BBQ @ HKUST Beach

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Just want to share some BBQ photos (taken yesterday). I have always appreciated HKUST for setting up a BBQ place at the beach for students. You can book the stove on student intranet. Everything is just so simple.

In these photos, one GG is an exchange PhD students. The other people except me are MPhil and PhD students from the same CS lab. For me, I'm a guest invited by my friend.

I'm also going to commence my MPhil from this summer in the next two years. By that time things will get much more intense compared with current student life. However, I think no matter how limited the time is, don't ever be an otaku. When feeling tired, try to go out, meet friends and get relaxed. That's surely better than just staying in dorm beside the laptop :-)

Is being too independent a good thing?

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I learnt the trait of independence from my mum, who gave me lessons in person on how to be steely and independent when I was a child girl. Even though we had a lot of quarrels in my adolescence and I was strongly against her dominating parenthood, I eventually turned out to be an independent person – exactly like her, as my dad described.

My mum is a capable woman who can always effectively arrange everything in order. She’s recognized as successful by her co-workers, but pitiful woman in marriage from my stand. I swore that I would never be in the same tragedy like her when she crying heavily on my shoulder and complaining my dad’s coldness. I don’t wanna judging her too much, but the masses of my parents’ problems originated from her hard characters in large extent.

So I always have doubts on IS BEING TOO INDEPENDENT A GOOD THING?

Independence is defined by me as being independent characteristically, economically and emotionally. Characteristically, I always do things on my own (not in study or jobs) if I assure that I’m able to handle them well. In fact, I’m not too shy to ask for help but for the reason of avoiding to be other’s burden. Economically, I get used to make clear with friends in moneys, even with intimate friends. Emotionally, I tried to not get involved in any relationships too much if there seems no future.

Ironically, sometimes It’s hard, and also sad for me to work towards these rules. As I was told by my ex that he felt like I didn’t need him by my side because of my strong independence, I felt like something was breaking deep inside of my heart. I didn’t expect that intention of avoiding of being someone’s burden would result in the sense of distance.

remark: The vote regarding "Am i an independent person?"

Obviously, from the above vote on my xiaonei.com page (it’s like “Chinese facebook”), entitled “Am I an independent person?”, majority of my friends (89%) responded YES while the rest 11% considered NO.

“You can’t bear loneliness, can you?”, one of my intimate friends said, ”That’s why I thought you’re not independent enough, especially in the subject of emotions.”

“It’s nature that showing steely side to strangers but weak side to close friends. Take it easy.”

……
Yes, In most cases, I’m indeed an independent person. However, is it a good thing or bad? I’m still not quite sure about it. Or maybe it depends on persons you’ve met – if he/she would appreciate your independence.

New plugin: WordPress Comment Digg from IfGoGo

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Well, I'm glad to announce that my third plugin for WordPress – WordPress Comment Digg is now offically released, via the platform of ifgogo.com – a group of funny bloggers from China. Download Link on WordPress.org.

Thanks to Jun He, who helped me with a lot coding with MySQL and PHP. Here are some screenshots:

The live demo:

The Option page:

The mangement page:

'Culture Shock' in Shanghai

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I am from Nanjing, and just got to Shanghai for work. The school I'm working at is quite a nice place, with friendly teachers and, you bet, lovely children. However, the school is situated a bit too deep into Pudong New Area (I would like to call it District, but bus broadcast has it the odd way...), and I have to endure long time of public transportation to get to the downtown area, where, according to a foreign colleague of mine, is not the 'real' Shanghai :P

Public transportation in the big Chinese cities are almost always busy, and I feel rather safe pushing this prejudice over to the IfGoGo readership. The so-called shock came to me when I witnessed three incidents in a row: not offering seats to the old, skipping the queue, and not offering seats to a woman with her baby. For sure, it is just coincidence that I met such incidences at this high frequency, and in Shanghai there are indeed many good-ordered taxi queues, but this day in Shanghai still makes me uncomfortable. Skipping the queue is quite common in China (I saw the taxi queues first so this still comes as a shock); not offering seats to the needed is against basic Chinese culture and morality... But I may be too quick to condemn these people, or Shanghai in general. Even if these are all acceptable behaviour in Shanghai, it might just be evolution of the ethics, and I am a bit slow to catch up. However, I'd rather believe that today's incidents are lone cases, and Shanghai is still as beautiful as she should be.

They Look Like Lesbians But They're Not.

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It's very common to see girls hanging out together and looking so closely. Sometimes, you will even doubt that if they're lesbians? In Singapore, when you go walking, no matter where you go, seeing boy-boy or girl-girl thing is not strange.

I have a girl classmate and she has a girlfriend. Her girlfriend dressed like a boy and looks like a boy(she's a handsome girl by the way :P ). They always stay together, even after class, her girlfriend will go and pick up her almost everyday. They call each other "Dear". In an English speaking country, it isn't a big deal ?!

