Jay Chou Threw a Nun Chuck to Me
On Saturday night of April 19, 2008, I went the second concert of my life. The first concert seems like a little kid birthday party compare to this one. With a crowd of approximately 20,000 standing in the rain, in the sold-out Olympic Stadium, in Nanjing, China, Jay Chou gave a performance that is worth the money and the time spend standing in the rain. And yes in the end of the night, he threw his nun chuck at me.
Arm with two VIP tickets and my girlfriend, I head into Olympic Stadium not knowing what to expect since this is my first concert in China. Each of our ticket cost us Y1580, that’s about $225 US dollars each. That is not a bad price compare to US concerts. Our seats were about 20 rows from the front and we were smack in the middle. Every seats were sold out, the Stadium was pack and just right before the concert start, the rain started to pour. Fortunately they gave us some plastic rain coat. It was very thin but it did the job. I was too smart to check on the forecast so I didn’t bring an umbrella, and yes I got an earful from my girlfriend for not bringing the umbrella when she told me to.
Some moments that was unforgettable that night involve two kids. Both pretty chubby, both about the same age, but both did not have the same amount of fun though. There was one kid to our right who couldn’t see the stage because when the concert started, everyone stood up, no not on their feet, but on the chairs. The dad got pretty upset that he paid so much money for the tickets and his kid couldn’t even see Jay Chou, he tried his best to get people to sit down but it didn’t really work. By halfway through the concert they were gone.
This other little chubby Chinese kid on the other hand had the time of his life. Even though he couldn’t see anything but the top edge of the TV screen, he sang, to the top of his lung, along to every, I mean every songs that Jay Chou perform. He knew every song, every words, every beat, and did not care that he was getting rain on and that he couldn’t see Jay Chou. He had a blast.
For us, my girlfriend and I, we were kind of in between. There were moments when people in front of us had their umbrella up and we couldn’t see but when that happen we just scooch to the left (two of the seats to our left were empty), and when we couldn’t see there we scooch to the right. We didn’t know all of the words to the songs but some clever dude decided to put lyrics up on the big screen so all 20,000 people could sing along. Who ever thought up that idea needs a bonus in his next pay check. Other then getting hit by the light saber look alike thing about 5 times by the girl who was standing behind me, the night was violent-free until Jay Chou decided to throw his nun chuck at me.
No that is not a typo, during the last song Jay Chou decided to dance around with nun chuck and when he finish dancing, he threw it into the crowd. Guess where it landed? Yes, right at me. I caught one end of the nun chuck and within milliseconds, this other girl grab the other end. We stare each other down. It was a face/off. Time froze. If there were not 20,000 crazy Jay Chou fans around we could’ve work it out and split the nun chuck in half. I saw it in her eyes, she saw it in my eyes that we could just split it up. About three milliseconds later a crowd of nun chuck hungry Jay Chou fan came crashing down on it. The chairs that we were all standing on were now on top of people. As I saw the crowd coming in, I let go of the precious nun chuck. My precious nun chuck that Jay Chou wanted to give me was not gone. I grab my girlfriend and we moved away from the hungry crowd searching for a nun chuck. We never found out who finally got the nun chuck.
Out of 20,000 people in the crowd, Jay Chou threw his nun chuck at me but I didn’t want to die that night so I let go. You can see in this first picture, the nun chuck that he threw at me.
Blame China?
Jack Cafferty’s remark on China on April 9, 2008. “I don’t know if China is any different, but our relationship with China is certainly different,” Mr. Cafferty said, according to CNN. “We’re in hock to the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq, for one thing. They’re holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper.We are also running hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth or trade deficits with them, as we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we’re buying from Wal-Mart.
“So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed,” he continued. “I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”
The Chinese people are demanding an apology from Jack Cafferty and CNN for his remark, but it does not seem that this “strongly” opinionated news host will ever apologize. Jack Cafferty claim that the comment was made toward the Chinese Government and not the Chinese people. One thing that Jack Cafferty might not know is that those two words might as well be interchangeable.
One thing I learn being here in China is that, the Chinese people’s relationship with their government is very different from American’s relationship with their government. Especially during this time before the Olympic, the feeling of nationalism is everywhere. You can even see the rise of Chinese nationalism within Chinese who are not living in China. Pro-Chinese protests are starting to sprout up everywhere in the world to contest against the Ant-Chinese protests during the olympic torch relays.
It does not matter that Jack Cafferty’s comment was made to the Chinese Government. The people of China and the Chinese Government has never come this close to unity like they are right now, because of the Anti-Chinese protests and the upcoming Olympic. With the Olympic and the anti-Chinese protest around the world will rise the new Chinese Nationalism.
