There is an informal poll on Transparency International, home of the international non-governmental organization addressing corruption. Of course, I took my vote to get some numbers, and saw the results :
Results
Note: Transparency International online Polls are not statistically valid representations of our website users nor intend to guide or represent public opinion in any way.
In your view, how corrupt is your country?
Extremely
50%
Votes: 2209
Somewhat
24%
Votes: 1062
Not very
16%
Votes: 708
Not at all
9%
Votes: 413
4404 total votes
That is a surprisingly a lot : 25% for “not at all” and “not very” together. Bribery is improved when I find that it is harder to buy car licenses in Shanghai. For instance, car license exams, computers take over places where human corruption is more likely, and you cannot bribe computers easily when the testers have no control but press a “Start” button. Anyway, it is still not too hard to do so in nearby provinces like ZheJiang (浙江), and bribery still takes place from places down from schools up to police institutions, and much worse. These are common folks knowledge, ask them and they can tell you with vivid descriptions and examples.
Don’t take the above poll results for granted, of course. You never know who’s behind the votes. We might have some *cough* *cough* spies *cough* *shrugs*…
I love the fact that there is improvement in China on corruption, but seriously we need event more improvement. I wonder, if that fundamentally flawed “inspection exemption” is just a production of bribery and corruption?
China, can you still proceed further so much on the corruption model?
In New York ten months ago, there was this freeze mob that started everything. A freeze mob is an activity when a large number of people agree to stop for a few minutes at some predetermined time at a highly trafficked area, and then resume their activities as if nothing happened.
What a city is capable of!
That is why I love living in a modern city. Cities were described as a cold place where we know none of our neighbourhood, when everyone is tasked to mechanize and automate their rigid smiles, and not without the most evil intention. Yet, without over-amplifying the extremities, and at the expense of some properties of a small society, we gain in more elements of a growing metropolis. Go to the old place sometime later, and you discover something that surprisingly blend well into the city. Go to a square and look at that large show you chanced upon, and how interesting things are running so well. Go out and get to know different people, and you might find someone with your interests after your own heart.
There are opportunities too, and if you want to do a freeze mob in Macau, you can! In Hong Kong, you can! In Shanghai, you can! If you want to do a mass dance, you can!
If you find a city too bored, maybe you have missed something out there?
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On 22 Nov 2008, a freeze mob in Shanghai happened while I was in Macau.
On 27 Nov 2008, a freeze mob in Macau happened while I am in Shanghai now.
I missed both of them! Damn! I want to join as well.
Who wants to do it? Code the solution for the infamous Halting Problem for $300 ~ $1000. =)
( For humans : This problem has been proven to have no solution. So, this job is stupid. )
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Project Name
Bug Finder
Budget
$ 300-1000
Description
The purpose of this project is to create a debugger program. This program will take as input the source code another program, and will analyze that other program and determine if it will run to completion, or have an error, or go into an infinite loop.
To state that another way, given a function f and input x, determine if f(x) will halt.
At heights, with Lemon Grass in my hands and a view over PuDong, I look outside.
The Bund (外灘). It offers the most spectacular cityscape of Shanghai, and in one way reminds me of the Victoria Harbour (維多利亞港) in Hong Kong. At NanJingDongRoad (南京東路), the Oriental Pearl Tower (東方明珠塔) stands over at LuJiaZui (陸家嘴), accompanied by several skyscrapers that exist no where more than a decade ago. A few blocks ahead lies the very first hotel in Shanghai, the Peace Hotel (和平飯店), and down there a stretching lane for tourists to stroll.
Along the coastline, every building is classified as First-Class Heritage, and will probably remain then. History, testimonies of the past, now are banks and bars. Each of the buildings amounts to billions CNY. As I asked, the coastline buildings range from some millions to hundred millions per apartment CNY. Ummm.
The passers-by were mostly foreigners. Foreigners, yes, almost all. If you are afraid that you cannot get into the venue because you are a Chinese, here is the de facto solution : Respond in English or Cantonese “What?”, or Mandarin in heavy accent. I assure you it works great unless you are in doublets or shorts for guys.
