Out of the numerous policies that were put into place during the Olympics (i.e. cab driver uniforms, tight security checks, visa policy changes, etc…), the 单双号 (dān shuāng hào), or odd-even lisence plate restriction, was by far the most practical and best thought out.

Traffic flowed smoothly, eliminating tons of carbon emissions that would have been spewed out by idle cars. According to Sina, since the Opening Ceremony, 8 out of 15 days were “一级” (high-rated) and there was a 20% drop in pollutants compared with the same time period last year.

Supposedly, there were debates within the government whether to continue the policy. From Treehugger.com:

After public surveys publicized by state media showed a majority supported the restrictions, some officials indicated that the government had not ruled out continuing the measures. If there was real debate within the government, it would have been very interesting to have been a fly on the wall during the final discussions.

Then again, it’s doubtful that those ultimately in control could let a restriction like this stand, considering the taxes the government collects from automobile sales, its own stake in the auto industry, and the protestations of middle-class car owners.

Unsurprisingly, the the debates about whether or not to keep the policy in place indefinitely were won by the petrol-consuming bloc.

Sure, the Odd-even policy would bring a hard hit to the automoblie industry, a few extra troubles to car owners’ lives, and make public transport more crowded than it already is. But if we think just for a moment about, say, the welfare of all Beijing citizens, peak oil, lung cancer, global warming, traffic, frusteration, etcetera, it is hard to make a solid argument for keeping more cars on the roads.

Beyond the cold, hard facts of carbon emissions bringing nothing but doom and gloom, there is the ethical implications. Every time I commute (on bike, that is), I am constantly reminded of the selfishness of car owners. I have to breathe their toxic emissions; I have to avoid vehicles ten times wider and twice as long as mine; and, most troublesome of all, I have to share the bike lane with them sometimes.

So for the love of all that is good, clean, efficient, selfless, and responsible, let’s keep 单双号.

For those of you Olympic fans who shirked the sky-rocketing ticket prices and, consequently, could not attend events in the Water Cube or the Bird’s nest, or maybe any events at all, here comes good news:

Starting the upcoming holiday week, you will be able, for a symbolic price of 100 yuan, to re-live the Olympic glory and walk through the stadiums (and cubes) where history was made. 100 yuan is the price of the “all-through” ticket, which will grant you access to the following locations: Bird’s Nest, Water Cube, National Indoor Stadium and the so-called Olympic Village International Zone. The individual ticket prices range from 50 yuan for admission to the Bird’s Nest, 30 yuan for the Water Cube and 20 yuan for each the Indoor Stadium and the International Zone.

Another piece of good news is that apparently the Olympic Green itself is to be open for public access. The ‘Beijing Legal Times‘ (”Fa Zhi Wan Bao”) mentions that the park and its venues are to be open from 9 in the morning to 9 pm. The security measures will be considerably less strict, being reduced to ‘general’ checking and occasional ‘random’ picks.

However, there will be restrictions put in place regarding the number of visitors admitted daily. A limited number of 120 thousand tickets ONLY will be issued and sold each day for the 4 above-mentioned venues altogether, and ONLY 250 thousand visitors per day will be allowed into the Olympic Green itself.

Apparently, China is fully intending to keep its promise when it comes to post-Olympic venue operation and maintenance. And I believe that - even though a staggering total of 250 thousand daily does sound like a bit of an overestimation at this point - Beijing halls of Olympic fame have all the chances to avoid what the Athens venues have turned into. Because the fact is: China loves its history, and for a fascinating chapter like this one - what’s not to love?

If you haven’t given up on Internet Explorer like the rest of us, now is the time. For anyone learning or using Chinese on a daily basis, here are three great plugins for Firefox to help you learn and understand Chinese (in order of awesomeness).

1. Chinese Perapera-kun

Simply put, this extension will allow you read Chinese on websites. This is useful for just getting around a site, or even MORE useful if you are studying Chinese. It works with both Simplified and Traditional characters, and also allows you to export words to a file to study later.

Though the plugin can be a bit finicky, it is an absolute must readers of Chinese no matter what your level. Bottom line: Once you use it, you’ll never go back!

2. BBDict

BBDict is a simple online translation extension which only supports the translation between chinese and english, so I just call it B(a)B(y)Dict which is inspired by my girlfriend’s name….