Suning: China’s Only Electronic SuperStore
Last Week, my Econ professor took our class of 8 people to Suning, China’s version of Best Buy. We were given a grand welcome and a grand tour of their main store in Nanjing. I have never had this kind of welcome before, there were about 10 people in suit welcoming us and clapping and saying “huang ying huang ying”. After the grand tour of the store we met up with one of the director of the company and were given a quick presentation about the company. We ended the day with Q&A.
What is Suning? Suning is China’s largest electronic superstore with chain stores all over China. Suning originated in Nanjing, in the early 1990’s as an air-conditioning supplier. It grew to sell computer, communication devices, and consumer appliance. They call this their 3C’s. Now it is 3C+ and plus if for their services, such as repair, delivery etc. Suning is very similar to Best Buy. Unlike Best Buy, Suning follows a more eastern philosophy of developing harmonious relationships not only with their suppliers but also their employees and the community. They have been able to grow with the support of the government and the community. They have received various awards in helping the community; for example, during the recent winter storm in China, Suning has sent both money and aid to those in need.
During their presentation, they presented us with graphs of their company’s growth both in terms of total revenue and the numbers of stores.
“Suning, one of the country’s leading home appliance retailers, said its 2006 profits jumped 105% in the last year thanks to booming sales of televisions, cell phones, and computers. Demand is so strong that the company opened 145 new stores in 2006!” (source)
The company is planning to open 200 more chain stores by the year 2010. According to the director, the location of the store is located by three criteria population, economics, and easily accessible areas, such as downtown shopping city. The Suning headquarter that we went to is located in the hottest shopping area in Nanjing, the Suning store is right across from Wal-Mart.
During the Q&A, the director was asked if the company will expanding internationally and the answer was a little surprising to many of the students. While most companies want to expand overseas, Suning wants to keep its concentration in China. The main reason is that the market in China has not yet matured. The rise in the number of middle class citizen in China is still growing; therefore the demand for the 3Cs will keep on rising. At the moment, Suning does not have a main competitor in China. There are thousands of small electronic shops in China but no real big store that can compete with Suning. Best Buy has opened a store in Shanghai but according to the director, he is not at all worry about competition because as he said before, the market in China has not yet matured yet. At the moment there are enough consumers for Suning, small electronics shops and the one Best Buy in Shanghai.
As China keeps on developing, the number of consumer who could afford computers, communication devices, and consumer appliances will continue to grow also. One of my questions for the director was “Who is Suning’s biggest competition” and the director smiled and responded simply “自己” (zi ji) meaning “itself”.
Electricity and China; Chinese are more Energy Conscious then American.
The second night we were here in Nanjing University, one of my friends came back to a room fill with darkness. We thought there was a blackout, but realize minutes later that everyone else had electricity except for her room. After making a few phone calls, we realize that electricity in the hotel/dormitory we are staying in is “ration”. Each day we are ration 2 “duol”, I was told that is the measurement for electricity here. Unfortunately one hour of heating up the room takes up 2 “duol”. The people who work at the hotel dormitory says that an average international student uses about 25 “duol” a day because during the winter they use a lot of heat and in the summer they use alot of air conditioning. So my friend basically used too much electricity and now must pay for her extra usage.
In the United States, at Drew University, I am use to leaving everything on from my television to my computer and other appliances. We even sometime open the window and turn on the heat at the same time. That was how wasteful we were back in the States. Here, the Chinese really are a very energy conscious group of people. Even at the Motel 168 we stayed at in Shanghai, the only way that the electricity would work is if you put in your magnetic keys, which also opens the door, so when you leave the room, all the electricity are turned off because you take the key with you. Only here in China have I started to think how about big of an energy hog Americans are. We complain so much about the price of oil and electricity but we never really do anything to try to conserve energy. Here in China, it seems that everyone is trying to use the least amount of energy as possible.
When the Chinese do use electricity, it is very pretty, here are some pictures of the night scene in Shanghai and Nanjing. The first two are from Shanghai, while the last two is from Nanjing.
First Impression of China
After a 16 hour flight from JFK to Fu Dong International Airport in China, I was exhausted. I arrived in Shanghai at 5am in the morning and started touring the city. I won’t be able to updated until next Tuesday when I get to Nanjing University. I would like to apologize to fellow entrecard member who has been dropping cards on me. I will be back full time when I get to Nanjing University. Here’s some photos for your viewing pleasure.
