so young
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing, news, random on September 3, 2008
See how cool my university is? We’ve got China’s youngest grad student!
中国最小研究生北工大报到 父母来京陪读
China’s youngest graduate student registers at BeiGongDa. Parents accompany him to Beijing to study.
昨天是北京工业大学２００８级１３００多名研究生报到的日子。当１．７米出头，却还一脸稚气的１３岁研究生张炘炀，在父母陪伴下来到学校逸夫图书馆前的研究生新生报到处时，立刻引起了其他新生和老师的注意。
Yesterday was the day for Beijing University of Technology’s over 1300 graduate students of 2008 to register. The 1.7 metre tall, but still fresh-faced 13 year old graduate student Zhang Xinyang immediately grabbed the attention of the other new students and teachers as his parents accompanied him to the graduate students’ registration office outside the school’s Yifu Library.
昨天早上９点半左右，张炘炀在父母的陪同下来到了研究生新生报到处。虽然凭借１．７米出头的身高，站在２０多岁的同学中间并不很显眼。但仔细看去，张炘炀毕竟是一个只有１３岁的小孩子。在新生报到处，他的父母忙前忙后地帮他办理各种入学手续，而张炘炀只是坐着等候。
At around 9 yesterday morning, Zhang Xinyang arrived at the graduate students’ registration office accompanied by his parents. Although at 1.7 metres tall he doesn’t stand out amongst his 20-something classmates, after a more careful look Zhang Xinyang is after all just a 13 year old child. At the new students’ registration office, his parents busied themselves helping him handle each process involved in registration, while Zhang Xinyang sat and waited.
尽管小小年纪就已经要读研究生了，但在父母眼里，张炘炀依然是一个贪玩的孩子。所以在孩子被北工大录取的时候，张父也向学校提出了“陪读”要求，考虑到张炘炀未年满１８岁，身边需要有个监护人，因此学校也欣然答应并为他们安排了单间。
Although he’s about to become a grad student at such a tender age, in his parents’ eyes he’s still a child who loves to play, so when BeiGongDa recruited the child, his mother required the right to accompany him in his studies, considering that until he reached 18 he would need a guardian by his side, and so the school agreeably replied and arranged a separate room for them.
“我们已决定由教学经验丰富的数理学院副院长程曹宗作为他的导师，希望能把小炘炀的优势尽量发挥出来。”北京工业大学研究生部的吴主任表示。同时，吴主任还认为，如果张炘炀学习不吃力，依然可以在研究生课程中申请“跳级”。
“We already decided the highly experienced educator and vice-dean of the mathematics institute Cheng Caozong would be his advisor, and hope he can draw out little Xinyang’s talents as much as possible,” said Chairman Wu of Beijing University of Technology’s Graduate School. At the same time, Chairman Wu also believes if Zhang Xinyang’s studies are not strenuous enough, he could still apply to skip a year in the graduate study programme.
Wow.
mmhmm
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing, news on September 2, 2008
So it seems the odds/evens traffic restrictions have got people thinking. 新京报/The Beijing News’ Beijing news page is chock full of articles about the results of a recent survey on the subject- and the possible extension of the restrictions beyond the Olympic period. And there’s this page which looks like a scan of a printed copy of the survey results. Warning: It’s really hard on the eyes and difficult to read all of the text.
Another warning: I have absolutely zero training or education in statistics, and I can’t read clearly everything on that page. But, having said that, two things seem clear to me:
- Drivers really are selfish gits.
- There is clear public support for extension of both the odds/evens traffic restrictions and the public transport network.
Input from those who can read those graphs and the accompanying text more clearly and/or have access to a more readable version and/or actually know something useful about statistics and their interpretation is most welcome, especially if it clears up any possible misapprehensions.
