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.

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!

Anglo-French Allied Forces and China

All tourists who visit Yuanmingyuan feel sad and angry with what the Anglo-French Allied Forces had done in 1860. After leaving the ruins, however, very few Chinese people would still bring strong hatred towards English or French people, whereas many Chinese people criticize and curse Japanese people all the time, as a result of Japanese products boycotted in China now and then. It seams that Chinese people are prone to forget what Anglo-French Forces had ever done, but they are unwilling to forgive what Japanese had done from 1937 to 1945. In my opinions, there are some possible explanations as following.
First, time can ease sorrow and pains. The fire in Yuanmingyuan was set by Anglo-French Allied Forces more than one hundred yearsmight, but the invasion from Japanese happened only decades ago so that many victims are still alive and their memory about the cruelty of Japanese Forces are so vivid. Second, the Japanese government refuses to apologize for its sin officially and, furthermore, attempt to conceal the historical truth to its next generation. I do think that Japanese government should be blame on its attitude and policy about this issue.

Ps. this is my 4th day that I can not access to my own blog, i.e. blogspot!

Related info:
Introduction of Yuanmingyuan Park

A Visit to Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace

Olive, Henry, Bull and I visited Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace, today. The scenery was more attractive than what I had expected. I have been in Beijing for more than one year, and very few places I would recommend my friends to visit. However, after sightseeing in Yuanmingyan, I will definitely introduce this fantastic spot for tourists who will come to Beijing!

ps. This is my THIRD day that I can not access to my own blog, i.e. blogspot!

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!

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!