Where I am now, are filled with rich history. Sitting here, my friends and I were enjoying our drinks and chatting over our past, and my latrine experience. We talk about everything, and the cityscape view beside. Disappointing for one fact, the lights in Shanghai go out at ten sharp, which is rather early for such a city. Next time I will come earlier. Then, I wonder, where should I go next? The other side overlooking this side?
I was shown not the best view tonight of Shanghai. But for a moment, I fell in love with this metropolis.
No, I did not see Snakes, Leopards or Tigers. Moreover, I have never seen a proper stratus sea, sunset, starry night, milky way, comets and sunrise.
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Stratus Sea
If the clouds are just sunlight shades, think again. Stand just below the clouds. Stand just above the clouds. Stand right into the clouds! Try it. Try it once, at least once. Then add it together with some hills and mountains peeking through, and then let the orange paint the rest of the picture. Feel it…
Sunset
“The sunset is most fabulous, yet the sky hits dusk.”, an old poem in Chinese. The setting sun is great, yet it does not last long. This makes it precious. Afterall, a forever setting sun is not that romantic. It is fabulous not only because it is spectacular, but that it lasts only brief moments. Get a home with a sunset…?
Starry Night
The inhabitants in Macau and Hong Kong are lucky in many ways. Yet, most of them do not have the slightest chance of a clear starry night with uncountable stars twinkling all night. I always mocked those poets and people who make shapes of the starry nights, which is something so abstract it is a fooling act. Here, I no longer see a clear picture of each single constellation, but a mixture of everything in a whole picture, lying on the grasslands. Now, I no longer feel wanting to mock the poets.
Milky Way
However, stars itself is not enough. If a dozen of stars makes a starry night for you, you have missed the river up the sky - The Milky Way. This mysterious river at night is only visible whilst light is at its minimum. Without the Milky Way, the starry night has just lacked its own background with a dull dark background, and leaving a horde of less distinguishable light bulbs up high. With it, the romance also slips in, completing the legendary picture for the average metropolitans. Show me the Milky Way in Macau and Hong Kong!
Comets
What could have made the milky-way backgrounded stars twinkling night better? Comet. Comets. Yes! I saw comets, not just a comet. Two makes a plural. I hope I can wish fast enough, but I definitely caught offguard. I wish…
Sunrise
The emerging warmth stops the shivering. A sky so beautiful, you can hardly find one in the cities in general. Just look at this sky painted in such warmth. Until then…
—
No, I did not see Snakes, Leopards or Tigers. But now I have seen a proper stratus sea, sunset, starry night, milky way, comets and sunrise. Onto something next!
( Courtesy of Zhe for the Sunrise and Stratus Sea, my camera out of memory. For the nightly visions, my camera is not the right tool. I really want to share to you all! )
The latrine stinks. If you feel bad about them, I can assure you that they are. With the latrine, you can almost associate it with a bucket or a hole, housed in a Chinese-style inn. What is your idea of a typical historic Chinese hillside inn?
I was hiking in WuGongShang (武功山) in JiangXi (江西) province last few days. It is not the worst place to be in, but certainly a challenge to my bottomline in hygiene standards for a vacation. I am especially bothered by the idea of having to use a latrine, which is stinky and dirty, but is prevalent in China. There is no escape. The usual clean sitting toilet is a rare occurrence in such places especially at the mountain top. As the trip lasts five days, the latrine is basically inevitable. Man, I will pay for a clean sitting toilet!
The first latrine I saw in ShenJiaDaiYuan inn (沈家大院) is a complete resemblance with those in movies. It is built with wooden planks and definitely has no electrical or automatic flushing capabilities, though its door is made of modern technology - a piece of plastic cloth. Well, that is all, and inside … a bucket of brown matter. I thought that falling off the abysmal hillside is a more pleasant experience than using this legendary facility.
The ShenJiaDaiYuan inn is built with, as you might have expected, bamboo sticks and wooden planks. The wind penetrates the gaps of the wall, and you can peek through the holes as well. The bed was hard as rock, and supplied with blankets that are never washed. Unlike in movies, it is so poorly furnished that the bed and a small cupboard are the only decoration available, and four people share a room. I think I just need a “Mr.Two” (店小二) ! [1]
The next inn called FayunJie (發雲界) that I lived in is even worse. It is a simple brick room with moldy walls, and then again supplied with bunk beds and blankets unwashed for some years. The wooden beds squeak like they are going to collapse right on top of me when I am asleep. The latrine this time is better, but I tried very hard to use only when necessary. *winks*
The food up there are just to fill the stomach in general. It is quite different from that of the Southern China cuisine - potatos and bell peppers cut in strips ( not French fries ) cooked together, and eggplant sliced in rings cooked with “something I do not know” are unseen styles in GuangDong. The taste is just barely for the mouth, but it is not the idea anyway. And that chicken running around costs CNY147! I thought I got robbed.
