China Banned Google Using Stupid Reasons!

Okay, I promised that to update my blog everyday when I was in China, but sadly, I could not fulfill my promise because Google is inaccessible in China!!! This meant that all those Google related sites were being blocked too, including Gmail and Blogger services!

And the reason? Let me quote: “…searches could bring up links to pornography, content associated with the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong and information deemed harmful to national security…”

If you ever strolled around most places in China at night, you would realize that there were a lot (and I meant a lot) of barbershops which operated at night! And these barbershops were full of girls who dressed sexily. Curious me went to ask around and realized that these places were brothel in disguised! So, why not China try to stop these places instead of blaming Google? Don’t tell me that there is an unwritten policy saying “ Not allow to VIEW pornography but say yes to DO pornography?” Anyway, let me borrow the photos below from flickr’s dcmaster to prove my point (no choice, my phone was stolen, remember?).

Okay, China argued that some content that we managed to search was associated with the banned spiritual movement of Falun Gong. First of all, I never heard of such movement thingy until the Chinese pointed this out and made it as if when I pressed ‘enter’ at google search engine there would be an advertisement showing such action. Secondly, have you ever read this article regarding this specific movement able to hijack Chinese Satellite Signal to beam whatever video they want? If they could take over satellite signal, I bet it would be an easy job to take over any search engine, radio or tv broadcast around China, so why only shutdown Google? They should close down every mode of communicate around China!

Lastly, regarding information harmful to national security, I really don’t understand this point at all. Maybe the spies in China did not know how to use those special gadgets or methods to exchange secret information like how we saw in those James Bond movies but maybe relied on blogging? In additional, if you typed “China Military Information” on Yahoo search engine, there was more information as compared to Google search engine. Again, is this a solid reason?

Anyway, I think I better stop writing about this. Who knows maybe my life would be in danger when I click the ‘publish’ button. Maybe the Chinese has set up a special taskforce to monitor and silence people like me? If there is such taskforce, I think the best name for it would be ‘China Independent Brigade Against Influences’. Sound funny? Try gathering the capital letters and you will get what I mean. :P

Journey From Shenzhen to MeiZhou (My Phone Got Stolen!!!)

My phone was stolen! It was raining and the bus had just stopped at LuoHu bas station. There were already a few Chinese folks waiting at the door trying to sell umbrella. I decided it was best to ignore them because there was too many cheating case around. So, I struggled through the Chinese crowd and went to retrieve the luggage. After that I walked to the nearest shelter, by then I realized that my HTC TyTn II was no longer there! @#$%^&*

I went back to the place but the bus had just left; and I tried calling my phone but it could no longer be reached. My hatred against China and Chinese (China-made) had reached a new level!

Earlier on, when I was on the way to Shenzhen by flying with Air Asia, I realized that Chinese people not only talked loudly but could not sit still at all. After the flight took off, and “Fasten Seat Belt” sign was no longer on, I felt like someone had opened the cage and monkeys started to roam freely in the plane. My seat was kicked and pushed all the time when the 3 Chinese sitting behind kept moving around to talk with their 同志 (Counterpart). I barely could grab any sleep especially when anyone of them started laughing loudly. Damn, Monkeys!

So feeling tired and miserable, I got off the plane 4 hours later. All the passengers were then screened through by the Health officers to make sure that we were H1N1 free.

By the way, you should try listening to a Chinese (again China-made) trying to explain the procedure in English. It not only sounded like Korean but I really did not understand a word at all! From the airport to Luohu bus station, the bus ticket cost RMB20. I actually took lots of photos but sadly MY PHONE WAS STOLEN!!! *sniff sniff*

After blocking my sim card and grumbling over the lost phone for 2 hours (the phone that accompanied me to India L), I boarded the train to Meizhou. It was 5 hours ride and the ticket cost RMB73.

Again, I could not grab much sleep because every stop there was people selling stuffs, but this was no ordinary people, it was the train staffs themselves! They stop in the middle of the train and started promoting socks, toothbrushes, cigarette filters and counterfeit identifying device!

By the way, China is famous of using counterfeit stuff such as fake money, train tickets, phone, cigarette, etc. I was warned by my parents to always examine the money before receiving them because of too many this kind of cases! There were cases where u gave the shopkeepers real RMB100 note but later they calmed that it was fake and returned you a fake note.

So, arrived Meizhou at 8:45pm, checked into a hotel and then went for dinner at nearby shop. I noticed there were no stray dog around Meizhou, why? Because of this!

There were many shops selling dog meat! This means that if you want to have a dog in Meizhou, choose the small skinny ones like Chiwawa, not those fat and meaty ones like American Bull Dog; else the poor dog will become something like American Style Creamy Bull Dog Soup and “part” of the dog might become a real meat-‘balls’!

It was a long tiring trip to Meizhou, but I cursed the person who stole my phone! Hope my phone will accompany you to your grave! @#$%^&*()*&^%

A Night in LCCT (Sleeping On The Floor)

It’s almost 3am now, I’m in LCCT airport. For some personal or should I say ‘family’ reason, I was requested to go Meizhou, China. The journey later would be tough because I would need to take a flight to Shenzhen, bus to Luohu Bus Station and then train to Meizhou.

