What is the purpose of my blog? It’s a question I have been asking
myself lately. Do I want to share all my personal trivial snippets with
the rest of the world. No, not really. Do I want to be become a leading
commentary on events in China. Again, not really. I like to
notice and share what’s going on in this part of the world but I don’t
intend to rant. And why am I exposing others now to my internal
thinking process. Basically, because writing it down instead of letting
it go round and round in my head, it hopefully helps me to get things
clearer. A good blog needs self discipline I notice. Not innate to me
but I can learn. At least one post a day. A good blog needs focused
content and within reason be original. A good blog needs to be about my
own interest. My interests are news, especially articles that one way
or another show the absurdity of reality, information in general and
observing my surroundings. Has this writing helped. I wonder. A bit,
and it’s at least a post.
January 28, 2005
The State of My Blog
January 25, 2005
Lenovo Deal Might Pose A Threat to US Security
According to Bloomberg
“IBM’s proposed $1.25 billion sale of its personal computer business to
Lenovo Group of China may be held up by U.S. regulators over national
security concerns”. When big takeovers are involved a whole chain of
U.S. regulatory approvals is need before the deal can be effectuated.
Currently the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, or
CFIUS, is making up it’s mind about whether or not the deal poses a
threat. One of the concerns is that Lenovo employees might conduct
industrial espionage.
This may create an interesting political situation. If the
Commitee doesn’t approve before the 29 th of January, another
investigation into the deal must be opened. The only person then to say
Yes or No will be mister Bush himself. The takeover is seen in the
mainland as proof of Chinese development and it’s increasing role in
international business. A lot of face can be lost here.
More sources:
Atimes
January 24, 2005
Chinese Poetry in Pictures
Lost on the internet I came across this wonderful forum for Chinese photographers. (Thanks to the Liuzhou Blog which directed me here)
Just go there, sit back, think of the Chinese Characters as poetry, scroll down slowly and let the pictures amaze you. There are 153 pages at the time of writing. It’s better than TV, especially Chinese TV.
January 20, 2005
Morning Rituals
It’s about 07:30 when my alarm clock starts making irritating sounds.
Around 08:00 I get up and one of the first things I do is turning on my
PC. I eat a bit and after that start scanning the news, do a search on
Google and drink a cup of coffee. So why am I sharing these
earthwrecking details with you, you probably wonder. Well, I can’t do
my search on Google today. Is it blocked, is something wrong with my
typing skills or has the great internet administrator decided that I
have surpassed the need of a search engine? I don’t care,
anything that intervenes with my morning ritual is upsetting.
January 17, 2005
Zhao Ziyang has passed away
This morning I heard on the Dutch news (internet radio) that the former
President of China, Zhao Ziyang, died. In ’89 he was replaced by Jiang Zemin and put under house
arrest because of his soft stance on the student protests.
Chinaherald has
collected a good set of links about his death. It will be interesting
to see and read how the Chinese media will be reporting about this,
either today or later.
Happy Hours
Happy Hours are a poor man’s best friend. You get 2 for the price of 1
or you get one for half the price. I am sure they come in all kinds of
variations. It’s a lovely marketing tool to get people in at moments
when they should be doing something sensible like working or watching
tv. The first time that I exploited this phenomenon was on a holdiday
in Cuba, some 15 years ago. There were 3 hotels near the beach and
hotel 1 started their happy hour at 17:00 until 18:00, number 2 started
at 18:00 and ended at 19:00, and.. need I go on.
It made perfectly sense for two Dutch boys to walk the extra 10 metres
every hour and save some money. Yesterday I was in a bar on Nanjing Xi
Lu that also advertised with an Happy Hour.(And eventhough I am Duch, I
didn’t know before entering the place, Wenli and me were merely
looking for a warm place with coffee)
Buy 1, Get 1 one free the menu read, starting from 17:00 or was it
15:00. The menu wasn’t clear about that. I asked the waiter about the
deal and said I wanted to buy one bottle of Guiness and get the other
one right away. No, no… this was not how it worked. You first buy
one, finish it and then you will get the second. Confusing.. so could I
get one bottle and two glasses then. No problem.
January 10, 2005
The … Cafe
I didn’t intend to publish anymore about … but I can’t get around it
when I absorb the China Daily. In Shenzen you can now go to the … cafe. Backed by the local government, this venture aims “to bring convenience for customers by combining …
education, … counselling and free condoms into a one-stop shopping
experience,” said Tao Lin, director of the city’s family planning centre, whose
idea it was to turn the original … education centre into a cafe.” Can’t wait to go.