Kick off Company Registration Process and Donate a Few Money to a Beggar

Eventually, I commissioned an agency company to register our start-up and paid 2000 RMB as the deposit. This was a substantial move for me, meaning that I will have to totally devote at least one year to the new business – I do not want to have a failed record of entrepreneurship.

There was a change of shareholders. A PM withdrew from investors partly because, compared with other stockholders, she felt shameful about the paltry sum of her investment and partly because she planed to buy a car after getting a driven license of her own, resulting an exclusive effect on her disposable income. This development did cause some problem on our registration task, but Jolt could solve this issue by himself.

On my way home, I saw one beggar, whose face was so frightening that I do not want to elaborate too much herein. I think that was caused by unfortunately genetic disease. I remembered I used to see him on the viaduct of Sitong bridge (四通橋) last month when I made an appointment with the above-mentioned PM for the start-up discussion. At that time, I did not give him any money and I felt uncomfortable about what I had done. Therefore, this time when I already passed through him and I suddenly realized that this beggar was the one I saw couples weeks ago, I turned back and put ten RMB - which was not too much but which was the amount I could offer in terms of my stringent economic conditions - into his iron can. I was not sure if he could see my behavior because his eyes were covered by pending and twisted muscles and skin, and I was not sure if his appearance was just a trick and a disguise to cheat passengers so that he could make money from people’s compassion, a commonplace in China that was schemed by tons of criminal groups everywhere in this country, making the public reluctant to donate any cash to any beggars in big cities. Due to many disguised beggars in China, I have not give any money to those beggars in Beijing, because I think most of them can get good care if they want to get assistance from the government, and because the authorities also warned citizens not to donate money to those beggars, who influenced the appearance of a metropolis and the operation of subway. Nonetheless, I sympathized with those who played some instruments much more than those who only stretched their limbs to ask for money. My idea was that at least those who played music were doing something to exchange for money, rather than doing nothing but at the same time hoping to gain compensation.

Release of TOEFL Seats and an Appointment with “Strangers”

At midnight, there were about 8 people talking at the same time on the MSN messenger dialog pane, words flowing as fast as river water. I have not done such an online group talking for a long time. Among these people, I only met Candid once at a GMAT activity in February and both Lettuce and Meteor, two girls that I have not contacted since then. Jubilant is someone who sent me his MSN account several days ago and who I left him some offline greetings in Japanese. The main reason that makes us get together is the unconfirmed news from NEEA about today’s release of ibt-TOEFL exam, whose seats in China is in short supply since the beginning of this year.

After a messy conversations, someone proposed we can have a “FB”, a recurrently coined Internet term which means singing in KTV or dining out with friends with one’s own money, if joining the upcoming speech about MBA career next Sunday noon. I promised to join them because I think I do need more social life and I do want to make more local Chinese friends. Among them, I am very impressed by Jubilant’s multilingual ability, versatility and colorful overseas working and life experiences. Additionally, he is only 24 years now, an age which I still stayed at university! I am convinced that the younger generation of China is very competent and has strong competitive advantage in job markets around the world.

Today's release of ibt-TOEFL seats will certainly cause a war for all Chinese students who plan to study abroad. There is no doubt that the release of this time, 25000 vacancies according to some rumor, could not meet the strong demand from the market. We will see what will happen today.

PS. While I tried to connect to the Internet to post above content, I suddenly found that there was something wrong about the connection. I was very anxiety about this because several hours later I also have to grab a seat for myself. I prompted contacting my ISP and spent about two hours working with them. Fortunately, the problem has solved. I asked the ISP lady about the possible reason for my connection problem. She told me that it might be caused by too many people using the Internet for the moment. Does that imply millions of Chinese are online waiting for the first gun shot to secure a TOEFL exam vacancy now? I can not help suspecting this possibility, because I have never encounter any Internet connection problem since this ISP provide service for me!

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.

Thousands of Chinese Students Unable to Register TOEFL Are HeadingAbroad to Take It!

The Number One Pass in The World
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

TOEFL is all the rage just now. Last week when it was available to register the exam from July to October, all the seats were occupied in four and a half hours, making many students anxious about no opportunities for taking TOEFL. Furthermore, the process of registering a seat was a torture that many people spend more than one day to grab one because the webpage of the Chinese version registration website appeared error message all the time, provoking people even more frustrated and furious. Until now, there are still a big many students unable to get a seat for exam, a incredible and chaotic situation that one in any countries can hardly imagine. Some of those miserable students have no other choices and, thus, are forced to go abroad to take the TOEFL exam.

