Shamu: 鱼眼看美国,以及中国

Olympic Thoughts (3)

I didn't realize it till it's too late.

Tonight NBC was showing the men's volleyball match between US and Greece. When they started it was Game 4 and the Americans were trailing at 12-16 or something. Then the US came up and the two teams exchanged leads until the US won the game 26-24. By then, I could have imagined who'd won the match eventually. Ah, not yet. Game 5. More watching. Finally, not to my (or anybody's) surprise, the US went on to win the game and the match.

To be sure, it's a fantastic match. I've always liked watching men's volleyball and like before enjoyed the incredible spikes, blocks and digs the two teams put up to win the match. But the way NBC tailored the match to preserve and show the *whole* comeback process of the US team totally ruined it and made me want to vomit. Oh my gosh, CCTV could have done a more smooth job!

Guess I only have myself to blame. Whoever stupid enough to watch the Primetime NBC Olympic coverage, for that long, deserves this royal treatment.

Olympic Thoughts (2)

Table Tennis women's doubles:

Just read about the new tournament rules of the table tennis match in this Olympics--that double players from the same country must be placed in the same half of draw. Well, guess what? We still won the gold (and the bronze), and the world did not see the best match in the finals. Sure, it's meant to break up one country's (read, Chinese) dominance, but this simply does not work--the other countries are already catching up, but this rule only hurts the legitimacy of the result. In America, this would be called discrimination! Shame on you, ITTF!

Ironical reality:

The US probably has the most guns in the hands of its citizens in the world, but they are not the best country in shooting in the Olympics. And guess who is: China, the country where no citizen has access to guns. By contrast, China has the largest number of bikers, yet claimed only one silver medal so far. Oh, by the way, we also won the women's double in tennis, which if by the average number of tennis courts per capita, China is likely ranked at the bottom. Well on a second thought, maybe that's why we won the DOUBLE. :)

Olympic Thoughts (1)

Some strange things about Olympics and its coverage by NBC:
1. Michael Phelps:
Eight golds? NBC and other media for that matter, give me a break! The guy didn't even get silver in 200 Freestyle. I didn't even hear one mention of the Dutch guy that beat him after the race. It's as if there were only two athletes competing. Nothing could be farther from the Olympic spirit. Also, what's with the turn of tone after the bronze? Suddenly, the media is listening to what the kid has to say.

2. Delayed coverage:
Like any intelligent American, I cannot stand any delay (and re-packaging) in broadcasting a game. Yeah, right, at 7PM CDT it's still "tonight" in Athens. It's so painful to watch poor Bob Costas pretending everything is happening live and there's no such thing as a time difference. Even worse, the ever innocent eyes of Bob Costas make it infinitely intolerable. Hello? Did you know that the earth is round???

These are my observations so far. More to come...

My Trip Home: Beijing(2)

Gotta continue on what I have started.

The first place I wanted to go after seeing my parents was..... the grocery store. Yes, I know it's silly but it's the grocery store I miss the most. All the ready-to-eat cooked meats and vegetarian produce, the yogurts and diary products (yes, they are 100 times better than the American ones), the pickled dry fruits, and not to mention the sunflower seeds. Just standing between the isles and knowing that I can enjoy 99% of the foods here (vs. maybe 10% in an American grocery store) gives me such a warm and fuzzy right-at-home feeling. Plus exploring all the new products developed after I went abroad--I could spend two hours just in a neighborhood grocery store maybe one tenth of the size of a typical American grocery store. And I don't need to buy much to actually eat--the smell and touch is all I need.
Now I remember how excited I was even to enter a Ranch 99 in LA. It combines the Chinese smell and the American size. But not quite in the smell department. Even that could make my heart pounding like I've just run a 3k race. Yes, I know this is embarrassing to admit, but right there, I sensed something that would not change for the rest of my life, no matter how westernized I become.
Back to Beijing, I could not resist but bought some tofu products. Those of you who've been to China know how much variety we have in tofu--dried, fried, pickled, frozen, and other processing I can't even find English for. To us, tofu is like cheese to westerners. We simply cannot live without it. As much as I love cheese, tofu is where my heart is.

