Beijing Trip - Beijing Day 3

Today's schedule was a trip to the Forbidden City and Beihai Park. We started the morning with a short visit to DreamArts for 9:00am for worship and devotion. Afterward, the staff showed us the art center, which is on the 19th floor of a large building.


On the way to the art center, we passed by a sad looking building. The sign outside said "Beijing Electrical Engineering School."


View out the 19th floor art center towards the airport


Piano room (Casio digital keyboards)


Art room

We hung out at the art center until 11:30am waiting for a couple of us to be registered with the local police station. The staff took my passport to the PSB since we were not staying at a hotel. I'm supposed to do this each time I stay in Chengdu but have not bother to do so yet. After we were all properly registered, we went to lunch at the local McDonalds. I had a Big Mac combo for RMB21 or US$3, which is cheaper than the same combo back at home. It tasted exactly the same. Other stuff on the menu were China-only though: spicy McNuggets and cup of corn.


This McDonalds was open 24 hours. Most of us stood there looking at the menu (it's not that different than the US) while the cashiers kept asking us to order. They weren't rude but not exactly friendly either.


Lunch... no refill on drinks

After lunch, we took three taxis to Tiananmen Square. We tried to make sure each group had someone who spoke Chinese and had a cell phone. Out of the 10 of us, there are 5 Chinese people, one Indonesian Chinese, and 4 Koreans. It felt a bit like the Amazing Race. Two groups met up in Tiananmen Square while the last team was dropped off at the Tiananmen gate, below Mao's portrait.


On the way there, we passed by the new CCTV building.


Closer view. Much larger than I though it would be.


Some monument for heros of something in the middle of the square


There were some booths and flower displays in the square as part of the Paralympics


Security cameras everywhere

Part of our trip included a day trip in the Forbidden City. The entrance fee was RMB60 per person. It was a pretty hot and humid day yet there were still lots of people. I went through the Forbidden City during my last trip to Beijing. Since there were only two of us last time, we end up seeing a lot more. This time, we went around the edges of the area and took lots photos.


Mao's portrait on Tiananmen


Inside the Forbidden City (familiar from many movie scenes)


Modern Beijing skyline peeking over the walls of the Forbidden City


Emperor's throne (I think)


Back gate of the Forbidden City. The sign says Palace Museum, the same as the museum in Taipei. Not sure if the sign was there 10 years ago.

After spending several hours in the Forbidden City and coming out of the rear gate, we walked to Beihai Park. It was a pretty long walk and my leg/ankle was starting to hurt again. At the park, we did get to rest for awhile and debrief.


Some people playing Chinese chess outside the park entrance


Rental boats on Beihai (lake)


Lotus plants on the lake


Sun setting over rows of rental boats


The three girls on our NewSong NOC China team


On the way back to the guest house, our taxi drove along 4th Ring Road and past the "dragon" building near Olympic park.


Special menu at our favorite restaurant. The Engrish is awesome, "Does the pot to do the cauliflower" for RMB22.


Sept 14th is Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Cake Day when the moon is at the fullest.

Beijing Trip - Beijing Day 2

Since today was Sunday, we went to visit the Beijing International Christian Fellowship (BICF) this morning. They have a lot of different services in different languages but we went to the main service at 11:30am. We met up with some of the DreamArts people at the bus stop and took the bus to the service. The bus fare was RMB1 since I did not have a debit card. When I paid the fare collector (there's one at each door), she asked me where I was going. I pointed at the rest of our group and said, "I don't know... I'm with them."

Their service felt a bit like NewSong with a contemporary band and lots of A/V stuff. However, the congregation was a lot more mixed (age and ethnicity) and most of the people on stage were older. They have three locations in Beijing and we were at the largest site. I think this was the same international fellowship I attended 10 years ago when I in Beijing but the location is different and they've grown a bit. It is still restricted to ex-pats/foreigners only so we had to bring our passports (thought last time I just showed my CA driver's license).


Worship team. There were two keyboard players but no electric guitar. Also the lady on house left looked like she didn't want to be there and appeared not to be singing very much.


Woohoo, the bass player was an old Asian guy!


The auditorium was pretty large and it was mostly full. I heard the attendance was something like 2,000 people. Not sure if it was for just the one service or the entire morning.