"I don't know, I just feel good to stay with her..feel safe..." she explained to many of us.... "I think I'm straight.... there's nothing wrong with us. We're just good friends..."

Also, boys who dress like a girl, do make up and stay with girls and even behave like a girl are a common scene here.

Now, I'm very familiar with this kind of culture and society. However, if they live in China, maybe things are different.

Anyway, Singapore is a very small country, however, people here  are very open-minded, especially the young.

Food Safety and Overnight Pizza

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No more talks about melamine-rich milk here. I read a few posts on Aw's own blog about how bad the food condition is in China, and my family all got quite nervous and helpless about the whole food issue. As one (funny) Chinese saying goes: 'Eat things NOT clean and you will NOT get sick.' (不干不净，吃了没病) The current situation looks like that there really aren't anything very 'clean' at all. Luckily, my family is still quite healthy, and I cannot really deny the validity of that saying.

However, the care taken of food safety is perhaps a bit too far for a Chinese to accept. Indeed, my Indian friends (and all my formal roommates, maybe) would not agree with this Q&A on StillTasty: 'I Left Pizza Out Overnight - Is It Still Safe to Eat?' and the answer is a 'startling' NO. Admittedly, my standard for food safety isn't that high, but it is still too hard for me (and for the sake of my life) to believe that 'it’s dangerous to eat any cooked food (including takeout foods like pizza, fried chicken or Chinese food) that has been allowed to sit at room temperature for two hours or longer.' I and my friends lived on such food throughout the year in London; and I grew up on such food. I should not have been alive right now, at least according to the StillTasty guides... How terrible!

Now I don't really know whether it's the StillTasty admins being too cautious, or it's me being to barbarous? It's still good to know that Chinese people are quite resistant to low level food poison. Foreigners visiting China are advised to exercise great caution, though.

Chinglish Gone Formal

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I was reading "What Use is Economic Theory?" when I came across this:

There are many who disagree with this view, but hey, let a thousand flowers bloom.

'Let a thousand flowers bloom'? This sure sounds very familiar, although the expression is indeed new to me. Isn't this phrase from the Chinese (百花齐放)?

My intuition is proven quite easily. According to the Phrase Finder:

Let a thousand flowers bloom is a common misquotation of Chairman Mao Zedong's "Let a hundred flowers blossom". This slogan was used during the period of approximately six weeks in the summer of 1957 when the Chinese intelligentsia were invited to criticize the political system then obtaining in Communist China.

And the rest of the entry does not invite good memory... But, hey, I was right in spotting this one. Before this, the one and most famous Chinese-rooted English phrase is 'Long time no see'. Breaking every grammar rule, this phrase is nevertheless  in regular use in modern English. Other ones like 'People mountain, people sea' and 'Good good study, day day up' don't count---they are still no more than jokes, and is little understood by a non-Chinese English speaker.

What other interesting Chinese phrases have been translated and regularly used in English? Can you name any one?

Newcomer Lechuan Saying Hello!

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This is Lechuan Huang saying 'hello' to everyone at IfGoGo.

After being a lurker for some time, I am just recently offered the privilege to join this fantastic group of authors. Excited :)

I am from Nanjing, but took my first chance to go abroad the last school year to London, where I began to feel that there ARE a lot of things about China that should and could be told to the world. I met fabulous friends there, most of whom cheerful and thoughtful, very knowledgeable and still open to new ideas. Sadly, sometimes information does not go through from China to Europe as well as it should have, people still do not realize who I am, what my country truly is.

I am not sure if it is alright to feel responsible for clearing up the image of China to the outside world, but as I am an economics teacher-to-be starting next school term, it might not be a bad idea to employ my professional techniques in familiarizing China to as many people as possible. And of course, to make friends in the same process. Search for Lechuan Huang on facebook and add me as a friend :)

So today's topic (finally)

Yesterday I met with a British lady who was working in Nanjing. During our talks she told me that among things she did not understand so well about China was this 'face-saving' behavior. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to go further on the topic.

Afterwards I read in a British teacher's guide, that students might resort to 'face-saving' if criticized improperly. So face-saving is present in the Britain (and probably in the Western world) as well.

My question is: is there a difference between the Chinese (or East Asian) way of face-saving and the Western way of doing so? What do you think?

Rainbow in the Evening!!!

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Rainbow in the Evening

I can't wait to share this amazing natural show with you! Just now, a couple of minutes ago, when I was on computer, I looked though window, what the color was of the sky, it's 7 pm ....Oh..wait a minute, what was that? Rainbow?!!! Yes, today rained again! I have to admit that I've never seen rainbow before at the time in this "situation". The color of the sky was almost brown...and it looked blur...so did the rainbow. Were there actually two of them? Perhaps because of the cloud or mist or whatever...

Singapore is really clean!!!!!