NTU(臺大) Students Visiting Qinghua(清華) Students in Beijing

Students form National Taiwan University visited Qinghua University in Beijing
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

This Wednesday evening, Students from the Department of Politics at National Taiwan University, a group visiting Beijing for couples of days, had a seminar with students from Qinghua University in Beijing. This activity was a casual communication between these two groups of students. The sensitive politics was certainly one of concerned issues. However, it was impossible to come to any conclusion in such short time stretch. The main purpose of the event must have something to do with building a friendship between the Taiwan Strait so that afterwards these students can keep in touch with each other.

This is a meaningful activity because students in Taiwan seem not to understand China so much as those in China seem to understand Taiwan. It might be caused by the manipulation from the politicians in Taiwan. Whatever one's positions, one should understand as much as possible about the China affairs in order to making a wise decision.

Generally speaking, students from Taiwan were more laid-back and joyful than those from China, who appeared to be serious. There was one thing that amazed viewers – the Chinese students were open-mind to discuss some issues that we thought were taboo here. Perhaps, the young generation of China would really become the hope of this rising empire.

In the occasion, I met some Termite and Syrup, a Taiwanese couple who went to study in American together. Both are brilliant people. I might enter NTU one year earlier than Syrup. It was nice to talk with them.

Hop spring in Beijing (九華山莊/小湯山/北京)

Hop spring in Beijing (九華山莊/小湯山/北京)
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

Hot spring is always fun. Yesterday, Squash, Oliver, Henry and I went to Jiouhua Shan Zhuang (九華山莊) again, because we enjoyed the time spent there in March with Jupiter and Neptune. However, this time is not as exciting as last time, partly because this is our second time visiting so that no novelty exists any more, and partly because the atmosphere of spending time in hot spring in the afternoon can not compare with that at night, making us feel kind of mysterious and romantic.

The hot spring in Xiaotanshan (小湯山) contain sulfur, and it is beneficial for health, preventing skin diseases occurring. Salt rubbing is the most interesting part for this trip. I had to take off the swimming pant and lie on a bed first. A man put a small amount of water and plenty of salt to my entire body and then began to rub. According to the man, this massage can kill bacteria attaching on human body. Surprisingly, I did not get any strong feelings during the whole treatment. On the contrast, Squash was too sensitive to complete the process. He asked to rub himself, a funny thing to say and to do.

Under the recommendation from Squash, we had a dinner in a Japanese restaurant called "ISSHIN" in Wudaokou (五道口), where is famous for many Korean living in the neighborhood and ,therefore, is called "small Korea in Beijing". Many foreigners ate in ISSHIN. The food was delicate and palatable, and of course expensive.

The City Animal Visited Lotus Lane (什剎海), the Bar Zone in BeijingAgain.

The Bar Zone in Lotus Lane - Performer
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

This is my forth times to visit the Lotus Lane (Shichahai / 什剎海), where is my favorite traveling spot all around Beijing. This area is actually a bar, or pub, zone where the construction of those seductive bars delicately consolidate into the ancient architectures and the picturesque lakes, including Qianhai(前海) and Houhai (後海). Once you get in this area, you can always easily notice those tourists with different skin color from yours. Shichahai is particularly popular among foreigners, prompting the price for everything here to boost. Last year when I came here with my two female ex-colleagues, each small bottle of beer costs RMB 80. However, the performance of the live band was poor and the skills of those bartenders were embarrassing, who are using some fake wood bottles to practice some acrobatic action right in front of us.

I always enjoy strolling on the lanes in shichahai and streets near Drum Tower (Gulou / 鼓樓), because the surroundings remind me of many busy streets in Shanghai, such as Xintiandi(新天地), one of my favorite places there. Olive treated Henry and me again to have a dinner in a British style restaurant. The cuisine is OK, but I do enjoy the atmosphere there. We sat on the second-floor terrace, where I found that Henry and I were the merely two Asian faces on this particular space, making me have the illusion that we were enjoying our time somewhere in Europe.

With Olive's help, Henry just got an intern in Paris. Hence, Olive asked me whether I have time to travel with them to Europe later. I can not help raising my tone to repeat his question again. This invitation is very alluring for me. I do have plenty of time. However, I might not have enough money to visit Europe again. They will let me know their schedule once they set it down. We will see!

How Can I Endure My Face to Become "SWOLLEN"?

