Archive for September, 2009

Guess I picked the wrong time to travel to the Philippines

By On September 29, 2009 In China, Latest, Personal With No Comments Permanent Link to Guess I picked the wrong time to travel to the PhilippinesPermalink
Should I stay or should I go?

Things aren't looking good in the city I'm supposed to fly into on Thursday.

My plans to travel to the Philippines on Thursday just got a little complicated.

The government said today that 246 people died in flooding caused by heavy rains from Typhoon Kestana. The storm hit Manila on Saturday when it was still considered a tropical storm. It is the worst flooding to hit the area in over 40 years. Reports say the rainfall on Saturday (16 in) exceeded the average for the entire month of September. Another storm is expected to hit a different island of the Philippines on Thursday.

Guess who was planning to fly into Manila on Thursday evening? (Hint: me).

At the moment, those plans are still on. I am heading over there with a small group of 6 other people from the CTLC program. We will go to the Hong Kong airport on Thursday afternoon and play it by ear. If the flight is canceled, we’ll travel somewhere else. If it’s still on, we’ll leave Manila immediately upon landing and head to a different island that wasn’t hit by the typhoon.

All in all, there are about 40 people from the program traveling to the Philippines in separate groups. We are traveling there as part of our week off for China’s National Day holiday celebrations.

Oh, typhoon season. You’re going to take some getting used to.

UPDATE (10/1/09): I canceled the trip. More details here.

Typhoon days are the new snow days

By On September 29, 2009 In China, Latest, Personal With No Comments Permanent Link to Typhoon days are the new snow daysPermalink
Typhoons (or cyclones) actually aren't as scary as you think they'd be.

Typhoons (or cyclones) actually aren't as scary as you think they'd be. Above: people in Shanghai during Typhoon Koppu.

One of the weirder (or cooler?) things about living in Southeast Asia is typhoon season. (Typhoons are basically the Asian version of hurricanes).

Being from Michigan, I’ve never had the experience of living through any type of cyclone season. Typhoons and hurricanes always seemed so distant. News reports made the hurricane/typhoon zones seem dangerous.

Naturally I was a little worried two weeks ago when I experienced my very first typhoon.

Typhoon Koppu hit my province (Guangdong) on September 14. It ran a ship aground in Zhuhai, a city about three hours from here. It also shut down the markets in Hong Kong for a morning. Hong Kong is less than an hour away from here.

On the night of the 14th, my school’s contact teacher called to let me know that Luoling would be closed the next day. That night, the downpour was pretty heavy with strong winds.

But by the next morning, the storm had passed. It was replaced by light rains.

Having the day off reminded me of the snow days we always had in Michigan. And apparently typhoon days in China happen as often as snow days back home. I wonder what the equivalent of snow day sledding would be on a typhoon day …

How’s this for a mouthful?: The name of my school

By On September 28, 2009 In China, Latest, Personal With No Comments Permanent Link to How’s this for a mouthful?: The name of my schoolPermalink

Shenzhen Luoling Foreign Language Experimental School. (Pinyin: Shenzhen Shi Luoling Waiyu Shiyan Xuexiao; Characters: 深圳市落铃外语试验学校). Or Luoling for short.

It’s a primary school in Shenzhen’s Luohu district. I teach 10 fourth-grade and 5 third-grade classes here.

Why “experimental”? I’ve been told tacking on the word “experimental” to the name is a way for Chinese schools establish themselves as credible institutions.

Luoling’s website can be found here.

Chicago, I love you and all, but … (Why Chi-town won’t win the 2016 Games)

By On September 28, 2009 In Other, Sports With No Comments Permanent Link to Chicago, I love you and all, but … (Why Chi-town won’t win the 2016 Games)Permalink
chicago_cubsfans_mad1_300

Poor Chicago. Friday's Olympic vote will probably be another disappointment.

Rio will win the 2016 Olympic host city bid.

