TV

Do you know that recently CNN reported that a study found that teens who watched more TV were more likely to be pregnant?

Really?

Do you watch TV?

I even don't have a TV at my apartment.

No wonder at 30 you're still single without a kid.

Kendo

For some reason, I think I can excel in Kendo. I'll start my first ever Kendo class next Wednesday!!

Yosemite

Six years ago, I went to Yosemite first time with one of my good friends, Sylvia. We bought train passes and took a ten-day trip to California in September. Yosemite was our second stop. It was beautiful.

Last weekend, another good friend of mine, Guilan, invited me to go to Yosemite again. I have to go of course. Not only because it is Yosemite, but also it is spring! There will be famous waterfalls I missed last time! We even hiked up to Half Dome!

清明

下午打电话给家里的时候才知道今天是清明节。这几天西雅图正是雨雪不断。联想起杜牧的一首诗。

清明时节雨纷纷，
路上行人欲断魂。
借问酒家何处有？
牧童遥指杏花村。

Movies

I love movies. I like watching other people's stories.

Last month, I saw "Slumdog Millionaire". When I got back home from the movie, I couldn't help searching the related information/comments/movie critics online. The scene the young Jamal holding the picture of Amitabh Bachchan and jumping into a pile of excrement to seek Amitabh Bachchan's autograph has stuck in my mind.

Three weeks ago, I saw "He's Just Not That Into You". After the movie, my girl friends and I couldn't stop talking about the movie.

About two weeks ago, I saw "Watchman". I didn't remember the movie very much, except a sentence by one of the characters.

When you left me, I left Earth.

Yesterday, I saw another movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". I was very touched.

Am I also looking for myself in the movies?

Lost and Found

It happened yesterday.

I was reaching out to my belt to get my house keys. I didn't feel my keys. I turned around and found that there was only a key holder hanging on my belt. My heart started to sink. I had a very quick flashback what I did. I just finished a class about one hour ago. I took the bus to school in the morning. I said to myself I must have lost my keys in the classroom or in the bus. Somehow I felt like the chance that I lost my keys in the classroom was bigger. I graped my lab keys and put on my coat, and left my department building to the classroom where I had a morning class. There was no keys in the classroom. Then, I went to the lost and found desk in the HUB. No keys were turned in the morning. My heart sunk.

On the way back to the Gould Hall, I played back in my head what I had done in the morning. I remembered when I closed the door behind me, I put my gloves in one of the pockets of my coat, the same side I hanged my house keys. My handbag was just sitting on the pocket. Was it possible I lost the keys on the way to the bus stop? The chance of recovering my keys was getting slimmer. I started to feel a bit of panic.

I was very glad that I called Susan. She suggested me to call my property manager first. She also gave me a few numbers of locksmiths. I didn't have the phone number of the property manager with me. I had to call the locksmiths. The first one asked for $100 to open my door. The second one asked for $80. The third one asked for $100 as well. Hearing such high cost of the locksmiths just made me feel bad that I lost my keys. I said to myself at least I found out I lost the keys early. It would be worse if I had found that out at night.

I decided that I should go back home first and then asked the locksmith who asked for $80 to come open the door for me. On the way home, I got a phone call from the third locksmith I called. He said he would offer me the lowest price. I told him that I would call him when I got back home.

When I got off the bus, I started to search around as I walked home. I couldn't find any keys. When I was crossing the street and got closer to my apartment, I started to get nervous. For a second, I wish I would find my keys by the door. Standing in front of my door, I was stunned. My keys were hanging on the door. One of the keys was still in the lock on my door!!!

30

I turned 30 a few weeks ago.

I still remember 4 years ago when I was chatting with my housemates about what I wanted to achieve before I turned 30, I said I wanted to have a publication, travel to some places in Europe, and getting a boyfriend. At that time, I thought the easiest thing was to get a boyfriend. The most difficult one was going to Europe. It turned out I went to Europe the next summer, I had a first journal article as a second author last year, but I am still single.

Confucius said: "At thirty, I established my stand." It seems like I am still establishing my stand.

Gaza, Palestine, and Israel

If I didn't have any friends from Palestine and Israel, I wouldn't have felt so much for the people who live in that region. Specially what has happened for the last three weeks there.

