQ

Royalty in Irvine

Rumor has it that Prince Andrew was at our campus today, checking out a chip that was designed in our Cambridge, UK office. I didn't see him but I did see a lot of limos, CHP escort, and what looked like Secret Service people outside our building. I thought it was for our Board of Directors but I guess they don't usually get police protection.

Speaking of which, Henry Samueli ditched our Board of Directors' meeting yesterday. He was meeting President Bush in the White House along with the rest of the Anaheim Ducks.

Car Repair

I just picked up the Z this afternoon from the body shop. It cost me ~$220 to replace the right front fender shield in the wheel well. Now that the wiper fluid reservoir and tubing are protected, I can drive the Z again.

I've been talking about selling the Z for years. At this point, unless I get another car, I'll probably keep it.

千里之外 - 周杰倫

Aerial Photos

Broadcom


Fashion Island


Avalon, Catalina Island


Moffett Airfield - Home of Google's 767 (they'll need a lot more solar cells to offset all that CO2 from each flight)


I brought my Garmin GPS with me since we were renting a car in San Jose. The satellite signal was pretty strong so I was tracking our flight most of the way. Somewhere over Santa Maria, our Boeing 737 was traveling at 542 MPH. Southwest allows you to use a GPS receiver after take-off but not American. I was hoping to see if the Embraer jet was slower since the scheduled flight time between SNA and SJC for Southwest was 1:15 (737) while American Eagle was 1:35 (ERJ-140).

MarieBelle Chocolate

We ordered some chocolate from MarieBelle several years ago. I think we only got the 4 piece box (plus some hot chocolate) which cost $12 or $3/piece. Shirley chopped up each one so we only ate 1/4 of a piece at a time; even then it was $0.75 for a tiny piece. The chocolate pieces looked really nice but I don't remember them tasting very different. The blue/brown box was really nice though.

Blizzards hit China

(AP Photo/Color China Photo) CHINA OUT

Chinese passengers with umbrellas wait for their trains amid rain at the square outside the railway station in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong province, late Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008. Hundreds of police and soldiers were trying to control swelling crowds Monday at a train station in southern China, where about 200,000 travelers were stranded by blizzards and ice storms that have created a transportation crisis during the nation's busiest travel time of the year.

Wow! I hope the airports are not that crowded when I go there in three weeks... :(

Sunrise

View of the San Bernardino mountains from John Wayne Airport at ~7:15am

American Airlines Screws Up Again

I'm beginning to think that I'm accumulating miles with the wrong airlines. I just got a call that my flight from SNA to SJC has been cancelled. The flight was scheduled to depart at 6:45am which is less than 7 hours from now. They automatically booked me on the next flight departing at 8:20am... the problem is that I'm meeting Leon at 8:30am in San Jose. After speaking to an agent, who was less than helpful, I was transferred to another agent, but ended up booking a seat on a Southwest Airlines flight. I really don't like the Southwest cattle call boarding "system" but at least they have a flight, for now. I was also counting on my AAdvantage Platinum thingy to get me through security faster but now I have to get in the long line with the unwashed masses... :)

I really think that American Airlines cancelled the flight because they did not fill enough seats. The 2nd agent told me that they got a call from a mechanic that there was something wrong with the plane and they could not find a replacement plane. It appears that they were able to move everyone to the later flight since there are still empty seats.

Out of my 5 flights with American Airlines so far:
- one was delayed by ~30 minutes
- one was delayed by ~1.5 hours
- one was delayed by ~3.5 hours
- one was cancelled less than 7 hours before departure

Maybe I should cancel my returning flight from San Jose with AA and come back on Southwest.

Prosecutors Name Broadcom Co-Founders

Yahoo! Finance

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- Federal prosecutors on Thursday identified Broadcom Corp. co-founders Henry T. Nicholas III and Henry Samueli as "unindicted potential co-conspirators" in an investigation into the illegal backdating of stock options.

The revelation came as former human resources executive Nancy Tullos pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice as part of the probe. Tullos struck a deal with prosecutors late last year and agreed to the plea in exchange for her cooperation in the case.

Hmm, I'm not sure what it means to be an "unindicted potential co-conspirator" and why they released their names. If you don't have enough to indict, then don't mention names. Maybe this was meant to put more pressure on Henry and Nick through bad PR.

Later, Nayebi wrote Tullos and Broadcom's shareholder services department, angry that his hire date was listed as May 28, 1999 -- making his stock options $7.37 more expensive per share than the May 25 hire date, the documents state.