There is a Chinese saying that “You paid for suffering”. That is almost like what I was doing, but the whole trip is actually very rewarding despite the horrifying experience above, and I have not even talked about the moments of zen yet : the starry nights with clear milky way and the sun over the stratus clouds. There are so many things to explore than to have a staycation at home sometimes.
Lastly, a bonus photo of a sweet couple!
Far Away From Home - where do you want to go?
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[1] - 店小二. A generic term for the waiters in an inn in China in the old days.
I am going to sneak out of Shanghai again for a few days, to the province JiangXi to Pingxiang, to the mountain WuGongShan. I do not know if I will see anything scary, but then I want to see!
Snakes, leopards, and tigers!
Am I going to see them?! Let’s see if I come back alive!
Try randomly enter retail shops from the average commoners to the splurging ones, be it furniture or technology products, you will find a good number of them telling you it is made in elsewhere you know so you know its credibility, except China. That is all you need to know. The country name is enough to charm you into believing it is safe.
And “Made in China” means that you should avoid it, get away from it right now, and dump it right away!
As a Chinese, I can tell you it is kind of sad to hear that. Implicitly, even the locals know “Made in China” is a synonym of bad quality. The last time I was scouting for a house, I was preached repeatedly with tiles from Germany, taps from Sweden and air conditioners from Japan. I know some part of the house must be from China, but that certainly is not a point of interest, like affairs you would not want to mention of. “Made in China” has made itself a synonym of piracy and low-quality. Fabulous.
Why? Why such well known issues is unaddressed?
I am no good in this, but I guess corruption and culture. Corruption, well, we all know the government officials are good at getting cash, and cash hides a lot of things. Find a piece of newspaper and get the evidence, you should have no trouble picking a few. Culture, as my friend LP mentioned, why have not the CEO come out to apologize, instead of hiding and blaming other causes immediately without solid evidence? Because, Chinese culture, in chess terms, likes to trade a rook for a king, and, in idioms, “sacrifice the little for the grand”. That was rooted from the far old ancient history.
Sad but true. It will still be like that for a while. And, if you do not know, bonus for you, there are pirated pirate goods as well. Isn’t that incredible?
Hong Kong is well-known for conveying an important message : money! And you must have it not for living comfortably, but living humanely.
Hong Kong is a city well-known for its poor respect and compensation to I.T. personnel, unless you are the exceptional and lucky few who made it to the investment banks. Otherwise, you are probably in demise. Can we go elsewhere?
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Historically, artists cluster to Florence 500 years ago, Shanghai businessmen cluster to Hong Kong at the early 20th century. Until the contemporary, I.T. personnel goes to Silicon Valley, and still a lot of business personnel goes to Hong Kong. Apparently, a lot of people are leaving their hometowns for opportunities, and Hong Kong is considered one of the place of opportunities. This can be testified by its foreign investments and international reputation and fame, and also its cultural diversity that sprouted over the century.
It is common for mainlanders in China to move to Beijing and Shanghai from afar, living their homeland, to look for opportunities. Now, if foreigners have come to Hong Kong for opportunities and mainlanders moved to Bejing and Shanghai for opportunities, apply the same case to local I.T. personnel, why they do not explore elsewhere out of Hong Kong?
Put aside family matters. Let’s talk about the two main incentives for a job : money and fun. Without money, and if you have none originally, however fun, it will not be attractive. Without fun, the capable people who got the money will not even consider the job. However, being a year in Shanghai I can tell you that there are fun jobs in Shanghai and Beijing. So, we will rule out the problem of fun.
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Money, the root of all evil.