So back to that multitude of stories on the subject: This piece says:
长期单双号支持率68.9%
Rate of support for long term odds/evens 68.9%
That’s a reasonably sizeable majority, but of course it needs more than the headline to be looked at:
5058位市民接受调查，部分有车族称可买两车应对
5058 citizens were surveyed, some car owners said they could buy two cars in response
本报讯 奥运结束以后，是否对车辆继续实施单双号限行政策，在市民中引发争议。本报委托北京锐智阳光信息咨询公司开展了针对北京市民的调查。调查显示，68.9% 的受访者表示支持，19%的人表示反对，12.1%的人则表示无所谓。其中无车族的支持率比有车族高34.4个百分点。
TBN reports: After the Olympics, whether or not the odds/evens traffic restriction policy on cars should be continued has led to controversy amongst citizens. This newspaper commissioned Beijing Sunny-wise Consulting Company to survey Beijing citizens. The survey showed that 68.9% of those surveyed supported, 19% opposed and 12.1% had no opinion [wangbo: presumably supported/opposed/had no opinion of the odds/evens rule]. The rate of support of those with no car was 34.4 percentage points higher than that of car owners.
There’s more in that article, a paragraph of which covers technicalities of the survey, which I understand are important to interpreting the results, but which I simply have neither the skills, experience or education to handle myself. I’ll leave that up to those who know what they’re on about.
Scrolling down that page we get some key statistics with a little analysis and explanation. I’ll leave the details to those better equipped and just look quickly at the highlights:
数说
65.1%
无车族认为出行更方便
Carless people felt going out was more convenient.
Just a brief breakdown: 57.2% said there were less traffic jams; 53.2% said air quality was better, 44% said there were less cars on the road; but 18.6% said there were more people on the buses and subway, which wasn’t so convenient.
75%
限行日出行选公交或地铁
Chose bus or subway when going out on restricted days.
Odd little note: 4.9% bought a second car to beat the restrictions.
48.5%
有车族支持单双号限行
Car owners support the odds/evens traffic restrictions.
To be honest I’m surprised that figure is so high. Still, it is only a significant minority and falls short of a majority.
69.8%
使用价值降低对有车族不公
Lowers the value of using a car; not fair to car owners.
You won’t find me sympathising with car owners. Their insistence on polluting our air lowers the value of breathing. Personally, I find breathing to be far more important than allowing some self-important git drive everywhere he wants.
18%
拟买两辆车应对长期限行
Plan to buy a second car in response to long-term restrictions.
I think I’ve made my views clear enough… Fortunately 66.3% said they would use public transport.
55.7%
公交地铁运营应延时
Bus and subway hours should be extended.
Absolutely. Beijing long ago passed the point where 24-hour public transport was necessary.
So all very interesting. Hopefully the traffic restrictions combined with continued investment in and development of the public transport network will continue. I have no doubts about the future of Beijing’s public transport, though, I just hope Beijing’s car owners will be told clearly that they have no natural right to pollute our air and clog our roads.
starting up again
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on September 2, 2008
Ugh, I’m surprised I don’t have a migraine after yesterday’s efforts.
Somehow something got miscommunicated, or just not communicated, by someone, and there’s no sense trying to play any silly little blame games, and we, the foreign teachers, wound up with timetables that were most unpleasant to look at. And so yesterday involved some discussions followed up by much breaking of our own heads against stubborn, uncooperative timetables and lists of available classrooms and…
Well, it’s sorted and we have timetables we can accept, and at 9:55 this morning I’ll be back in the classroom. Second year writing, same as what I did last academic year (sweet! half my planning is done already! All I need to do is make a few adjustments and revisions) and, from next Tuesday, two first year spoken English classes. That’s alright, spoken English is relatively easy, and I know from past experience I can work really well with Roubaozi who has the other two first year spoken classes.
But one thing is abundantly clear: We need another teacher. And we’ll be losing one at the end of this semester, so really we need another two teachers. And we might be losing another at the end of this semester, so maybe we need another three teachers. If we can’t find at least one more then next semester’s timetabling is going to make yesterday’s mess look clean and pleasant and oh so comfortable.