Earlier today or should I say yesterday, I took a 10:45pm flight to LCCT from Penang. Life started hard after that. I was sort of sleeping on the floor while waiting for my early flight to Shenzhen. Yeah, it flight like being homeless or being optimistic a bit it felt like travelling in budget – backpacker style. As I was blogging, here was the view from where I was sitting.

If you had looked closer, you could see a lot of people sleeping on the floor! I really respect some people because he could sleep on the floor while snoring as loud as he could, waking everyone around him!

Some fortunate folks were lucky enough to find chairs and tables to lay their heads on.

Anyway, there were some inconsiderate people too! While everyone was asleep, they were chatting and laughing loudly! It was even sad to know that they were Sarawakians because all of them were wearing ‘Sarawak ITF’. Don’t know what is that stand for, maybe “Sarawak IdioTs Federation”?

Well, try to grab some sleep! Hope I would not wake up naked, being robed. L Will do more updates on my journey later, if there is any wifi available. Sorry that i am not able to make this entry sound interesting because i am really too tired.

Malaysia Cinema Suck Big Time!

Hey! I had watched Transformer 2: Revenge of The Fallen! No, I’m not watching those pirated DVD, this is my proof.

But I ended up wishing I was watching pirated movie instead.

It was a rare sight seeing a group of only guys going to the cinema to watch movie with some of them not bringing their girlfriends, but it was logical because girls mostly would not be interested in this kind of movie and I also didn’t think it was a good idea to date a girl in front of scenes with the world coming to the end, unless that couple get turned on by scene with fighting robots, explosion and people dying.

Honestly, I did not enjoy the movie because all because of the cinema. I finally understood why pirated DVDs or downloads are popular among Malaysian. First of all, the movie was supposed to start at 5pm but ended up starting at 5.30pm. There was too much advertisements that I finished eating my popcorn even before the movie started. In additional, some advertisement suck big time! Imagine a war between human race short clip ended up trying to advertise a shampoo? Who approve such advertisement?!!

Anyway, towards the end of the movie when it was reaching the climax and I was at the age of my seat, suddenly the film got stuck and burnt. Nothing could be seen from the screen. It was such an anti-climax!

Not to mention about refund, there was even no apology or announcement given to the patrons by the cinema management. We were made to wait without any notice.

After around 15 minutes, the management managed to fix the problem and started playing a few scenes earlier. By then, I had already become confused because I had forgotten where I had left off and what was happening before that. To make it worse, the cinema cut away a big portion of the ‘broken’ scene, and I seemed not able to connect the storyline. Such a big disappointment!

In conclusion, DVD is still the best because our cinema is still not professional enough. What I mentioned just now is just a rare happening, those usual happenings like people chatting loudly on the phone, baby crying, and the people around you rudely showing off their smelly feet by taking off their shoes and the cinema management personal just ignore them, are usually the reason people go for pirated DVDs!

Some Engineers are Born Stupid

I always believe that in order to be an engineer, you need to AT LEAST know how to make a logical conclusion; not to say making those complex decision that need a lot of data. However, my recent encounter with an engineer from another department proved me wrong! These were the conversation:

 

Case 1:

Engineer: How come it is not an issue with Test B? Is it because running Test A also failed?

AsX: Because we are not running Test B at all.

Engineer: Yes… and the system also failed.

AsX: So it is not Test B issue!!!

 

Case 2:

Engineer: Now you fixed the problem, can Test A, B and C actually run concurrently with Test D?

AsX: Are you running concurrently with Test D now?

Engineer: Yes, it is running. Concurrently with those tests (A, B and C).

AsX: Then, Test D can run concurrently with them!!!

 

Now, do you get what I mean with stupidity?

 

However, some engineers are just overworked…..

Snow Beer (雪花啤酒) @ Ipoh

When I was in Ipoh, I was introduced to beer which was ‘snowed’, or they called it ‘Snow Beer’ in Mandarin Direct Translation (雪花啤酒). I had in at a sort of hidden place (Gee i make it sounded like an 'illegal' area) in Ipoh town called Restaurant Fren’s Corner. It was so hidden that it could not be found on wikimapia (at where the cursor is pointing).

 

The trick was they iced the mug; so that when cold beer was poured into the mug, the water content of beer was immediately snowed while not the alcohol content. It was a nice sight, but I had a lousy camera to capture it nicely. L 

For those who didn’t know, they would probably blame the waitress for her bad technique in pouring the beer because the snow portion looked very foamy. 

Anyway, snow beer seemed to suit Malaysia weather because of it coldness and any beer could also be ‘snowed’.

 

When you go to that place, don’t expect anything else except for the beer. No pretty waitresses accompanying you, no special lightings, and it was just an open area. Maybe that was why it was not found in wikimapia. Oh gee, I missed Lounge 2 @ Kuching!