Archive for October, 2009

The plan

Why I has been away for such a long time - I had a tough week before finish the semester, and ... I was just too lazy and really have nothing to say here.  Now I'm back, but I still don't expect to update here as usual as before. As you may know, I'm about to travel to China for three months. Mainly to visit relatives and my extend family, but with a little bit of spare time, I'll also be visiting a few cities in eastern part of  China  like Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing as a tourist.

But before I go, there are still exams I have to do.

So, the plan is I'll be leaving on 20th November. Before I get home I'll be having a stopover in Shanghai for about 2 weeks. During the period I'll be visiting cities around the area, most likely Hangzhou and Nanjing. Schedule for Beijing is still not yet decided, I'm trying to arrange a trip to North Korea, if it is possible to get into Kim's Realm , Beijing would be part of that trip.

There are several other places like Xinjiang and Taiwan on my list but not planned yet. I highly doubt I'll be able to go as my wallet would unlikely to allow me to do so.

I'll be on my own for most of the time in China, so anyone who would like to buy me a lunch or dinner  will be  much appreciated :)

New driving law

Just a reminder that starting from November, driving while using the cellphone by hand is not allowed anymore. That includes texting and talking on the phone.

Base my experience I support this measure. As a still relatively  inexperienced and cautious driver I have never attempted to do either. I don't know how others managed to do two things at the same time, but for me, using cellphone removes my eyes from the road, it's no different than driving blindly. No need to prove how dangerous that is.

However, cellphone really is just part of the problem.  People do and can be distracted by all sorts of things while driving. But most importantly, I usually find that it's where your mind is, rather than where your eyes are that makes the difference. I have found  little evidence shows that such law change can reduce the road toll, but plenty on how bad mood can influence driving performance. Talking over the cellphone, although using the hands-free set, can still take people's mind off the road.

The only solution  that can genuinely reduce the road toll is to ban cellphone use altogether, but no government at its right mind would adapt this measure as it would likely to be very unpopular among voters.

Rebiya in NZ

I went to Rebiya Kadeer's speech in Auckland.  Her visit was organised by the Green Party and Amnsty Internaional in NZ, two well-kown "anti-chinese" organisation among politically minded Chinese students here. However, I was there to hear another side of the story, not to protest, and I did gain some knowledge on her story and position on a range of issues.

But I was more interested in the role of Chinese government in regard to leaders like the Dalai Lama and Mrs Kadeer.  Kadeer was not a well-known figure before the unrest in Xinjiang in July this year, before that if you refer that name to a Chinese, he or she is more likely to have very little or no knowledge on who she is.

People sometimes joke that Chinese government regularly award two awards that are even more important than the Nobel, namely GFW's Web Choice award and Chinese Government Recommended Award - if you know a website is blocked by the Great Firewall of China, you know it's a website worth to visit. Similarily, if Chinese government blames someone, you know he or she is worth to listen to.

A state like China needs enemies - if you go back in history, at any point of time, Chinese government always propoganda at least one enemy of the state to its people - the Dalai Lama, oversea chinese democracy movement, "oversea anti-chinese forces" and so on.  This is a bit like Bush administration, it's the only way to divert people's attention.

However, for the speech itself, I was in fact quite disappointed. It was a good introduction for her positions on some issues, but nothing else was there but more of a blame game.  I still think that her popularity is largely due to the help for the communist government, in real life, she's no way near the Dalai Lama.

English to Hong Kong

Finance Minister Bill English will leave the country to visit investors in Hong Kong and London. According to the beehive press release, he will be trying to convince local business people that NZ economy is sound, and an investment in NZ is well worth it. In next four years NZ government needs to borrow about $40 billion and that money has to come from somewhere.

On a completely irrelevant sidenote, Mr English's domestic credit rating has sunk into a new low after the his housing allowance saga.