The Bag Ban

Earlier this year, the China State Council banned free plastic bags from retailers. Now, in China there's no choice of paper or plastic, it's just plastic, and most of the time those plastic bags are of the ultra-thin, ultra-flimsy variety. We're talking so flimsy that anything over the weight of a single beer requires double-bagging and a fast trip home before the bags break. Once used for transporting your groceries and beer (or just beer), these cheap little bags are delegated to lining your home trashcans (if the bags haven't broken yet) assuming that they're big enough. Most of the time the bags are so inconveniently small and flimsy that any shopping trip would require a dozen of the little things to hoist all your food and are too small to fit in any normal sized waste bin, which is extremely annoying.

The majority of these bags would just end up being thrown away, usually into other, larger plastic bags, but often they would just be left on the street, blocking sewers, interfering with water treatment, polluting the environment or just blowing across the streets in clumps of bags. Like tumble weed, but with bags.

That all changed last month. One of the advantages of a one party government is that you can, without having to fuss through congress, arbitrary opposition from other parties or protests from bag lobbyists. So as of June 1, free bags are banned and all stores carry plastic bags for purchase. You can buy small bags for 0.1 yuan, medium bags for 0.2 yuan and larger bags for 0.3 yuan (6.8 yuan = 1 USD). Then for the real green shopper, cloth biodegradable bags are offered for a few yuan. In addition to potentially saving 37 million barrels of oil if shoppers use reusable bags, the new bags are much, much heftier than the old ones, and they're actually of a normal size that can be useful around the house.

When I first heard about this measure I just assumed that everyone would end up buying these new bags, with a minority of frugal shoppers bringing along their own bags, but that's not the case, at least in Guangzhou. I'd forgotten that China has a savings rate that's 50% of GDP, these guys like to economize. Seemingly overnight, people have started bringing reusable plastic and cloth bags to the grocery stores, with shoppers who purchase bags at the grocery store in the minority.

It was less than two months ago that I felt like I was one of the few responsible shoppers at my local grocer when I'd bring my old bags. Now whenever I forget to bring my old bags to use when shopping, I feel like I'm the irresponsible person in the register line, most people bring their bags. Now if only I can find a good bag storage device.

"Walking the Dog" in China

Last night I went for a run along a riverfront boardwalked that's well traversed by students, pedestrians, kids learning kung-fu, old men practicing calligraphy with water and many dog walkers. There's even a group that meets in one are and show off how they train their dogs. Kind of like a middle school mixer, but for dogs.

But when I was running last night I saw one lady with a dog and I had to do a double take, then a triple take. She had a full grown dog, must've weighed at least 40 lbs, in her arms. She cradled the large dog and walked down the boardwalk with all the other pedestrians. I looked at her, then looked at her again, she looked at me, then I awkwardly looked at her one more time as I ran by.

One can only think that someone told here you're supposed to take the dog for a "walk" every night and she misunderstood what that meant.

Someone walking his dog properly

Something Happened on the Way to Class

During lunch break yesterday, I went uptown to sit in on a Cantonese class I'm thinking about taking. Shortly after the second bus stop, I saw a crowd on Xiadu Rd, a street near my house. Usually crowds on a street side are a sign of a fight, an arrest or an accident. A few seconds later I saw the doctors raise a stretcher through the crowd towards an ambulance a couple of meters away. On the stretcher was a kid, a teenage laying on his side with blood on his chest. One man was assisting in the kids position on the stretcher, helping put his very limp leg into position. I was shocked and started yelling expletives from my seat on the bus. As our bus sped away I lost view of the scene and was unable to tell what exactly happened. The poor kid was a middle school student wearing a white and green uniform. Blood was coming out of an area in between his neck and chest, I couldn't tell if he'd been hit or attacked.

When I went by the spot on the way home there was no crowd, but still a police van. I got my answer to the incident when I did a news search this morning. Apparently the kid was a seventh grader from a nearby school, on his way to lunch when he got hit by a small car. He was taken to the hospital but tragically the wounds to his head and neck were too severe. Damn.