This is definitely caused by short supply of seats for such a big population country. Indeed, this situation may be partly because the implementation of iBT TOEFL, a new practice which the entire problems are sent out from the test center in the U.S., requires hardware equipment, such as computers and access to the Internet, and, thus, the places where qualify to such requirements might not be as many as those in the PBT or CBT TOEFL times. However, another reason could also be that the institution of arranging iBT TOEFL in China has very limited ability to organize the exam here. One of the proofs was the slow response of the website when thousands of people trying to register their own seats at the same time, obviously deriving from the poor capability of its servers. But I do not think the ETS, the owner of TOEFL, dares to change this institution unless it does not plan to keep promoting its business in China, because this institution, actually, is the Department of Education of China.

Another unpleasant thing is that the price to take TOEFL in China is much higher than that in other countries. In China, one has to register a seat on a Chinese version website operated by the Chinese authorities and the price listed on it is RMB 1370, higher than the price on the international website set by ETS. Hence, who are making money from Chinese students?

Two Day's Travel: Shanhaiguan (山海關), Qinhuangdao (秦皇島) andBeidaihe (北戴河)

Laolongtou, where the Great Wall meets the sea
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

Olive, Henry, Jo, Ni, and I went to Shanhaiguan (山海關) for sightseeing. Olive, Henry and I stayed over night in Beidaihe (北戴河), whereas Jo and Ni returned to Beijing because Jo would have a class next day.

After traveling to Europe for one month, I became to lose interests on travel, especially in China, not only because I don’t have much money now, but also because most traveling spots in China are similar, such as temples and ruins, etc. Although I was also looking forward to this trip, which was proposed by Oliver, my motivation was only to breathe some fresh air outside Beijing, regarding the journey only as a stroll much longer than a one-hour stretch after dinner.

In term of stroll, our two-day trip was really a good exercise because we did walk for a long time, especially the second day in Beidaihe.

We took train from Beijing Railway Station to Beidaihe first, and chartered a 7-seat vehicle until 8 o’clock for the first day itinerary, costing each person RMB 50. This saved us a big deal of time from searching for transportation tools and from transferring among them.

Our first stop is Laolongtou, (老龍頭) a name in Chinese literally meaning “the old dragon head”, where the Great Wall extends east into the sea, i.e. Buohai (渤海). We had a lunch first before buying tickets to enter the resort. Originally, we chose a restaurant, but, before ordering anything, we left for another one because Jo found that some dirt on the bowls and plates. Jo apologized for his insistence to change place to eat, but he said, “I don't want to be sick.” I respond to him that, “When I still lived in Shanghai, we used to wash our bowls, chopsticks and spoons with the tea before eating anything. Lack of hygiene in restaurants, especially in the rural locations, is commonplace in China.”

The scenery in Laolongtou was, actually, spectacular. The only thing uncomfortable was the freezing and winding weather.



Our second stop was Jiaoshan (角山), the first mountain that the Great Wall encounters and surmounts in a westerly direction. This journey has become the most appealing part for us, because of its several astonish and hazardous vertical ladders on the fortress of the Great Wall. Admittedly, this section of the Great Wall is the most charming one compared to other sections such as Juyongguan (居雍關) and Jiayuguan (嘉峪關). I found myself a personality trait that the more challenging a thing is, the more impressive I would feel. Huashan (華山), which ranks as my number one picturesque mountain among all the others, was a good example.

Our third stop was the well-known Shanhaiguan, whose ticket cost each of us 40 RMB, making Jo and Oliver to complain about the implementation of super capitalism throughout China. Everything in China charges a fee, no matter what it is and whether it is worth or not. I agreed with them that this place does not deserve that much of money.

The second day of our triad was not exciting. On the second day, however, we spent much more money on the sightseeing on the boat, on seafood which we picked up in person at the restaurant close to the pier, and on the cable car above the seawater between the mainland and a petty island called Nandaihe Whelk Island Amusement Centre (南戴河仙螺島遊樂中心).



