Category: General

Below is the view early Sunday morning from the hotel balcony.  That is the Hong Kong territories in the distance.   It was 16 C (61 F) but felt quite a bit colder because there was a strong wind.    I looked for lunar eclipse pictures from Saturday night and liked the one of a goddess playing with the moon on-line.  I’m not sure where this was taken.   (A total eclipse was visible from China, but I was otherwise occupied with the Saturday night barbecue!).

I snapped these pictures from the bus as we drove by a government building in the town of Da Peng on the way to work.  What’s going on?   The Chinese firecrackers and ‘dragons’ are part of  a rousing send-off for an enlistee into the People’s Liberation Army (the PLA , not to be confused with the Palestine Liberation Army).

From Wikipedia : The People’s Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People’s Republic of China.  It is the world’s largest military force, with approximately 3 million members.   It has the world’s largest (active) standing army, with approximately 2.25 million members.
Military service is compulsory, in theory, for all men who attain the age of 18; women may register for duty in the medical, veterinary, and other technical services at ages as young as 14.   A draft in China has never been enforced due to large numbers of volunteers from China’s huge population.   The star below is the emblem of the People’s Liberation Army.

Here is the local newspaper delivery arriving this morning as we waited for the bus to pull up outside the hotel, probably the Shenzhen Daily News.    I am sure turning a corner with those stashes of newspaper attached to your bike, takes some getting used to !

 

This sign is from our lunch cafeteria here at work.  There are two service windows that accept used lunch trays and cutlery, and this one is the put place for knives and forks (I love the direct translation!).    Since I am part of the majority of lunch-goers that use chop sticks and soup bowl spoons to eat their lunch,  my ‘put place’ is on the opposite side of the room.

These little mandarins make one feel like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.   The peel comes off easily and then you pop the whole mandarin in your mouth.   Most of them don’t even have seeds* to deal with.   Very nice!

*when eating an orange or a mandarin outside of the USA (in say, South Africa or Great Britain), say pips and not seeds.   Just for fun I looked up ‘pip’ on dictionary.com and found another meaning for it.  Check out the explanation for ‘last night’s party was a pip’ !

pip
noun
1.  a small seed, especially of a fleshy fruit, as an apple or orange.
2.  Also called pipperoo.  Informal .  Someone or something wonderful: Last night’s party was a pip.
Origin:  1590–1600; 1910–15 for def. 2;  short for pippin

This white Audi R8 V10 Coupé is parked in the hotel lobby for a promotion. Asked what it costs, the attendant said ‘more than ¥2m (US$314,000)’.    I think it can be bought for under $200k in the USA, though.

(The other pictures are from searches I did on-line).  NHK World TV from Japan reported here that Chugoku Expressway in Shimonoseki, Japan was the scene of a very costly crash on Sunday which reduced eight Ferraris, one Lamborghini and three Mercedes-Benz to wrecks (no serious injuries to the 10 drivers and passengers, though).     It was a gathering of luxury sportscar owners going for a Sunday afternoon drive toward Hiroshima.    The front driver struck a median while crossing lanes and set off a chain reaction of crashes which was all over in less than a minute.    Eyewitnesses say the cars were going at a fair clip, some 140-160 km/h (up to 100mph), and driving too close together.   It is not clear if the little Prius was caught up in the tangle as well, or if it was parked on the side of the road.

 

.. are the only two things to be sure of in life, right?  Yes, but how much taxes will we pay in 2012?  Seems the Republicans are in a corner, at first opposing the proposed extension of 2011’s Payroll Tax Cut through 2012, and now supporting it – but demanding that federal employees’ pay be frozen for three more years.   This is news from Wed Nov 30 .. the Democrats’ $265 billion proposal would be offset by a permanent 3.25 percent surtax on annual income exceeding $1 million.     So we should see by year-end where we end up, but most economists agree it makes sense to extend the 2011 Payroll Tax Cut.  It amounts to some $1,000 on a $50,000 individual salary, and businesses big and small, benefit from it as well.

(From Thursday : yes, it is every morsel as scrumptious  as it looks.  It’s Bryan’s home-made apple pie and home-made pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream.  This was after Bill and Dave’s wonderful turkey dinner with cranberry sauce and stuffing and green bean casserole .. ! ).

So what is black about this Friday following Thanksgiving in the USA?  The term ‘Black Friday’ originated in Philadelphia around 1966 (source: Wikipedia).   Back then it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving.   Then later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that “Black Friday” indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are “in the black” .. since many people have a day off work or take a vacation day and start their Christmas shopping.   Stores used to open at 6 am on Friday, which in recent years crept up to 4 am.   Then this year several large chains opened at midnight for the first time.   It should be noted that Walmart opened at 10pm on Thursday and Sears was open all Thanksgiving day  (gasp!).