So consider this a job ad: If you’re interested in teaching English at a good university in Beijing, leave a comment. If you join us this semester you’ll most likely have only spoken English classes, not too strenuous, but you’ll probably get some writing next semester.
another one
Another quake in Sichuan, though not as big or as devastating as May’s, and it seems Matt felt it down in Kunming. I dunno, when a San Franciscan describes a quake as “pretty decent-sized” I’m inclined to think it was reasonably powerful, and 6.1 on the Richter scale is nothing to be sneezed at.
free books
Good news for suburban Beijing students: 新京报/The Beijing News’ Wang Jialin reports that starting from September students in Beijing’s suburban areas will not be charged textbook fees. Currently rural students, students from poor families, and those in special education schools already get free textbooks, but this will be expanded to include those from suburban district and county towns and townships (城,镇). No translation, though, we’re heading off for lunch and then to enjoy the beautiful weather very soon. Some districts and counties will also start recycling programmes for certain textbooks. Shunyi, for example, will be recycling the extracurricular reading materials for primary school Chinese classes up to Grade 6, and will expand this to calculators next year. I suspect, but I’m not sure, they mean ‘recycle’ as in pass the books on to younger students as older ones move up a grade.
disappointing
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing, ranting, tilting at windmills on August 31, 2008
My wife loves 老诚一锅/lǎochéngyīguō’s 羊蝎子/yángxiēzi/”sheep scorpion” hotpot. It’s a hotpot with a pile of bits of dead sheep- mostly from around the spine, so far as I can tell- boiled in the broth. You eat the bits of dead sheep- or get what meat you can off them- and put the usual hotpot veges, meat and other bits and pieces in to cook.
The first time I ate Laochengyiguo was at the Yayuncun branch. I was not impressed. It was far too 麻 (the numbing flavour from Sichuan pepper) for my tastes, and the mutton fat flavour was overpowering. But at least it had flavour, even if it was a flavour I didn’t much appreciate. That’s one key thing about food: To be good, it must have a flavour. Food with no flavour can never be anything more than mere fuel.
Anyway, I’m not a great fan of the yangxiezi hotpot, but lzh likes it. There’s a restaurant nearby which does its own version, but somehow lzh found online the address of a branch of Laochengyiguo nearby. We couldn’t find it, not for a long time. Then, while out on a bike ride one beautiful Beijing summer day (not as oxymoronic a phrase as you’d believe if you’ve been relying on the Western press and a few grumpy expats for your information on Beijing) I stumbled across a restaurant with a big Laochengyiguo sign over the door hidden down a backstreet in Huawei Xili. Last night we finally cycled over to check it out.
Now, what did I just write about “flavour”? About it being necessary for food to be good? About how food without flavour can never be anything more than mere fuel? Yeah. Management of that branch of Laochengyiguo- a branch the waiter claimed was the original restaurant- needs to learn about that. Good food has flavour. We did manage to detect some salt in the broth, but whoopdeedoo, this is north China, every cook here manages to put salt in their food, sometimes a very large amount of salt, and yet almost all of them manage to add some flavour beyond the salt. Even the meat didn’t really taste of much, and I don’t know how they managed that. Lamb may not have quite as strong a flavour as mutton, but it usually has flavour.
And when we called over the waitress and told her it was not spicy, she said, “Yes it is, look, there’s chilli in there”, pointing at the tiny little red bits floating around. Not the appropriate response to a customer complaint.
And as I mentioned, the waiter claimed this was the original Laochengyiguo restaurant. Funny how the website lists the main branch at Niujie and does not list a branch anywhere near Huawei Xili (hmmm…. you might have to click on “联系我们” to see the list). In fact, I’m struggling to figure out how lzh ever found an address for a branch in that area- oh, wait, here we go, it’s on Dianping’s list of Laochengyiguo branches. But who do you trust?