Can't visit a church without checking out their sound board (Soundcraft)

After the service, we walked down the street to a "California-style" shopping center to meet up with some people and ended up having lunch in the food court. It was weird walking around the shopping center; it was newly built and we felt we were back in Irvine. The architectural style and layout was eerily similar to The Spectrum or the District back home.


We walked down Lucky Street on the way to lunch


Wait, where are we? Beijing or Irvine?


Starbucks and Coldstone... where is the Chinese food?


Southern California architecture and stores

The food court was new and had lots of food choices. You have to buy a debit card when you walk in and they refund you the balance when you leave. I ended up spending RMB20 on a plate of cashew chicken with rice and a can of soda.


Food court... very clean for China. Of course we were told no photos allowed.


OK, not everything was Irvine-like

After lunch, the group decided to take the subway and find some "authentic" Beijing areas to walk around. A few of us took the taxi to the nearest subway station (because of my bum leg) and waited for the rest to make the 15 minute walk.


Automated ticket machines. I ended up buying an electronic card (RMB20 deposit). Fares are RMB2 to any station except the Airport Express (RMB25).


Checking out the Paralympics while we were waiting


Even though it was a Sunday afternoon, the subway was packed with people. I hate to come back during workday rush hour, especially since the odd/even license restriction on cars is still in effect.

We took the subway to Qianmen (Front Gate) south of Tiananmen Square. I think the was the gate into Beijing when the city was still walled (Mao tore down the walls after the CCP came in power). We had to transfer subway lines twice and each time involved a lot of walking. We semi-dressed-up for church so most of us were in long pants. It was pretty hot and humid in the stations though the newer subway cars were air conditioned.


We're not in Irvine anymore. We walked for about 30 minutes down this lane to the antique/art dealer lane. My team member from CCCSB was almost mugged here 10 years ago during our teaching trip.


Doorway


Taking a break. It was a lot of walking any my left leg has gone numb on me.


JeepSpeed!


We took taxis (4 taxis since we had 13 people) to the north end of downtown to the back gate and a lake/park. There were people kicking a feathered thingy (kinda like a hacky sack). It didn't look easy but this old guy was crazy awesome. He was kicking it really hard with another guy and would rally forever.

We walked along the lake which was surrounded by upscale restaurants and bars. There were lots of foreign tourists and everything looked expensive. We walked to the other end of the lake and had dinner at a restaurant called nuage (Vietnamese). Since people at our table were not that hungry, we just ordered some drinks and appetizers. The food was pretty mediocre, portions were ridiculously small, and it still cost our group RMB800+. Not going back there again.


You can pay for boat rides on the lake. At one end of the lake, there was a narrow bridge. It seems that Chinese people drive boats like they drive cars. There was a huge jam and boats were bumping each other to get through since no one was yielding. Good thing there are not too many Chinese airline pilots.


Spring rolls and shrimp rolls. Tiny... and about US$1 each (each roll, not each dish)


Pineapple fried rice. There was enough for one spoonful each of us (six) at the table.

Our table was on the second floor. To get up there, you had to climb a set of rickety stairs. After walking all day, my leg and ankle were really sore. So after dinner, I took a long time walking down. There were a group of Americans at the bottom waiting for me to walk down. They make a comment in English about about me taking forever, most likely thinking that I was local. I wonder if they would have made the same comment back in the US. I thought it was pretty rude but I guess I do the same thing when I speak Mandarin to friends/family so other people around us can't understand.

Great Firewall of China, Olympics Version

Since the Olympics and the accompanying rush of foreign journalists, China has been letting up on the GFoC. Since arriving in Beijing, I've been able to read/post to my blogger.com blog and I can still read the Chinese version of BBC, which I heard has been blocked since the beginning. However, all is not free in China. I just tried to get a bible verse from the Bible Gateway, and got the familiar "webpage not available" error. I guess foreign new sources are okay for now but not religious websites; I don't think it even has Chinese versions of the bible.

Just to be sure, I tried looking up "tiananmen" in Google.com (not Google.cn) and the first link was a Wikipedia page in English. I clicked and it did come up, with the picture of the "Tank Man" and everything. However, when I tried to click on the "中文" link on the left for the Chinese version, it was blocked. The Chinese government is probably counting on the fact that the average Chinese citizen can't read English very well. Not sure what they will do when all that English education begins to pay off. It's probably a moot point anyway; they will go back and re-block everything once the Paralympics are done and all the foreign journalists go home.

