All posts by David Feng

China

The David Feng Review of Plenary.ccp version 18.3

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I’m reviewing the recent 3rd Plenary of the Chinese Communist Party, now in “version 18.0” with Xi Jinping as its head honcho. Here’s my take on what version 18.3 of Plenary.app (sorry — CCP, not APP) — offers users (as in: users of “air” on Chinese territory; or more, rather, as in its “people”).

• SECOND KIDS: LIKE. I have never been a fanboy of the One-Child Policy simply because it makes all of us (as in the younger generation) like spoilt brats. I know this too well as I teach kids born in the 1990s — these are the antithesis of those in the Victorian era, where even writing with the left hand got you caned. (I’ve a Japanese / Swiss friend who was like that. Oh man, now if he was born a few decades “before” his time…) These days, if these kids don’t like your lesson, they tweet about it, tune into their iTunes on their iPhone (it actually is like this, technologically speaking), or just doze off. Even if you set the microphone on maximum volume and shake the room, booming the kid’s name again and again, the kid can just choose to leave the room. There’s no way you can do about this: it’s against the law to beat kids up or to “go against their interests”!

An only child is good when you’re the kid and you’re still aged about 9 or 10 — or so; nobody’s gonna steal your Lego! Then you enter what we all know as Adolescent Mode, and you find life on your own is just a bore. With a brother or sister, things might be much more different. Now that Chinese citizens can have two kids if only one of them is an “only child”, we will be seeing more competent kids — with less problems and a better way to actually talk to people.

• EDUCATIONAL REFORM: LIKE. I hate the National University Entrance Exams in China (aka Gaokao) even though I never had to go through one. It’s hell. If you crash out on The Big Day, your life is ruined. I know this since I know people who had to get an Associate Degree before getting one or more Bachelor’s Degrees. I am actually less pessimistic about the cancellation of “key courses” as it makes kids more socially competent: they can, instead, do extracurricular activities — and I myself loved that.

The new, SAT-like University Entrance Exams are like a gift from the academic / educational gods. I just hope I could set the English language exams so students aren’t brainwashed with Chinglish. Right now I’d say the great majority of English teachers in China are doing what they are not supposed to be doing — I’d say most of my colleagues would agree with this as well. Chinglish is all over the place. We’ve got to nix it. I also agree that schools and universities should revert to their academic selves instead of being pseudo-bureaucracies.

• NGOs: SCEPTICAL. One of the biggest issues with the China of today is the fact that there is virtually no breathing room for non-government organisations. Either you’re part of the .ccp/.gov apparatus, or you’re an individual who is free but never official (and the mandarins can — and will often elect to — ignore you). Starting even a computer or railways association can be extremely difficult due to the red tape. They have been talking about making it easier to start non-gov organisations but given how things have been in the past decades, I’d consider Taiwan-ish liberalisation next to impossible. A very real problem is how these NGOs will “interact” with the authorities. It’s not about whether or not you’re pro-PRC-establishment or not; under the Hu Jintao years, even the Chinese equivalents of YouTube were under government ownership. (Most of the clips were either fights in the Subway, rich ladies showing off their “bling-bling”, or soap operas from every last place imaginable — instead of being clips about political rallies and their “sensitive ilk”.)

If eventually NGOs would be allowed more rights to help society at large, then that’s OK. But until then, I remain highly sceptical in this regard. This can all be changed if a new law was made (or existing laws were changed) and we had this in print — black on white. Otherwise my scepticism remains.

I’m not advocating such massive NGO-ish changes in China as can be seen elsewhere. But it should not take hurdles to establish even — like — a chess club for a village in China.

I’ve a train to catch. More of my views on this later.

China, Chinglish, Languages, Rail

On the Road Again

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It’s late November. I like these late November days. First, the temps indoors are going up — we humans love places where the temps are just right — everyone should have those nice feelings of going into places where it’s nice and warm… and second, people are just calmer overall. 40+°C temperatures over summer means we will see (and have seen!) a few folks lose their calm — I took the train to Jilin once, and I saw passengers up in Second Class totally lose it as a few passengers from northeast China wrestled one another because someone was sitting in another guy’s assigned seat — or someone’s bag was probably an inch too long!

Talk about things to lose your calm over…

These past days have been filled with action on my end. I’m on the road again after one of the worst colds on record — for two weeks in late October and early November, I was out with a 40°C fever and a terrible throat that made me lose my voice for about two full days. In just four days, I completed trips to Xuzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Wuxi, met station crew from Xuzhou and Wuxi, and became honorary speaker and English consultant for stations in and around Xuzhou — so if you see Chinglish there, don’t yell at the railways — yell at me instead!