Well, whether that branch is “real” or not, I don’t know. I just wanted to treat lzh to one of her favourite meals, and we walked away disappointed. Flavourless food, and although the service was alright, I don’t appreciate the staff disputing our judgement of the food- we’re eating it and if we’re saying it has no flavour, you might want to perhaps find a way to satisfy us. Trouble is, they were obviously not lacking for customers, therefore one or two upset or disappointed people probably won’t have any effect on their business.
cool
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on August 31, 2008
I’m starting to believe the traditional Chinese calendar. I mean, this year 立秋/lìqiū/the start of autumn fell on August 7, and since then the weather has been slowly cooling off. August wasn’t as hot as I expected- although it certainly was getting very warm during the day, many nights it got quite cool, and cooler as time wore on. Now, after two grey, rainy days, a breeze blew up last night to clear the humid muck out, this morning has dawned bright, blue and crystal clear, and the temperature in our apartment has dropped to 24 degrees. The temperature inside has been hovering around 29 or 30 degrees all month- which is actually quite comfortable if you have a fan going- but now it’s a mere 24 and it feels quite cool. Soon we’ll actually have to start closing the windows overnight.
open for golden week
There’s a lot in this article that I just can’t be arsed translating, and I’m struggling to force myself to read it, but the two bits that grabbed my eye were the headline (of course, that’s a headline’s job):
“鸟巢””水立方”等场馆十一向公众开放
Bird’s Nest, Water Cube and other venues open to the public at National Day
And this sentence:
十一黄金周期间，奥运场馆将最大限度地保留奥运赛事时的场景和设施，向北京市民和全国各地游客开放，供人们参观游览。
Over the National Day Golden Week, the Olympic venues will retain to the greatest extent the sights and facilities of the time of the Olympic competitions and will be open to Beijing citizens and tourists from every region of China for people to tour.
Rough as guts translation, as usual, I’m sorry. I notice it doesn’t mention foreign tourists. Hmmm… Anyways, I’ll leave it up to you to decide if the inevitable crowds are worth it.
The rest of the article seems to me to be a lot of fluffle about the ideals and principles in the conversion of the Olympic venues to their peacetime, post-Olympic use. Sorry, I just don’t have the energy, inspiration or motivation for that right now, though I will be keeping an eye out for more news on the topic. All I can say is I hope Bank of China opens up its Olympic Green ATMs to cards other than Visa.
a day well spent
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on August 28, 2008
I’ve been busy lately. Not necessarily badly so, in fact, most of this busy-ness has been good. But busy, and so I’m feeling a bit worn out right now.
Yesterday was a good example. The day didn’t start so well, with me being summoned to the office to interview a straggler who didn’t make it to Tuesday’s marathon interviewing far more prospective students than anyone expected. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it was work and the kind of work that involves a lot of Army-style “hurry up and wait”-ing. Still, got that done and headed out to Gulou Dajie subway to meet up with two bloggers who have achieved a certain measure of notoriety.
Trouble is I mistimed my departure and arrived half an hour early. And having to run a gauntlet of “rickshaw” touts. I’ve never seen a rickshaw, not in real life, and I strongly suspect these idiots were actually trying to get people onto pedicabs. Trouble is I could see neither rickshaw nor pedicab anywhere nearby, and not one person responded in anything other than the negative to their constant way-too-far-in-your-face-not-taking-‘no’-for-an-answer attitude. I don’t understand- if nobody responds to their approach, why don’t they learn to sit back, relax, and let people choose their own form of transport? How is this approach helping anybody? Ah well, whatever…. I strolled up to Deshengmen and back to kill time.
Well, Michael and Ben arrived and we headed off to a Yunnan restaurant on Jiugulou Dajie for lunch, and it was a good, leisurely lunch in relaxed, intelligent company. Then Ben took off to meet someone and Michael and I adjourned to Jiangjinjiu for more leisurely passing of time. And it just wasn’t worth attempting to get home in time to meet lzh before we headed off to the evening’s entertainment, so we arranged for her to pick up some food and drink and meet me at Zhongshan Park….
…because as good as lunch and the afternoon were, there was still better to come.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is in town, playing two concerts, one last night at the Forbidden City Concert Hall and one tonight in the new National Theatre.