Nayebi wrote that he and a high-level executive, who was revealed Thursday to be Nicholas, had an agreement that the options would be granted on May 25 with the lower exercise price, according to court documents.

Broadcom's shareholder services department wrote him back, saying they would not change his hire date, but Tullos intervened, the documents state.

Tullos later learned that Broadcom's options committee granted the engineer 120,000 options on the more advantageous date of May 25. The total difference in price for those shares between the two dates was more than $880,000.

This Nayebi guy is no longer at Broadcom (he was only here for 20 months) but let's do the math. At Broadcom, you vest 1/4 of your initial stock options after one year. Broadcom's stock price on 5/25/1999 was $88.37 ($95.75 on 5/28/99). Assuming he sold all vested option one year later on 5/28/2000, the stock price was $233. However, since there was a 2:1 stock split in February, his option price would be $44.185 and he would have 240,000 options. Multiplying the stock price gain by 60,000 options, it comes out to $11.3M, pre-tax. If he got lucky and sold at the high of ~$274 in August, then it would have been ~$17M.

Sigh... none of this really applies to me since I vested underwater and I couldn't exercise options until 3 years after I was hired.

Teriyaki Sauce

Younha & Epik High

비밀번호 486 - Younha
Love Love Love - Epik High

K-pop has the goofiest background dancers. Check out the guy at 3:08 to 3:15 in the video. There is also a lot of lip-syncing in K-pop performances but since they're singing each other's songs, it's all live (Younha forgets some lyrics at 3:20).

Younha is only 19 years old and she has already released 9 singles plus an album in Japan and 2 albums in Korea. She also sings in English... very talented.

Cooking Rice

I can't understand why our cafeteria can't cook steamed rice properly. It's not like they're cooking it over a stove top... they have a huge rice cooker! For some reason, the rice is often semi-cooked so it's hard and crunchy, not fluffy like steamed rice is supposed to be.

I used to cook rice for my old church in Lomita. We would use 4 extra large rice cookers to cook rice for 100+ people and it always came out perfect.

MacBook Air

Wow. I want one.



Counting my work computer and two old laptops sitting in my closet, I have six computers at home. I'll need to get rid of one (or more) before/if I get this.

Jazz Improvisation Class

I didn't know we were supposed to bring our musical instruments to the first class so the instructor made me sing. As part of the class today, he made everyone play (or sing in my case) "solos" using the blues scale in Bb concert. It's much easier playing than trying to sing and hit the right notes in the scale.

I still haven't decided which instrument to use. Bringing the trumpet would be the easiest but it's harder to play and you can't play chords. I would prefer to bring the bass but not sure what to do about amplification. All my equipment is heavy and bulky.

The Amazing Race

This used to be one of my favorite shows when I had cable TV. Shirley and I thought about applying to the show. I'm pretty good with maps and directions while she can probably get strangers to help us. Oh well...

I just happened to tune in while flipping channels and the "race" is in Taipei. There are only four teams left and they're supposed to:

- find a tea house and drink a cup of hot tea
- the directions at the bottom of the teacup says to find a clown at a night market
- either light 20 paper hot air balloons or walk up and down a path with sharp rocks barefoot
- go to the pit-stop at CKS Memorial Hall

The team in the lead is a father/daughter couple and they're Chinese! I think that's a huge advantage even though a lot of people in Taipei speak some English. Interestingly, the rock path for the challenge is in Youth Park. When my parents and I went to Taiwan in 2006, we stayed in an apartment across the street from Youth Park. I just heard someone tell one of the teams to take the MRT to Youth Park instead of a taxi since there's traffic. I think that team is screwed since there are no MRT stations close to Youth Park. When we stayed there, we had to take the bus or hail a taxi to get anywhere.

They also still referred to the pit stop location as CKS Memorial Hall instead of the new name, whatever it is. I guess the show was taped last year, before the name change.

Fly - Epik High

Epik High - One of the rappers, Tablo (the "thug" in the video), has a Bachelor's degree and Master's degree in English Literature/Creative Writing from Stanford. I wonder if that helped him write lyrics in Korean.

Are there that many Cadillacs in Korea or is it product placement?

Taiwanese = Chinese

My 2nd greatest pet peeve are people who—when asked if they're Chinese—say, "No, I'm Taiwanese." Unless you're from one of the native aboriginal groups, you're ancestors are probably Han Chinese from Guangdong or Fujian province. It's not the Taiwan part that bothers me (I was born there too), but the "not Chinese" comment.