The total expense of this travel costs me RMB 800 or so. At the end of the day, nonetheless, I found that actually I should only pay for RMB 500. In other words, I pay extra RMB 300 for the expenses of others, such as the expense of the chartered vehicle, the entrance tickets of Laolongtou, and the most fees of the second day. Any way, it is not a big deal as long as everyone had a good time.

More Photos of Shanghaiguan, please click here!

Enemy of State – We Are Monitored!

My life in Beijing is very ordinary: I go surfing on the Internet every day, go swimming at times, and hang out with some friends on the weekend. Although I can not say that life here is better than in Taipei, I do feel satisfied with living conditions here expect for the chilling winter. However, this morning I turned into extremely uncomfortable and absolutely furious when , in the early morning, I found an stunning truth that all the civilian people in the country, including myself, are monitored on the Internet. All of the sudden, I have never demanded a freedom of communication more than the moment.

As my previous posts have mentioned, I can not access to my own Blogspot pages. I believed deeply that the Blogspot has been blocked by the country. Originally, I thought the situation will be changed very soon, because this blog services provider is well-known and thus gets some bargaining power to negotiate with the government. Nonetheless, couples of weeks have gone by and the frustrating situation remains. Eventually, I was forced to take some action to figure out a way to solve my own problem. In the process of solving the blocked issue, I validate the saying from some of friends that the government continues monitoring all the activities on the Internet. There is an ongoing X shield program, which designates to filter some key words transmit on the Internet and once probes those sensitive words, the page visits would fail in seconds. What related to this issue is that people in the country can not access to many services provided by Google, or at least would encounter some failure now and then, discouraging people to use Google and turning toward Baidu, a searching engine company which try their best to meet the requirements from the government. Google is not welcomed to the authority because it is unwilling to meet all the requirements about scrutiny of sensitive words typed by the public.

In fact, I am not a person who is eager to talk about politics and I don’t search those sensitive words on my daily online activities. However, the feeling of being monitored is very uncomfortable and annoying. I suddenly missed the freedom of speech in Taiwan.

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!

Blogspot Is Blocked Here

This morning, I try to access my own blog, but fail again and again. This situation is very frustrated. I begun to wonder the problem occurred possibly because my blog was blocked by the government for it scrutinized the content of my blog and found some negative descriptions about the country.
In the afternoon, I tried it once again and the situation remained unchanged. I figure out an idea to find out the reasons. By searching on Baidu, the biggest search engine in China, I read many complaints about the same situation like mine. Thus, it is not my problem- I mean, I am not monitored at the moment. Ha ha ha… According to the opinions I searched, people said the failure to access any Blogspot is caused by the block from the Chinese firewall. I am not sure whether this block is intentional and how long the situation can be solved. Furthermore, I don’t know if people outside China can read my post of today!

Chinese Government Unblocks Two Taiwan Newspaper Web sites

This is amazing for me to find out that Chinese government unblocks the two most important Newspaper websites in Taiwan. I have stayed in China for many years and, for sure, have never been able to read any news from Taiwan online website. In shanghai, it doesn't bother me, because I can read China Times, one of the biggest daily newspaper in Taiwan, in some cafe chain stores, which are operated by Taiwanese. But when I moved to Beijing, I can no longer find any Taiwanese Newspaper in any restaurants here. I guess this is caused by one of the obvious differences between Shanghai and Beijing, the personality of Beijing which is all about politics and culture, unlike that of Shanghai which is all about business and fashion.

Although I don't really care the control of news access, I already develop a kind of habit to visit SINA.com, the portal website boasting itself the biggest online news website. However, reading news on Sina.com is very frustrating and aggravating because of many pop-up advertisements. Now that I learn I can visit the United Daily News (http://udn.com/NEWS/), I don't have to endure the AD interruption in SINA.com. It is also said that China Times (news.chinatimes.com), another influential daily newspaper website, can be accessed in the near future.

On the one hand, I am glad that the Chinese government lifted these bans, manifesting that Chinese government becomes more confident to face the challenge of the diverse opinions and liberal thoughts from Taiwan press media. On the other hand, I am worried that Taiwan government is moving toward an enclosed policy, which might prevent the public from real information of fast changing China, concern only about the domestic issues and neglect the inevitable trend of globalization.