one night is definitely not enough. I LOVED BEIJING. it was awesome, other than the grey polluted skies. and oh, it seems I bring the dust storms with me. dust storm in sydney, dust storm in beijing. not good for health.
so… I climbed the great wall, walked the tiananmen square, toured the forbidden city, ate street food. it was so interesting. if it wasn’t for my back pain troubles that bothered me on the last 2 days I would probably have seen more.
and yeah, I can speak terrific chinese I never knew I could. but it just came out, china accent and all. awesome.
it was a wonderful week and time spent with my rents, goodness knows I miss them so much now. in many ways I’m all alone.
thanks for a much needed much appreciated break. thanks for everything God.
ISLAMABAD (APP) – Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on Sunday employed air-to-air refuelling skill successfully thus attaining another milestone to prove itself ‘second to none’ as envisioned by Father of the Nation Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
The attainment of the capability was a part of the on-going High-Mark-10 exercises kicked off a week ago. The first Air-to-Air Re-Fuller aircraft of Pakistan Air Force which had joined PAF in the mid of December-2009, today took active part in the exercises and ably re-fuelled two fighter aircraft in the PAF’s inventory, a senior officer of PAF said while talking to APP here.
The PAF is expecting delivery of three similar re-fuelling aircrafts by June this year. By virtue of its ability to refuel Air Defence aircraft in air, PAF’s overall capability in terms of its effectiveness to defend the airspace of the motherland has significantly enhanced, he said.
The area of exercise High Mark-10 is spread over the entire country from Skardu in the North up to the Arabian Sea in the South. The exercise has been tailored to include joint operations with extensive participation from Pakistan Army and Pakistan Navy that would further enhance might to conduct joint operations amongst the three most essential services.
High Mark-10 is aimed at conducting operations in near-realistic tactical environment while integrating new inductions and providing role-oriented training to combat and support elements of PAF and other services. “It is designed to achieve stipulated objectives with special emphasis on exposing PAF combat crew to simulated air battles based on contemporary concepts,” he said. He said, all the Main Operating Bases (Peace Time) and Forward Operating Bases (War Time) are operative during the on-going exercise.
New inductions like JF-17 Thunder aircraft and force multipliers such as Saab-2000 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft and Air-to-Air Refueller aircraft are participating in the exercise for the first time.
Exercise High Mark is the biggest operational event in the PAF’s history that is being conducted after a pause of five years. The ever changing geo-political environment in the region demands change in the employment concepts and doctrinal changes in the application of air power with emphasis on joint operations, he said. Exercise High Mark 2010 would provide PAF an opportunity to validate these concepts that are vital in the overall defence of the country.
On January 22, we had our first cultural trip to Shao Xing (绍兴). Shao Xing is another city in Zhejiang Province that is known for its rice wine production. Also, there is a lake called East Lake that is the sister lake of West Lake in Hangzhou. Here in Hangzhou, West Lake is a beautiful lake surrounded by pagodas and beautiful scenary. It was great to see the East Lake in Shao Xing. It was surrounded by rock cliffs that were carved out of the mountains in order to remodel the area for a Chinese emperor. We took a boat ride around the lake, walked around, and then went to a traditional Chinese restaurant for lunch where we ate regional foods. One of the famous Shao Xing dishes is smelly tofu (which I did not dare to try because it smelled a bit too pungent for me). However, I did try some other foods like duck neck. Besides these foods, we also ate some more palatable foods like rice, vegetables, and other delicious things. We also drank some locally produced rice wine. Rice wine is very strong, but great to try as I felt very Chinese with a rice wine shot in my left hand and a duck neck in my right hand.
This is a picture of some of the foods we ate at the restaurant. As you notice, it’s on a rotating glass circle so that the dishes can easily be moved around the table for all to enjoy.
The first picture here is me holding some incense that Chinese people typically will burn to show respect to their ancestors. Despite being far away from my family, this gave me a good opportunity to show them respect, light some incense for them, and feel more connected to the Rodkey clan while in Shao Xing. To the right, there is a photo of Sam and I wearing our complimentary hats. The tour company gives us a hat like this during each cultural tour with a phone number written on the underside of the hat brim in case we run into problems. They are really funny and an innovative way to make sure everybody has the phone number in case of an emergency.