This doesn't mean I support the One-China policy crap. Why would people choose Communism unless they're the ones in power? I actually think that Taiwan should be an independent country, similar to Singapore, which is ~75% Chinese.

BTW, Chen Shui-bian is an idiot.

President Chen Shui-bian said the re-dedicated monument symbolised "opening the door to democracy".

While a 10m-high (33ft) bronze statue of Chiang remains in place its guard of honour has been removed.

Records of victims and milestones on the road to democracy now ring the statue, along with about 300 kites.

"We have turned a hall that was originally a temple at which to worship an authoritarian dictator into a place for Taiwan people to reflect, study and explore the freedoms of democracy and human rights," Mr Chen told a crowd of invited guests.

That is just so wrong, like renaming CKS airport. CKS was no saint but if the Nationalist government did not retreat to Taiwan after WWII, I have no doubt that Taiwan would be a part of PRC today, and the "Taiwanese" people would have had to live through the Cultural Revolution and all that other crazy Mao sh*t.

JACOB & Company Royal Watch

I'm not a big watch guy but this seems kind of excessive:


71.36 ct. total diamond weight (all D - Flawless)

Maybe our CEO can afford it with his bonus...

CEO Bonus

Our CEO is going to get a $325,000 bonus for 2007 while the stock prices has dropped from $32.47 to $26.14 or -20% during the same year.

China blogger beaten to death

CNN Article

(CNN) -- Authorities have fired an official in central China after city inspectors beat to death a man who filmed their confrontation with villagers, China's Xinhua news agency reports.

The killing has sparked outrage in China, with thousands expressing outrage in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government.

The incident has also alarmed advocates of press freedom, who say municipal authorities had no right to attack a man for simply filming them.

Extreme Drunk Driving

The Smoking Gun Article

JANUARY 10--In what may be the most extreme drunk driving case ever, an Oregon woman was arrested last month with a .72 blood alcohol level--nine times the state's legal limit. Terri Comer, 42, was arrested after she was discovered unconscious in her car, which sheriff's deputies found running and in a snow bank on a highway in Klamath County at 11:30 AM on December 28.

Wow! 0.72 BAC. I tried some BAC calculators online and she would have needed to drink 10 martinis within an hour to get close to 0.72. Most sites also say that anything >0.40 BAC may cause death. I hope she gets help.

Chungking Mansions

I bought the DVD for Chungking Express recently. It is a 1994 HK movie directed by Wong Kar-wai and starts Tony Leung, Faye Wong, and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Last night, as I was ripping the DVD to my iPod, I found out that the "Chunking" part of the title referred to Chunking Mansions in Hong Kong. In the movie, they shot many scenes inside the building but I don't think there were any external shots. When I saw a picture of the building on Wikipedia (above), I thought it looked familiar. It turns out that the hotel we stayed at in 2005, Holiday Inn Golden MIle, was right next door to Chunking Mansions on Nathan Road. I remember as we were walking back to our hotel each night, there would be lots of people hanging around on the sidewalk outside the MTR station, our hotel, and especially Chunking Mansions; it was probably much cooler outside than inside the building. Since we were in Hong Kong, I expected to see mostly Chinese people but surprisingly, most of them looked like they were from SE Asia, India, or Africa, and there were some white people too. From the WIki article, there seems to be lots of cheap "hotel" rooms in Chunking Mansions. We paid ~HK$4,000 for 3 nights, or about US$160/night, at the Holiday Inn. If you look closely at the picture above (not sure when it was taken), you can get rooms from HK$100-300/night or something on the 3rd floor for HK$68/hour!


Building outside our window, opposite side from Chunking Mansions. Looks about the same. I've always wondered why they don't put in central A/C since the summers are crazy hot/humid in Hong Kong and everyone puts in a window/wall A/C unit anyway.

Oh, if anyone wants to see the movie, I can let you borrow the DVD or give you the 715MB AVI file. The only audio available is Mandarin Chinese but it has both traditional Chinese and English subtitles.

FLY Greener

Cathay Pacific just launched their FLY Greener project that offers passengers the option of buying carbon offsets for their flight. To find out how much, there is a carbon emissions calculator. The calculator does not have Chengdu as a destination so I put in Los Angeles to Hong Kong. For a round trip in economy class, ~2 tonnes of CO2 is emitted; since Chengdu is a bit farther than Hong Kong, the entire trip probably works out to ~2.2 tonnes. To offset this, I can either pay ~HKD150/~USD20 or use 4000 Asia Miles.