初一男生穿马路险丢命

http://www.sina.com.cn 2008年07月09日01:03 金羊网-新快报

海珠区下渡路一学生被车撞

新快报讯 （记者 尹政军 实习生 林淑芳 李庆）昨日中午12时许，在海珠区下渡路乐涛苑路段一学校附近，一名初一学生横穿马路被一辆小车撞伤，该生头部与颈部多处受伤，幸同学急忙拨打120，受伤学生经抢救后已无大碍。据目击者刘先生称，事发时这名学生正横穿马路，一辆速度较快的小车刹车不及，一下子将其撞倒。

据称，当时该学生下嘴唇破裂，鲜血直流，头部、脸 部和颈部多处受伤。“有同学立即拨打了120。”在医院记者看到了受伤学生。据悉，他是一名初一学生，事发时刚参加完学校的期末考试。据接诊医生介绍，他 的头部和脸部均有多处外伤，但已无生命危险。

（报料人：某先生奖金：50元）

Junior One Male Student Loses Life Crossing the Street

This just in (reporter Jun Zhengzhun, interns Lin Jiaofang and Li Qing). Yesterday at noon about 12pm, in the Haizhu District at Xiadu Rd and Letaoyuan Rd near a school, a seventh grader was crossing the street when he was hit by a small car. The student's head and neck area were injured. A classmate immediately dialed 120. Despite a rush to help the student, he was unable to be saved.
According to a witness named Mr. Liu, the event happened just as the student was just crossing the street, when a rather fast car was unable to break in time. In a split second the student was knocked over, his lip was split open and fresh blood flowed from his injuries. His head, face and neck had open wounds. "Some classmates immediately dialed 120." Once in the hospital this reporter was able to see the student. It is reported that he is a Junior 1 student (seventh grader) and had just completed his final exam for the semester. According to the hospital emergency unit, his head and face had open wounds, and they were unable to save his life from danger.

(reported by: an anonymous individual. Reward: 50 Yuan)

Facebook Blocked!

Facebook, my bridge to friends and relatives across the world, the bastion of communication between old classmates and acquaintances, the time waster that reduces my productivity at work, is now blocked in China...kind of.

It started with some suspiciously long loading times over the past few days, followed by intermittent bouts of unavailability, followed by periods of easy access and now, at least over the past 20 hours, it's been completely blocked.

It started with a couple of blog posts on Sunday, such as here and here, and now there's reports on cnet Asia regarding the issue.

Facebook responded to a post by the Wall Street Journal on July 1 with the following: “We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in China are having difficulty getting access to Facebook. We have not made any changes to our site that would create access problems and are looking into the situation.” Lame! Damn those communists for ruining our fun!

I'm guessing (and hoping) that this is a temporary blockage caused by the Party's massive censorship endeavor as they test a sophisticated Facebook censorship machine that can quickly and efficiently block selective areas of the site, or the entire network, at a moments notice in preparation of the upcoming Olympics. It's only been two days, so it's too early to tell how permanent this block will be. The Chinese government doesn't release any official word on what sites are blocked and which ones aren't. When trying to access a blocked site, the page just comes up as "the page you requested is unavailable,” sometimes this is coupled with the entirety of one's internet access shutdown inexplicably for two minutes.

Me on the Web

This just in from a tier-two expat website: http://www.lifeofguangzhou.com/node_10/node_31/node_557/2008/06/30/121480301840909.shtml

Included are pictures of me at work, and a picture of me looking quite brainwashed during the Olympic torch relay a couple of weeks ago.

Bin Laden Goes to China

One nice thing about China, is that you don't have to worry about terrorist attacks ever. The following story sent by a friend of mine outlines the reasons why.


A Story About Laden

Ben Laden says: China is one of the toughest to attack countries in the world!
The reasons are as follows, Al Qaeda sent seven terrorists to attack China, with the following results:

- One was sent to blow up a highway bridge, but got sick from the bridge shaking so much.

- One went to blow up a bus, but they were all too crowded and he couldn't get on it.

- One went to blow one up in the supermarket, but his remote control got pick pocketed

- One went to blow up a government building, but he got beat up by the guards "You think you can come here and complain about unpaid wages?! I'll teach you a thing or two about complaining to officials!"

- Finally one was successful in blowing up a coal mine. Several hundred were killed. However, half a year after returning to base, there was still no news report about the incident. He was suspected of lying by his superiors and executed.

A terrorist was sent to Guangzhou, but immediately after coming out of the train station, he was mugged by biker gangs and his satchel charge was taken.

- A female terrorist was sent to Chongqing, but she got cheated by some locals who forced her into prostitution.