Beijing Botanical Garden
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

I especially aspire to go swimming today. However, the swimming pool of Huateng Club, where I buy its membership card, has been closed for several weeks, deriving from some construction of a third party. I was very unhappy with the status quo so that I made my third time phone call to the reception of that club to complain. The result, of course, was that I still have to wait for its notification and there is no precise prediction to the re-open date.

When I especially desire to go swimming, most of the time I am in a condition of frustration. Now I become even more depressed after meeting the above-mentioned situation.

Usually, I do not enjoy doing exercises. What is more, I do not enjoy watching any sport program, which, for me, is so boring that I seldom to tune in to any sports channel, such as ESPN. Nonetheless, I do not really want to become a fat guy, and I do want to live longer to enjoy life, so that I force myself to do some exercises, such as jogging, swimming and yoga.

I am a fan of Yoga, but the expense of practicing it here in Beijing is much expensive than that in Shanghai, where I used to buy a seasonal membership card of a yoga club next to my flat. I might consider to practice it around July, when my membership card of Huateng Club is about to expire, making me have to spend all the balance by the expiration date. I might take the 20 times program, which would cost me RMB 720.

Now that I can not go swimming, I turn to jog this evening. Jogging is tiring and boring and it take persistence to accomplish the running each time. In Beijing, it is impossible to get into any school to take advantage of the track on campus, a situation different from Taipei. I planed for myself a route to run in my neighborhood. If I am in a good condition, I can run about three circles of it. But today, I only finish two and a half. I vow to myself that I would go jogging each day, because I notice that my face manifested in recent photos becomes “swollen”!

Beijing Botanical Garden

Beijing Botanical Garden
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

Today, I felt frustrated. I think I still have a lot of stuff to improve. These days I found myself easy to upset. This is not a good thing. I hope Thursday's travel can change my status.

Beijing Botanical Garden

Beijing Botanical Garden
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

Today, Olive, Henry and I went to Beijing Botanical Garden.
Tulip there is just so fantastic!

A Lesson Learned from A Fake Mouse

Yesterday I went to Zhongguancun South, to repair my Logitech mouse, which I bought last month there. I went to the after-sales services department to test the mouse first because I was told that if it dose have quality problem, I can get a new one. However, the result was quite surprising, because the boy who even didn’t open my mouse concluded that what I bought was a fake and suggested me to argue with the merchant who sold it to me.

I returned to the 5th story of Hailong Building and intended to fight with the DIY shop, which sold me the counterfeit product. However, there are just too many similar shops in 5th story so that I can not recognize where I bought my mouse from. I then sent text message to Henry and Olive, whom I bought the mouse with last time. Unfortunately, none of them can provide me any specific information. In addition, I did not ask for any receipt from the seller when I bought the product so that even though I can find out which shop I bought my mouse from, the seller can refuse to admit the mouse was sold by her because I don’t have any evidences.

I would think twice next time if I plan to buy any brand product in China. There are just too many fakes and frauds all around China. Furthermore, I learn a lesson from the story that I can not fully depend on any friends to make any decisions, even they are sincere and knowledgeable. For instance, I believed Henry could help me to choose a good store and then to buy a mouse with good price because he is a local Chinese, so that I did not pay much attention to the purchasing process that time. That is why I did not ask for any receipt from the seller. Nonetheless, such a dependence rendered a miserable result that I paid 95 RMB, a price cut from 100 RMB, to buy a defective product and got no way to ask for refund.

Microfinance Project Site in Rural Hebei Province

I have heard of “microfinance”, but I don’t really understand how it is operating and what makes it so special that it was mentioned again and again. This Wednesday, I got an opportunity to visit Laishui County, Beijing, to experience the life of people who join microfinance program.



Microfinance refers to organize a specific institution that lend very small amount of money to very poor people so that the needy families can take advantage of this money to improve life. It was first invented by Professor Muhammad Yunus, who organized the well-known Grameen Bank of Bangladesh to execute this experiment and who has been awarded to the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 because of his contributions on those effective methods to solve the poor problems, and implemented in Bangladesh. The unique characteristics of microfinance is that this method is not donation, because it asks the needy residents to return the principal on time, but a lasting mechanism to support the poor to get out of miserable situations by charging a much higher interest rate from the borrowers than the rate of commercial bank to maintain the organizer’s operation and by providing repeated loans to these who are poor but have credit.