The winner of the 2000 EntreCredit Contest
The winner of the 2000 EntreCredit Contest is: Scott| AndroidGuys
Congratulation to Scott| AndroidGuys, he has won himself 2000 Entrecredit and all he did was comment! Thank you to everyone that participated!
The Law of Diminishing Return
I hate to break this to you all, but when your parent says “Too much of a good thing is a bad thing!”, believe it or not, they are right. Well if you take into account the evil “Law of Diminishing Return”. Here is the definition:
“Sometimes referred to as variable factor proportions, law of diminishing returns states that as equal quantities of one variable factor are increased, while other factor inputs remain constant, ceteris paribus, a point is reached beyond which the addition of one more unit of the variable factor will result in a diminishing rate of return and the marginal physical product will fall.”
English translation: There is a point where, when adding one more item (food, cloth, girlfriend/boyfriends), it decreases your “marginal” utility(happiness).
For example, you love ice creams, so you bought 3 cones of vanilla with sprinkle. It was the best ever! Then you bought a fourth one. It turns out to be not as good as the first three,but it ws okay. Then you bought a 5th one. That didn’t taste as good either. Then you bought a 6th one, that tasted even worse. Actually, it made you feel sick. That is the Law of Diminishing Return working at its best. The first 3 were good but the rest just made you feel worse because you were already full from the first three.
So, prove me wrong, what is something that will not be affected by the Law of Diminishing Return?
Tuesday: Around the Internet World
Tuesday Link Love has officially changed to Tuesday: Around the Internet. This week we look at sites that deal with economic (or tries to), from theory to plain old saving money. By the way, if you live in the United States go out and shop and help us prevent the recession from happening.
http://ahkong.net/silent-thoughts-being-needed-and-the-ability-to-serve/
First, we have Deimos who tries his best to explain blogging through a Chinese proverb while adding economic into it! Econ 101 Supply and Demand. Good Job Deimos.
http://www.moneyrelations.com/2008/02/11/buy-on-rumor-sell-on-news-with-yahoo-and-microsoft-deal/
This blog is has a lot of informative post. It keeps you up to date with the big news in the finance world and also give helpful tips about finance. This blog is an informative personal view about finance and the economy in general.
Here is a great article on how to save some money with grocery shopping and food. The blog is about ways to save money *hence the domain name*. It always update with new and exciting ways for the reader to save money. It even have challenges from time to time.
Prisons are not Rehabilitation Centers, Which They should be.
Across the United States, thousand of inmates are doing times for crimes ranging from first degree murder to petty robberies. The jails do not care about what the inmates will do when the inmates get out. Their primary job is to make sure that the inmates are kept away from society so they could not do any harm to society. This system is not working out for the United States because when the inmates are put back into society, most of the time they commit the same crime again. What these correctional facilities fail to see is that, when the inmates leave prison, they did not learn their lesson. They go back into their world of crime. They do not change. The jail system in the United States needs to become a rehabilitation center in order to help these inmates. Some people in the government consider these “efforts to rehabilitate inmates as soft-headed and ineffective” (Butterfield 1). Currently prisons in the United States are not rehabilitation center because jails force its inmate to live in strictly structure atmosphere that is untrusting, unsafe, lack of education and it only leads inmates back to their crime life when they leave prison.
For inmates, living in a highly stick structure atmosphere with other inmates will not help prepare them to get back into the world that is outside of prison. The goal of prison is exclusion from society. Their goal is not to make the inmates better people. Within the prison structure, inmates are force to have a cellmate, someone that they do not know, and most of the time they do not trust. Everyone in prison has committed some type of crime, except for the guards that are watching over the inmates. Forcing a group of outlaws to live in the same vicinity is not a very good idea. This makes a person think that what they did was not that bad because other people have done it too. This type of thinking is not the best thing for them if the government wants them to stop committing these crimes. These inmates are living in an environment in which they cannot trust anyone because everyone in there is a criminal.
Another aspect of the environment the inmates are forced to live in is that it is a very untrusting atmosphere. Since everyone in the prison is a criminal, inmates do not trust each other. The prison system does not teach its inmate how to trust everyone around them. Inmates in prison see people around them getting stab and beaten up, the atmosphere in prison in which inmates sees nearly everyday. People who have committed crimes has mental issue that needs to be evaluated and helped, prison is not the place. Prison will only make that person worse off then before. The prison atmosphere truly affects the mental work of inmates. There are stories of prisoner being punished by putting them in solitary confinement. What could be more horrible then a prison within a prison. Statistic has shown that “in 2000, there were roughly 70,000 inmates in some form of isolation, up from about 48,000 in 1995” (Johnson 1). The Bureau of Justice statistic shows that there are more suicides in prison then they are homicides (1). This shows that there inmates in prison are mentally affected by the prison environment they are in.
