July 25, 2007
Today I was going through my large stack of flashcards that have been sitting on a shelf in our bedroom, deciding what ones, if any, I would take back with me to the United States. It is interesting to glance back through these cards to see how far I have progressed. Certain flashcards are still useful, ones that have words that are low frequency that I have since forgotten. Others are not so useful, like those that were made during the time that I decided (wrongly) that I would learn all Chinese verbs, and along that path would be mastery of the language. But today, buried underneath some old books and folders, was my very first flash card book that I had made, exactly one week into our stay here in Nanjing. The characters were a little blocky and misshapen, but surprisingly not to bad. The first word that was listed was 知道, to know.
Forgive me for that short anecdote, but this week we will be leaving Nanjing to head back to the United States, and I am a bit wistful. It is a strange habit of memory to distort time, but certainly our stay here has flown by. I can barely remember all that has happened to me at this point, and as Jenn suggests, some time will be needed to digest all of these experiences. That was, and always has been partially what this blog is for, an external memory system for myself, to remember things that I have done and seen, news I have read and people encountered. Sort of like a bookmarking system. I know, some was boring, most poorly written, but through this time I hope that you have enjoyed this site.
I will not be taking this site down. I fully intend to return to the People’s Republic in a little more then one years time. There is graduate school to be taken care, and that takes top priority at the moment. And frankly I don’t want to be here during the giant clusterfuck that will be the Olympics. Then I will return, in what capacity I have no idea. As frustrating and infuriating as this country can be, on the best days it is the most interesting place I can think of. In the meantime I will continue to study Chinese, mostly by ponying up the money for advanced Chinesepod features (including the Spanishpod addition, I swear I will learn that language!). I will keep updating this site with Chinese internet research, gaming and dog stories that I comb the internet for and display for your viewing enjoyment. I will also be writing up and posting some of my experiences that I have had not previously featured. And any other projects that I can muster up along the way.
So thanks to everyone who has read this blog, Chinese friends who have been awesome to us, and my neighborhood dogs and their owners who think we are insane for giving them treats everyday. I thank you all for the support, and hope you will continue to check every now and then to see how things are post China.
Popularity: 15% [?]
July 22, 2007
The blog indexing and searching website Technorati as of yesterday, and possibly earlier, is now unblocked. I also noticed yesterday that another site that I had been working on, a site that had been blocked immediately after I purchased the domain name, is now also unblocked. This appears to be part of a wave of blocking/unblocking that occasionally happens in China. Has anyone else noticed any changes?
Popularity: 10% [?]
July 20, 2007
In case you have not heard information related to the new Chinese video game anti-addiction system
Under government rules that went into effect Monday, Chinese Internet gaming companies must implement a screening program that requires users to enter their identification card numbers.
The program then monitors the online time of players identified as under 18 and prompts them at the three-hour mark with a message asking them to stop and “do suitable physical exercise.”
The software monitor slashes by half the points of underage players if they keep playing beyond three hours, and wipes their points out completely if they stay on more than five hours.
This article seems to be written by a journalist who has little understanding of how gaming works. Assuming that they are talking about an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, by points do they means experience points? Because if this is the case those who have hit the level cap, meaning the highest level possible in the game, experience points do not matter to them and the restrictions would be pointless (hehe). Or does it means your characters stats, his abilities in the game? That would be a more effective method but still seems as though it would be difficult to implement. I have not seen in any source how this system specifically works.
The Chinese government is also considering penalizing companies who do not comply with these rules. OF course shouldn’t these penalties already be in place since the law requires them to have these systems. The video game company The9 has already put this policy in place for the games it runs.
Zhao Yurun, public relations director of the The9, which runs WoW in China, said, “We have installed the anti-addiction system on all games, including WoW, the Soul Ultimate Nation and the Fantastic Melody Online.”
An official with General Administration of Press and Publications said officials were still discussing penalties for firms that had failed to install the anti-addiction system, a GAPP official said.
Overall, here are the questions that I have about this system
Can the person log off at the 3 hour point and then just log back on? If they can it defeats the purpose of the system.
Couldn’t a child just use a parents ID to log on, and then play as long as they want to?
This only effects those who are under 18. This is also a large problem with students in college, and this law completely ignores that problem
Should internet cafes have any responsibility in this system?
And gaming companies must not have been thrilled about this policy. For them there is no choice, either abide by the rules or don’t do business in China. I personally don’t see this as much of a solution to the problem, as kids who want to spend 8 hours a day playing these games will find a way to do it somehow.
More News on Video Game Addiction in China
Death Sentence for Online Gamer
World of Warcraft China Explained
Wikipedia: Video Games in the People’s Republic of China
Shanghai Treats Online Addiction
Popularity: 21% [?]
July 18, 2007
July 17, 2007
Via Fark, Chinese trucking live rats to southern restaurants:
Live rats are being trucked from central China, suffering a plague of a reported two billion rodents displaced by a flooded lake, to the south of the of country to end up in restaurant dishes, Chinese media reported.
“Recently there have been a lot of rats … Guangzhou people are rich and like to eat exotic things, so business is very good,” the China News Service quoted a vendor as saying, referring to the capital of Guangdong province.
Wonderful. The article also indicates that this rat plague could be partially caused by the eating of snakes and owls, who would normally help keep the rats in check, or the Three Gorges Dam project or climate change. Regardless of the cause, some local people are certainly making a tidy profit off of rat catching. I remember when I was in Guangzhou searching around for rat on a stick and being unable to find it. If I was down there now I would be in rat eating heaven. So to help out my friends down in the South, here are some rat recipes to take care of this rodent problem. After all how often can you say that you helped prevent the plague by eating.