Believe me, as a devoted Olympics fan, I’d love to see the Games come to the Chi. My hometown in Metro Detroit is only 4 hours away from the city and it’s always been one of my favorite destinations.

But the odds are against Chicago for various reasons:

  1. The ’84, ’96 and ’02 games were already held in the USA. Most countries only receive host city bids once every few decades.
  2. The 2012 games will be held in the UK. While the two societies aren’t necessarily the same, people tend to equate the  countries with each other. The IOC may want to mix up the venues.
  3. And of course, the most obvious reason: the Games have never been held in the entire continent of South America. Giving the Games to Rio would perhaps strengthen their appeal in that area, making it a sexy choice for the IOC.

Of course, Chicago still has a good shot. President Obama may come to Copenhagen after all for the final decision on October 2, a move that could sway some of the IOC voters. The IOC’s share of revenue supposedly increases by 20% when the games are held in the States. Chicago is also probably the safest bet, since money for the Games could be raised pretty quickly.

And Rio’s bid is far from perfect. High crime rates and the city’s failure to fulfill promises for the 2007 Pan-Am games could hurt its chances.

But even cities that have been slow to develop have turned around in time for the Games. Remember in 2004 when Athens was considered unprepared months before the Games began? Or that pollution problem Beijing had just one month before the Opening Ceremony last year? Both cities turned around quickly.

In the end, it really comes down to this: since 1896, when the modern Olympics were created, the Games have never been to South America. Combine that with a Brazil’s rising economy and highly supportive population — nearly 85% of people in Rio alone want the Games to come to their city — and its delegation will certainly have the most passionate bid.

And as the New York Times puts it: “In the past, the I.O.C. has bestowed its seal of approval on uncharted regions at propitious times in their histories.” Deal, consider yourself sealed.

Sorry, Chicago. There’s always 2020?

Following college football in China when there’s a 12-hour time difference

By On September 26, 2009 In China, Latest, Personal With No Comments Permanent Link to Following college football in China when there’s a 12-hour time differencePermalink
Sigh...I miss Football Saturdays in Ann Arbor

Sigh. I miss Football Saturdays in Ann Arbor.

It’s a little hard to follow college football when I’m eating lunch at the same time my friends back home are heading to bed. So, I recently signed up to receive event listings from the University of Michigan Alumni Association’s Hong Kong club. (Hong Kong is about 45 minutes away from Shenzhen). I got this one the other day:

Dear Fellow Alumni,

We have arranged for a LIVE football watching event this coming weekend for the Michigan vs. Indiana game.

Date: Saturday, 26 September 2009
Venue: Amici,  1/F, 83 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai (Corner of Lockhart Road and Luard Road above Mes Amis)
Time: 12:00am (midnight)

Contact: xxxxx

GO BLUE!

Hong Kong Alumni Association

Too bad I have to work Sunday morning. Otherwise, I’d go there in a heartbeat to watch a game that kicks off at midnight CST.

Michigandaily.com redesign launches

By On September 9, 2009 In Featured, Latest, Michigan Daily, Redesigns, Web Design With 1 Comment Permanent Link to Michigandaily.com redesign launchesPermalink

Redesign

After seven months of reader surveys and wireframes, my former college paper, The Michigan Daily, finally launched its website redesign last week.

Read all about it on the Daily’s Editor’s Blog here.

The front-end redesign marks the final step in the Daily’s switch to new hosting. The process started over a year ago when the Daily decided for various reasons not to renew its contract with Viacom’s College Publisher.

The former design — which was introduced in 2006 — was suitable for College Publisher’s Content Management System (CMS), though many of the frontend features only became available through extensive backend hacking.

Once the Daily brought the CMS in house, however, that design quickly became restrictive and outdated. The new CMS — a highly customized version of the opensource Drupal platform — allowed for much more design freedom.