I AM home.

Chicago

This theater is in Chicago's newly opened Millennium Park. We visited it last Thursday. What a magnificent park!

Speakers hanging from the metal frames can bring the music to audience sitting on the lawn way behind the rows of seats:

Besides the theater, I also loved the Family Album exhibit. As well as the Cloud Gate sculpture below:

Notice the reflection of the architecture on the other side of Michigan Avenue. Isn't it gorgeous?

Besides the park, we also visited Lincoln Park. My cousin and I enjoyed Korean BBQ, and topped it off with tea and live music in a small coffee shop.
This neighborhood rocks!

It took only one visit to fall in love with Chicago. I only wish I could move here for good.

Going to Chicago

I'm leaving for Chicago tomorrow (I should say later today) till the weekend. Will stay in a hotel in the loop. Hopefully I will find time to update my blog there. And post some pictures.

I can't wait to visit the newly opened Millennium Park!

I love Fish

The white bass I cooked for dinner. Here’s the Chinese recipe (without exact measurement, which is in typical Chinese style). Please ignore the follow-up.
It tasted wonderful. I don’t know why these “net friends” at Paowang are sooo picky. Everybody that has tried my fish couldn’t have enough of it.

My Trip Home: Beijing (1)

The Japan Airlines flight to Beijing was an uneventful except for the sweet voice of the Japanese flight attendants. At the airport, after I got my luggage and went out, I looked around but didn’t find mom or dad in the waiting crowd. I bought an IC phone card to call dad’s cell phone and saw them immediately—they just entered the building seconds ago and were looking into the luggage area. They haven’t changed much in two years, except for the gray hair above dad’s ears. “Mom and dad!” I yelled at them to get their attention. I walked over and wanted to hug them, especially mom, but somehow I didn’t—I’m still regretting to this day. This would never have happened to an American, but once I landed in Beijing, I was back into my Chinese self.
Pushing my cart and dodging the guys with little flyers advertising cheap air tickets, we crossed the street and got into the parking garage. It was just like any garage in America, with multiple stories and painted but compact parking spaces. We walked to our car, a shiny silver Volkswagon Bora (Jetta in the US), which I have seen in pictures. Dad’s dream finally materialized, I thought.
Dad’s driving as mom still didn’t know the direction well. Parking was free for under 30 minutes—again, just like the US. Two years saw a lot of changes in China and I can’t predict what it’ll be like in ten years.

It’s already 10PM by the time we got home. Wife was waiting for me—she’d been back for about two months to treat her back pain (disc degeneration). She’s in pain and of course glad to see me.

I needed a rest, I thought, and quickly went to sleep.

I woke up at around 6AM, with no jet lag at all. It’s always been so smooth after every trip to China.

It’s nice to be home.

China vs. US: Names (2)

As I mentioned last time, in English or any western language, the given name always comes before the family name. This presents a huge inconvenience when sorting names—because you cannot sort by the alphabetical order of the first letter of the name. If you’ve ever written a program that sorts names, you know how tedious it is just to find the right letter to sort by. During my recent trip, I was in a conference in Shanghai. The local organizers compiled a directory of all attendants and gave up on sorting by last names—they just sorted by whatever comes first. If only the creator of the name sequence had thought about this! The same frustration applies to addresses—why the heck do they start the finest detail, the street number first? And why do they have the apartment number AFTER the street name, not before the street number? The postman’s job would be much easier if they know where a letter is going by only looking at the first word in the address.

In summary, all addresses and names should be in the Chinese order:
Country, State/Province, City, Street, Number
Family Name, Given Name

For example, if you were to write to the richest guy in the world, you would write to:

USA
Washington
Redmond
Microso*t Way 1
Microso*t
Gates Bill