But enough of that.  I for one certainly did NOT go shopping.   I did find myself  back at Seattle-Tacoma airport, making my way to my brother and his family in San Diego.  It was not busy at the airport and it’s 2 hours on Alaska Airlines down to California.  And it doesn’t rain all the time in winter in Seattle, see?   It was not even a gray Friday, but a beautiful blue-sky one.

The paper cup is from my visit to Dameisha’s KFC on Sunday night .. which reminded me of the NBA lockout.  Monday was ‘Day 143’, noted on the USA Today’s sports page.  It has to be bad press for the owners and players to publicly squabble over the billions of dollars the franchise earns every year.  I’m not a big team sports fan and I cannot say I am crushed by the cancelled games so far.  Wikipedia gives a great up-to-date summary (look up ‘2011 NBA lockout’).

That’s Dameisha beach reflected in my hotel room balcony door.   The South China Morning Post I got in Hong Kong reports that home prices in mainland China have FINALLY started to drop.   The percentage drops from Sept are mostly small but 4.9% in Wenzhou – so experts worry that the downward slide may turn into a panic.    In the meantime the local bank’s ATM advertises Mortgage Loans with American symbolism (see picture, is that a good thing?).  The zeroes with the check marks do NOT mean ‘no down payment’  .. it’s got something to do with ‘no additional secure assets needed’.   First-time buyers typically have to make a minimum down-payment of 30%, and those buying a second property must find a 60% deposit as well as paying higher interest rates.

Quick !  Which northern African country is this?  And what’s happening on Nov 25th? (Yes, you are disqualified from playing if you can read Japanese).

It is .. Morocco モロッコ with its capital Rabatラバト and King Muhammed announced that it is moving up its general elections by 10 months to November 25th (to head off any Arab Spring-like uprising).   I love the graphics that NHK World television channel uses for its news, but most of the time it’s a visual puzzle that I have to solve.   It took me awhile to get that it’s Morocco.   The Strait Of Gibraltar separating Europe and Africa by only 7 miles was probably the best clue as to which country it is. 

Our bus is taking a new route that takes us through the little town of Da Peng close to where we work.    This park and plaza looks like it also has a town hall of sorts.   There are also early morning tai chi practitioners to be seen through the trees on the paved square in front of the building.   I need some tai chi! – gentle movements to remove  stress from my muscles and bones!

 

11 is a lucky number for Chinese (and Japanese) people.  So if the date 11.11.11 is lucky then the time 11:11:11 on that day must be the pinnacle of luck ! (But how fleeting it is, lasting for all of one second).  There was a wedding on at the Sheraton Hotel where we had our Friday night hamburgers and beers.  Hey, I am sure there were many weddings in China on Friday! The rest of the pictures are from NHK (Japan) television and speak for themselves.    P.S.  Perhaps the girls with the 1’s were inspired by those in Robert Palmer’s 1989 hit single (and music video) ‘Simply Irresistible’?

It’s amazing what humans are willing to do to for a buzz.  I mean, we all know about drinking coffee and booze, smoking pot and bungee-jumping off bridges – but how abut licking a toad?   It’s not for nothing that the princess has to kiss the frog in the fairytale and then get rewarded with a handsome prince.  And it would make for nice Fear Factor material (the creepy NBC TV show where contestants eat worms and bugs).    Any normal person has some measure of ranidaphobia (from ranidae, the most widespread family of frogs), but a colleague this morning recalled how the drug test program at a nuclear power station found traces of a strange drug in a co-worker’s blood.    Turned out he was a frog-licker.   A what?! I said.    [What follows is from Yahoo Answers].  Yes – the slimy stuff that ‘gets you off’ is actually venom that the frog secretes when it gets agitated – such as when a predator is about to gobble it down.  The toxic stuff is bufotenine and the hallucinogen 5-MeO-DMT.  The only toad known to contain 5-MeO-DMT in its venom is Bufo Alvaris, also called the Colorado River Toad (picture).    Very nice to know – but I will leave the froggy be and get my highs in other ways !

These examples of text message ‘games’ adults play are from Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.    The Very Busy Bee sends text messages without reason (to look important and popular when out with friends), the Mystery Maker sends blank messages to see how people will respond, the Clueless Replier pretends not to recognize the sender as to appear cool and aloof, the Waiting Gamer waits hours or days to reply and the Constant Chirper has other text him (her?) when on a date so that his phone seems to be constantly buzzing !  So the technology has changed, but the game playing has been around a long time, as that 1968 song from Joe South called ‘The Games People Play’, attests :

Na na na Na na na Na na / Talkin’bout you and me, yeah /and the games people play
Oh the games people play now/ ev’ry night and ev’ry day now/ never meaning what they say, yeah/ never saying what they mean.

