Category: General

It’s Monday and the hotel shows its appreciation for the long-term guests (me) on Mondays by leaving some treats in the room.  Alas, I have to check out in the morning since I will go up to Beijing for a day or two to attend a presentation.

This is the street corner in Da Peng just outside the gate to the nuclear power plant .. busy with pedestrians, traffic and an impromptu street market of sorts. We had a little accident on Wednesday morning with the bus. A car driver tried to overtake us from behind on the inside.  Trouble was, the bus was already starting to turn its nose into the open lane, and there was also oncoming traffic. So the car driver could not get out of the way or stop in time.  In the end there was just a bad scape on the big fender of the bus but a big dent in the rear door of the car.

Happy Fourth of July!  Here is the famous preamble which includes the ideas and ideals that were principles of the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

I love the colors on my coaster for the green tea that we were served in a meeting I attended on Monday.  The color of the yellow ring is a little washed out.   The bird symbol in the center is a crane, probably a red-crowned crane.  We may have some here in the green areas around the nuclear power station, but I have not seen any.

The US Supreme Court on Thursday upheld President Obama’s near-universal healthcare law.   Below is Republican Party nominee Mitt Romney on Japan’s NHK TV on Thursday vowing nonetheless to repeal it ‘on Day 1 when I am in office’.  And so all the political pundits look forward to him explaining why he is denouncing the federal law – now upheld by the Supreme Court – that is almost identical to the one he championed as governor of the state of Massachusetts.  The US Supreme Court held that per the Constitution the US government can tax its citizens, also as a penalty for not signing up for health insurance.  Meanwhile, on Tuesday in Japan, Prime Minister Noda pushed through legislation (that still has to be ratified) to double the national sales tax from 5% to 10% starting in 2015 in an effort to reduce Japan’s national debt.

P.S. Tropical storm Doksuri tracked further south of Hong Kong and only brought wind gusts and some rain to us here in Dameisha

It’s very hot out here .. it’s more the steamy humidity that is a problem.  There is also the tropical storm named Doksuri approaching (wind and lots of rain), and we’re on a T1 alert. The storm is projected to make landfall in the Hong Kong area early Saturday morning.  The symbols and the map are from the Hong Kong Observatory website.

Here is an unusual license plate I spotted at a traffic stop, so let me decode it for you.  I think it says ‘O-o-oh! Western Province’.  The Oh as in O Canada, the national anthem, and Western Province is probably a reference to the local provincial rugby team with their venerable striped jerseys.   The Western Province rugby team is the arch enemy of the Blue Bulls, the team from up north in the Pretoria area.

I like to look for t-shirts that shows the city or country that I find myself in. This one is by Quiksilver with their wave-and-mountain logo (depicting a tsumani?). And it does explain that the big SA stands for ‘South Africa’. The small print is of South African beaches and surf terms. The most famous South African surf beach – Jeffreys Bay – is missing, though.

par·a·sol [par-uh-sawl, -sol] noun
a lightweight umbrella used, especially by women, as a sunshade.

Parasols are not used much in the USA (why is that?), but they seem to be quite popular in China – especially when the sun is scorching down.   This is not far from where I work.  It is lunch time and a good thing that the cafeteria is close by !

I had to find out what the deal with this bird is : several nights now I have seen reports about it on the Japanese TV channel NHK.   One evening there was a news clip showing a nest with a new chick in it.  The researchers watching through a camera with a telephoto lens were beside themselves. Well, it is a toki or a Japanese crested ibis. The birds hover on the brink of extinction.   They used to be found in pine forests and wetlands all over Japan, China and also in South Korea.  A small population does remain in Shaanxi Province in China – but in Japan there are only 5 breeding pairs, on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture.  They are all fitted with GPS devices, designated as National Natural Treasures.  I see some websites show its scientific name as Rhacophorus schlegelii – but Wikipedia says it is Nipponia nippon.  It does not get any more Japanese than that !