- Others were caught by police and sentenced to death. But the bullets were bad quality. The first one didn't come out of the gun, so a second one was a shot...then a a third. Eventually the criminal started sobbing "Brother please strangle me! You're scaring me to death, I can't take this anymore!"

关于拉登的故事！
本拉登说：中国是全球唯一不能惹的国家！
原因是这样的，基地组织曾派出七名恐怖分子袭击中国，结果：
一人在炸立交桥时，转晕在桥上。
一人在炸公交车时，没有挤上车。
一人在炸超市时，炸弹摇控器被盗。
一人在炸政府大楼时，被保安狂揍："叫你讨薪，叫你上访！！"
一人成功地炸了煤矿，死伤数百人，潜回基地后半年

，没见任何新闻报道，遂被基地组织以"撒谎罪"处决了。
一人曾经尝试炸广州，结果刚一出火车站，就被飞车党抢走了炸药包，半天没缓过神。
一人去炸中国的钢铁基地--铁岭，到了之后，才发现被赵本山忽悠了。
最近，又派一女恐怖分子去炸重庆，结果被骗去做了小姐．唉．
一犯人被执行枪决, 由于子弹是伪劣产品，质量不好 ,第一枪没放出 ,接着又放了第二枪……三枪……这时犯人哭了："大哥你掐死我吧，太吓人了！"自:Club.ChinaRen.com

DSLR for Noobs

Lately I've been thinking more about buying an SLR Camera. The process of learning about them, researching the features and figuring out which camera to buy has been a real pain in the arse, so I'm going to write up what I find here, and hopefully save some friends the trouble.

I've got a great Panasoniz FZ8 with a 12x zoom, but sometimes, especially in darker light (ex. at dusk or in the woods on a cloudy day) it just doesn't cut it. The shutter has to stay open longer to get the shot, and even with image stabilization, the shot gets blurred with a little movement. There's also that really annoying "half-press to focus, then full-press to take the shot" that results in many poorly composed action shots. So lately I've been researching SLRs, their features, my different buying options and here's what I've found. I've never spent extensive time with any of these cameras, just talked to a lot of people and combed several websites.

SLR stands for Single Lens Reflux. When the light comes into an digital SLR camera it is reflected from a mirror to the eye piece, this way you see exactly what's coming through the lens. In a point and shoot digital camera, what you see through the eyepiece or screen is light that has hit the sensor and is then been processed to display on the screen. When you press the shutter release in an SLR, that little mirror pops up so that the light is able to hit the light sensor behind the mirror.

There are a couple of main differences between DSLR and other digital cameras
First, the sensor is much bigger on a DSLR. In those little ultra compact cameras the light sensor is the size of a postage stamp, maybe even smaller depending on the model. In a DSLR the sensor can be as big as a small post card. What does this mean? The sensor can collect more light faster, has shorter shutter speeds and more detailed images. It also means that instead of all those light sensors being crammed into a tiny area; bigger, higher quality sensors can be spread over a bigger area. You can only get so small before the laws of physics catch up with you.

This is why SLRs have so much better ISO versitality than other digital cameras. ISO is essentially film speed (100, 200, 400, 800 etc), it's a measurement to how sensitive the sensor is to light. Smaller ISO (100) gives better resolution, but longer shutter speeds. Bigger ISO gives less resolution, but faster shutter speeds (better for indoor without a flash) and really vibrant colors. On almost all point and shoot cameras, the ISO setting is pretty much useless over ISO 200, and for some, even ISO 200 is pushing it. ISO 200 and 400 on a normal point-and shoot camera, even the nice ones, results in grainy, noisy, poor quality photos that are unfit for printing. However with an SLR, you can go all the way up to ISO 800 and even 1600 with little loss in quality.

Another great thing with SLRs is no shutter lag. When you press that button, the camera will immediately focus and snap the photo.

Another big difference is that you can switch the lenses on a DSLR. The obvious advantage of this is that you can switch in different lenses for different situations, and purchase lenses appropriate for your needs and budget. The main three types of lenses are wide-angle, macro (for extreme close-ups) and telephoto.

Some other advantages are:

• Longer battery life
• The ability to shoot in RAW format. Most cameras shoot in the compressed jpeg format. This is the photo equivalent of mp3s. RAW just stands for raw: it's the raw data without any processing done to it. With a RAW photograph you can really go to work on making adjustments on it in photoshop. This isn't a big deal for most people, but most professional photographers always shoot in raw to get maximum detail.
  
