Semester 2 (Mar-June 2009)

The semester ended fairly smoothly. We ditched previous ideas of our curriculum and were inspired by getting our army of kids translating the menus of local restaurants. We figured they win, from exposure to a larger vocab and experience in a live translation project; we win from gaining around 16 restaurant menus in English; and the restaurants win from getting an English menu and wining more laowai custom. It’s a 3-way win. In theory a fantastic idea; in practice, it took a heap of effort. It was all worth it in the end for the few happy faces that we saw from our favourite restaurateurs.

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After checking-in without hassles, we tried the downstairs cafe for a coffee. The Indian waiter was visibly offended at our request for soy milk in ‘his’ coffee like it was against his religion! He kept saying (and you need the Indian accent on this) “Soy milk? No, I cannot.” … “In the coffee? No. I cannot.” *furrows eyebrows* haha. Oh well, we’ll try Starbucks. No luck, they were out of soy due to a strong demand from a soy tea latte promotion. Another customer at the counter was grumbling even louder than us! The main gripe was the barista had told him it’d be another week before the store got more in. Bazz spoke to the barista later and he said he’d try to get some that night… but no luck on that either. We did eventually get our soy lattes and have been savouring them ever since.

We met with Alex’s friend Mike and had a delicious lunch and dinner at a vege Indian place called Ghandi’s. We ate from a banana leaf with rice and many different vege curries and some extra plates of fake meat curries (soy imitations). Bazz tried his hand (literally) at the old Indonesian/Malay style of eating with your hands. I wasn’t that game (and worried about making a mess everywhere) and stuck to fork and spoon. Excellent food though! So tasty. Mike told us he is a vege and lent us an excellent reference book “Becoming Vegetarian”. After the delicious food and reading the book we decided to reduce our meat intake from now on. It’s called flexitarian - will eat vegetarian for preference, but still ‘flexible’. Kinda like the name. I think we were always flexitarian, but now we’re actively trying to reduce the meat side.

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In other news of B&B, we have had recent internet trouble, not with our PC but the gateway. Try talking technical jargon to a second language speaker that’s reluctant to even look at you, let alone try to understand or help you… and you’ll begin to understand the hair pulling events that I’ve been through. But, in the end, technical people were called and the English & Japanese teachers were assigned a new (hopefully more reliable) internet gateway. It’s good news that I think was worth the effort.

We’ve both been kept well busy with the start of semester. I’m doing 1st year English majors (public school) and 3rd year International Economics & Trade (public school). Bazz has 1st year English majors (private school) and 3rd & 4th year International Economics & Trade (1 private & 3 public school). The private school didn’t get the grades to join the public enrolment, so mum & dad have to pay for them to get into private. This makes them less studious in general, but there are always the exceptions.

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We had a short reprise to start some lesson planning and plan the next holiday down to Xiamen. We were heading back to Ningbo to have dinner with some of Barry’s old students. This was Ningbo’s chance to redeem itself. It pretty much failed. The hostel was better located, but still renovating and a little dingy. The taxi problem was way out of control as we had an entire team of Ningbo-ites working with us to no avail! And nothing else really endears one to the big city.

Next was Wenzhou… and talk about a shithole! Here I was thinking Ningbo was bad. The hotel was great when you could find it and be able to get a cab that won’t rip you off! All the cabs at the station were setting fixed prices of between 30 and 80! We finally found one outside at 20 and jumped in fairly unhappy… but as it turned out the guy took us the extra mile trying to find our hotel so it evened out. The streets were dirty and underdeveloped, malls we tried to visit were shut and very old looking. The whole place looked run-down. On the other hand, the hotel was great. 2 twin rooms with complimentary breakfast and great looking rooms too.

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So… what did we do? Followed Tim’s guidelines with modifications within the concept of low-carb. That means - some protein, beans and vegetables with every meal. No high GI products meaning no white starches or sugars including all breads, rice, grains, potatoes, sugars, etc. Beans are there to fill and provide some carbs, but better carbs (low GI). Some are avoiding red meat on this diet - with the low amounts we eat of any meat these days, I don’t really see the point in cutting it out. Plus we could both do with the iron content. I also can’t vouch for the “grass feed”, “hormone free” or “free range” aspects of our protein here in China, but if you have a choice it’s probably better.

Meals that work really well for flavour and little of the naughties are Mexican and Indian. You can make refried beans, chilli con carne, pinto bean mex things, any form of daal, Rogan Gosh (we do lamb) or most Indian curries. Cut out the tomato paste/sauce and yoghurt (made with sugar - homemade without sugar would be fine) from Indian and you’re done!

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For decades, Chinese scientists say, they have known of the risk of a potentially catastrophic earthquake along the Longmenshan belt, the area where the Wenchuan earthquake struck, and repeatedly raised their concerns with government authorities. But they say preparations for a quake there were cursory at best, and building codes remained well short of the codes that have become standard in other well-known earthquake zones, including Beijing itself.

