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The Practice of Differentiating Simplified Chinese Wikipedia and Traditional Chinese Wikipedia

Posted on by Fermi

Wikipedia.org has been banned for long in China Mainland. People are getting annoyed and irritated by the unaccessibleness to this infamous wiki site. It’s supposed to have a way out, they claim. So it comes: to differentiate the Simplified Chinese version and the Traditional Chinese version. Well, it sounds reasonable, Google and Yahoo! set examples, didn’t they?! But, not wikipedia.

It’s not practical to make Chinese audience access wikipedia by simply compromise to the Chinese commie government, not at all. Mainly, 2 reasons:

  • Who will actually need a censored and biased version of wikipedia? Compromising to the government means to remove the items the government doesn’t like and to modify certain items according to the government principles which may cause biases and incorrectness. All these things that abovementioned harm the usability of wikipedia. The fickleness of Chinese government is so widely-known that you would never be aware of what is “sensitive” and what is okay to talk about. It’s not practical to hire someone as the official of Simplified Chinese Wikipedia to receive the calls from anonymous callers who command him to remove or delete some sentences or items. It’s not practical that, of the editors side, there would be too many works need to be done to satisfy the government’s desire without the government being 100 persent satisfied.
  • The government would never ever let kinds of form like wiki exist as long as they can’t fully control them. Yahoo! and Google are not exceptions, but examples. Their servers are both in China mainland (Yahoo! and Google here are exactly Chinese Yahoo! and Chinese Google), which is available to call the person in charge to remove whatever the government dislike and track down whoever does not follow their orders. By such reasons, their businesses go well and smoothly in China. Wikipedia, I have to say, can’t put its server into China shortly (hopefully), because of which it will sure be banned.

    • I’m eager to discuss any ideas that would be useful to let all the Chinese view prohibited sites freely, but not such kind of compromising and self-censoring.

    Tips on Saving Money

    Posted on by Fermi

    As the inflation rate rises in China recently, saving money becomes more and more essential to an ordinary family. So, how to save money effectively? Here are some useful tips:

    1. Do NOT buy the breakfast outside in the market, cook it yourself at home. Do NOT throw away yesterday's rice, instead, boil it to porridge, enjoy it with Chinese pickles. Saving: ￥150 Monthly.
    2. Do NOT take air-con buses to go to work. Get up 10 min earlier in the morning to take the non-air-con buses. Better you own a bike, you can exercise as well as save money by riding a bike. Saving: ￥240 Monthly.
    3. Does your danwei offer lunch? No?! Ok, prepare more supper every evening, pack the extra with food container, bring it to the danwei. Saving: highly depend on how much you spend normally for lunch. Usually ￥150~300 for an individual, ￥300~600 for spouses. Monthly.
    4. Does the wife eat snacks? Yes?! Save the money of dried plum and crushed beef! Drink water as the substitution. It could not only slim your body but also beautise your face. Does the husband smoke? Yes?! Quit then. Saving: ￥350 or more Monthly.
    5. What do you eat for supper? Chicken? Duck? Fish? No!That's too luxurious! Buy some cheap cabbage/carrots/vegetables right before the markets closes. Buy some can't-be-even-smaller small yellow croakers if you really can't help doing so for ￥2/kg after negotiation with the seller. The you can save ￥30 every day, which would be ￥1000 every month.
    6. Take baths every day? Yes?! That would be too frequent! One bath per week is sufficient! And, do not flush the bath water yet, keep them for clothes washing. Do NOT invoke a washing machine in case of wasting water and electricity. Wash them all by bare hands. It can save some washing powder too. Saving: ￥100 Monthly.
    7. Do you always watch TV with the lights on? Turn off the lights before you watch TV! Saving: ￥30 Monthly.
    8. What kind of cosmetics do you use mostly? foreign brand or domestic brand? Apply 1-yuan cheapie instead! Then you could save a considerable amount of money every month! Does the husband use cosmetics? Stop the usage of shaving paste or shaving cream from now on. Another amount of money! How often would you cut your hair? Weekly? Monthly? The wife should keep a tony-tail and the husband a butch haircut for two months. It may bring the husband  unacceptably long hair, though, as long as it indeed saved numerous money on haircut.
    9. Always go to restaurants with your family during weekends? Stop it now.
    10. How much does your baby's powdered milk cost? 100 yuan? Waaahh… How can you feed him with such an expensive stuff?!10 yuan plus would be fine for him! Calcium powder?! Cod liver oil?! Colostrum abstracts?! No!! Totally NOT! They are horribly expensive! Besides milk, feed him/her with carrots or vegetables. It's already very good since the children from Old-Society still grew up without these things.
    11. Nearly forgot your phone fee! Switch off your mobiles, switch them on merely when you need to send sms-es. Reduce the calls from your own phonesets, call from your office/danwei. Do NOT connect to the internet from your house, surf only in your office/danwei.

    There are still some other ways to save money, such as "to bring empty 2L bottles to your office, bring it back with full of spring water in it every day, so that you don't need to purchase water anymore", "Take plastic bags home from danwei", "Grab some print papers home from danwei, squeeze them so to use them as toilet tissues", …, "Do taste one before you buy any fruit, well, it's kind of waste of money buying fruits, forget it."

    How’d We Lost Our Freedom of Journalism

    Posted on by Fermi

    Clicking twice on the news.163.com shortcut icon, I kicked off my day of comprehensive work. This news story undoubtedly sets the tone for an ordinary day. Evidently, disregarding human rights and being oblivious to basic freedoms are integral aspects of daily life in China.

    The story revolves around a state-owned newspaper, Guilin Daily, situated in Guangxi Province in Southern China. It brought to light several well-known instances of fraud committed by a local tourist guide, presenting 9 compelling cases as evidence. The article also featured excerpts from complaint letters written by tourists from Yunnan and Hubei Provinces.

    All seems relatively fine, that is, until the local government steps in, asserting that this ill-suited report has severely tarnished Guilin city’s reputation in the realm of tourism. Consequently, they—the government—have called for a retraction of the news piece and a public apology from the reporter. Moreover, individuals employed as guides or in similar capacities are persistently reaching out to relevant officials, seeking explanations and clarifications.

    And the outcome? Well, on the 7th page of yesterday’s edition, both the reporter and the newspaper conceded, stating, “Given that our report has indeed misaligned with the truth and unfavorably impacted the local tourism reputation, we hereby offer a public apology.” Cheers to that.

    The Overlook of the Chinese Yuan’s Appreciate

    Posted on by Fermi

    Oh, no, don’t look at the title and think it’s a overhaul essay about the Chinese economy and don’t treat it as a solemn article either. I’m just sick of the inflation rate of all the everyday stuff. A levi’s jeans for example, $14.99 during the sales in a certain US city, and 700 plus RMB in a Chinese fashion store. The appreciate? I can’t see it. A pair of NIKE flip-flop, 10 bucks around in US and 140+ RMB in China. Uhhmm.. of course you can accuse the taxation, but the thing is do we have to pay so much more to enjoy the exactly same thing?

    Well, it is illogical of this post, hmm, I just wanna write it.

    More and More Chinese

    Posted on by Fermi

    I found myself being more and more Chinese by staying within the nation for one plus year. I am refering the habits that I profoundly nurtured. I now have to take a siesta after lunch, doesn’t it say something?

    Well, of course I AM Chinese, I am just enjoying the way of being it, hehe.

    Shit!

    Posted on by Fermi

    What you say about this?! I so envy him, coz I stay in Hebei Province of China for 23 years, and I’ve never been to the infamous Summer Palace! Maybe it’s time for me to think about it.