• Lots of other small features.

The other two major differences are drawbacks: price and size. An entry level SLR will set you back 300-800 dollars for the body, and decent quality lenses can cost 500-1000 dollars a piece. So let's say you want to get a decent SLR, maybe an extra lens and some essential accessories (bag, tripod, basic filters) for serious photography and you're looking at dropping 1,300 dollars to get set up. However you can buy some good kits that have the camera body and a decent kit lens for about 500 USD.

Also these suckers are big. I take way more photos than many of my friends that have SLR cameras. Why? Because lugging the camera around is a major task. It doesn't fit nicely into a backpack or jacket pocket. When going out with the camera and gear you need to be prepared to be out to take pictures. As a result, even though some of these friends have much better photos than I do, they don't have a lot of photos of their friends and daily life, simply because their camera isn't very portable. You also look like a tool with that hulking and expensive toy hanging around your neck.

Most DSLRs don't have live view, meaning you can only see the image on the screen after the shot. You have to compose the shot with the viewfinder.

Nikon and Canon are the top brands. Here's the price listing of entry-level cameras according to the B&H website as of June 2008.

Nikon D40 kit with lens 479.95
EOS Digital Rebel XTi (a.k.a. 400D) 569.95
Nikon D60 kit with lens 699.95
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi (a.k.a. 400D) with lens 674.95
Nikon D80 with just the body 729.95
Nikon D80 kit with lens 899.95 (after 50$ mail-in rebate)
Canon EOS Rebel XSi (a.k.a. 450D) 799.95
Canon EOS Rebel XSi (a.k.a. 450D) with lens 899.95
Canon EOS 40D (body only) 939.95 (after $200 rebate)
Nikon D200 (body) 1,259.95
Canon EOS 5D (body only) 1899.95 (after $300 rebate)

About the Rebel: Each model has two names. In some places the Rebel XSi is known as the EOS 450D and the Rebel XTi is called the EOS400 in some places. However there's no difference between them. The marketing genius at Canon that thought giving their product two names should be shot.

So the D40 is a really popular entry-level camera, the Rebel XTi and Nikon D60 are slightly better, then the Rebel 450 and NikonD80 start to get to serious prosumer level with EOS 40D and Nikon D200 for serious hobbyist and professionals. This list could keep going up to $4,000 cameras but who can be bothered?

The Nikon D60 is newer than the D40 and has some sort of live-viewesque function so you can line up shots with the view screen. The D40 and D60 don't have an auto-focus (AF) motor in the body. This means that you can't use lenses that don't include an AF motor, otherwise you're stuck manually focusing each shot. These two have the popular function of taking RAW and Jpeg at the same time, so you have the big RAW file, but you also have the little Jpeg file to share with friends. However, it only stores a basic Jpeg. The Nikon D80 let's you choose what level of compression you want in this RAW+jpeg mode (fine, normal, and basic or something) but on the D460 and D60 you only get the lowest (worst looking) compressed image. Anyways, the cameras have the options to use other, better jpeg compression modes when not shooting in RAW+jpeg, so it's only a big deal for the few that have the time to mess with RAW images.

The Nikon D80 has an AF motor and can auto bracket, which is a type of advanced feature that let's you take three pictures at once, each one with different settings. So for example if you want to take a pic of a tree with a really bright background, you can take one pic that has setting adjusted to get the tree detail, then another at a lower light level to get the sky detail, then one more somewhere in between. After you combine them in photoshop you can get one of those cool pics that has great contrast in it. Something like this (I think).

The Nikon D80 and Canon Rebel XTi are the most popular models for each brand on the Flickr photos sharing site. You can see the graphs here for Nikon, and here for Canon. Here you can see all camera's: http://www.flickr.com/cameras/. The Digital Rebel XTi is the most popular.

I think what it comes down to is, definitely keep a nice, compact point and shoot around to carry with you. Some of those can take great photos when it's bright out, and only consider buying an DSLR if you're really serious about taking on photography as a hobby and prepared to lug it around. If so, then it looks like the Nikon D80 or Rebel XSi are the winners if it's in your budget. Even though it came out in 2006, the Nikon D80 still regarded as a great camera, so that means it'll still be relevant come three or four years from now, which is very important. But if you just want to point and shoot and don't care about using a lot of lenses or the extra functionality of the Nikon D80, then the D40, D60 and Rebel Xti are great buys.