If my Palestinian friends hadn't told me the situations in Gaza and the West Bank, I wouldn't have any idea that Palestine dose not have their own currency. People who live in the West Bank have to use different kinds of foreign currency the region. I wouldn't have known that Gaza is like a concentration camp, etc. Even though my friends have filled me with information about the region, I still can't image the life in Gaza and the West Bank.

When I asked my friend who is from Israel the population of the state, I was very surprised to hear it only has about 7-8 million people. On the other hand, my friend was shocked to hear I said that it was just like two median size cities or one large city in China. Just Shanghai alone has more population than the whole state of Israel.

20 years, 50 years, 100 years and many years later, I hope I can still see Palestine stand in the region.

Two-Week Vacation in Zhongshan

I got back to Seattle yesterday. I finished a two-week vacation at home with my parents. It had been a very relaxing time. I attended one of my cousins' one-month "anniversary" celebration, but missed my high-school's 100 anniversary celebration. I also saw some of high-school classmates and visited Macau.

I booked the discounted airline tickets. I had to get back to Seattle on December 26th. Meanwhile, my high-school was having 100th anniversary celebration on December 27th. I missed it just by one day. I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of the celebration.

On the other hand, one of my cousins got married last month. Somehow he and his wife and their families decided to celebrate their one-month "anniversary". They had a grand wedding ceremony with more than 500 people attending. Since I was at home, I was invited to their anniversary dinner.

I graduated from high school for more than 10 years. We are doing different things. I saw some of my classmates from high school during my visit. Surprisingly, I heard another two of them got married with each other!

Macau is just south of Zhongshan. It takes less than one hour to get there from Zhongshan. I finally visited it on December 18th with my parents. Here are some pictures.

Grown-Up

My friends say I have grown up.

I just moved to a one-bedroom apartment last weekend. I have the whole apartment to myself. It's my first time living alone. My friends said I have finally "grown up".

Baby Formula

I still remember the milk disaster in China back in September. Two weeks ago, I got an email from a high school classmate out of blue. He asked me to buy 12 big cans of baby formula from the US. They're so heavy that I had to take two trips. Last week, I bought 6 cans. This afternoon, I bought another 6 cans. The 12 cans of baby formula weight 20 pounds. I have to use EMS to send them back to China. It'll cost more than $120 on shipping!

Maybe I should open an import/export business on baby formula?

November 4, Election in the US

I found this picture online.

Steamed Eggs

I have decided that I should cook more often. Since the beginning of this year, I had been eating out a lot. If I cooked, I would just cook Korean spicy instant noodles. I have gained about 10 pounds. During the summer holiday, I went back to China to visit my parents and friends. My mother told me I should do more exercise. I knew she wanted to tell me that I should lose some weight. One of my parents' friend, who cares about me a lot ever since I was little, saw me again in August. She gave me tips on how to lose weight, even though I didn't ask for it!

Last week, I wanted to cook steamed egg, a simple dish that my grandmother used to make. I also had it at a friend's before she went back to China for her field trips. I stirred three chicken eggs, added some water, and put it on the stove to steam. It turned out not tasty at all! I called my parents and asked them how to make steamed eggs. Then I found out that I forgot to add some oil, but I added too much water. The good thing is that the dogs aren't too picky. I tried a second time. This time, it was only eatable. I think I have to try several times before it tastes good.

Zhang Danhong Incident

I didn't know Zhang Danhong. I had never heard of her name before. I found her name tonight when I was reading online Chinese news. Of course, I have a lot of things to say about Chinese news that is available in the newspaper and on the Chinese websites in China. I won't focus on this today. Instead I want to focus on Objective and Unbiased of news report in the western media in general.

According to some news, Zhang Danhong, who was the deputy editorial director of the Department of Chinese radio of the Deutsche Welle, was suspended for saying "too many good words for China". One of her "good words" for China is

The Communist Party of China has more than any political force in the world implemented Article 3 of the Declaration of Human Rights

Which is referring to the Chinese authorities pulling more than 400 million people out of poverty.

There are many people supporting Zhang. An open letter signed by 49 German scholars is a good example. At the same time, there are some people supporting the Deutsche Welle, such as another open letter by "a group of Chinese freelance writers and journalists living in different parts of the world".

Personally, I think the act of the Deutsche Welle is very silly. First of all, I believe an objective and unbiased news network has to have a variety of views according to the western philosophies.