Rat Ragout
Deep Fried Field Rat
Cooking Rats and Mice
Ground Rat Meat and Chili Paste
You can also check this Snopes article about Rat Food, which has some (most likely real) images of rats being prepared to be eaten. If you have any other rat recipes, or know of the Chinese websites that are listing recipes as mentioned in the story, please leave them in the comments section.
Popularity: 34% [?]
July 14, 2007
I had previously written about art changes on Chinese Magic the Gathering cards requiring the company to modify art that featured skeletons. This apparently does not just apply to card games, as now game developers are being forced to make changes to the latest expansion of World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, to take out skeletons.
The operators of “World of Warcraft” in China have replaced skeletons with healthy human bodies in the local version of the popular monster-killing online game, a spokesman said Friday, amid a recent government campaign to clean up Internet content.
Being a recovering WOW player myself, I know that taking the skeletons out of this game must be a huge hassle. Many of the enemies in the games, including a few of the bosses, are skeletons. And one of the major cities, Undercity, has massive amounts of bones and undead phenomenon. Of course the time and effort that it takes to change these things is certainly worth it to gain access to the Chinese gamers. But the question comes up once again, why just skeletons? And is it better to be killing humans than skeletons?
Popularity: 29% [?]
July 13, 2007
At some point the world realized that China becoming richer also means that more Chinese people would be coming online. And that many new people online from one culture will change the face of the internet.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project just recently released a report written by Deborah Fallows entitled China’s Online Population Explosion. While this is mostly just a rehash of statistics that have already been reported by the CNNIC and other sources, it is a good summation of the current state of Chinese internet users with an eye forward for things to come. One of the major areas that she details as a new area for growth is with the peasant farmer population, and as they become more aware of computer technologies and feel more comfortable around them. This group currently has the least access to the internet and lacks the skills to know how to use it. This will all change in the coming years.
The point that is touched upon, and may be on of the most important, is how the government will respond to this increasing internet usage among its population. Although it is hard to say how this will turn out in the end, this may be the most important issue of all. The desire by the government to control information on the Internet in China becomes especially important when talking about the peasant population. This large group should have a different view of modern China then the educated middle class values that are currently expressed online, and we shall see how their experiences and their access to new information is handled by the government.
One point that Fallows brings up that hadn’t occurred to me before is the ability of the internet to allow Chinese speakers of with different dialects to communicate more effectively. Of course this once again effects the uneducated more then the educated, as the educated should be able to speak putonghua or close enough to be understood by everyone. But the idea of a farmer from Anhui being able to chat online with a farmer from Guangdong is quite inspiring.
To view more information contained in the report, the full version can be read in PDF format.
Popularity: 23% [?]
July 12, 2007
An overview of two strikingly similar stories that occurred within a short time of each other.
World’s Largest Penis Erected
A 30 foot tall penis sculpture, named the sky pillar, was built at the Longwan Shaman Amusement Park in Changchun city. It was built to celebrate the city’s shamanistic history, and:
Legend says a Shaman hero named Ewenki vanquished a cruel female ruler and gave her a penis totem, telling her to respect males and not kill them at will.
After this, the ruler set a penis totem on top of the hill, reports East Asia Economic and Trade News.
Vanquished her and then gave her a penis totem? I also have to question the assertion in this story that this is the largest penis in the world, but I can find anything online to contradict that point. And to not offended anyone’s delicate sensibilities, I will leave the picture as a link. So if you want to see a tall straw penis, then click on this!
The Zhuhai Penis
From the always interesting ESWN, in Zhuhai city in Guangdong Province, a man built a 5 meter tall penis that weighs more than 5 tons. Here is the image. After the story had been circulated around the internet, the owner got so many calls from angry netizens (I hate that term) that he “had the statue moved inside a family planning shop away from the public space.”
Popularity: 19% [?]
July 10, 2007
This bird was seen at the Xiamen Botanical Gardens, and who I nicknamed “Floppy Testicle Head”. I however am not a birder and have never seen this breed before, so if anyone out there knows what this is, leave it in the comments section.
Popularity: 21% [?]
July 8, 2007
Everyone is trying to get a piece of the Chinese market these days, with major American sports leagues being no exception. Previously the NFL announced that it was going to introduce two Chinese place kickers to take part in the now canceled China Bowl, and now Major League Baseball (MLB), specifically the New York Yankees, are trying to bring baseball to the mainland. The Yankees were the first MLB team to sign Chinese players, left-handed pitcher Kai Liu and catcher Zhenwang Zhang, and introduced them into their system. And now the Yankees also plan to assist the Chinese Baseball Association in a summer training camp to be held in Wuxi.
During a 30-minute news conference at Yankee Stadium yesterday to promote their relationships in China, the Yankees announced that they would sponsor a summer camp run by the Chinese Baseball Association, donate a video batting machine to the league and continue their grass-roots and marketing efforts.
Baseball has a long way to go in China before it comes close to the insanely popular NBA, but it seems that MLB is attempting to follow a similar path to the one taken by the NBA. Invest in the local league CBA, have a Chinese player enter the league and gain fame (Yao Ming), which then brings in fans of this player, who then develop into fans of the game in general. And judging from jersey sale numbers alone, Yao may not even be the most popular star in China anymore. This method of signing quality players into the leagues training system is a better way then the attempts that the NFL has made to increase interest in their product, by exhibition games and sending Chinese kickers to Europe. It seems unlikely that a famous place kicker will capture the nation’s attention.
Popularity: 9% [?]
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