All posts by David Feng

Technology

Apple is the New Microsoft

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Oh — so it turned out that the 1984 thing about 30-odd years ago was a hoax?

Indeed. Apple challenged IBM. Apple challenged Microsoft. And just like the US, which challenged the Brits to break free, it’s now the monster itself. I fondly remember my Macs that simply never broke — the Mac Portable worked great for years until the Sad Mac Icon (of Death) brought it down. (That was because I used ResEdit to work on a living, breathing, in-use copy of the OS back then!)

But now, I’m forced to restart the MacBook Air like three times again just to gain wifi access. Apple still seems to be living in the Stone Age — it pioneered wifi with the then UFO-esque AirPort, so it seems to have kept wireless as something “optional”. Wifi connections are now all over the place. It simply does not make sense to still default to a wired connection just to get something done whilst you’re on the go.

I’m not talking about a “harmonious” restart, which simply never happened. The thing was that I had to force the machine to shut down — and then wait a tad until it “comes to” and restarts. Apple’s QC (quality control) has really nosedived. I remember the PowerBook G4 (Titanium), whose screen just died less than a year of me using it. The iBooks were terrible — it was hard getting work done without the hard drive dying all the time. And now the OS is a mess. Obviously trying to milk itself rich in last-ditch efforts, Apple cares more about their iStuff than the thing that put them on the map — the Mac.

Apple’s now a living, breathing carbon copy of Microsoft. They go after the users (with sub-par systems and stability). They go after China (trying to brainwash everyone into donating their kidneys for the latest iExcuse). And now they’re turning on their loyal user base.

I’m off to get a Microsoft Surface. I know that Windows is close to death as well, but I don’t want my last few days here to be iDays…

Commentary

So — Is It “Beijing South” Railway Station or “Beijingnan”?

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New railway standards published last year now mean that the railway station in southern Beijing south of the main station, which in Chinese is known as 北京南站 (Pinyin: Beijingnan Zhan) is to be known as the rather odd-sounding “Beijingnan” Railway Station instead of the standardised “Beijing South” Railway Station. That’s a little bit like renaming the Zürich Main Station as the Zürich “Zong” (Zong 总 means “main” in Chinese) station for Chinese, or to use transliterated German for Chinese readers — 苏黎世豪普特站 (Sulishi Haopute Zhan in Pinyin, which simply means Zurich “Haupt” station — it doesn’t tell you it really is the main station!). Worse is a Big Apple application: imagine calling Grand Central Station “Zhongyang” Station! (“Zhongyang” in Chinese means “central”.)

However, before you torment the railways in a fit of fury and utter confusion, consider the pros and cons:—

PROS OF USING PINYIN

  • Apparently, this would make it easier for taxi drivers and locals not familiar in English to show you where the stations are.
  • Train direction signage uses mainly Pinyin (but then again, they were mainly designed in the 20th century — HSR signage on trains still use English; intercity trains to Tianjin say “Beijing South – Tian Jin”, albeit the extra blank in Tianjin).
  • Train tickets use Pinyin (but note here that they used to use English, certainly for HSR, especially before the Pinyin standards came out).
  • Language neutrality: Beijing’s south station is Peking-Südbahnhof in German, Pékin Gare de Sud in Franglais French, and so on. Now if everyone just said Bahnhof / Gare Beijingnan, that’d make it supposedly easier.

But then again that’s not all sides of the story told…

WHY WE SHOULD STILL USE ENGLISH INSTEAD
(as in why Pinyin doesn’t work out great)

  • First, this goes against a comparatively new (edition 2010) railway signage standard book published by the former Rail Ministry, which mandated the use of English instead of Pinyin for direction indicators (South, North instead of Nan, Bei).
  • Second, expats I’ve talked to say that the point that locals not knowing South (in English) is a moot point — if they don’t speak English, and you speak Chinese, then the name issue won’t be an issue anyway (you couldn’t talk to them in the same lingo in the first place!).
  • Foreigners in China and overseas also point to the fact that as they are still using the English words for Railway Station, that they’d might want to use the English for the cardinal direction of the station anyway.
  • Obviously, sticking in Nan (Pinyin Chinese) in an English description is suspect Chinglish. (But dissecting the Chinese name of the city, too, would be Chinglish!) Also, you now have a case of mixing parts of words that don’t belong in the language you’re using.
  • Academics based in Beijing point out that this only goes to do international travellers in China a disservice — train regulars in China also agree, saying that if Beijing South was to be used, people would at least look at the station “the right way” on a map, where as Beijingnan would simply leave them confused.
  • I’ve seen ticket sales staff at Beijing South telling international travellers that trains to Guangzhou leave from Beijing West, not Beijingxi Railway Station. They’ve got to get used to a standard that doesn’t sound right.
  • Think also about the massive changes required in the city metro signage. Line 9’s station at Beijing West Railway Station, for example, doesn’t say Beijingxi Railway Station! How about giving that money to kids that need it the most? (Corrupt officials might also eye after that bit of cash — for a potential secret purchase of Mao Tai! But I kind of digress.)
  • Finally, something has to be said about that massive amount of money that has to be wasted in replacing signage bit-by-bit in China. That’s not really a sustainable way of feeding into GDP growth that lasts!