The city of Beijing has been having more blue sky days as of late. In fact, if you’re armed with a car, it’s one of the best seasons to be in and around the Jing. Your best photo shots come out from days right after the cold, northernly winds “greet” the city, where you’ll get at least one or two days of blue skies without feeling like it’s Siberia (with only chillier wind giving you a hard time).

I’ve taken some good shots of the Jing in past years, but these days, my “mobile machines” are trains, not cars. I’m thinking of Zhengzhou for Friday — another round of railway Chinglish extermination, as usual. To me, the title “Honorary Speaker and English Consultant” for Xuzhou means only one thing, really:

“Doctor Chinglish Exterminator David Feng”.

China, Street Level China

Street View China: Autumn in Beijing

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The centre of town is chronically plagued by that nasty PM 2.5 (the media made it worse by “announcing” the “invention” of PM 0.5, thus negating just about all of City Hall’s efforts), but on the outskirts, it’s a very different matter. Here on the Nankou-Jiantou Highway in northwestern Beijing’s district of Changping, it’s natur pur.

Here in the same pic: shades of red, yellow and green. The way autumns always were meant to be.

I believe in results, not just propaganda. If the government was serious it would have acted with much more force. City Hall was andantino before the Olympics, but right now, five years after the “magic of Olympian proportions”, they’re now back to larghissimo — in essence, larghissimo sostenuto. Those in power with a brain should be in vivacissimo, even prestissimo mode, and should add a dash of fortissimo, even furioso in terms of how they deal with polluters. The current state of affairs, sadly, is rather malinconico at times.

And it doesn’t start by forcing 50% of all cars off the road when the PM 2.5-o-meter reaches record new highs. That’s for incompetent mandarins. I’d say, slap a flat fare of CNY 100 on anyone driving their cars on any day (half fare if you live inside the city centre). Slap double fare on cars outside of Beijing. Charge the police and military (except for those on active duty). Charge even diplomats (if you live in the same city, you’re “farting away” regardless of what flag you fly).

Più veloce! I’d like to see more such Blue Sky Days for the centre of the capital — rather than to see it relegated to the outermost outskirts of town.

Technology

The Sad Reality about “Privacy”

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East Germany. Steve Jobs. Edward Snowden. All of these remind us to a world today where “privacy” is more like a kind of “data trick” than anything “that works”.

In the former East Germany, the Stasi was so powerful that it eventually made a large part of the population spy — sometimes on one another. I was also quite aghast to hear that Steve Jobs spied on you — it is quite one thing thing to “think different”, but quite different to be spied upon — “spy different”? I shudder with fear…

Edward Snowden. This figure needs a mere passing mention and we’d know precisely what the story would lead us into. If you have to tap into the German chancellor to be double-sure she’s not plotting something against you… for God’s sake, I trust my wife to get the potatoes trimmed the right size so I don’t choke on them.

The sad reality about “privacy” is more like a “data trick”. Everyone knows that Luxembourg was the 22nd country I visited — before I posted it here — because my database storing which countries I’ve been to is on Dropbox, and they claim themselves “private” and “protecting your files”. We’ve been through this before — it’s (potentially) a mere ploy to get your money. I’ve nothing against Dropbox (many other websites are in the business of collecting your data and potentially “getting dirty” with it); and if I had beef against the NSA, I wouldn’t precisely be alone, certainly not after the recent scandals. Angela Merkel might have mightier beef against that great big CIA than any mere individual who was not a public officer.

If I remember right, China during Mao’s maniacal Culture Revolution was so out-of-control that secrets had to be shared in the toilet with the water / shower running (or one of those super-loud squat toilets flushing), so nobody overheard you. I’d say we’re back to that era right now. I would not be surprised if somebody spoofed a copy of my autobiography based solely on the contents I posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Weibo. I got my iPhone 5 replaced last day — thankfully not with a 5S. Get one of these devices and it’d be like you giving away your fingerprint — there are determined hackers and they will get you. It’s all for the money, really, is it not?

As academics we do have to maintain a healthy dose of critical thinking, but from what I have seen so far, “critical thinking” is like painting the sky rose. I remain extremely sceptical, even cynical, about “privacy” in this day and age. I’d probably buy your service more if you said “Give us the money so we can have legal access to your PIN code” than this rubbish about “privacy”. Give it up, everyone: We have no more privacy to speak of.

Uncategorized

Personal Schedule Adjustment

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These adjustments are valid from 16:00 on 13 October 2013 as follows:—

1. David Feng’s Internet activities shall cease at 21:00 every day.

2. David Feng will not accept interviews of any kind after 19:00, and will not take part in speeches or hosted events, as well as non-essential activities of the Communication University of China, or of events in the Chinese railway system, which begin at 19:00.