Beijing Trip - Beijing Day 1

Finally arrived in Beijing at around 11:30am. The new terminal at Beijing Capital International Airport is huge. I thought the terminal building in Hong Kong was pretty big but this is supposed to be even bigger. Too bad I had to walk through both today.


Part of terminal 3 from the air


From the inside


There are a lot of baggage carousels. In the corner of the sign it says "... passengers are strictly prohibited from dropping off or carrying other people's stuff." I guess it's grammatically correct but it's still funny to see the word stuff on an official sign.

Since most NewSong people were in Beijing already, I took a cab to meet them at the Wangjing hospital. The taxi driver didn't know where it was exactly so he had to ask some pedestrians. During the ride, he kept asking me how foreigners thought about the Olympics. I just told him we all thought it was pretty good, not getting into details about all the stuff I blogged about. When we arrived, the fare was RMB54. I pulled out a hundred and immediately he started whining about not having change. The only other bills I had were a 50 and 2 ones. He ended up taking the RMB52 but was pretty rude about it. Did he really expect foreigners taking the taxi from the airport to have exact change?


A lot of taxis were late model Hyundai Elantras. I used to own one of these.

Anyway, we went to lunch at a local restaurant (RMB35 each), returned to the guesthouse, which turned out to be a three bedroom apartment, and I took a much needed nap. I did sleep a bit on the plane, courtesy of NyQuil, but was still pretty tired. At 6:30pm, after our last team member arrived, we went to a hot pot place for dinner. Unlike the places in Chengdu I went to, here you get your own pot to cook from. Most of us got the non-spicy broth but three people went with the spicy version.


Chinese meatballs! (RMB8 each)


Spicy


View out the window of our 19th floor apartment


Another view... not sure which way (towards or away) from downtown Beijing, but there are tall buildings every which way you look. The smokestack in the middle of the photo is probably a trash incinerator. I saw lots of those in Taiwan.

Beijing Trip - Hong Kong Airport

Just arrived in Hong Kong after a 14 hour flight. Unlike Leon's flight earlier this week, the interior was still old and it was a packed flight. Sometimes I need to go to the bathroom a lot on a trans-Pacific flight; however, this time I didn't have to go at all. I did need to get up and walk around a bit to keep my left leg from swelling too much.

Since the plane arrived so early, I was able to take a shower in the Business Class lounge. The layover this time is only 2 hours so I need to start walking to the gate soon. After all the Olympics frenzy, it's easy to forget that the Paralympics are still taking place. Our plane arrived at gate 1 and right when you walk out, there is a media credential center. I didn't know there were equestrian events at the Paralympics though.




I take this same shot every time I'm here... there are a lot of planes this early in the morning (6am).

Back to LAX, Cathay Pacific did not update the departure board in the lounge so I went to the gate at around 11:00pm for my 11:45pm flight. The departure gate is 102 which is way on the south end of the Bradley Terminal. They are still renovating the terminal so none of the people movers are working. It a LOOONG walk from the lounges to gate 102; it took me about 15 minutes. Imagine my dismay when I read on the departure board that boarding was delayed until 11:40pm. We ended up boarding at almost midnight and the plane did not take off until 12:45am, an hour late. Amazingly, we still got to Hong Kong on time. There must be a lot of slack in the schedule. Maybe they fly slower when there's more time available since Cathay flights seem to always arrive on time in Hong Kong.


Everybody sit down... it's not time yet.

The girl (Sandra Chen) at the business class check-in counter at LAX was pretty friendly this time. She tried to make small talk, and we ended up talking in Mandarin. Turns out she's from Hainan Island in China; I was just there this past February. I thought most of Cathay's counter people were from Hong Kong so they can speak Cantonese. Maybe I should have asked for her phone number or something.

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I just got an email with links to photos (here and here) taken by other NewSong people that are already in Beijing.

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I also tried calling Leon. He was checking in for his flight from Chengdu to Hong Kong at 8am. I think our flight leaves at the same time though my flight is from Hong Kong to Beijing.