Not as pretty as Perapera-kun, but still great for going back and forth between Chinese and English. Bottom line: use it when reading in English, that way you will feel like you are always learning new Chinese words!

3. gTranslate

With gTranslate you can translate any text in a webpage just by selecting and right-clicking over it. The extension uses the Google translation services to translate the text.

Translaters are decent, but still no replacement for understanding the original text. Bottom line: If you are in a crunch, use this one. Otherwise, tough it out!

We didn’t have any idea where the hospital was, and the ambulance we were supposed to be following was long gone. The man in the back of our Jeep was not giving any directions unless I turned to him to ask. He refused to answer how he is related to the injured man. He kept calling people telling them about the accident, saying that old Li was hit by a car, but nobody in his house is picking up the phone.

I was in the front passenger seat, amongst glass shards from the smashed windshield, fingers bleeding from the ones I didn’t notice when getting back into the car. The stranger in the car was irritatingly gruff, mostly non-responsive. After 30 minutes we got lost and waited at an intersection for 10 minutes while the stranger called the woman that was with him at the clinic. Finally, after about 50 minutes, we made it.

We arrived at the orthopedics hospital, parked, and rushed in. We were received by Doctor X, head of emergency care unit, after we paid 260 yuan for the ambulance. He told us not to worry, that it’s not very serious, that all we have to do now is PAY, and everything’s going to be fine. Here’s what we found out after the MRI, CAT scan and X-ray results were brought in. The injured man had 1 rib broken, and there was liquid accumulating under it. His leg was fine, the gash was already operated on, and turned out to be the least of our worries. He also had a broken collar bone that would need to be operated on in a few days when his condition stabilized. He’d need to stay in the hospital to recover. The emergency treatment came to about 2800 yuan, and that we had with us. But the hospital stay deposit was 10000 yuan, and that we didn’t have.

Injured man’s condition: Stable.
People present in the doctor’s office: Doctor, us, the woman from the clinic, who is now claiming to be his grieving daughter.
Suspicion levels: Medium.
Expenses to this point: Appr. 3000 yuan.
Combined remaining bank account balance: 800 yuan.
Mood: Angry and confused.

Now, here’s a tiny little piece of info regarding our ‘new’ vehicle. We bought it 4 days before the accident. With expired insurance we were careless enough (some would say stupid – and I’d be one of them) not to renew. Funny thing – we talked about it the morning before the trip and decided to do it ‘tomorrow’. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Turned out that within the minimum mandatory insurance package, regardless of blame in the accident (us – 0, man – totally his fault), the driver/car owner is liable 100%. So whether we had 10000 yuan or not did not matter, because we had to pay it just the same. Which we did the next day.

In the meantime, Doctor X tells us and the ‘daughter’ that it’s best to still inform the police. She calls the police department. The police – located about 5 minutes away, arrive in about a half an hour. They briefly interrogate us – literally in just a few words, then head into the room where the injured man has been moved to. After they come back, they tell us to get in the car and drive behind them to the police department. And we drove.

To be continued…

Everyone these days seems to have Bootlegger’s Blues, but mainland movie-loving minions need fret no more. A new site, TVVVT, compiles all the best of the Chinese YouTube copycats (Youku, Tudou, 56.com, etc…). TVVVT hosts mainland, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, and Western TV series and movies but doesn’t allow any user uploading, like the Tudou or Youku.

The days of bootleg DVD buying are over!

Date: June 29th, 2008.
Destination: Shi Du rapids, Fangshan District, Beijing.
Means of transportation: Our newly purchased 1995 Jeep Cherokee.
Traveling accessories: map, directions printed off Baidu and a huge bag of snacks.
Weather: A slight drizzle.
Mood: Upbeat.

After an hour and a half of driving, we almost reached our destination. Another 20 kilometers, and we’d be there. Anticipation, excitement, you name it. And then, less than 10 meters ahead of us, from between the bushes on the right side of the road, came a man on the bike. He paused on the side of the road, and kept going. It was momentarily clear what was going to happen next. To tell the truth, I blanked out for a second. Screeching tires, sound of a body hitting the windshield. Silence… I opened my eyes (I wasn’t the one driving). The corner of the windshield was smashed in on my side. I opened the door and jumped out. The bike, twisted, lay on the side. Then came the straw hat. Then the man. He lay on the wet ground, moaning. From the gash on the inside of this right ankle black blood was coming out, in unison with his heartbeat.