I was the Daily’s Managing Online Editor in 2008. It was interesting to see firsthand how dramatically our publishing process changed once the new system was implemented.

Because the old CMS lacked proper XML downloading software for articles, they had to be manually placed on the website after all the pages were sent to the printer. So during our final semester with CP, I managed a staff that started working at 1 am.

When the new CMS launched last fall, we no longer needed to maintain a separate online staff to upload stories. Now, section editors are able to publish stories to the website before they are placed in the print edition.

Though my term as Online Editor ended at the beginning of the year, I was part of the team that helped launch the frontend redesign you see today.

The process began this past January when I formed a website redesign committee. After the earliest meetings, the new editors launched reader surveys and gathered together ideas for the new website.

From that feedback I worked on the wireframes. Towards the end of the semester — my final days at Michigan — I was involved in translating the wireframes to CSS and Javascript. That rest of the backend coding was handed over to others once I graduated.

This is the second redesign I’ve been involved with at the Daily. In 2006, I headed a print redesign.

Lessons Learned

If there’s anything I took away from this web redesign, it’s that you have to be patient with coding. I’ve never wanted to rip my hair out more than I did when I was translating the wireframes to CSS.

Another thing I learned: print and web designs are completely different. (Obviously). Going into this redesign, I already knew that I’d be limited to the web fonts and a strict 960 pixel grid. But taking other things into account — loading speeds, differing web browsers, saving images for the web, predetermined ad sizes — never crossed my mind until the redesign committee received feedback from staff and readers.

All in all, I’d say the experience was frustrating and challenging. And I’d love to do it again.

Dealing with the culture shock

By On September 7, 2009 In China, Craziest thing I saw in China today, Latest, Personal With 2 Comments Permanent Link to Dealing with the culture shockPermalink

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in China for a month already. Adjusting to the cultural differences has been going surprisingly well. But there are still the occasional low points.

During my 2.5 week training session at Peking University in Beijing, my fellow CTLC participants and I learned all about culture shock. It is said that there are 4 stages of “acculturation” — the ability to call a foreign place home:

  1. Honeymooon: excitement, anticipation, enjoyment of differences
  2. Hostility: irritation, anger, depression, physical ailments
  3. Humor: a growing ability to deal with the differences and see them as interesting or funny
  4. Home: the ability to function well and feel comfortable in the new culture

Of these stages, I would say that I mostly find myself in #2 and #3. My honeymoon phase was pretty short. The miserable Beijing weather — a mix of hot, humid and polluted — was enough to put me out of that stage pretty quickly.

Hostility

It’s very easy to be hostile in this country. Common courtesies in the United States — saying “thank you” or “excuse me,” waiting in line — simply aren’t recognized in China. Pedestrian safety is low on the driver priority list, and drivers here are more likely to honk their horns than a New York City taxi driver. And unless you’re willing to pay a lot of money, your only food options are Chinese, McDonald’s and KFC.

Humor

But at the same time, the cultural differences can be absolutely hilarious. If you follow my Twitter feed, you’ll notice that I’ve been running a “craziest thing I saw in China today” series. (From now on, that series will also be part of this blog). One of my favorite things about this country is all of the poor English translations. T-shirts with English writing on them almost never make sense (i.e. “Orange Music Crumple”), and my favorite store to buy teaching materials from is called “Office Thigs.”

Will I ever reach the home phase? Only time will tell.

—

In other news, I am all moved in to my apartment in Shenzhen. I will provide the details about my area and school in an upcoming blog post.

On that note, this website has been blocked by the Great Firewall of China. For that same reason, my access to websites like Twitter and Facebook has been limited. There are ways around that, but they require an extra amount of work. And when I am able to access the sites, the connection is painfully slow.

And finally, my camera broke on the flight to Beijing, so my only images from China have come from my iPhone. I hope to upload those to my Flickr stream and this blog once I have a more reliable internet connection.

Until then, I will try to keep blogging and updating from coffee shops.