I'm all for saving energy but I'm skeptical about carbon offset schemes. I read another article that lots of carbon offset projects are either not implemented, not effective, or just scams... kind of like Al Gore's offsets for his huge house that ended up going to an investment fund that he runs.

Doraemon

A friend in China told me about TVKoo which allows you to watch "TV Channels" online. It's mostly Chinese language news and TV shows; I think it streams from Chengdu. One of the channels is showing cartoon episodes of Doraemon dubbed in Chinese (from CTS in Taiwan). It was originally a Japanese manga that ran from 1969 to 1996. I remember reading the Chinese translated version while growing up in Taiwan (a long time ago). I've been watching the channel on-and-off for about two weeks and I haven't seen any repeat episodes yet; each one is only 5 to 10 minutes. Evidently there are over a thousand episode, not sure if they're all digitized on some server in China.

My friend mostly watches a variety show from Taiwan and WWE. I had to explain that WWE wrestling is not a "real" sport but staged entertainment.

New Neighbors

Someone moved in downstairs today; the apartment was empty for about two months. It's the first night and they already have loud rock music blasting away. I can hear it from everywhere in my apartment. I guess I won't be shy about practicing my bass then.

NCAA Men's Basketball Rankings

I haven't been following UCLA basketball this season so I'm surprised that they're still ranked pretty high. I'm used to UCLA starting off well then choking mid-season in football and basketball. In fact, there are 5 Pac-10 teams ranked in the AP Top 25 right now (Dec 31).

Washington State #4
UCLA #5
Arizona #21
USC #22
Stanford #24

Not sure why USC is even ranked with a 9-3 record.

==========

Uh-oh, USC lost to Cal this week. So much for their top 25 ranking.

Oil Change + Stuff

I brought my 4Runner in for an oil change after nearly 10k miles. Even thought I got there right at 8am, the dealer (South Coast Toyota in Costa Mesa) told me it would be almost three hours. After about an hour, I get the dreaded "uh, there's more stuff to fix" phone call. The big problem is that a seal is busted on the rear axle and oil is leaking on to the rear brakes. Since a different Toyota dealer told me the same thing 10k miles ago, I figure I'd better fix it this time. In addition, the timing belt has never been changed and I don't think I've ever changed the transmission fluid. All together, the $30 oil changed is now a $900 repair. However, I have about 114k miles on the 4Runner and it still drives really well so I want to keep it for another 100k miles.

==========

Final damage = $1,301

Ease of Doing Business

I stumbled across this website from The World Bank Group that ranks 178 countries on how easy it is to do business there. Not surprisingly, the United States is ranked near the top at #3 and Canada is ranked #7. Out of Chinese-majority countries, Singapore is ranked #1, Hong Kong is #4, Taiwan is #50, and China is #83. To calculate the rankings, they factor in 10 subcategories... pretty interesting stuff.

Since I've been traveling to China and helping out with PMI, I was interested China's ranking. The worst areas were:

• Starting a Business: #135 (US = #4)
• Dealing with Licenses: #175 (US = #24)
• Paying Taxes: #168 (US = #76)

For Dealing with Licenses, the study compared building a warehouse in New York City vs. in Shanghai. In the US, there are 19 procedures which take 40 days to complete. In China, there are 37 procedures and it takes almost an entire year. For taxes, I think the entire country has to file monthly taxes on the 10th or the 11th. PMI's bookkeeper tells me that she has to work like crazy during the 1st week of each month just to get everything done.

I think the only thing in China's favor is the 1.3 billion people that need work, though I hear that Vietnam, Cambodia, and even India has cheaper labor. China's government needs to address all these impediments to doing business before they lose their competitive advantage from lower labor costs.

Thai Snacks

My coworker went back to Thailand during the holidays and brought some snacks back for me. Not sure what is in each one since all the writing is in Thai but they look good. :)



The dates on the package on the left look like expiration dates. I checked the year and it turns out that the "50" = 2550 = 2007, so I have a few month to eat it, whatever "it " is.

Sick

Sigh... I called in sick on the first work day of 2008. I think I got sick Sunday morning at church. The Campus Theater at Fullerton College was freezing that morning. I had a large jacket with me but I took it off since it looked weird playing bass with it on. During the worship set, it felt like they turned on the A/C since there was a cold wind blowing too.

Lost in Translation

During my trip to Toronto, we went to a Chinese restaurant to have dim sum for lunch. There was a menu/sign over a BBQ take-out window inside the restaurant:



My Chinese is not that great but I'm pretty sure the last item is translated wrong. I think it should say pig intestines instead of pork uteri. Not that either one is appealing to me...