I’d like to hear from you what you think should be the best translation — Beijing South or Beijingnan — and the best way to do this is if you emailed me (or tweeted me on Twitter, giving your reason). Later I plan to do a much more detailed bit research in this — but because it will involve giving some personal information I have to get the secure form working first!

I look forward to the day when I arrive at the Baoding HSR seeing signs that welcome me to the Baoding East Railway Station, instead of the present-day make-believe “Baodingdong” Railway Station.

Commentary

“We Live in Interesting Times”

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They say that when you’re handed a Chinese fortune cookie with these words — that you’ve got — let’s just say — quite a surprise coming up!

(And probably, more often than not, it might not be what you’d want to be after.)

But yes, we do live in interesting times, and chez moi, it’s not all that bad. As of late I have been optimising China’s railway English. It’s been a funny ride — 17 of 18 China’s rail bureaus so far have adopted the new standard, and I’ve done it all through Weibo, which is Twitter with Chinese characteristics (censors obviously included, but also included are much more localised elements — such as an extra 140 characters for retweets).

The microblogs have changed the way we talk to each other. When I meet station staff in Taiyuan, that would have been the first time we caught up in the real world. And we knew each other “just” from Weibo! Around maybe just a few years back, this would have simply been impossible.

There’s a very personal reason why I got myself a PhD in communications — especially social media — because I’ve been tweeting like mad on Twitter (these years, though, I’ve been much more quiet there — probably to indoctrinate the crew on Weibo, ha ha!). It is indeed quite a ride. I’ll be posting a bit more about new media here on this blog. I’m also consolidating my Mac and tech involvements into one in the future. So whilst there might no longer be a Beijing Mac group, there’ll be something else technically related.

A tech commentary blog for sure.

The newest iPhones too. I’ve been using an iPhone 5 for a fair bit. Somehow, I can’t seem to let go of that thing…

Chinglish, Languages, Rail

So — Why am I Helping the Railways Get Their English in Order?

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That’s because I started helping my school clean test-tubes and beakers when I was about 15 over lunch — when I had nothing better to do after finishing my quick helping.

I’m not kidding you. It might seem a helluva strange reason: how do you mix cleaning lab gear with optimising English? But that’s the thing: it’s all about helping out and not “asking for attention”. (My friends in China tell me that this was the thing that was done half a decade ago. These days, if you help out, you’d be seen like an outdated follower of Lei Feng (“the mythical Chinese guy that helped everyone”) if you didn’t leave your name on the thing.)

Like: As of late, one of the trains that’s used my optimised English, train D365 from Beijing South to Fuzhou, got commended by the official People’s Railway Daily. But you never saw any public mentioning that “it was David Feng’s idea to equip the train with bilingual service cards, and that David had to work and retweak the cards, time and again, to get it right, and that David Feng paid from his own pocket to get the cards made ‘for real’, because he wanted the thing on the train ASAP”.

I seriously couldn’t care more. The thing is, I’m helping out because of Chinglish on the trains. Honestly, when you’re told — Please don’t throw the rubbish into the dustbin — you know that something’s gone wrong. Where else can you dump that banana you’ve just devoured? Obviously, the windows are sealed; it’d be suicide to crack these things open at 380 km/h*.

So with China concocting more Chinglish than they’re eradicating it — the rails included — it’s about high time I stepped in to stop the mess. Regard me as the lingo-savvy street cleaner, always photographing Chinglish and always correcting it. For one thing, I don’t like it when my railways scream out with Chinglish on their back. (If you bang into me you’ll see I’m Chinese, irregardless which ID I hold. And I don’t like it when Chinese Railways has to make do with sub-par Chinglish.)

Wuxi East is a cool station, and they’re probably a little cooler with standardised, optimised English all over the place. But nobody’d knew they translations were David Feng works — I deliberately left all traces of David Feng-ness off the thing. Ditto with Xi’an North — if you spot optimised English, that’ll just me doing my thing, sans credits. Oh and the same with Hanzhong and Ji’nan West.

I’m helping the rails get their English in order. (As an assistant professor of English at a key uni in China, it’s about time I did something for real — combining what I teach with what I love.) I’ve been to 22 countries and territories and I know when they’ve right-glish hanging over you in station signs. Obviously, since this is China’s railway system, I’m basing my optimised English on Chinese national norms, but I’m also making an effort to get the English up to speed by consulting with how English is used the right way in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Switzerland, and the UK. (Forget the US — they dumped the rails a long time ago…)

I don’t expect to get paid for this; I’m also not after free rides. (I paid for 34,000+ km of rail travel last year.) It’s a bit of Menschness (a la Guy Kawasaki). I’ll be happy when I slip into bed in the evenings knowing that Chinese Railways have one less sign in Chinglish, and one more sign in optimised English.

