la Chine avant l'invention du papier

J'ai assisté à une autre conférence au Centre Culturel Français à Pékin. De plus en plus, j'ai une opinion plus agréable des Français dans la capitale chinoise. La raison étant qu'ils sont capables de se débrouiller en mandarin. Cette rencontre-ci était sur l'écriture découverte parmi plusieurs 'bibliothèques' souterraines en Chine. Il y a des textes administratifs, les textes canoniques, les textes divinatoires, etc. La taches à nettoyer, organiser, et classifier des textes sont énormes. On doit donner beaucoup de respect aux expertes, Chinois, autant que étranger pour leur efforts appliqués si attentivement en plein milieu de ce défi historique, archéologique et littéraire. Même si le chinois est ma langue maternelle, je n'ai pas la passion, la motivation ou la connaissance sur les textes anciens comme M. Marc Kalinowski, conférencier sinologue. Peut-être les gens non-chinois qui s'intéressent sur la Chine sont nombreux depuis si longtemps, sauf que avec la croissance de la Chine, tous relié au 'Royaume Moyen' devient c'est à-la mode!

巴西免簽證! Brazil visa free!

哈哈，從今天開始我拿香港特區護照 可以不用簽證到巴西了，比加拿大護照 、美國護照 等還方便呢！香港人，你甚麼時候才知道我們的家不比其他地方差！要有遠大的眼光是好事，要多看外邊的世界是好事，要多旅遊也是好事，但不用貶低自己和崇洋。因為看這例子，這兩個G8裏的國家也比不上我們。So I am elated that I could take my Hong Kong SAR passport and visit Brazil visa-free, a feat that I cannot achieve with my Canadian passport, nor could any American visit Brasil as freely as a Hong Kong citizen hahaha. I think Brazil will keep photographing the Americans coming in for now, apart from reuquesting them for visas, just the simple an eye for an eye kinda equal opportunity! The world will only be equal when people all travel without visas or all travel with visas. The Indian government is treating pretty much everyone quite equally, for most foreigners need a visa to go there, and vice versa for Indian citizens. As we are far from the all-or-nothing visa equality, we are far from the utopian equality that everyone is equal, which sadly, perhaps will never be achievable.

Common Ground

So I went to the exhibition inaugurated in Beijing called "Common Ground", regrouping artists, donnars, NGOs, galleries, etc. See my original post on cityspk.net. 看我在cityspk网站上发表了关于“共同平台”的文章，一个集艺术和环保于一身的项目。

faking it big time, national problem?

I was reading this article in Chinese, and was really upset regarding the cheating of these supposedly university students. Criticising the mainland is something I try to refrain from, or even persuade the people around me to do the same, since it is still a developing country and we shouldn't be too harsh on it. However, there are at times the integrity of society-at-large would be affected, or has been for years. I was listening to RFI's mandarin newscast the other night with the staggering figure of 800 billion RMB being the amount "stolen" by the over 20000 government officials and smuggled overseas. I do believe the central government has to come up with something to stop these kind of "bleeding" for the 800 billion could feed a few people already!

On an unrelated new story, as I was sohuing (i.e. using sohu.com), I came across this advertisement (screen shot attached)
. Look carefully at the lower left hand corner, the bold headed figure should ring some bells to whomever watches American TV. It is Dr. Phil the TV talk show host. And you know what the caption reads on the website of this English course advertised? He "became" a Briton working for the Department of Education as a "secretary of languages", yea that's the awkard translation of his fake title in Chinese. How many potential students of that website are gullible, I wonder?

Lamma Island, Hong Kong

It was really nice to be on Lamma Island, Hong Kong. I swam for the first time in the ocean in Hong Kong in 20 years! And to top it off, it was a late summer-like day on Halloween! Believe it or not, it was also my first visit to the island. Although it is the third largest island in Hong Kong (after Lantau and Hong Kong Islands), its population is considerably smaller, even compare to the small but densely packed Cheung Chau (长洲). My friend and I went swimming in Lo So Shing beach, around 30 to 40 min walk from Sok Kwu Wan (SKW), where we got off the ferry. There are many seafood restaurants and a Tin Hau Temple (as usual for any coastal village).

Since we went on an October Friday, we almost owned Lo So Shing beach (LSS) to ourselves, apart from a few French Canadian toursists, who were quite uncomfortable after knowing we spoke French hahaha. We stayed and chatted on LSS until 5ish, which was a bit late since we did not know the trek up Northwest to Yung Shue Wan would be more than an hour, and it was getting dark really quickly. (to be continued - published in preliminary version - not finished yet)

economic inequality 贫富悬殊

Second punch of American bashing, this time coming from a Canadian news article quoting United Nations statistics. The Vancouver Sun reported several American cities have economic inequality levels similar to those of developing countries. For folks interested in social determinants of health, this might also be the entry point to look at population health with regard to economic inequality. I am quite upset, on the other hand, to find out my beloved hometown of Hong Kong is the most economically bifurcating city in Asia, something that I would not brag about!
另一方面，北京竟然成为名单上经济最平等的城市。虽然我不认同北京的贫富悬殊比其他地方好，但是我想中国人应该觉得自豪，因为若果咱们能够减低贫富之间的差距，对中国长远的发展是有稳定的作用。

Asian diversity 亚洲多元化

I watched by chance a broadcast of "Dialogue" a CCTV English Channel programme on ATV International / TVB Pearl during the wee hours in Hong Kong. I am AMUSED and AMAZED by the comments of Kishore Mahbubani, former Singaporean Ambassador to UN and Wu Jianmin, former Chinese Ambassador to France on a few issues such as diversity, cooperation, financial crisis. They hit the bull's eye in mentioning how Europeans, North Americans and Asians view and point or not point their fingers when crisis occur. Maybe it is not the Asians who need to be better listeners LOL...