First Time in China

There are many things that I only did for the first time in China. One of them was riding on a China Railway High-Speed Train (CRH). When I arrived in Shanghai Pudong International Airport last 2008 I was so amazed with the train that went so quickly from the airport to a distant place. I wanted to be on that train but my instruction was to take the airport bus to Suzhou which is really convenient for someone who is Chinese illiterate like me. 
I met two other foreign teachers, Mokom from Cameron and Randy, from Canada. We became good friends and they showed me around Suzhou, Venice of the east. I told them that I really wanted to try riding on a high speed train. I was so excited when Randy said that he would be meeting friends in Shanghai and I was welcomed to go with him. I was only thinking that it would be a fun ride, just like my first plane ride. I have never imagined that for 35 minutes from Suzhou to Shanghai I would only have enough space for my two feet. The train was so fully packed that I couldn't see the floor. We were not lucky to get a seat since we just bought the tickets on the day of our trip.

I also noticed that the authorities would only open the gate five minutes before the departure. Most of the passengers were pushing and running to get on the train. I just let them pass but Randy told me, "that kind of walk won't work here in China, see everyone is running." I quickly followed him. He told me that I should take note of the information on the ticket. I should remember numbers such as train number that starts with D for the bullet train, coach number and seat number.The train is very long with 16 coaches and we should go to coach 10. There were only few people running so he decided that we should use the door on coach 5 and just walk through. When we got on coach 5 we couldn't walk through since every little space was occupied so we just stayed on coach 5 instead of 10. I noticed that the attendants didn't care if the passengers were on the right coach number. I learned that lesson when I was on my own. It seems that if you did not have a seat, and are standing, you can stand in any coach, as long as there is room.

One lesson that I didn't learn, was to push people away especially in line to buy a ticket. Some of the people don't know where the line is and would just go directly to the counter. Inserting in a line is an issue and it seems that it's acceptable in China. I was in line at the only English Speaking counter in Shanghai. There were at least five people who were able to cut in front of me. When there was only one person in front of me, the counter closed because it was already 12:40PM. So I had to transfer to another line which took about 30 minutes and ended up not getting a ticket and I didn't know why. On my third attempt at least I was able to say "Suzhou" properly I guess. I started to fall in line at 11:50am I got my precious ticket at 1:20PM and my train departed at 2:21PM. Good thing that Starbucks is just around the corner. A cup of coffee made me feel a little better.

Train ride is nice since it's faster than our jeepneys in Cebu, but I would rather be on a jeepney than being on a queue for ages, pushing your way while boarding, running to get on the train and standing until your destination. A day trip like this would take me a few days to get my energy back. If this is their way of being "Globally competitive" as my friend said, then so be it. TIC (This is China)

The 20 Dollar Bill

Author:  Christian Godefroy

    A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up
 a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked:

    "Who would like this $20 bill?"

    Hands started going up. He said:

    "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first,
 let me do this."

    He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.

    He then asked:

    "Who still wants it?"

    Still the hands were up in the air.

    "Well," he replied, "what if I do this?"

    And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into
 the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.

    "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

    "My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson.
 No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because
 it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

    Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground
 into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that
 come our way. We feel as though we are worthless.

    But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you
 will never lose your value. To those who love you, you are
 priceless.

    The worth of our lives come not in what we do or who we know
 but by who we are!

What are the BIG STONES in Your Life?

Author: Christian Godefroy

    One day, an old professor of the national School of
 administration (ENA-France) was asked to give a training-course on
 the effective economic planning of one's time to a group of about
 fifteen leaders of big companies from North - America.

    This course constituted one of 5 workshops of their day of
 training. So, the old Prof. only had one hour to spend on this
 subject.

    Standing in front of this group of elite who was ready
 to note everything that the expert was going to teach, the old
 Prof. looked at them one by one, slowly, then said to them:

    "We are going to make an experiment".

    From under the table which separated him from his pupils,
 the old Prof. took out an immense jar Mason of a gallon
 (glass jar of more than 4 liters) which he directly put in
 front of him.

    Then, he took out about a dozen pebbles roughly as big as
 tennis balls and placed them delicately, one by one, in the
 big jar. When the jar was filled up to the brim, and when it was
 impossible to add anything to it, he raised slowly his eyes
 towards the pupils, and asked them:

    "Is this jar full?"

    Everybody answered: "Yes".

    He waited for a few seconds and added: "Really?"

    Then, he bent again and took out from under the table a pot
 filled with little stones. With accuracy, he poured these little
 pebbles on the big stones, then moved softly the jar.

    The fragments of little pebbles went  between the stones
 down to the bottom of the jar. The old Prof. raised his eyes again
 towards his audience and asked:

    "Is this jar full?".

    This time, his brilliant pupils began to understand the whole
 process. One of them answered:

    "Probably not!"

    "Well!" answered the old Prof..

    He bent again and this time, took out from under the table a
 bucket of sand. With attention, he poured the sand into the jar.
 The sand went to fil the spaces between the big big stones and the
 little pebbles. Once again, he asked:

    "Is this jar  full?". This time, without hesitation, and in a
 choir, the brilliant pupils answered:

    "No!".

    "Well!" answered  the old Prof. And, as expected by the
 brilliant pupils, he took the jug of water which was on the table
 and filled the jar up to the brim. Then, the old Prof. raised
 his eyes towards his group and asked:

    "Which big truth does this experiment show to us?" .

    Being no fool, the most audacious of the pupils, thinking
 about the topic of this course, answered:

    "It shows that even when one believes that our diary is
 completely filled, if one wants really  wants it, one can add
 more meetings to it, more things to be made".

    The old Prof. answered. "It is not that".

    "The big truth that this experiment shows to us is the following
 one:

    - "If one does not put the big stones first in the jar, one
 will never be able to make all of them go in, then".

    There was a profound silence, each becoming aware of the
 evidence of these comments.

    Then, the old Prof. Told them: "Which are the big stones
 in your life?"

    "Your health?"

    "Your family?"

    "Your friends?"

    "To make your dreams come true?"

    "Learning?"

    "To do what you enjoy?"

    "To relax?"

    "To fight for a cause?"

    "To take time for yourself?"

    "Or any other thing?"

    "What it is necessary to remember is the importance to put
 one's BIG STONES  in first in one's life, otherwise one incurs
  the risks not to succeed in one's life.

    If one gives priority to peccadilloes (the little pebbles, the
 sand), one will fill one's life with peccadilloes and one will
 have no more enough precious time to dedicate to the important
 elements of one's life".

    Then do not forget to ask to yourself this question:

    "Which are the BIG STONES IN MY LIFE?

    Then, put them in, first"

    With a friendly gesture of the hand, the old professor
 greeted his audience and slowly left the room.

Great Speech Imitation Competition

Today was a memorable day for some students of the International Business Department in our school. We had a "Great English Speech Imitation Competition." The event was held in a big hall with about 500 seats. My friend, the coordinator and I arrived an hour before the show started since we wanted to check that everything was set. I imagined that the place would be filled with students. When the program started I glanced at the back to see if the seats were already filled, only to find out the the students who came were mostly the contestants and their close friends. I wonder where the others were since we have hundreds of students in our department. There were 18 contestants who showed both confidence and fear. As the show continued I had to listen attentively to each one of them since I had to give comments and also give a closing remarks. I had to pick some important lines from their speeches and at the same time rate each contestant as I was also one of the judges. Honestly it was a tough job for the judges since more than half of the contestants were really great. It was so hard to decide as to who would be the BEST speech imitator. They were so good in imitating President Obama, former president George W. Bush, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Hilary Clinton, Yang Lan of Beijing Olympics, Bill Gates, Sen. McCain, Steve Jobs, Franklin Roosevelt and Madonna. 

I told everyone that they did great. Tried to be specific in giving individual comments, like "you really sounded like Pres. Obama or Hilary Clinton, good voice quality, confident, you maintained eye- contact, relaxed,good pronunciation etc. They all amazed me since public speaking is not my specially. But since I am the only foreign teacher in this school I am expected to speak, usually the closing speech. Opening speech is usually  assigned to the department Deans.

 Anyway my main message for everybody was, "On behalf of the judges tonight, I would like to say, Congratulations on a job well done! You gave us a very tough job tonight. You are all good in imitating these famous people who are doing this everyday. I believe that if you can sound like them, you can be better. I hope that in the future, students will be imitating your own speeches.

The Chinese Luck

After having lunch today, I still felt so sleepy since I only had 4 hours of sleep. I didn't have to wake up at 11am but my friend wanted to have lunch with me since it was my birthday. It was still very cold and I was glad that the sun was out. Walking outside the restaurant I saw a group of teachers and students looking up at the sky with camera and phones in their hands. I was wondering what they were doing since I couldn't see anything. I had a feeling that I was asleep while walking. When we got near them my friend said, "Oh look there is a rainbow around the sun, it's your lucky day today!" I tried looking up but still couldn't see anything. I got my camera from my bag and just tried pointing it to the sky and didn't think I would get anything since it was just all white.
I made a few clicks and when I clicked preview all I saw was just white bright light, no sign of a rainbow.   I was surprised when I downloaded the photos to my laptop.  I saw the rainbow around the sun. I actually got a small view of it and I was happy that I captured the Chinese luck on my birthday.

 

(Thanks FJR!)

Youtube Kills My Any Video Converter

Few months ago I remember spending so many hours researching for free youtube proxies. With the help of google I found a lot of proxies. I even tried using China's local search engine, Baidu and it gave me  the same results. So I wonder if the government was smart enough to block youtube and allowed Chinese internet users to use a web proxy. Then to prove to the people that they are smarter and more powerful, they started blocking the free proxies. There are always new proxies everyday but the service is not so fast so I decided to go for a paid proxy server and glad that I found a reliable VPN (Virtual Private Network).  I Was willing to pay since I really needed youtube  for supplementary materials, specially for news clips, speeches, movie clips and songs. I also enjoyed unlimited video downloads using Any Video Converter Professional Edition. I didn't have any problem grabbing any videos that I like from youtube. I download movies too. In short, youtube is the website that I always use everyday for entertainment and work purposes. Today, I tried to download Shakira's music video since we had a listening activity that talks about Shakira's job. I found out that the downloader is not moving at all. I uninstalled the file and downloaded the latest version.  After downloading I tried installing it, but it just said error or "corrupted". I quickly searched online for another youtube downloader and tried about few of them with no success. So I was thinking that perhaps youtube blocks video download. I typed "youtube kills video download" on google. My fears were true , youtube kills my any video converter :( Now I don't know if I could find another software to download youtube videos or if youtube would sell their videos if I want to download them. I don't know exactly why they're doing this but for sure they have business in mind.