The ruling Communist Party has hailed its own vigorous response to the quake as evidence of its concern for human life, and has generally received positive reviews at home and abroad for its rescue efforts after the quake. To date, however, China’s state-run news media have paid little attention to the fact that government officials apparently did little to shore up structures, limit urban growth or even conduct basic safety drills that might have reduced the death toll.
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“The line of the middle fault is as clear as a string,” said Li Yong, a geological expert at Chengdu University of Technology. “It suggests continuous and strong movement. Such a long and clear lineament should trigger a big quake. Other scientists have had similar ideas.”

In July, a paper by Mr. Li and another scientist raised the likelihood of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake along the Longmenshan belt, and spoke again of the dangers there at a conference in China a month before the disaster.
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Mr. Gao referred to an earthquake building code standard used in China. A building would have required construction to an 11th-degree standard to have escaped damage in last month’s earthquake. Many Chinese experts invoked the high cost of building structures to withstand major earthquakes as a rationale for the failure to do so.
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“The quake-proof level for Wenchuan’s local buildings is rated Degree 7, but based on what I’ve seen on-site, the buildings there are far from reaching this standard. Let’s not talk about whether the degree of quake-proofing is high enough; the buildings in the affected areas just have no quake-proof protection at all.”
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A disproportionately large number of the earthquake’s victims were children crushed when thousands of classrooms crumbled or collapsed. Facing pressure from parents over the loss of their children, this week the Sichuan Education Bureau published a list of five reasons school-related deaths were so high. The reasons included the timing of the quake, while classes were in session, and the age of school buildings. No mention was made of government failure to enforce standards, or of corruption, which are taboo subjects.
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Beichuan, a county capital, was moved in 1952 to its present site at the foot of three mountains, from a nearby site that was prone to flooding. But concerns about the risk of a major earthquake have been voiced almost continuously since the relocation.

“Ever since I was small,” said Sun Xiaotao, director of the general office of Beichuan County’s fiscal bureau, “I’ve heard talk about how if an earthquake happened, we’d be wrapped in, just like a dumpling.”

China fights quake lakes and probes schools

Inspectors have taken samples of rubble to see if shoddy construction material was used.

Lin Qiang, vice inspector of the Sichuan provincial educational department, said collapsed buildings might have been more solid “if we educational officials hadn’t left loopholes for corruption”, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

China probes schools, fights quake lakes

The National quality watchdog Thursday warned of “severe punishment” to anyone found responsible for the collapsed school building in the May 12 earthquake.
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the investigations had so far yielded no results, but “if they show quality problems do exist, we’ll deal with those responsible with zero tolerance.”
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Lin Qiang, vice inspector of the Sichuan provincial educational department, said “seeking truth is more important than losing face.”

That last quote is a very interesting statement worth repeating as it’s bigger than you think “seeking truth is more important than losing face.”

Sad times indeed, but excellent to see the investigation. I only hope that it extends to other buildings and regions. If Jiaxing were to have a shake, there’d be not much left standing. Probably goes for a lot of places, especially the poorer places like Sichuan.

Pownce: Against All Odds, Pownce Blew Us Away

on Pownce, you can send a message, or a file, or a song, or an event, to one person; or three of your friends; or only your family; or everyone. That’s right, you can engage in private conversations, you can speak to the world, you can have a group of close friends, and a group of associates, and a group of unknown people you just added to your profile, and you can choose when you want to send stuff to any of these groups. With this simple feature Pownce trounces all over Twitter, and comes close to being more useful than most IM clients.

As far as other options go, Pownce has themes, which are nice for simple pimping of your profile; it also has solid filtering options for your messages, which makes your life much easier (try to find that link someone sent you 6 days ago on Twitter).

Maybe, I’ll see you Pownce soon?

This incident happened recently in North Texas .

A woman went boating one Sunday taking with her some cans of coke which she
put into the refrigerator of the boat. On Monday she was taken to the
hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit. She died on Wednesday.

The autopsy concluded she died of Leptospirosis. This was traced to the can
of coke she drank from, not using a glass. Tests showed that the can was
infected by dried rat urine and hence the disease Leptospirosis.

Rat urine contains toxic and deathly substances. It is highly recommended to
thoroughly wash the upper part of soda cans before drinking out of them. The
cans are typically stocked in warehouses and transported straight to the
shops without being cleaned.

A study at NYCU showed that the tops of soda cans are more contaminated than
public toilets (i.e).. full of germs and bacteria. So wash them with water
before putting them to the mouth to avoid any kind of fatal accident.

… and this is the land of gunpowder? Here’s a wall - can you figure out how much reinforcement or foundations went into this wall?