Beijing Trip - LAX

I'm at the oneWorld lounge at LAX again, waiting for my flight to Hong Kong. I was here when it first opened and it was pretty deserted. Today, the place is packed with people, almost standing room only. They do have more food though, except my stomach is feeling funny and I don't want to use the airplane toilet for 14 hours. I also see people walking around with flashing pagers; not sure if it's for letting you know your noodles are ready or something else.

My flight arrives in Hong Kong Saturday morning and I have a 2 hour layover before my flight to Beijing. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go when I get there. Hopefully can reach the rest of the NewSong people then explain it to a taxi driver.

Wife number 25 brings contentment

BBC Article

After 24 failed marriages, a 49-year-old porter in eastern Nepal says that he has finally found happiness in his latest union.

The simple reason is that the landless labourer's latest marriage seems to be working out, unlike the previous ones.

Ramchandra Katuwal, of Khandbari municipality in Sankhuwasava, and his wife recently celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary.

He say that his marriage to Sharada has been a "journey of happiness".

Poor guy. I hope that his ex-wives don't automatically get 50%... that would mean that he only has (1/2)^24 of his original wealth left.

So despite the repeated failures, why did he decide to marry again?

"I wanted to have a wife, because a house is not house without a wife," he said.

Physical Therapy

Today was my third physical therapy session for my left calf injury. I spent most of an hour trying to bunch up a towel on the floor with my toes; it's hard work when you can't really move your big toe.

I have one more session before I fly to Beijing. I hope it helps enough so I can climb the Great Wall in a week.

Fantasy Football, A New Season

This year, I'm only in two fantasy football leagues. The $100 keeper league fell apart as two people are no longer with Broadcom and no one wanted to step up and be commissioner this year. Too bad... I would have got to keep Tom Brady from last year. Out of the two leagues, I'm 1-1 for week 1. More importantly, I won in the league that has money on the line. :)

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Oh no! I just read that Tom Brady has a torn ACL. I got so many points off him last year that I thought about picking him up again. Thankfully, I got lousy draft positions in both leagues and decided to auto-draft. The computer drafted Frank Gore in round 1 then Reggie Wayne in round 2; the two of them accounted for 46% of my points in week 1.

Sucking The Public Teat

One of the stories in Out of Mao's Shadow was a libel case brought against two authors by a public official. The book in question is 中国农民调查 (An Investigation of China's Peasantry) and there is an abridged English version titled Will the Boat Sink the Water? The government official, Zhang Xide, claimed the book told lies about him and that he was a perfect public servant. During the trial, the defense turned the libel trial into a referendum on abuse of peasants by local party officials as many peasants testified to the violence they suffered at the hands of Zhang. To rule for the plaintiff would mean a tacit approval of violence against peasants to collect illegal taxes; a ruling for the defendant would embarrass the government since they promoted Zhang. As usual, the court did nothing. The trial was in 2005 and there is still no verdict.

Anyway, on page 174 in the book, I found this data about the ratio of government officials vs. commoners:

Western Han Period (206 B.C. - A.D. 8): 1 to 7,945
Eastern Han Period (A.D. 25-220): 1 to 7,464
Tang Dynasty (618-907): 1 to 2,927
Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368): 1 to 2,613
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644): 1 to 2,299
Qin Dynasty (1644-1911): 1 to 299
Modern Era (1911 - present): 1 to 67

The numbers above are from a 1987 report on the third national census; by 1998, the ratio has risen to 1:40. I'm not sure how that compares with the US or Canada but it seems kind of high. My sense is that nepotism is more common in China than in Western societies. Some of my relatives semi-expected me to get them jobs at Broadcom after I was hired.

Even worse, not only do you need to take care of your friends and family, you also need to take care of your mistress and her friends and family. The ex-roommate of my friend in Chengdu just started work at a cushy government job that pays pretty well (~RMB4000/month), courtesy of her "boyfriend." She is only 21, still in college, has no work experience, and this is the third married guy she's sleeping with (sometimes concurrently) during the past year for money and other benefits. In addition to the job, this guy is paying for her apartment, buys her expensive electronics and LV purses, and is going to buy her a car. A car is crazy expensive in China. Ironically, even though he wants to "marry" her, the girl thinks he's ugly and gross.