Having to live in such a cruel environment, most prisoners wants to get on paroled but sadly, getting release on parole is very difficult. First a prison must keep a spotless record in prison and shows sign of rehabilitation in an environment that does not help in rehabilitating. The statistic also are against the inmates. “More than 95% of those who apply are rejected by the parole board, and of the few who actually receive a recommendation of parole, a little more than a third are released by the governor” (Feige 1). By knowing this statistic, gives few if no hope at all to prisoners, causing more mental issue to deal with.
Inside the prison walls, all the inmate could do is do their time. Doing their time is not trying to make themselves a better person, but just trying to survive life in prison. Instead of having inmates keeping up with education, they are force to worry about their own safety. Ray Champagne, a former prisoner, stated that “in prison you don’t truly grow as a human being; you just sort of grow old” (1). The prison system right now are making the time people spent in jail, times that are wasted. Times spend in jail should not be time wasted. The only things that prisoners have are a few old books. Ray Champagne argues that “if we are not able to feed our intellect; to touch, through books social and political issues we can not hope to grow but stunted.” (1). Not only is their lacks of books but lack of education to help inmates back into the world outside of prison.
The transition for inmates from prison to the world outside of prison is a very hard, but unfortunately there are not a lot of help for them out there. There chance of getting a job is slim due to their criminal background. Their mental state is unbalance due to living in the prison environment and now having to adjust to the world outside of prison. Statistics have shown that “Sixty-seven percent of the 630,000 state and federal prison inmates who will be released this year are likely to be rearrested within three years” (Butterfield 2). This is the outcome of the correctional system in the United States. They are very few programs out there that are helping prisoners adjust back to life outside of prison.
Prisons are not the answer to solving the escalating number of crimes in the United States. Putting all the bad people in one room and just leaving them there for a while is not going to help them. Even worse now it is even harder for inmates to get on paroled. Trying to get on paroled is as hard as trying to win a lottery. What the government must do is change the whole correctional system within the United States. The government should at least provide more rehabilitation help within the prison wall and outside of the prison wall to people who were former inmates. Created more prison is the same as created more underground society in which criminals can thrive in and recruit. Prison is too cruel for an average person to survive in without giving up some of their moral, just to survive. That is not an environment that one wants to put oneself in, so no one should ever have to live in such an environment. While the United States are accusing other country of human rights violation, according to Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch’s U.S. Program “Prisons have become the nation’s primary mental health facilities” (More Mentally… 2).
Work Cited
Butterfield, Fox. “Repaving the Long Road Out of Prison”. The New York Times. NY. 4
May 2004. 29 Nov 2005. ProQuest.
Champagne, Ray. Prison Book Program. 28 July 2004. 29 Nov 2005.
Feige, David. “Commentary; A Prison Without hope is a Dangerous Place”. California
Metro. Calif. 1 Feb 2005. 29 Nov 2005. ProQuest.
Johnson, Keven. “After Years of Solitary, freedom hard to grasp; Ex-con face long odds
on release from isolation”. USA TODAY.com. Va. 9 June, 2005. 29 Nov 2005. ProQuest.
“More Mentally ill in prison than hospitals”. New Pittsburg Courier. PA. 23 Nov 2003.
29 Nov 2005. ProQuest.
Suicide and Homicide Rates in State Prisons and Jail. 21 August 2005. 29 Nov 2005.
United States. Dept. of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Is There Still a War in Iraq?
From watching the news and reading the paper, you might think that the war in Iraq is over because no one is talking about it anymore. The news is plastered with the primaries, the fear of recession, and even Natalie Holloway, but no updates on the war. The death toll for US soldier is nearing 4000 now. Why should Natalie Holloway, an average American girl, get more attention then the heroes that are dying in Iraq? The soldiers are risking their life everyday to protect America’s freedom, but all they get is a bashing from the anti-war crowd and no coverage from the media.
I do not agree with the war in Iraq but I do believe in supporting the soldiers that are risking their life everyday for us. It’s ironic that we fear that we will slump into a recession but we aren’t taking into account how much America is spending in Iraq. The war has cost us over $440 billion since 2003. The cost for the war has gone up every year.
War funding, which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, rose to $120 billion in 2006 and $171 billion in 2007 and President George W. Bush has asked for $193 billion in 2008, the nonpartisan office wrote.
This guy, Jerome Kerviel, lost 7.2 billion in 8 business days. George W. Bush, with his war spending alone, will be losing 6.2 billion every 8 business days in 2008. Now that is a lot of money.