Apparently, money matters. The average monthly salary in China of an I.T. undergraduate of a local firm is only about CNY $3000~$4000, which is the same as a decade ago. The rest is mathematics. It is then obvious why Hong Kong I.T. personnel would most likely refuse to go to China, because the compensation is inhumane to their standards. If you were to pick between a job of HKD $12000 and CNY $4000, which would you pick?
Think deeply. Tax in China is higher than that in Hong Kong, and then you have to rent a house and all the daily consumptions and such. Lastly, add to the fact some friends of yours doing a similar job in Hong Kong earning a triple of your monthly salary, and he might still stick to his home and save the daily consumptions, and then also pay less of the tax though he gets a better salary. Lastly, bonus information for you, the living standards in Shanghai surpasses than of Hong Kong. Will you still pick the job in China?
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Over the other facet of the planet, we have United Kingdom and United States, which are both good places for I.T. personnel to hang out at. Yet, both of them do not offer easy entry. Both of them require the employer to demonstrate that the applicant for the job is not available in their country, and even companies such as Microsoft and Google that big are not exempted from the rules.
Moreover, getting a job in other cities and countries is not just a click to submit resume and the employer saying okay. From the perspective of the employer, why hire a foreigner for all the hassle and could even introduce communication problems? You certainly must have a strong reason to justify yourself.
Now, remember you are a fresh undergraduate or just a few years of experience. If you have some really outstanding special abilities, that works. But that seems unlikely for most people. Remember, this is only one of those tough obstacles to hurdle over.
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Now, you are left with very few choices : Build your own company, strive to get into some investment bank, or pray for the luck so you get escorted to the foreign lands. For the first, it is definitely not easy. For the second, this is our primary assumption you cannot get into one, right? Lastly, this is hoping you got into a company who can sent you afar, if not into China.
Can we go elsewhere? Yes, but certainly not as easy as suggested, due to differences in compensation and the entry bar for the prospective countries. And if this path is such a difficult one, it is most likely barred from the commoners, and even above average.
It is not just that you want to go elsewhere, then you can get out. Heard of a spelling P-R-I-S-O-N?
Once in a while, a winner will come out to encourage the enthusiastic youngsters to pursue their dreams. Recently, one of the lucky Steve, Wozniak is asserting again. The first time you listen to it, you are thrilled to act immediately. Hearing it several more times, you will feel bored of the fixed pattern. I really hate to listen to ideas that repeat again and again, and this great Steve does it, and so did others. Anyway, the other “Steve”s are Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer. Anyone wants to be called Steve?
The journalists rarely interview and much less likely boast the people who pursue their dreams and failed. Apparently, a winner always proclaims his victory on a pile of corpses turned and twisted. Yet, taking into account reality attributes such as charisma and right timing, chances are that there are multiple factors than perseverance that places a person as a victor. But, we must admit most of them have perseverance.
Among our minds are different dreams, each with varying difficult goals. When we are motivated, we talked in enthusiastic manners as if dreams alone feed a person. That is not true. Once the enthusiasm falters, you await another turn of recharging of motivation. These successful people having been through such stages prior to success, must know the fact, too. Telling you to go now to pursue your dreams is nonsense because it is something that lasts a brief moment only. Then, why do they assert rubbish once and again? To understand this, instead of treating them as mere rubbish, these redundant speeches must share some traits that allows itself to duplicate itself again and again all the time. We have to find out why they assert rubbish.
We must find out what were they before they succeeded, and more importantly, what happened to people who did not succeed.
Dreams Are Not Food
A dream of travelling around the world and having a day-job is one of the nastiest combination you can have. Mainly, the average day job only offers you some ten to twenty days of annual leave each year. Going for a three-month trip? Mourning for some non-existent family for months? That is not going to work anywhere I guess. Maternity leave seems a great excuse. But we don’t have babies all the time. Besides, some of us are guys. So, that is out of the question. But then, travelling is fun! However, it is not going to work too well when you have kids who need to school, or your wife or husband is at a important career stage and cannot afford to miss the opportunity, or your parents who need your periodic caring, or the company that cannot afford your absence for even a week. Just consider these people you love so much, you probably do not want to make them unhappy or leave dare consequences just because you want to be happy pursuing your dreams. Summing things up, your responsibilities to make people you love happy will prioritize themselves before your dreams, regardless of its importance if you truly love them. So Randy Pausch is right, and luckily he managed to achieve them before passing away, but that does not happen for a lot of people. Therefore, as responsibilities accumulate, motivation and dreams alone do not give you enough courage to overcome the fear of dare consequences to take the action. Now, we know at least a good number of couples are going to ignore those fancy speeches.