Sorry, strayed off-topic a bit. I found this report on the U.S. Census Bureau website. For 2002, the total number of public employees (FTE) in all levels of government was ~18M. Also from the Census Bureau, the population of the U.S. in 2002 was ~288M or a ratio of 1:16. Wow! This number includes public school teachers in the U.S. which (I think) is left out of the figures for China. Still, maybe Leon is right: a communist government is more efficient than a democracy. Perhaps we should nominate an emperor; a monarchy seems to be the most efficient form of government. :)

I Hated Marketing Class

Yahoo! News

Microsoft kicks off $300 million Windows marketing push

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) kicked off a $300 million marketing campaign on Thursday, aimed at improving the image of its Windows Vista operating system and strike back at Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) "Mac vs. PC" ads.

The first commercial of Microsoft's new marketing push, being created by advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, aired on Thursday featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld and company co-founder Bill Gates at a shoe store.

Despite selling more than 180 million licenses since its launch in 2007, Windows Vista continues to suffer from the perception that the operating system is clunky and hard to use compared with Apple computers.

Aiya, it's not perception. I have a Mac mini sitting next to a Sony VAIO running Vista Home Premium, Service Pack 1, and Vista is harder to use and maintain. I'm not even running the latest Mac OS (Leopard? Tiger? Panther?). The only reason I bought the VAIO was for games; the gaming selection is crap for Macs. In hindsight, I should have bought a PowerBook and either a PS3 or XBox 360 for games. I would have to spend a lot more money though...

I have a suggestion. Microsoft should take the $300M and hire more software engineers (they're only $250k/year fully burdened) to write a better OS. At least spend some money and come up with better error messages. Even better, give me $1M and I won't complain about Vista on my blog anymore.

Google Chrome

Our CEO sent out a note about Google's new browser, Chrome, and how it's more like an operating system than just a browser. The implication is that since Chrome is open source and portable and can run applications, it may become a threat to Intel's monopoly on x86 compatible hardware and Microsoft's monopoly on OS. Here is a tutorial about Chrome from Google.

I've installed Chrome on 4 computers, mostly running XP but also my Sony VAIO running Vista. It is much faster than IE and Firefox (and Safari!) but we'll see if it stays fast with all the memory management and protected address space stuff mentioned in the tutorial. I know it's only a beta version but one problem I noticed is that it doesn't render Blogger pages properly, even though Google owns Blogger.

Currently reading...

Out of Mao's Shadow, by Philip P. Pan

Review from The Washington Post (Andrew J. Nathan)

Before she was executed in a Chinese prison in 1968, a courageous political dissident named Lin Zhao gave a tiny sailboat, folded from a cellophane candy wrapper, to her friend Zhang Yuanxun. He kept it for more than 30 years, treating it as a secret treasure. Then he passed it to Hu Jie, a documentary filmmaker, who accepted the fragile origami boat and the implicit burden it carried: the duty to preserve Lin Zhao's memory. This he did obsessively, working without pay for five years to track down people who knew her and to recover her prison writings, scratched in her own blood after the authorities had denied her ink.

Philip P. Pan tells the story of the origami sailboat in Out of Mao's Shadow, his entrancing book about the struggle "for the soul of the world's most populous nation" between a "venal party-state" and "a ragtag collection of lawyers, journalists, entrepreneurs, artists, hustlers, and dreamers striving to build a more tolerant, open, and democratic China." He uses the sailboat, in a quietly moving way, to help readers feel the enduring chill of Mao's ideological twists and turns, particularly the Hundred Flowers Movement of 1957, when intellectuals such as Lin Zhao were encouraged to criticize the Communist Party, then cruelly punished for doing so.

Part of the book's poignancy is that Pan has joined the chain of transmission: He earned the documentary filmmaker's trust and promised to tell his story, just as the filmmaker had earned Zhang Yuanxun's trust and promised to preserve Lin Zhao's legacy of pain and endurance. Out of Mao's Shadow is a work of reporting, but it is also a work of conscience.

