Tek in China

Death of that dude

Well well. I know that things here in China are censored when the authorities deem it necessary, but I'd never really personally come across any instances of censorship in the years that I've been here. Oh sure, I'd heard about it, but I'd never seen anything with my own two hands. Such is the nature of censorship, I suppose, that it's pretty much invisible to the public at large. Today, however, I got to see it for myself.

I went to the Foreign Language Book Store on Fuzhou Lu, and picked up the new issue of The Economist. The Asian edition has Zhao Ziyang on the cover, with two articles covering his death inside the issue. While the China censors have left the 'Leaders' article intact, the page containing the main Asia section article regarding his death has been ripped out of every copy of The Economist in the store. I'm going to assume that this is true of every issue of The Economist sold on the mainland.

It's pretty bizarre seeing The Economist with p.29 missing. Removed cleanly, with only the skipped page number indicating that it has been excised.

It seems pretty silly, as well, since anyone who has the English ability to read The Economist in this city certainly doesn't NEED to read it to learn something about his death or life. Silly censors.

tek.

Missed a few days there

I had a couple friends visiting from elsewhere in China. We had a great time here, vegging out on the couch and playing X-Men: Legends for 10 hours. I'm still not sure where I'm going to spend my Spring Festival. My father keeps switching around his plans for returning to the States, and I've got to plan around that.

I saw this trailer for Crispin Glover's Sundance movie linked from boingboing.net. It's beyond entertaining.

Things are getting busier here in Shanghai. My cab passes by a train-ticket sales kiosk every day on the way to work. The lines there snake around the block at all times, filled with people waiting to buy tickets to go back home to the stix from which they came. I've got to do my best to avoid that rush, but there's a very good chance that I'll get lost in the press on my way from Sanya to Guangzhou right before the New Year.

It sounds like I may be spending my New Year in Hong Kong, which would be very cool. We'll see what happens. Only a couple weeks away.

tek.

Don't kick dogs

Excerpt from a student's homework:

Dear Brother,
Thank you.
You told me that I would be dangerous if kick a dog. I didn't believe it, too. Then you asked me to do it. I did so, but I didn't know why the dog bit you, not me. I was so sad you had to be in hospital for several days. ... Thank you! You have taught me a lot when I was young.

This kid's got consistently funny homework. I wish they were all like that.

tek.

Photo of the Day

I think it's probably a bad idea to put pictures of people I know on this site directly, but I really liked how this experimentation with the black-and-white mode on my digital camera (Canon IXUS 430) turned out. I used to think the black-and-white mode on digicams were mostly useless, but I had a thought a few days ago that it'd be a perfect solution to the low light sensitivity on digital cameras.

Shooting at ISO 50 in low light means lots of motion blur. Shooting at ISO 400 means bad color and ugly digital noise. Shooting at ISO 400 in black-and-white means less/no motion blur and enhanced contrast with the bonus that the digital noise looks kind of like the grain pattern on black-and-white film, which can look kind of cool at times.

tek.

Train noise

Taking the Pearl Line light rail here in Shanghai every day has really got me missing the intelligible broadcasts they make on the NYC subway line. I've complained before about how loud and long their stop announcements are, and how incredibly unnecessary it is that they're played twice between each station. Each announcement lasts more than 30 seconds, and the time between stations is sometimes only about 1.5 minutes. Figure out how much silence you actually get to enjoy on your average ride. The volume seems to just keep going up, too. It's made listening to my iPod on the train almost impossible without destroying my sensitive ear drums.

The stupidest thing is, it's such a monotonous, computerized voice, that no matter how loud it goes, no one will ever pay attention to it. The few times that the automated PA system has been broken, and the conductor made short announcements between stops, my attention was far more effectively drawn to what the guy had to say. I just don't need or want to hear the number for the transportation hotline every thirty seconds.

It's driving me insane.

tek.

Bill's dialogue

A few weeks ago, I asked my students to write a dialogue for me using some common 'sounds' we use in English. Things like, 'hmmm', and 'yay'. I'm grading the homework I got back right now, in preparation for issuing final grades, and this is what I got from one student:

A: Ah! I see you again. I have something important to tell you.
B: Oh ~ Tell me. But I think there won't be something good.
A: I'm in very emergency. You know a man?
B: Yes?
A: He is wearing a very ugly trousers.
B: Yes?
A: He's in great trouble, he need help. He is very old.
B: Yes? Tell me what's the matter right now!
A: OK! OK! His hair is gray.
B: Yes! Now! Tell me! Who he is and what's wrong with him.
A: He is your brother. He can't swim and he is in the river over there.
B: Oh! God! Brother, I'm coming!

Nice to laugh while doing work, I've got to say.

tek.

Photo of the Day

Backlit guy on a bike, at the intersection of Dong Ti Yu Hui Lu and Chi Feng Lu. Took it on the way to the train station. It was sunny for all of about twenty minutes today. While it hasn't rained all that much in the past few weeks, it hasn't been the least bit sunny, either. I'm really looking forward to getting down south once my vacation begins, and soaking in a little sun.

tek.

An odor about

There's an odor in Shanghai tonight. Anyone who's been here can testify to the low quality of the air in China. Tonight, however, it's worse than usual. Something must have happened. I noticed it when I came off the subway at Chi Feng Lu. It smelled somewhat like a sewer main had blown, or a 10,000-pound-man with amazingly bad BO just up and died beneath the tracks. I thought the problem was just local to the area right around the subway station, but when I went downstairs a few hours ago to take a walk, I found it had migrated to the area around my building. I wonder what happened.

tek.

Photo of the Day

On my way out of school yesterday, while trying to find a taxi to take me to the train station, I came across a building on a fire. It wasn't exactly four-alarm, and the people involved seemed pretty calm and collected as they removed what they could from what remained of the building. As the fire grew, so too did the crowd watching it from across the street, disrupting traffic, but making it easy for me to find a cab unmolested once I was finished taking pictures of the scene. I'm really not sure what this building was used for, or why it was filled with chairs and newspapers from floor to ceiling. The police started stepping in and calling for help as I was leaving. I'm interested to see the condition of the building when I go back to work on Monday.

tek.

Photo of the Day

This is kind of a fake photo of the day post. I'd like to try and get these things started, and become a 'content provider' on this crazy internet. I've got a hankering for putting up photos, and audio, and random thoughts. More than anything, I'd like to get used to putting thoughts onto some kind of tangible medium again. I'd also like to go back to taking photos on a regular basis, which I haven't done since college. So the photo of the day. I'm not sure how many 'fake' photos of the day I'll end up doing, but I'm going to try and get a photo up on this page every day, linking through my photo site, tek.smugmug.com. I call this one a fake since it was actually taken a few days ago while I was waiting for the train at Chi Feng Lu. Didn't want to waste the nice sunset pic, though.

tek.