 

I’m still unpacking some of souvenirs from my trip to Japan, so here is Doraemon the earless robotic cat from the 22nd century ‘presenting’ a Noritake porcelain coffee mug with the Ponyo character on.  Ponyo is an animated adventure centered on a 5-year-old boy and his relationship with a goldfish princess who longs to become human.   It is a product of Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki and the story was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale ‘The Little Mermaid’.    The movie came out in 2008 and I believe the ‘Ponyo on the Cliff by Blue Mug’ shortly after that.   And is that the ever-possible tsunami that is depicted on the cup?  It certainly seems like it.

I finally ran out on Sunday to the Apple store to buy a black 64Gb iPad2 with wi-fi only.  Black because it’s classier than white, 64 Gb because it’s got the most storage space for my photos and music and digital content and wi-fi only with no 3G phone connectivity because I already have an iPhone.     The magnetic cover can fold up and serve as an angled stand.  It switches the pad on automatically when you pull it open, a nice touch.   Several Google applications I had on my phone got synched over through my PC and is now four times as large (Scrabble is one) – very nice, although those do not make the best use of the native iPad screen resolution.  I think it will be fixed shortly.  (I hope so).   I love the way my blog is displayed when accessed via Facebook (not that I read my own blog, but I’m sure I will in future).  The blog sits on the WordPress server ‘cloud’ and not on the iPad, a thought that is still a little unsettling to me.  Do I own the content, or does WordPress (they provide free server hosting space for the blog)?  Will they pull the plug on it some time?

The 1Q84 book from Japanese author Haruki Murakami (translated into English, of course), a runaway hit in Japan, is my first e-book.   I like my paper books, so I will have to get used to reading like this!  Yikes.   And the Apple store does not stock many titles.   I will have to download Amazon’s little application that can allow me to buy books through them.  Even so : I don’t think the iPad color display is a match for the black and white electronic ink of the Kindles.  But my I needed my slate do a whole lot more – and does it ever.   It carries 1500 songs, a dozen or so music videos, and for now just a smattering of my favorite pictures.   It may end up carrying 1000s once I upload all my favorite pictures of the recent and distant past (scanned pictures).  It can display a map of anywhere in the world where there is a signal, many times with place markers and directions.  The mint.com financial app gives me up-to-the-minute balances and transaction detail of every one of my financial accounts : every bank account, savings account, credit card account, retirement account and even values for fixed assets.   So I can ride the roller coaster of the stock market every day.   I subscribed to free reports from the New York Times newspaper; it comes will free marketing propaganda such as ‘Explore the promise of Canadian oil sands’ (No thank you).

The first picture of the roadside banner is mine – taken from the bus Monday morning.  It is close to where we work.  Dapeng Fortress (picture and information from Wikipedia) was built in 1394 as a military fortress against pirates.  It later developed into a town during the Ming and Qing dynasties.  In 1571, it sustained a siege of over forty days by Japanese pirates equipped with scaling ladders.  

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s 3D animated ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ based on Hergé’s famous cartoon character has premiered in Brussels this weekend.  It will only start showing in the USA on Dec 21.   Tintin fan that I am,  I will have to go and see it.

The Tintin books  have been translated into 60 languages.   The picture shows this week’s TIME magazine cover, and next to it the Japanese translation of ‘King Ottokar’s Sceptre’ that I bought when I was in Tokyo.   It was not easy to find the bookstore that carried it !

From the TIME article – Hergé drew his panels in an elegant, instantly recognizable style that has been so influential, it has acquired a name : ligne claire, or clear line.   Its hallmarks are steady even lines, gorgeous washes of color, precisely detailed backgrounds and stylized, cartoonish faces.

The red arch advertises a boat and yacht show here in the Shenzhen marina across from the hotel.  I will try to get more pictures this weekend of the rich peoples’ toys.   Four of us from work had beers and a bite at the Sheraton.  Mine was a fancy pad thai in an egg net with shrimp (not sure how egg is used to make a net, but there it is).    Back at our own hotel I just relaxed and watched some TV.    It was not possible to escape the coverage of Gadhafi’s demise or the Greek debt crisis.   And watch out below for the space junk of a German satellite about to come down.   Looks like South Africa is safe, but Seattle and Japan might get pommeled !