Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Going to be in Japan soon, I can't really ignore what's happening in modern Japanese politics. Probably one defining feature is the people's lack of interest combined with their fleeting support for each incoming prime minister. With each new leader comes a sudden surge of high expectations for reform and dramatic positive changes…only to have that fervent support turn into disappointment and open criticism of the leadership only few months later when little changes are seen. Of course, no country can be as extreme as Japan where prime minister changes every few months for the last five, six years. But the point about people having unrealistically high expectations for their leaders is ever-present in all democratic countries, and the current trend in the United States may be a good example as well. While not anti-Obama in anyway myself, I am deeply concerned by the deep emotional involvement his supporters have displayed in the course of the presidential campaign. Liste

The successful organization of the World Cup in South Africa should indeed be congratulated. Once again (after that controversial Games of the XXIX Olympiad held at Beijing from 8th to the 24th of August 2008), the international sports community has shown the insight and wisdom in steadfastly resisting widespread criticism regarding the choice of a seemingly unfit host nation. The fierce, spectacular, yet friendly competitions as well as the nearly flawless, despite some minor flaws, executions of the events have shown both the courage of the South African government to defy widely held negative opinions and proved once and for all that the choice of the host nation was not one to be regretted by the future generations. However, accompanying such tremendous success is an equally gigantic problem that has become gradually more prominent. Such is the problem of individual nations using international sports competition such as the World Cup and the Olympics and the success of their own

Just getting back from a 5-day solo trip through Xi'an and Zhengzhou to see the famous Terracotta Soldiers and Shaolin Temple, I am sitting in my living room in Shanghai downloading a game on Three Kingdoms (got a bit hooked when I was playing it in an Internet cafe in Xi'an) while thinking about how lucky I was to get bus and train tickets off scalpers that made my journey such a go-when-I-feel-like-it style that is my only enjoyable way to travel. At least here in China, the underground economy is everywhere. The brothels fronting as foot massage, karaoke, and dance clubs that I talked about in the last post, of course, are the most obvious example, but probably the only thing in this country that cannot have underground involvement is airplane tickets. Being known as the "world's factory floor" gives you the advantage of generating not only illegal services (brothels, taxis, scalping tickets, you name it, but these exist not just in China but all developing c

Yep, if China could be considered a "morally righteous" country (like what the govt is trying the best to do...see last post), the "foot message," karaoke bars, and even "restaurants" better be controlled somehow...the pink lights streaming out of these places are really quite amazing...wait til nightfall, the country where porn is banned becomes a prime destination for sex tourism (I have heard quite a bit about sex tourism to China organized by Korean and Japanese companies...) Yes, you heard right...porn sites are completely banned here...in fact, if you try to access any porn sites (foreign ones, of course..anyone who try to register a domestic porn site is bound to be arrested...yes, there have been cases of that..and you think Internet is anonymous when you don't use your real name and identity...the cyber police is quite powerful and can track a lot of things down..its all prep for the cyber war, i.e. the war of the future) and actually manage t