Now the problem becomes obvious. Responsibilities. We do not want to risk failing our responsibilities as a son or daughter, or as a husband or wife, or as a father or mother. As it turns out, after talking to a lot of elders who have had dreams mostly gave way to family, and it is almost natural to them. They tell the youngsters like us that they are too old for it. Too old? They certainly not mean just physically because not all dreams are age-restricted. However, we were told of various responsibilities that urge us to keep ourselves in a stable state, and then try to pursue the dreams if the dreams is close to our daily path. Take hackers as example, it is well known hackers are usually youngsters. As mentioned in Pwnie Awards, truly, their career effectively ends at age 30, for family or other dreams. Bearing this in mind, we discovered another trait. The successful people who repeatedly asserts proactive action to pursuing dreams tried when they were youngsters. If they are aged when they succeeded, they affirm that what matters is your heart and proactiveness to pursue. Truly, they tried at youth.
The Picture
So, the visualization comes like this : You are standing on one side of a mountain that is moving away from the other side constantly ( the opportunities ), and thus the gaps increases in its width. And as you grow, your back weighs more and more with things you might not want to discard ( responsibilities, but it is your family, and others. ), which means you will jump a shorter range. Now, the problem is : are you going to jump? If you jump, it does not guarantee a better future, but if you are aware that your location is doomed, it is a chance to roll the dice again. If you do not jump, you might stagnate here and live forever in the current side. It does not mean it must be bad, as you may find a shortcut to the other side ( A lot of people saves money and then quits, and goes to do their own hobbies. ) If you fall into the gap, chances are that you might die ( in heart ), and most likely you need to climb up that mountain with all your weight again. Think it is a bad of snakes. Sheesh, creeping.
Yet, as we depart the age of naivete realizing that real life testifies to us all the time that dreams must not necessarily be achieved in our twenties as highlighted by the various newspaper of the successful young entrepreneurs of this century, and even not necessarily in your whole life. But, go around, look around, and see all those mid forties fifties and sixties wandering around the streets and landmarks, and doing all sorts of crazy things like windgliding and parachuting and others, building houses for themselves and flying private jets. The list goes on and on. But, do not forget the people who did not proactively pursue their dreams at a young age, and then did not manage to fulfill them at an older age. These are people who started late ( for whatever reasons ), and failed, and has lower chances to recuperate for another attempt. You can find a lot of them around you, take your time. I have heard too many moanings that I learnt to skip these people.
The Speeches
Back to our “Steve”s and many other entrepreneurs, including the failed ones, a lot of them do not enjoy a Youtube ending. Even at a scale of a person, very few people can represent their country in Olympics or become a celebrity, despite the many athletes and good-looking models are trying. From this, we see that there are a lot of people who probably tried more than once here, especially when the winner slots are severely limited. These people who tried believed in their dreams, which generates motivation. The irony is you cannot easily pass that motivation and thrill onto others. But that witnessing someone prospering strongly induces what was motivation in the others “to want a piece of it” - you witnessed a future that is possible, and there goes your motivation again.
Think again, back to our early ages of the 16s and 18s, those were the times when failure is not a common term among us. And then motivation and courage arise just as natural like sex desires, but then we become more bit of the impotent later on as we age, but not immediately. What we need is viagra to our motivation that drives us to try. Yes, that is why you do not want to be pessimistic, to a state of being sadistic. These speeches were designed to “remind you” of your adventurous mindset, and not to enlighten you with new ideas.
Now it is plain obvious that these pursuing dreams articles are encouraging and enlightening at first sight, but is very much “asserting rubbish” to an average reader who listens again and again - which is just pure “boredom” and speeches of those winners describing themselves with hindsight bias. In some sense, it is true that hindsight bias is present, and many people do not attribute to luck for their successes, because dignity and the externities will not accept such ironic explanations. Hence, there are also truths that cannot be told, regardless of its tautological nature. If it is told, the effect goes away as well. What is less than obvious in these redundant speeches is that its true motive acts as a reminder - do it now before you cannot afford to fail.
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