The first photo here is a sign welcoming us to East Lake. To the right is a photo of the lakes and the boats that we took rides on during our visit.
This is a picture of an enormous statue. The statue is of a Chinese warrior named Da Yu. We hiked up a mountain with many stairs winding up to the base of the statue. He is holding a farming tool because he was known for farming despite being a warrior.
The conservative Heritage Foundation, no friend of socialism, has ranked Canada ahead of the United States in economic freedom, at 7th and 8th place, respectively.
From their 2010 Index of Economic Freedom, the top 10 countries with the most economic freedom in descending order are:
Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, United States, Denmark and Chile.
Ranked by Business Freedom, Trade Freedom, Fiscal Freedom, Government Spending, Monetary Freedom, Investment Freedom, Financial Freedom, Property Rights, Freedom from Corruption, and Labor Freedom, Canada beats the U.S. on 7 out of 10, ties on Investment Freedom, and falls behind only on Government Spending and Labor Freedom.
Particularly embarrassing to the U.S. should be Canada’s ranking of 90% for Property Rights versus 85% for the U.S., given that the U.S. Constitution explicitly provides for just compensation for the taking of property, and the Canadian Constitution does not. Instead, it leaves property rights to the jurisdiction of the provincial legislatures. Even the Chinese Constitution provides for compensation for the taking of property, whereas Canada’s doesn’t.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
I recently finished up a short but hectic trip to China, specifically the Yangtze River Delta region, China’s most prosperous and most populous area, and where one half of my grandparents are from. The tour went to several cities of which the most well-known are Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou.
Of course, going on a travel tour, a Mandarin-speaking one where I was the only non-Taiwan person, meant that there were many things that could have been better or avoided such as the frequent trips to boutiques selling stuff like pearls and silk. This was a staple part of the tour because this is how our Chinese guides earned the pay, from commission and not from salaries. Waking up at 5.30 am and leaving in the morning and coming back at 9 or 10 at night to a different hotel in a different city every day was also something that was seriously less than enjoyable. The amazing price of this tour was what made us choose it, it being so low that it was almost as if the hotel accommodation and restaurant meals were free, because ideally I would have preferred to just go to the key cities and spend a few days in each each. I didn’t spend more than a day in each city, so my views below are based on brief and fleeting observations and that certainly misses a lot of stuff.
It’s no secret that Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta, which includes the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, have become amazingly developed in the past decade, and this was borne out by the amazing skylines, the amount of fancy apartment and office buildings, the massive construction projects, the proliferation of cars on the roads, and the general appearance of the people. In some ways, Shanghai and Hangzhou and even Wuxi are better off than Taipei. Their streets were larger, straighter and cleaner, and they had side lanes only for motorcyclists and cyclists, unlike Taiwan’s free-for-all. These cities were also more attractive than Taipei, though one can also say that some Taiwan cities are also more attractive than Taipei. The people weren’t dressed too shabbily too, and some of the women certainly match up to or exceed those here in terms of attractiveness.
But before people think that I must be getting drunk on the Communist Party’s Kool-aid, there were definitely some noticeable deficiencies. First is that, the apparent large number and immense size of construction projects may be good for economic growth rates and gives the impression of progress and wealth, but the question remains whether these projects can be fully utilized. I went to a huge mall in Suzhou on a weekday night and it was largely deserted though the stores were all open. I also noticed for many of the restaurants in all the cities except Hangzhou that we went to for lunch and dinner, there was a noticeable lack of patrons and many empty tables.
In Hangzhou, my mother and I broke away from the tour to have dinner with relatives and stroll along Xihu. This pleasant evening ended with a half-hour’s wait for a taxi to take us back to our hotel, that included seeing lots of taxis driving past but with passengers inside. The driver said that because it was a Friday, it was the busiest day of the week for taxis hence the long wait for a free one, but I thought such a major tourist destination and a wealthy city should not have such a scarcity of taxis. The street lights along Xihu were quite dim, though maybe this was to keep down light pollution along the lake, but so were the lights along some of the streets we drove past, suggesting maybe inadequate electricity or really serious electricity-saving measures.