Time: appr. 12:10.
Surroundings: fields as far as you can see, tall bushes on the side of the road.
People around: 0 (hence no gawking crowd).
Road setup: 2-lane freeway, cars whizzing by, nobody stopping to my frantic waving.
Weather: drizzle.
Mood: freaked out.

We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know where exactly we were. No pedestrian traffic in that part of the universe. Somebody slowed down and told us: call the traffic police, 122. I called. They picked up. I said, in Chinese: “Please help me, we hit a man on a bike, what do we do now?” Reply: “Do you need an ambulance?” Me: “Could you please tell us what we are required to do by law, please!” Answer: “Do you need an ambulance?” Me: “Urgh!” I hung up. Somebody else slowed down (mind you, nobody would pull over), saying: call the ambulance, 120. I did. Me: “There’s been an accident, we need an ambulance!” They: “Where are you?” Me: “Oops, I have no idea”. They: “So do you need an ambulance?” Me: “Urgh!” I hung up.

We tied a sweater above the bleeding gash in the man’s leg to stop the bleeding. Nobody in the passing cars knew either where we were (all tourists like us), or where was the closest hospital. Nobody pulled over to help out. There were some concrete buildings about 300 meters away, so we lifted the man into the back of the Jeep, and headed in that direction, hoping to find help. I sat next to the man, applying additional pressure above the bleeding gash on his leg. Before we left, we moved the bike off the road to the side (rain, overgrown bushes, limited visibility, there could easily be a second accident if we didn’t).

We reached the concrete buildings, there was a little shop there, and the shop owner’s daughter agreed to come with us and show us to the nearest hospital. For the first time, the man spoke to the people around him. I didn’t hear what he said, but they responded, “You can’t fully blame them, you know”.

We drove to the hospital (clinic), me still in the back of the car, clutching his leg. We drove into the front yard, the only people there being a woman and a man.

Time: 15 minutes after the accident (seemed like hours, though).
Medical staff rushing out to us: 0.
Weather: slight drizzle.
Mood: still freaked out.

Me and the shopkeeper’s daughter rushed into the clinic yelling “Doctor! Doctor!” In a minute or so, a man dressed like a doctor came out. Turned out that the clinic did not have an emergency care unit, but could send an ambulance to the nearest hospital (40 minute drive away)! The doctor was in no rush to look at the bleeding man. We waited for over 10 minutes in the front yard till the ambulance driver was located. Finally, the bleeding man was put on a stretcher and lifted into the back of the ambulance. All this time I was sitting in the back of the Jeep, holding the man’s hand, telling him everything was going to be all right. The man and woman in front of the hospital were standing idly by, no participation whatsoever. Assumption at the moment: idle bystanders.

To be continued…

I guess I was too wrapped up in the Olympics and real news to have noticed the new 露富 (money flaunting) trend in China. While harmless, the photos of young Chinese girls clutching hundreds of RMB notes leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Responses have ranged from hairy guys mocking the 露富 trend to young girls posting their own 露富 videos (see video below). While it is hard to imagine what is going on in these girls’ Louis Vuitton-worshiping minds, we can be sure that the man pictured on the bills they are flaunting would not be proud.

Daddy's money

No money-flaunting here

English translation:

Recently on the web, there have been a lot of mainland girls flaunting their wealth. But I can’t stand it anymore. To be honest, these rich mainland girls are immersed in a vulgar life and vulgar taste.  When they are bored, they put up some ridiculous photos to show off. This kind of showing off means nothing to me. They don’t compare to me…

I’m not posting this to show off anything, but to let those girls see clearly that good taste is the most important. Life is that simple…Oh right, to introduce myself, I come from Datong, Shanxi province. I’ve been in America for 3 years and my English is really fluent.

Here is my villa in Seattle.

My house in Seattle

It’s really spacious!

Outside there is a manmade lake

This is what I drive. Benz SLK

These are young people’s hobbies, I really like popular video games, and I have all of the Apple products.

Mainland girls show off RMB, I got USD

….

Anyway, you get the picture…now excuse me while I go vomit.