In most cases, the institutions which execute the microfinance not only can lend money, but also can receive savings from its customers, the needy, so that the institutions can have enough capital to keep lending the money, making the effects of microfinance bigger and bigger. In China, however, the organizer is forbidden to receiving savings by the regulations, a reason rendering microfinance not so influential in China, compared to that implemented in other countries, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia and so on. The researchers from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which arrange our tour to Laishui, also express their concerns about the sources of capital.

In my opinions, the regulations to limit these institutions should be lifted as soon as possible so that microfinance can become an effective way to solve the poor problems of China. The situations in China is that almost all of the banks in China abandoned the market of rural areas many years ago because of low commercial benefits, and focused their business only in big cities, causing people in rural areas without any resorts to develop themselves. This trend makes more and more people in rural areas leave for big cities and produces many problems about not only rural areas, but also big cities, which suffer from migrant labors’ movement.





We visited several families who join the microfinance programs in Laishui. Here, 5 women- yes, only women can borrow money from the institutions, organized a team to borrow money. Those money almost has been invented in the cultivation of tomatoes.










This is a weathy family in Laisi. You can tell from it by the decoratons of its gate, an uncommon scenery in Laishui county.

PS. I still cannot visit my own blog. This is very frustrated!

Capital Library and My New Bicycle

About a week before I took GMAT on March 21, my bicycle was stolen in front of Huateng Club, where I went swimming regularly. When I found the broken lock abandoned on the curb, I feel very calm. This was my second time losing my bicycle in 3 months. Buying a new bicycle in China, no matter in Shanghai or in Beijing, is risky because the bicycle can disappear anywhere and anytime.
I went to Carrefour to buy a new bicycle again, because I can not find any stores selling used bicycle nearby, and because the people’s service attitude in another cheaper bicycle stores were very bad, making me uing to talk with them any more. When I got back home, all of the sudden, I found an email form GMAC in my mailbox. Instantly, I turned to become nervous. Now it is the time to find out how many score I get in AWA. Besides, I still cannot believe that my total score is above 700, even though the figure is in black and white on the unofficial report. Taking a deep breath and then entering the authentication code on the web page, finally, I prove that I do get the satisfying score and I got 4.5 AWA. It is not a good score for the AWA, but I absolutely don't want to take GMAT again! I will move on to my next stage, the preparation of the TOEFL exam.
Taking my new bicycle to the Capital Library to borrow some books about TOEFL, I suddenly got complicated feelings. I used to take my stolen bicycle to the Library to prepare GMAT for a long time, but now, when I achieve the goal, that bicycle was gone and there is another new one under my feet!

What Would You Say If Someone Spits on Your Ice Cream?

Olive always complains that Chinese people are so dirty. What he means is that Chinese People spit anytime and anywhere.

“People in Shanghai must be cleaner than those in Beijing, right?" he asked me.
“No. People all around China are almost the same. They spit all the time, even in Shanghai." I replied.
“But Shanghai is a metropolitan!"
“I know. But people in Shanghai just do it in the same way as people here in Beijing."

Then, he told me a true story happened on Josh when both of them were walking on the street some day. While Josh and he were walking on the street and licking their favorite ice creams, on the street a Chinese guy was splitting, unintentionally but precisely, to the ice cream hold by Josh. You can imagine how disgusting and shocking the scene could be, if this situation would happen on you. When the guy found out what he just had done to a Caucasian, he said sorry to Josh. What would you react at the moment if you were Josh?

Olive also told me that one of his Chinese friends was spitting on the road when he went mountain-climbing with some friends. He asked the friend who was spitting, “Don't you think spitting on the road is not a right thing to do?" His friend answered," This is one part of Chinese culture. You got to learn it."

Furthermore, there is another thing that Olive always felt annoyed. One of his colleagues, who is a senior attorney and has ever studied in Germany, farted in front of him quit often. Olive is irritated by his behavior but doesn't know how to express his unpleasant feelings.

Now, Beijing government eventually took action to curb these kinds of shameful behaviors. People spitting on the street will get fined for RMB50. The spokesperson said, in China, RMB 50 is enough to prevent people from keeping spitting everywhere. “The most important part is that once getting fined, the persons who spit will lose face, an effect that may contribute to correct this bad habit in China.

Beijing government enacts this regulation just because of the imminent Olympic Games. I am not sure whether, in 2008, people can see cleaner streets without some much disgusting fluid everywhere.

Reference: http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-02-07/195612256859.shtml