Well, we met, we had a picnic in Zhongshan Park, we wandered up to the concert hall. We arrived there just before seven, and so had to wait outside for a few minutes. At first we were a little nervous. There didn’t seem to be many people, and precious few Kiwis. Only spotted one other, and she works at the embassy…. Seven o’clock rolled around, and we went inside, picked up a programme and a brochure or two, generally got ourselves ready, found our seats…. Still not many people. But that’s ok, they slowly filtered in, and more and more Kiwis showed up, too, until by 7:30 the place was looking reasonably full. That was good.
And we were kinda lucky in one odd way, I reckon: The cheapest tickets being sold out, we got the second cheapest, and so we found ourselves in the second row back from the stage on the left. Well, that’s probably not the best, and I noticed the ambassador and his crew sitting in roughly the centre of the auditorium, where I suspect you’d get a more balanaced sound and a clear view of events. And being so close and on the left, I suspect we missed out a little on some of the instruments over on the right. But even so, we seemed to get the full range of instruments coming through. I don’t think we missed out on much.
And then the concert kicked off with Haley Maxwell leading the New Zealand ambassador in with a karanga. Tony Browne gave a speech, but seemed too nervous. Then the music started. We were treated to John Psathas’ Olympiad XXVIII, Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Jean Sibelius Symphony No 2, conducted by Pietari Inkinen with Li Wei on cello. All I know about the encores is that before the first one Inkinen turned to the audience and said “Sibelius Valse Triste“, or something like that. Oh, and I recognised the last piece but can not for the life of me remember what it may be called. And that last one was a lot of fun, with Inkinen turning around and directing the audience in their clapping along with the tune- and doing as masterful a job of that as he did with the orchestra.
And it was a great concert. With every piece the Inkinen and the orchestra had us soaring through the heavens in the arms of angels, and Li Wei had me utterly mesmerised with his cello. He brought that instrument alive and made it sing so beautifully even the greatest singers would be weeping tears of jealousy.
Or maybe I was just sitting too close.
But it was a great concert and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Leaving the concert hall was something akin to waking up the morning after a great party, when the harsh morning light smacks you in the forehead and you just want to crawl back under the covers.
I’ve always felt New Zealand has a phenomenal wealth of musical talent, and last night confirmed that.
just curious….
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on August 25, 2008
Y’know, something about this whole “underage” gymnast scandal had me wondering. For one thing, having seen some of the female gymnastics competiton, I noticed that it’s by no means only the Chinese, or even only the East Asian gymnasts who look like they should be in primary school- let’s please not forget that the training regimes for modern gymnastics are known to wreak merry havoc with the development processes of young bodies. I know there is evidence to suggest that some of the Chinese gymnasts are underage, but there is also evidence that they are of age, and to my mind this case has not yet been proven either way. I do think the media should be investigating in the apparent absence of appropriate action by the sport’s governing body, but, and there is a very big
BUT
here:
The only difference between trial by media and the Salem witch hunts is that trial by media tends to be marginally less fatal for its victims. Just like the Salem witch hunts, trial by media proves nothing and has no positive outcome.
And I can’t help but get the impression that most of the pressure for an “investigation” is coming from America, and there seems to be a certain note of sour grapes to it. This impression is reinforced by this article:
World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) director general David Howman says the Americans seemingly building a doping case against Usain Bolt should look at themselves first.
…..
“Sometimes these doubts are cast but I would suggest some Americans could look at themselves first. They had cheats in 2000 [Marion Jones] and cheats in 2004 so they think no one wins without cheating.
“Why is the emphasis on that fellow and not, for example, on [eight gold medal winner] Michael Phelps? Both those guys are just freakish athletes.”
Now I don’t mean to be unfair to America. Most of the American athletes I saw on TV this Olympics conducted themselves superbly, and so far as I saw, none disgraced themselves or their country. And I also want to say that if there is cheating to be uncovered, it should be uncovered and appropriately punished. But still, in the accusations against the Chinese gymnasts and the innuendo apparently being cast on Bolt there is a whiff of something ugly that has no place in sport.