For one thing, I’m already happy now that passengers on HSR services to Shijiazhuang are no longer told: “Please don’t throw the rubbish into the dustbin”.

That for one thing sure keeps the rails cleaner!

* Soon. (I’m optimistic.)

Rail

A Weibo Act of Railway Kindness

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As a decilingual, there are two things that can get you free smiles on the rails, and they all begin with “grati-”. One is, of course, a free ticket — a ticket for free and gratis. I got two of these, when Xi’an Rail took me over to climb the challenging Mt Qinling — transport to and from the mountains was included, so we didn’t fork out an extra cent. (Last year, though, I paid for over 34,000 km of rail rides!)

But the other “grati-“ is a little different: It’s called gratitude. The amazing Ürumqi Railways in northwestern China’s Xinjiang “knows” me on Weibo. They have included me twice (in the form of a @mention) on Weibo (Twitter for China, censors included — et-hmm…). And these guys aren’t people talking to the depths of the desert: over 270,000 follow these guys, and that’s about a fifth of the population of even one of the smallest provincial capitals in China.

Lately, these guys tweeted me on the Jiayang Railway in Sichuan, which still runs steam engines. (Link here in Baidupedia — Chinese text only.) They included only two people as @mentions: me, and the official China Railways account. (The official name of that account — the “Political Propaganda Department” of the Rail Ministry — scares a lot of people already, when you come to think of it. Not very approachable in name, to many an outsider.)

I decided that it was high time to keep giving back even more to the rails.

This was a true act of Weibo kindness. A veritable Weibo act of railway kindness. It got me excited about Xinjiang. Friends on Facebook knew about this. I’m now certain that I’m really looking forward to the chuanr.

I’m a weird animal in the rails: I’m a university professor (the way a lot of Americans, but probably not many a Briton or a German, might see me), and I’m not affiliated in any way with the rails. Mom, dad, and the wife have never worked for the rails either. But I’m one of the most faithful advocate of rail travel amongst “civilians” (outside the rail system), and I’m here to dump Chinglish at China’s rail stations.

Somehow this whole thing started back in April 2012, when the head of the Wuxi East Railway Station invited me to take a good look at the station. Wuxi East’s English was in good shape, but there were still a few cases of Chinglish. These went away when I optimised their English out of a move of pure kindness — they retweeted me when my wife and I was doing a live radio show, and friends like that really stand out.

What starts out well will continue well. I know that I’ll keep on helping the rails get their English up to speed. And if that merits another nice @mention from them, that’ll be neater still.

Uncategorized

A little note from David…

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As of late, I’m suspending or toning down updates on Facebook, Twitter and Weibo, but the situation is a little different here on my official page. I own the entire “system” here (I don’t “own” Facebook, for example, but I do own this blog), so things are posted in full compliance with requirements as defined and hence I can still update here.

Let me just say that I’m happy to be giving the Chinese province of Shan-hsi a first visit by train. This will be the first time for me to head to the “coal province” and its provincial capital, T’ai-yüan. The trip from Peking (West) to T’ai-yüan will take 2 hours 30 minutes with a sole midway stop at Shikiachwang’s new train hub. The new HSR now offers you direct services to Hsi-an as well as major routes on the new Peking-Canton HSR route, with extended services to Shumchum.

The crossing today will go through the whole of the 28 km tunnel through the Taihang Mountains. While it isn’t as impressive in length as Japan’s Seikan or the Swiss St Gotthard Base Tunnel, it’s still the longest in the country. It’s amazing how some people here in China can just make a decision to drill a tunnel through the mountains, and make it just work — boom.

The deep freeze of North China is still with us — the Ta-Ning Reservoir just southwest of the main freeway toll gate in the southwestern suburbs is still frozen solid — but it’s loads better than what we had in Ha-erh-pin some time back. There, you had 20°C indoors, but a freezing -20°C outdoors! My nose had a bit of trouble in those arctic temps already…

Travel

David’s On the Go

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I’ve put a new “thing” on my official website as of late: my mile-o-meter, which will, for the time being, show my rail and air mileages (air mileage approximated). You can see them on the bottom of every page.

These updates come in on the 5th, 15th and 25th of every month, so everyone is up-to-date on just how much travelling I’ve done during that time.

At present I have at least 160+K kilometres by rail, so that’s obviously the big winner here. Still, my goal is to clock in more mileage — more by train in China and Europe and more by air elsewhere.

My schedule calls for visits to Harbin and Taiyuan in the not-too-distant future, and Xi’an and Zhengzhou further down the line. Those will also be my first train visits to both He’nan and Shanxi.

So, see you around!