I received the book yesterday from Amazon.com and I've read 1/2 of it already. The book's stories validates my feeling that the CCP are pretty much in power for themselves. Very few individuals in the government bureaucracy actually cares about the people, of course this is probably true in all governments, but under a one-party system where there is no accountability, crazy shit like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution can happen. Also by burying the mistakes of the past, we can pretty much guarantee that stuff like this will happen again in China. I can't see a peaceful way out of this; like all past dynasties in China, it appears that violence is the only way to end communist rule... sad.

BTW, the documentary about Lin Zhao by Hu Jie (mention above in the WaPo review) just had it's first US screening on August 29th in San Francisco. I hope they bring the film to LA as well.

College Rankings

Forbes.com came out with it's first ever college rankings list. Their criteria seem pretty convoluted.

CCAP's methodology attempts to put itself in a student's shoes. How good will my professors be? Will the school help me achieve notable career success? If I have to borrow to pay for college, how deeply will I go into debt? What are the chances I will graduate in four years? Are students and faculty recognized nationally, or even globally?

To answer these questions, the staff at CCAP (mostly college students themselves) gathered data from a variety of sources. They based 25% of the rankings on 7 million student evaluations of courses and instructors, as recorded on the Web site RateMyProfessors.com. Another 25% depends on how many of the school's alumni, adjusted for enrollment, are listed among the notable people in Who's Who in America.

The other half of the ranking is based equally on three factors: the average amount of student debt at graduation held by those who borrowed; the percentage of students graduating in four years; and the number of students or faculty, adjusted for enrollment, who have won nationally competitive awards like Rhodes Scholarships or Nobel Prizes.
(Click here for complete methodology.)

Here is their list of the top 25 schools:
1 Princeton University
2 California Institute of Technology
3 Harvard University
4 Swarthmore College
5 Williams College
6 United States Military Academy
7 Amherst College
8 Wellesley College
9 Yale University
10 Columbia University
11 Northwestern University
12 Wabash College
13 Centre College
14 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
15 Bowdoin College
16 United States Air Force Academy
17 Middlebury College
18 University of Chicago
19 Smith College
20 Pomona College
21 Wesleyan University
22 Haverford College
23 Stanford University
24 Hamilton College
25 Sarah Lawrence College

Hmm, sometimes when you do an analysis, you need to look at your results to see if it makes sense. From their list, I believe their methodology is flawed. Wabash College? Centre College? Bowdoin College? Haverford College? All better schools than Stanford University according to Forbes.com.

How did my schools fare in their rankings? UCLA came in at #111 and USC at #300! I'd better not Broadcom know that I got my MBA at the #300 school in the country.

Vista Can't Print

Microsoft Windows Vista just crapped out on me. I tried to print a PDF document to my networked HP 1022n laser printer and now all my installed printers are gone. If I try to add a new printer, I get one of two mysterious error messages.

Operation could not be completed (error 0x000006ba). The local print spooler service is not running. Please restart the spooler or restart the machine.

Or even better:

Spooler SubSystem App stopped working and was closed

A problem caused the application to stop working correctly. Windows will notify you if a solution is available.

Of course, Windows hasn't notified me of anything yet. I tried looking up the problem at Microsoft's website but I only found error 0x000006be (seriously). I also tried support chat with Sony but all they did was ask me to reinstall the HP printer driver. Did I mention all the other 4 printer drivers are gone too?

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I tried reinstalling the driver in USB mode but it won't work. The computer found the printer and installed the correct driver; it even brought back all the other 4 lost drivers back to life. However, when I click on any one of them, I get the same mystery error messages. I went into Administrative Tools/Services and the Print Spooler Service is still stopped. Starting it up just triggers more error dialog boxes. Never had this problem with Windows XP. Of course, the printer prints fine over the network on with my Mac.

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Hey, it looks like I found a fix at some random forum on the Internet. Evidently, all you need to do is to go into C;/Windows/System32/Spool/PRINTERS, delete all the files inside, and restart. I think the spooled files were crashing the print spooler. Now all I have to do is reinstall Adobe Acrobat Reader; I uninstalled it thinking it may have caused the problem (found this tidbit at another random forum on the Internet). Glad that only took two hours to clear up; Windows Vista definitely has a higher cost of ownership over the Mac. :(

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Interesting... I remembered uninstalling Acrobat Reader 8.1.2. On the reinstall, it's installing Acrobat Reader 9. Wonder if this will cause new problems.