I checked into the news reports about Apple’s annual world-wide developers conference in San Francisco (WWDC 2012) and found this beautiful conference logo. (There is a new operating system for the iPhone and iPad on the way, new Macbook computers but no iPhone 5 announcement.  That’s fine with me.  I’m not itching to get a new phone!).

There was lots of water at the 2012 French Open Mens Final between Nadal and Djokovic : not Perrier mineral water, but rain.   So when the match was suspended (again) for the day, Nadal was up two sets to one, and Djokovic up 2-1 in the 4th set.  Play is to resume at 1pm local time on Monday.

Poland and the Ukraine are co-hosting the Euro Cup 2012 soccer event that started Friday night.   CCTV1 transmitted the Netherlands-Denmark match live last night.  I watched until the Danes got the first goal in the 24th minute and then went to sleep .. turned out that was the only goal.  ‘Slordig Oranje hard onderuit’ (Sloppy Orange team fell down hard’) says Dutch paper Volkskrant on-line.   But they point out that the Orange team lost their first-round match in 1988 against Russia and then went on the win the Cup.   So all is not lost for the Dutch?

Friday night found us in the Damiesha Sheraton’s lobby again for a beer and a burger (and other food).  One of us ordered the burger without mayonnaise. ‘Mei you mayo’ I chimed in, and we all laughed at the instant double entendre (of sorts).  Méi ​yǒu (没有) means have not / has not / does not exist / to not have / to not be. Here is another example. Some time ago I called the front desk after I had settled in my room.  There was no internet connection cable in the wall (there usually is). Up to my room comes a guy, takes a look under the desk, looks up at me – somewhat surprised – and says ‘méi​ yǒu’.  Yes, yes, ‘méi​ yǒu cable’ I said, grinning. (The cable was actually tucked away in another place in the desk).  And what is mayonnaise in Chinese?  Dàn​ huáng​ jiàng, literally ‘yellow egg jam’.

The National Higher Education Entrance Examination here in China, or commonly known as Gaokao, is an academic examination held annually for two to three days across the country.  There is a lot of pressure : almost 9.15 million students will take the exam to vie for 6.85 million vacancies in the country’s universities and colleges.  There are about 310,000 exam rooms at 7,300 venues nationwide.   All of this sounds very similar to my situation in high school in South Africa with the Matriculation Exam I did !  (Once upon a time, a long time ago).

In the USA taking the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is an important part of the admissions process – but just one of many criteria used by colleges and universities to make admissions decisions.  The SAT test consists of three parts- Critical Reading, Mathematics and Writing. The scores from each section can range from 200 to 800, so the best possible total score is 2400.  The average score is about 1500, though.

I love the beautiful design on this dinner plate.  It’s from a grocery store right here in Dameisha.

The Telegraph has compiled a cool interactive timeline of the 60 years since Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, here  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/the_queens_diamond_jubilee/9305109/Queens-Diamond-Jubilee-timeline-60-years-of-history-in-the-UK-the-world-and-the-Royal-Family.html

The decade when I made my entrance into the world shows a Pan Am 747.  I see decimalization of the currency in the UK occurred in 1971.  The penny farthing (¼ penny) bit the dust in this conversion, and the Pound became the Pound Sterling.  In South Africa a decimal currency was actually introduced 10 years earlier almost to the day, on 14 February 1961.  TWO South African Rand replaced one South African pound.

Our bus is approaching the toll booth for the Yanba Expressway on the way back to Dameisha from the offices at Daya Bay.   收费 ‘Pay toll’ says the big yellow lettering on the road surface.  (As far as I can tell the car is a Ford Focus ‘Classic’ .. an older model of the Ford Focus that is sold new in China. Ford announced in April that it would build a $760 million assembly plant in Hangzhou, two weeks after announcing another $600 million plan to expand an assembly plant in Chongqing, and less than six weeks after completing a third assembly plant in Chongqing.   But they are a little late to the party enjoyed by General Motors, since car sales in China increased only by about 2.5% last year after a decade of 10%+ growth every year.)