Another side of China.

“You have handphone in China?!”

A few years back, when I first came to Singapore, many Singapornean considered the whole China a big farm. They did not believe that many Chinese people were using the same model of cell phone as they were using.

But recently, as the media are flooding with news about China’s economic boom, their impression of China has swung to another end.

When talking about China, they think of Shanghai; when talking about Shanghai, they think of the Bund, Pudong, and skyscrapers.

On the photographs of the local news paper, the financial center of Shanghai looks more “future” than that of Singapore.

“China is a very advanced country now, huh?”

All right, here are some photos, taken by Maohaier(毛孩儿), show another side of China, which may help people better understand China.

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“Mom, there’s still someone inside the car!”

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Fetching dead fish from the contaminated river.

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Car accidents occur often, but it is rare to see one of this magnitude in which the driver was only slightly injured.

The English description the above photos are from EastSouthWestNorth.

EastSouthWestNorth has a very good article introducing the Shenyang’s photojournalist Maohaier(毛孩儿). You will find many more interesting Maohaier’s photos in that article.


Followings are two photos from Jason Lee, a REUTERS photojournalist.

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A man walks past a portrait of the late chairman Mao Zedong, on sale at a flea market in Beijing May 16, 2006. Tuesday marks the anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution, but the date will pass quietly in China, not for lack of interest or sentiment, but because the party, obsessed with stability, has issued a blanket ban on the subject. REUTERS/Jason Lee

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A migrant worker sleeps at the Beijing West Railway Station May 16, 2006. A Chinese think-tank has called for higher minimum wages to halt the emergence of a new urban underclass, official media reported on Tuesday. REUTERS/Jason Lee


And the following two photos are from CAPTURE CITY, a blog of another China’s photojournalist. These photos are taken in LiaoCheng(聊城), a city in Shandong Province.

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nanPhoto is another famous blog from a photojournalist. You can find many interesting photos in its photo gallery.


The followings are some stylish photos from Xpview

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From these photos, you can see China, a country of change, in different angles.

康康去街街。

这段时间很少跟康康玩,这几天他见了我都不大理睬。

昨天傍晚回到家门口,隔着铁门看见康康坐在地板上玩他的Lego,我就叫了他一下:“康康啊!”

他抬头看见了我,兴冲冲地跑了过来。

我心里一乐:“这小子还是记得他老爸的!”

可是我刚把门开了一个缝,他就吱溜一下钻了出来,大叫着,“该该!”(广东话“街街”)

原来他呆在家里觉得太闷,要出去走走,要去街街!

我站在门口,看着兴高采烈的他,哭笑不得。

Singapore – the most Podcast aware nation?

Search “Podcast” on Google Trends, and click the Regions tab you will get the following diagram,

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Singapore tops the list.

That means, out of all the search on google, Singapore has higher percentage of Podcast search than the United States, a country where the Podcast was born.

Does that mean Singapornean are more aware of Podcast? It could be.

But there are some factors besides listenership may affect the list.

  1. Listeners use other search engines to look for Podcast. For example, users in the States may prefer iTunes or Yahoo than Google as the Podcast search platform.
  2. Users in other countries search so many other topics that dilute the Podcast search.

Google Trends is a very interesting tool to know the users’ behavior on internet.

Search “China”, you will find Singapore is just behind Hong Kong.

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That means many Singapornean are interested in China, which is not a surprise as Chinese is Singapore’s majority.

But when I search “Asian babe”, Singapore is in the second place too!

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“Asian babe” is a term used in porn graphics search. Does that mean Singapornean are hypocrites and sex maniac? It could be. 🙂

But when I search “Play boy”, South America countries occupy the top 10 list.

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One possible explaination: different countries use different terms to search porn pictures.

Jili-guru 5 (Fifth Malay Class)

Marhaini is our teacher in the Malay class. She is a very nice lady. We called her Mar. I was always late for the class, so I got to know her name until yesterday.

Mar always smiles. But once in a while during the class, she gave us problems.

“Please tell me how to say 6875908 in Malay.” She put a random number on the white board, and smiled.
We were all stunned, for 5 seconds, staring at the number, and broke into big noise simultaneity.

“Brrrr, brrrr. kkzzzz, ssssaaa, rrriii,…” counting the figure, searching on the cross table, reading loud in Malay/English/Chinese. Noisy indeed, we were really concentrated on this big challenge.

After 1 hour (I felt), we started giving the result, “Enum Juta Lapan Tujuh…”

I was very happy when I got my answer correct.

A primary 1 student got an big arithmetic problem solved.

But life became more difficult as we came to time expression yesterday.

We learnt how to say a time in Malay yesterday. That’s not that difficult actually, except we have to know how to express “pm” and “am” in Malay.

But Mar gave no simple problem. She asked us to do the whole time and date together in Malay!

“1.56pm Wednesday, 10th May, 2006”

We fainted this time. That included number, time, day, month, year… all we learnt in previous classes!
I substantially, concretely felt I needed some lubricating oil for my brain. I could feel it was rusted at that moment.

Anyway, here are the class notes for yesterday. Going to Indonesia tomorrow, hope I can use something I learnt from the class.
Duduk – sit
Tutup – close

Hari ini hari Rabu
Today is Wednesday.

Bulan ini bulan Mei
This month is May.

Marhani

Tahun Year

Year 1963
Tahun Sembilan belas enam puluh tiga

2006
Tahun Dua ribu enam

Today is Thursday, 26th July 2046
Hari ini Hari Khamis, Dua Puluh enam, Julai Tahun Dua ribu Empant puluh Enam

Today is Saturday, 15 October 1802
Hari ini Sabtu Lima belas Oktober Tahun Seribu Lapan ratus dua

Pukul – beat, hit

Pukul satu – 1 o’clock

Jam – Hours/clock

24 Jam – 24 Hours

Suku – quarter(15 mins)

2.15pm – Pukul dua suku tenghari (petang)

Setengah – Half (30 mins)

1.45pm – pukul satu empat puluh lima tengahari

4.05pm – pukul empat lima minit petang

Minutes below(include) ten, we use minit

Hadapan – ahead

Lepas – over

Musim – Season

Hujan – Rain

Sejuk – cold

Gugur – something which is attached and fall, such fruits.

Bunga – flower

Panas – hot

Hari cudi – Holiday