3. Railway-related content by agreement to be posted to the official authorities and organisations shall be sent to such entities at 18:00.

4. David Feng will not take part in social activities which begin after 18:00, and will also not take part in dinners which end after 20:00. Should special cases warrant case-by-case specific permissions, these time limits may each be extended by one hour.

5. Events which fall outside the time limits shall be continued on the next day. If an event MUST involve David Feng at a time outside of the above limits, a specific application is necessary. This will have to be submitted to approval subject to procedures. If timing can be arranged, a notification of successful application will be given; otherwise, the applicant will be noted of the denial.

Thank you for your understanding.

David Feng Announcement

Good Bye (Let’s Hope), Spam…

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The probably most immediate result in me posting this is that I will be spammed — because the title of this post contains those sensitive four letters.

I’ve just redone my messaging system. I can’t tell you the email addresses “just like this” — because, well, those obnoxious spammers are still out there. I’d say they’ll leap into action even if I embed my address in a YouTube video. As a result, I’ve had to set up a form which submits your message via email — don’t ask me how it works, it just works!

Those reasons are probably not worth a post but here’s what’s worth the post: I will be using a separate email address for most of my online accounts (except for the ones I use the most — again, nothing in open to deter the spammers). The thing is — if I respond from a different account and tell you this is my “main” / “real” account, you should use that instead.

In a previous era, my SNS account messages were in the same inbox as my other messages, and most crucially — I gave my email address “away”, which kind of aggravated the whole thing. These days, all my devices are now set up to use these new addresses. It might be a few years before my inbox gets flooded with spam again. But at least now, I’ll be more responsive online…

David Feng Announcement

It’s Easier Now to Email Me

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I’ve just put the finishing touches on a brand-new form (which gets sent by email) which you can use to email me. It’s on my new HTTPS secure server, dfsecured.com.

However, with this recent “Snowden / leak / mess” thing, I can no longer say a creepy government will never find out about our emails. Still, security is pretty decent at the new dfsecured.com site. Let’s put it this way: If you trust folks with your credit card number, the degree of security at dfsecured.com is much the same. Update: HTTPS / SSL remains “on/off” for the moment… not a good idea to send over credit card numbers… but hey, this was never an e-commerce site, right?…

If a determined “bad guy” is — like I said — determined to find out that we’ve been emailing about, say, the Beijing Subway, well, there’s nothing I can do about that. But most of our conversations, I’m sure, will be less “sensitive”. ;-) Me donning on the new HTTPS service is just another way for David Feng to say: I value our conversation, and I like it as private and as safe for you as I can.

I also have a totally new email address, but because this is the creepy-crawly Internet, where spam crazies are all over the place, it’d be a little “e-suicidal” revealing it here. Not to worry, though: as long as you use the new Web email form to contact me, it will go straight to my new mailbox.

These were some tough late-night tweaks at 02:30 (AM!), but heck, when you come to test drive the whole new thing, you’ll feel it was worth it. :-)

IT

The Era of All-Macs is Over

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This might shock you.

I told you it wasn’t something you might expect. After 17 Macs and countless iPhones, I just got myself Microsoft’s new Surface. I’ll be test-driving machines from both worlds from now on — the future belongs to a unified operating infrastructure, with the cloud and the Web out there as-is.

So far I am not feeling unhappy with the Surface, although Microsoft’s awful security problem is a problem on its own — do you really trust yourself with Redmond’s lack of security features? Also, whilst editing autoexec.bat wasn’t the first thing I had to debug, getting the Microsoft account not “fully done yet” still got me a little upset.

I have less negative views of Bill Gates these days than in my younger days, although I still regard the Steve (that’s Steve Jobs) as the Great Leader. The switch over to Surface is probably a wake-up call to Apple to innovate more. But iOS 7 later this autumn might very well turn the tables…

Late night UPDATE… as seen on Facebook…

After an evening with Microsoft Surface RT, I am reminded why there is still Apple and the whole Mac OS & iEnvironment.

On anything Apple, downloading stuff, be it from the Mac App Store or from the iDevice’s App Store, worked just like that. Tracy just tapped one button on her iPhone to make the next WeChat killer download. Just like that.

By the end of the night, the Surface’s lone Web connection died. Getting Weibo for the Surface didn’t work out at all. Microsoft’s It-Must-Have-Been-Made-By-The-Department-Of-National-Security authentication system failed to download a single byte of app data.

By going overseas I can see how far behind China still is.
By being in Asia I can see how politically demented Switzerland still is at times.
By using Microsoft products I can still see how there’s still hope for Apple.

Big time.

Major league.