If a media, or a nation couldn't tolerate different opinions, what will they be called?

Languages and Nations

I was talking with one of my schoolmates who will have his first baby soon. I asked him if his children were going to be multilingual. He replied that was for sure. Both he and his wife speak English and French fluently. In addition, his wife speaks Vietnamese fluently. So my schoolmate said his children would speak English, French, and Vietnamese.

I have some European friends as well some friends from the US mentioned that many people in the US only speak English. I think this might relate to the fact that all people in the US except for the native Americans were/are immigrants. Integration was the supreme task for families from different backdrops. The trade off is that people became monolingual. You might have known that my schoolmate and his wife are not from the US. They are from Canada.

Last Saturday evening, I went to the farewell party of the couple. At the party, one of their friends did a quite survey on "what is your favor thing(s) about Canada?" as the couple are moving back to Montreal.

Even though I haven't lived in Canada, there are a lot of good things about Canada. Canada is a neighboring country to the US. Yet, the country has two official languages. It is a part of the Commonwealth. It has universal health care.

In the early of this century, when people from the US traveling in the Europe, they liked to say they were from Canada. Thanks to the 2008 presidential election in the US, people started to be excited about the US. Two of my housemate's friends who were visiting from Vancouver, BC said they wished they would vote in November.

P.S. Trying to be more politically correct, I use "the US" instead of "America". As "America" includes north and south. North America includes the US and Canada.

Maple Valley Loop, North Cascades

I went hiking with two of my friends to North Cascades last Sunday. It snowed already! I still remember it covered with snow in the mountains in July.

Insider and Outsider

After graduating from college, I went back to Chengdu last month first time in seven years. I was lost in the city, and I couldn't find the gate of my college! The real estate has doubled its value in less than five years in Chengdu and where my parents currently reside. I sometimes read about how the maps of some cities in China have to be updated in every few weeks. I also heard how people outside of China were amazed by the pace of developments and changes in China. Every time I went back to China, I felt like I had to catch up so many new things, and sometimes I even felt myself like a person who was coming from the countryside visiting the big cities.

For the first few years in the US, I was so occupied by experiencing the US: studying in English, making American friends and friends from all over the world, doing part-time jobs, traveling in the US, etc. Then I was trying to understand the US and Americans. It was then that I recognized there were so many things different between the US and China. I grew up in China immersing in Chinese culture, Chinese education, and Chinese values. I have taken them for granted and haven't thought about them intellectually, or at all: how the Chinese think and behave, how those thoughts and behaviors relate to Chinese values, culture, history, etc. The feeling of ignorance of China and the Chinese was frightening. I borrowed a book titled "My Country and My People" by Lin Yutang published in 1930s about China and the Chinese people. This book is a little bit outdated. However, I still found it useful.

When I started the PhD program in urban planning three years ago, I saw studying China and Chinese become popular in the US and other parts of the world as China has gradually emerged as an important international player thanks to her fast economic development. More and more news on different aspects of China could be found in the US major media. I got to know the changes in China through different media both from the west and the east. However, the gigantic size of China often results in grasping information/facts on China uncompleted. The reports in the media only reflected part of truth.

Bailout and Milk

For the last several weeks, the economy in the US and Chinese milk quality have been two of the major concerns in my family.

My father has been quite concerned about the economy in the US. Not because he has money investment in the US banks. It is because his only daughter is in the states right now. He is concerned if her research funding for her study will be secured, and her monthly stipend from school will be enough.

There are nearly 53,000 children in China ill due to the the tainted milk. The scare spreads to Europe, and other parts of the world where Chinese milk products were imported. The food safety has been a concern for a quite a long time in China. I think ever since environmental pollution has been concerned, or even earlier when piracy widely spread in China. Both my uncle's family and my parents' friend make their soy milk from the scratch every morning. My parents started to do that last week as well.

Seven Year Itch

Last Sunday, it was my seventh anniversary in Seattle. I have lived in five cities until now.

Han Yuan --3 Years
Lu Zhou --8 Years
Zhongshan --7 Years
Chengdu--4 Years
Seattle--7 Years

I wonder how much longer I will still be here.

Visiting Sichuan, Summer 2008

Last month when I went back to China, I visited Sichuan. I was born in Han Yuan, a small rural county in Sichuan. I went to college in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan.