Here, for my friends who are not now in China, or haven't seen it before: A quickie tour of my weekday neighborhood, one of Shenzhen's busier districts. If you're already in China, it's not too enlightening, except you may notice I have a foreign accent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuaFFtRh31w

(unable to imbed the tubies from this terminal)

For some of us living in China, the "little emperor" syndrome is maddening. Not hard to understand from our backgrounds, but then they don't come from our backgrounds. Here's a very thoughful article, showing some of the very reasonable reasons for the phenomenon, and also some of the pressures and costs.

The shift in temperament has happened too fast for society to handle. China is still a developing nation with limited opportunity, leaving millions of ambitious little emperors out in the cold; the country now churns out more than 4 million university graduates yearly, but only 1.6 million new college-level jobs. Even the strivers end up as security guards. China may be the world's next great superpower, but it's facing a looming crisis as millions of overpressurized, hypereducated only children come of age in a nation that can't fulfill their expectations.

This culture of pressure and frustration has sparked a mental-health crisis for young Chinese. Many simmer in depression or unemployment, unwilling to take jobs they consider beneath them. Millions, afraid to face the real world, escape into video games, which the government considers a national epidemic. And a disturbing number decide to end it all; suicide is now China's leading cause of death for those aged 20 to 35. "People in China—especially parents and college students—are suddenly becoming aware of huge depression and anxiety problems in young people," says Yu Zeng, a 23-year-old from Sichuan province. "The media report on new campus suicides all the time."

"In this generation, every child is raised to be at the top," says Vanessa Fong, a Harvard education professor and author of Only Hope: Coming of Age under China's One-Child Policy. "They've worked hard for it, and it's what their parents have focused their lives on. But the problem is that the country can't provide the lifestyle they feel they deserve. Only a few will get it." China's accomplished young elites are celebrated on billboards as the vanguard of the nation, yet they're quickly becoming victims of their own lofty expectations.

MORE

I love road biking, when you can pedal down a smooth, paved road with little interruption. In fact, on the road or not, I'd rather cycle to wherever I'm going if possible. Unfortunately, in China and many other places, the option of a smooth, safe road isn't always available. Sometimes you need to hop in a bus, or subway, or go up an elevator somewhere along the way. This is very difficult with a full-size bike in tow, but clever designers have come up with a few good solutions.

This is one of Dahon's folding models. It's got 8 gears in a decent spread, a smallish rear rack, fenders and 20-inch wheels. Inside that long seat tube, there is also a very nice built-in tire pump. To fold it down to hand-carry size, you first collapse the seat tube and fold down the handlebar assembly. This takes 10-20 seconds.

The seat should go down a little further than in the photo, but I didn't want to undo the taillight for the photo. The next step in folding it up is merely to release the lock on the big middle hinge and swing around the front part until it meets the magnet latch in the rear. There's your package to haul onto the subway or into the taxi:

I like it just fine. It's not the ride of a full-size road bike: the small wheels are a little skittery. But the 1 1/2 inch tires absorb road shock without much rolling resistance, the gearing makes it relatively easy to ride fast, or climb hills. My colleague Dave makes rather long loaded tours on his, but I use mine mainly for scooting to work and back. I've thrown it into a taxi and hauled it onto the bus when I need to have it in other places. Yes, people stare a bit, but often it's in admiriation. I've gotten several comments on what a good idea it is.

Note: In other posts you may see an "I" who doesn't like bikes. There is more than one person writing on this blog, and agreement is not required.

From The Australian:

August 12, 2008

A GIANT inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a window before it landed again.

The art work, titled Complex Shit, is the size of a house.

The wind carried it 200m from the Paul Klee Centre in Berne before it fell back to Earth in the grounds of a children's home, said museum director Juri Steiner.

The inflatable turd broke the window at the children's home when it blew away on the night of July 31, Mr Steiner said.

The art work has a safety system which normally makes it deflate when there is a storm, but this did not work when it blew away.

Mr Steiner said McCarthy had not yet been contacted and the museum was not sure if Complex Shit would be put back on display.

Thanks Tim Blair

Ooh, get in on this one early: Family man, community volunteer driven to suicide by relentless innuendo and investigation? Or nefarious developer who stood to gain from anthrax panic? Six years of complete cooperation with the investigating authorities, but a history of homicidal threats? This one promises to be as big as the Kennedy assassination, unless a smoking gun shows up.

I'm actually anxious to see what details emerge. This was the scare that really cemented the "climate of fear" in the US after the Twin Towers attack, but there's never been a good suspect or hard evidence show up.

And don't forget, there's already been an exonerated (and well-compensated) suspect through the mill. Dr. Steven Hatfill.

Just to show you what kind of humor sometimes goes on within corporations..... UPS pilots fill out a report of airplane issues that need attention; "the gripe sheet". After the mechanical crew checks out the items, they make a report to the pilots on the sheet. Pilots represented below by P, ground crew solutions by S:

> P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
> S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
>
> P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
> S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
>
> P: Something loose in cockpit
> S: Something tightened in cockpit
>
> P: Dead bugs on windshield.
> S: Live bugs on back-order.
>
> P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
> S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
>
> P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
> S: Evidence removed.
>
> P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
> S: DME volume set to more believable level.
>
> P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
> S: That's what friction locks are for.
>
> P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
> S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
>
> P: Suspected crack in windshield.
> S: Suspect you're right.
>
> P: Number 3 engine missing.
> S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.
>
> P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)
> S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious.
>
> P: Target radar hums.
> S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
>
> P: Mouse in cockpit.
> S: Cat installed.

Oh, well, here goes our last reader. What is a hobby? It's an activity that one spends ridiculous amounts of time and money on, to achieve something that no one else will ever care about as much as you do. Still and all, there must be some payoff for it, because most people in the free world seem to have one.

I have a hobby, and I joined a loosely-arranged group of like minded hobbyists who fool around with classic (not necessarily old) bikes. I'm not totally alone in this pursuit, so I don't feel too embarassed about writing a public post on the subject.

I've gone through many thousands of dollars and hours getting the perfect (for me) bike. Having grown older in the process, I find that comfort and style are much more important than speed, and today's subject is getting comfortable (and you might think stylish) handlebars. Cotton bar tape as made in France and Japan is just about the nicest material to get a grip on, but without any padding underneath, it's hard and uncomfortable for me on long rides. Purists will stay with straight cotton wrap, but I've been doing something for many years that I like much better. First I found a brand of thin foam weatherstripping to wrap under the cotton, but it's been hard to find recently.

So in my annual maintenance/upgrade cycle, I tried putting conventional (fake) cork wrap under the cotton. I won't tell all the details, because they're tedious, but you first lay down the layer of cheap fake cork as usual, but don't finish it off with tape. Instead, carefully and slowly wrap your French cotton tape over the base layer. Make it tight, and don't be surprised if this is rather difficult: it's an irregular surface, with compound curves (I make it even worse by using specially curvy handlebars....Nitto Randonneurs that I got from Rivendell Bicycle Works, then flared out a little more by an unapproved process.). When the cotton tape is all in place, if you want a retro/classic look, finish the ends with hemp twine. It will look something like this, but in your own style, of course.

Bare cotton feels really nice, but it will wear out and get smudged if you don't protect it. The best stuff to use is Zinzer's Bullseye Shellac, 3 thinned (with denatured alcohol, or as the confused clerk called it "teenagers alcohol") coats for me, more for other people. This leaves the cloth feeling more "toothy" and tough, cleanable later with a soapy washrag if you ride with dirty hands. The shellac also holds the hemp twine together so it's less likely to break or unravel. This makes a fatter than usual grip surface, with a little shock-absorbency, which will last a long time, and even look nice if you use your own taste in "bike decorating".

Lots of people do similar jobs on their bikes (you know who you are--put your photo link in the comments!), and because this it completely hand-work, everybody's is different. This is not a bad hobby. It gets you outside, and look what I found out in the yard while I was puttering around!

P.S. All-black tape also looks very smart and classy, and of course feels the same.

I suppose this should be included with the "American road trip" posts, except that I'm not traveling now, I'm more or less home. My Chinese wife says Texas is tai tu le, which translates roughly to "too dirt", or extended to "too close to the soil". The phrase is used for places or people who are not so sophisticated, not so rich, maybe work outdoors, or without all the city conveniences and glories.

Now, I think you could say that she's correct. With the exception of Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, Texas is rural. Maybe tai tu le means too rural, and can be extended to people who don't wear fancy clothes, have expensive haircuts, or drive a new imported car.

Now, out here you can pee off the back porch if you want: Off the front porch too! Nobody gives a damn if you park old cars on the plot, long as they don't uglify the whole neighborhood. When people want to visit, they don't make an appointment first, they just drive up and bang on the door. The neighbors live far apart, and often you can't see them at all. You can go for several days without seeing a policeman or dodging a BMW driver on a cell phone. For neighbors, we have a fellow who paints race cars out in the barn, another who is a musical saw player, a blues guitarist, and a playwright who brews his own beer (very nicely). Around the corner there's a fellow who gets out his pistol and has target practice every so often, which is illegal here. No one's bothered to call the police, but someone will get tired of it and drive around saying "who's the sonofabitch firing a gun within range of my kids?". Word gets around and he stops for several months. Neighbor power!

Considering all these things, I've been trying to explain a western concept to my wife: In this particular case, tai tu le is a feature, not a bug.

Here's a question, and not a disinterested one either. Is this old piece of crap

worth $1,200 (American) if it starts, runs, has current license plates, decent tires and all that? Seems a bit high....but then I last looked at them when oil was under $50. Just for reference, this other one, totally original, clean and shiny....

is selling for $10,000!

Please say it's a good deal, because I just drove it home and parked it in the back 40.

So, I just finished a cross-country road trip in the US of A. Not in the east-west direction, but rather north to south, right about through the middle.

I was doing this sort of thing a lot.

This kind of trip gives a slightly different view because among other things you experience a rather large change in temperature. A few things I noticed;

1) The place is goddamn huge, whichever way you slice it. Up in Wisconsin in late June, the blossoms are just now coming out on the tomatoes, and it's down around 55 Fahrenheit at night. 1,300 miles south, in Texas, it's 96 and the corn has already been harvested.

2) Much of Wisconsin (America's Dairy State) really does look like a dairy farm. It's really pretty in summer, though I wouldn't care for it when it's 20 below in January.

They're nice people up there, sort of a Northern European, do-gooder socialism sensibility, but everything is clean and tidy, and they're very civil.

3) Chicago, along the way, is one hell of a city, with sights and scenes all it's own, but I didn't feel like tackling the experience, since I didn't have the (several days) time it would take to take it in. It looks like this at the speed I blazed through town:

4) Despite other complaints about "America's crumbling infrastructure" the highway system is fantastic! Great roads all the way, except for a noticeable degradation in quality in Arkansas.

5) Fuel prices have had little effect, but there IS a small drop in road miles traveled nationwide, maybe 4-5%, which means we had GREAT light traffic on the fantastic roads.

6) There really are joints in Arkansas so backwoodsy you can imagine the characters in Deliverance. Sitting on the stoop, chawing tobaccy.

Now, I'm sitting along El Camino Real, near where Ponce de Leon first encroached on the French claims to New Spain, Mexico, or Tejas, whichever they called it at the time. Whereas in those times this location was used to convince the Indians that the Spanish were not worth knowing, .... at the moment 3 lesbians are discussing their home-building project at a table next to a church group, across from a college student playing guitar while I use the wireless internet to write this.

Out in the wilds of central Texas, there's a little town, Paige. In Paige somewhere, is the Old Frontier restaurant/beer hall/sausage factory/general store. If you look closely, it appears that Lester may have divorced Vickie, or maybe Vickie resigned. Unfortunately, there's a Camel-smoking Vickie inside, and I was too shy to ask her what her new status is.

Besides, it's not all that important. As fate would have it, there is a mighty fine sausage enterprise out in the back, where they make a variety of questionable stuff. Smoked garlic sausage, turkey jerky, unsmoked ungarlic sausage, and Boudin.

And Vickie, whichever Vickie she is, gave me a sample when I inquired about the Boudin. A BIG sample, about a pound. It's made of crawfish (mudbugs!), pork, rice for filler, and "spices", the nature of which Lester will defend with his life. I got so full I didn't buy any, but went home with the smoked garlic sausage, and an excuse to come back again later.

Wasn't it nice of Governor Good Hair Perry to put fresh blacktop and clear away the traffic for me?

Some online forums and newspapers have been enjoying or stoking some discussion about the significance of names (esp. in regard to Barack Hussein Obama), which has stirred a particularly strange and off-topic thought:

I just realized that I would be president right now if I had only thought to change my name in time to "anybody else". Picture this ballot choice:

George Bush

John Kerry

Anybody Else

It would have been the biggest landslide in history, giving me a firm mandate for my program to renew the importation of Cuban cigars and full-flush toilets.

I won't spend all my time ragging on China, but this incident is especially irritating because it's affected me personally. Consider this a public service message: don't buy digital photo frames from China. The viruses they contain are wicked.

A small reward for anyone who can name the "group" mentioned below: Notice that it blocks antivirus software.

The virus, which Computer Associates calls Mocmex, recognizes and blocks antivirus protection from more than 100 security vendors, as well as the security and firewall built into Microsoft Windows. It downloads files from remote locations and hides files, which it names randomly, on any PC it infects, making itself very difficult to remove. It spreads by hiding itself on photo frames and any other portable storage device that happens to be plugged into an infected PC.

The authors of the new Trojan Horse are well-funded professionals whose malware has "specific designs to capture something and not leave traces," Grayek said. "This would be a nuclear bomb" of malware.

By studying how the code is constructed and how it's propagated, Computer Associates has traced the Trojan to a specific group in China, Grayek said. He would not name the group.

Just lolling around in the US (that's Canada's unruly southern neighbor), recovering from a very very long flight, and the sun coming up at bedtime, I stumbled across some commentary on the BNP, Britain's anti-immigrant party (among whatever else they are. I don't follow or understand much of foreign politics). The following popped up in the comments, and in my somewhat impaired state, seems to be simple and powerful enough to be worthy of mention:

A thought experiment of a kind. If anyone cares to reply, please don't get bogged down into whether this actually maps onto any particular actual real situation. Just consider it within its own parameters.

There are two countries, Happyland and Angryland. In Happyland, the people brew beer. They love to drink their beer, and this makes them happy. Because they are happy, they are very productive and Happyland is contented and wealthy. Sadly, because of Brewer's Droop, they barely have enough babies to replace their population, but they don't mind because they love the babies they do have very much, and can always have a beer anyway.

In Angryland, beer is illegal. Because of this the people are very unhappy and angry all the time, so they are not very productive and not at all wealthy. Angryland is not a nice place to live. But because the Angrylanders can't go down the pub, they have many babies. Many of the Angrylanders would like to move to Happyland, where there is wealth and happiness. But when they get there, they will become part of Happyland's demos and, reproducing rapidly, ultimately be able to vote to ban beer in Happyland, so it will end up just like Angryland. None of the Happylanders want to live in Angryland, because there is no beer.

Is it wise for Happyland to have an open immigration policy?

Posted by Ian B

There is a third way (oh god no!) The Happylanders, instead of allowing Angrylanders to aspire to happiness and freedom in Happyland by opening the doors to them, could close the doors and explain quite rationally that if the Angrylanders want to be happy then they have to change Angryland so it is more like Happyland. The Angrylanders may find that happiness earned in this way is far more fulfilling than leeching off the happiness of others, eventually destroying it. Could it not be that the very things that the Angrylanders condemn as being decadent and sinful are the same things that make Happyland so Happy? They need to change their opinion rather than their location, a much harder prospect but more certain to work in the long run.

Posted by mandrill