China has the world’s largest population and this is reflected in its cities where little-known ones can have populations over one million. Hangzhou has over 3 million in its metropolitan area so it’s not surprising that transportation, especially public transit, can be insufficient. The most serious concern has to be whether all these new construction projects can really benefit the people or instead be large, fancy malls or office towers that don’t have enough occupants.
Space.com has an article up about Chinese plans for a lunar rock receiving lab, as well as general updates on the Chinese program.
Presenting at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), Chinese experts noted plans for their processing center, which sounds roughly equivalent to NASA’s famed Lunar Receiving Laboratory. China currently plans to have the Chang’e-3 lander down in 2013, with the Chang’e-4 rock hauler touching down in 2017 and the Chang’e-2 luanr orbiter launching later this year.
There’s an almost aside quote towards the end of the article that caught my attention:
“”In addition they have started participating in discussions for the International Lunar Network (ILN) mission…” – Ray Arvidson, Washington University Professor
Details on that ILN have been slim so far, but to see a current mention after NASA’s cancellation of Constellation is interesting. A NASA site says about the project:
“NASA will undertake landed lunar missions and is architecting a conceptual “global lunar network” as a backbone of its envisioned robotic surface activities. This concept, called the International Lunar Net-work (ILN), aims to provide an organizing theme for all landed science missions in the 2010s by involving each landed station as a node in a geophysical network.” -NASA Science Mission Site, ILN
Clearly, with NASA taking a step back, someone else would likely step in to ‘architect’ the continuation of the network…and from that quote about the recent Chinese “discussions” about it, it sounds like someone is. Guess international lunar development will roll on, with or without NASA, at just the same pace
I’ve decided that I do not currently participate in enough challenges and so I am joining the China Challenge. I came across this challenge through Amy’s blog A Striped Armchair and when I thought about it I noticed that I actually have four books on China on my bookshelves, waiting to be read. Thus, it wasn’t all that hard to decide what books I want to read for this challenge. I am still looking for a good non-fiction book on China and I could do with some more fiction-recommendations as well. I am joining the Fast Train to Shanghai level, which has the following rules:
Read 5 books about China
1 should be a translated work of fiction by a Chinese author (or not translated if you have the language skills.) I will make exceptions for Chinese authors that also write in English– their English works are fine.
1 should be nonfiction
I’m thinking that I’d like to participate on some of the activities mentioned for the Silk Road Trek (for example, reading a Chinese blog, watch a Chinese movie, eat Chinese food, etc), but I know I won’t be able to read 10 books on China this year. So I might just cheat and report on these activities anyway.
The books that I have selected for now are:
Red Dust by Ma Jian: A book about a journey through China by the author. I picked this book up a few years ago at a book sale. It’s part of the Vintage books “Take Your Imagination East” series.
Miss Chopsticks by Xinran: Another booksale buy. Part of the blurb is the fascinating sentence: “Women, their father tells them, are like chopsticks: utilitarian and easily broken.” I think I could read this for the Women Unbound Challenge as well, but we’ll see.
Becoming Madam Mao by Anchee Min: This has been on my shelves for forever, I don’t even remember when or where I got it from. I’ve never read it, because the size of the book makes me hesitant to pick it up. I think this book will be the hardest to actually start reading for this challenge.
Wu. The Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become a Living God by Jonathan Clements: This might be my non-fiction pick for this challenge, although I might want to read more non-fiction about China this year. It’s advertised as “the true story of the first and only woman in Chinese history to become ruling emperor’. Something about this line tells me that this might be a rather too-popular non-fiction read. Actually, I bought it thinking that it would be a fiction book. But there are some notes at the end of the book, so let’s just say I’m curious to see what I’ll think of it when I’ve read it.
I have a copy of Wild Swans by Jung Chang waiting to be reread on my shelves. I remember how I loved this book when I was a fourteen-year-old, but I’m thinking that I might want to add a book that I haven’t read already.
Do you have any recommendations on books I might like to read about or related to China?
