China | Dominik Mayer – Products, Asia, Productivity

NORAD just tracked Santa in Shanghai:

Now he’s in Kowloon.

Unlike Nanx I was only two hours without water and it was because of renovation works two floors below. But I don’t think that in her case a worker appeared every thirty minutes to look whether the water is finally turned off or to tell that from now on the drain mustn’t be used as well. And I had planned not to stand up until they’re done.

Update: Arrg, there’s no hot water anymore. The best I get is lukewarm. :(

Jan made a detour back home and told me interesting stories about the life in China…. You can find some of them in his blog.

A Chinese friend told me that she has been eating rice twice a day for twenty years. Halleluja. And I thought this is one of these prejudices. But I also thought it couldn’t take three hours to buy, cook and eat french fries…

All documents sent to China. I didn’t apply for the dorm and hope I can find an appartment in this compound.

Zi Lin Zhang is the first Miss World from China. She was crowned in Sanya, the “Chinese Hawaii”. The landscape looks great, worth a detour?

I think that was the fastest doctor’s appointment I’ve ever had. I left my dentist’s office at most 10 minutes after I entered it. And he had even shown me twenty year old pictures of his Chinese colleagues. Disturbing. But it should be all right in Shanghai, he said.

Since November 1st you don’t only need a mugshot to apply for a German passport, they also scan your fingerprints…

The fact that Tongji needs the serial number of my passport revealed a minor bug in the passport application software. The number on the screen was not the same as on the print-out and no one knew which of them was correct.

After a while we found out that the field isn’t long enough, the missing characters are just hidden and it’s possible to scroll to the end and show them. So I hope I have all the things they need for the visa.

Every 30 seconds, a baby with birth defects is born in China. Alarming. I think I better not have a child there.

I finally got the two Chinese to talk Chinese instead of English. So it’s only a matter of hours until they figure out whether there are doctor’s offices in China or not.

Techcrunch reports that the Chinese Government has blocked all RSS feeds. Luckily, they still seem to be accessible through Google Reader.

I really enjoy all the stories about China. And the helpful advice. I promise not to eat, to drink or to use water. And the good news won’t stop. A friend told me her boyfriend doesn’t look very well when returning from work there: bad skin, …

Joachim Müller of Chinesisch Lernen discovered a nice web site about China:

Picture China is a photographic journey through contemporary China. From the teeming metropolises of the east coast to the rural villages of the interior to the lofty Tibetan plateau, New York City based photographer Dan Eckstein traveled 10,000km over the course of eight weeks to document this rapidly changing country. The result is a unique portrait of life in modern China and the issues that its people face.

(Quote: Picture China)

1. Flight Mechanics I is not Flight Mechanics II. The same applies for the exams.
2. Mechanics exams were longer two years ago.
3. On a late trip to the botanical garden it’s advisable to visit the greenhouses first.
4. If you want someone reluctant to come along, you just need to find the right person for asking.
5. Bavarian politician Gabriele Pauli wants marriage to automatically end after seven years unless it’s been renewed.
6. Coming back from Sweden to Germany is like switching from a monthly to a strip ticket.
7. Pizza in TribüHne is inexpensive and tasty.
8. You better don’t eat anything in China and use tap water only for showering, bottled water for everything else.

I just told a Chinese friend that I started blogging but she couldn’t open the page. Google found out why. Wordpress.com, where this blog is hosted, is blocked in China what might become a problem when studying there…