Dogs in China

My dad had a great article in the paper the other day on dogs in China: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/world/asia/25dogs.html?ref=global-home.

Going to Taiwan! (+ Random Stuff)

I leave tomorrow morning. Friday was my last day at Baidu! I'll post a link to the project once it goes up (Monday?).

Also here's a great recent article of my mom's. And here's a good one of my dad's, for good measure.

And an awesome blend of math and cooking (courtesy of I Love Charts):

百度

So, in case I haven't told you, I'm working at Baidu this Summer. It's a bit of an interesting story: I was originally going be a code monkey for a guy who used to work for Google, but then that company went under (it was a start-up) two or so days before I was to start. After a week or so of frantic job hunting, I ended up here:

The second picture is the subway station five minutes from the 大厦 (building) . The picture doesn't really capture the insufferable heat and humidity, nor the pungent and incredibly recognizable 臭豆腐 ("stinky tofu," a kind of tofu that's tasty but smells awful) smell that's always around. It's a really nice place to work. Baidu, I mean, not the subway! It's not as big a deal to be an intern there, in comparison to being at Microsoft or Apple or Google, though. My friends there tell me that the interns all have activities together and volleyball and get free phones and stuff. My group of six people and I have money to get ice cream from 楼下 to eat together, though, haha. Here's my 工位, with all the sticky notes of characters I didn't know before starting here:

The food in the 餐厅 is absolutely heavenly. I can't even begin to describe how tasty it is. I eat dinner there, too. It's also, like, 11块 (~$1.60) per meal. 's kind of hard to go wrong with Chinese food in China, I think:

And they have these rooms for people to rest in, with the most incredible (and the first one I've ever been on) massage chairs in the entire world in these super-futuristic - looking giant luminous eggs which usually have the lights off inside but are on at the time I 下班, so I could take a picture of the chairs. The chairs! You know the ones, the ones with, like, a control panel the size of a laptop and over forty buttons:

Anyway, that's Baidu. It's awesome. I'm working on an company blog that'll go up in about a week. The blog will be in English, but the work environment is completely Chinese, of course, and all the searching I do to find interesting things to write posts about is in Chinese, too, of course, so I'm getting a lot of character practice. One is never done learning characters, see. There are always more.

I finish work in two weeks, though, so most of my time here will have been spent setting it up instead of writing. Oh, well.

张家界

I just got back from two days in 张家界！Some family friends from the US, my godparents, came to visit their son who's teaching English in Korea and stopped by our place in Beijing for a bit.

张家界 (Zhang1Jia1Jie4) is in 湖南：

It was incredibly gorgeous. Parts of it were actually kind of touristy, but Chinese touristy, so no Club Meds or Kodak huts, just fruit stands. The food, of course, was delicious. They don't like 饺子 (dumplings) much down there; it's more of a Northern thing. But the spicy food was delicious. Best 茄子 (eggplant) I've ever had in my life. In retrospect, I really should have taken some photos of the food.

The hiking trails were virtually deserted, too; it was just the base that was so crowded. Here are some photos:

We also ran into these really, really strange spider webs. It turns out they're (probably) St. Andrew's Cross Spiders, which exist all over the world and aren't venomous. From Wikipedia, on the X-part of the web in the first picture (called a "Stabilimentum"):

There is much controversy surrounding the function of these structures, and it is likely that different species use it for different purposes. Some people believe that they provide protection to the spider by either camouflaging it or making it appear larger. Another theory is that they make the spider visible and therefore animals such as birds are less likely to damage the spider’s web. Originally the decorations were thought to stabilize the web (hence the term stabilimentum), but this is dismissed nowadays. One more recent theory is that web decorations attract prey by reflecting ultraviolet light. Light in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum is known to be attractive to many species of insects.

Finally, there were some nice Chinglish signs there:

Chinese Driver's Test Questions

I'll be taking the test soon. Here are some questions, verbatim, from the test booklet (which is not to say that the US test didn't have a few asinine/opaque questions, too) :

4.3.2.5. When a vehicle runs left through an interchange, it should turn right and turn right again before passing the interchange. (T/F)

Answer: false

4.3.2.6 When a vehicle runs left through an interchange, it should pass the interchange before turning right, entering the ramp, and turning right again. (T/F)

Answer: true

5.2.1.1 When evading an emergency, the driver should be calm, and stick to the principle of 

a) evading people first and objects first

b)evading objects first and people later.

3.3.1.14 When driving a vehicle the driver should drive in a safe, ____ manner.

a) courteous

b) nimble

3.2.1.6 The main feature of pedestrians participating in road traffic is that they are

a) they are not stable

b) the walk around at will and can easily change directions

Answer: b)

1.1.1.10

The motorized vehicle driver should

a) drive according to the traffic rules and in a safe and courteous manner

b) may drive at will when there is no traffic police

3.4.2.50

When encountering a "watch for children" sign, the driver should speed up and pass the sign in case children abruptly cross the road. (T/F)

4.1.2.9

The "safe distance ascertaining section" of an expressway is used to ascertain the safe distance for the vehicles running at 100km/h. (T/F)

Answer: true

DVD Blurbs in China

When my dad and I saw these at the local DVD 商店，we couldn't resist buying them:

Once The Terror And Violence Actually Begin (which Doesn't Happen Until The Lsat Third Of The Movie No Less) It Goes Way Downhill. For One, It Was Marketed As A Torture Movie, But There Is Barely Any Of It! Sure, There's A Brutal Killing Here And There, But When It Came To Gore, This Film Was Very Tame. Second ,the Cinematography In During The Night Scenes Was Awful, With The Chase Scenes And Violence Barely Viewable. You Could Not Tell What Was Happening On Screen, And All Of The vIewers Of The Film Were Lost With What Was Going On. Third, The Last Third Was Extremely Predictable. You Could Tell Who Was Going To Die And When. The Main Villain (who Ironically Looks Like The President Of Iran) Is Not Well Drawn Out, And The Climax" Of The Film Is Pitiful.

Here's the Chinese blurb, which is a description of parts of the plot. That is, nothing like the English.

美丽迷人的巴西海滩引得无数的旅游者前来此地度假游玩。年轻人阿列克斯和漂亮的女友普鲁也加入到南下巴西旅游的行列当中。准备在巴西迷人的沙滩上度过他们难得的假期。但是在前往海滩度假圣地的旅途中，他们和一班同行的游客所乘坐的旅游巴士却意外发生了故障。车上的乘客无奈之下，衹好下车四处的丛林裹闲逛。

About the struggle between the Roman Empire and its rebellious conquest Judaea, and two best friends caught in a terrible moment in history. The cast is absolutely awful, not on character seems to fit (mesala was perhaps the only good choice) and discolored curly hair is ridiculous in an antic set up. Lucia Jimenez, who plays Athene, is probably the worst actress I've ever seen, every single line of her dialogs were painful other and almost made you feel bad for her.