BEIJING - Ten doctoral students from three of China’s top universities have posted an online petition slamming local Christmas celebrations and calling on people to ‘resist Western cultural invasion’, state media said on Friday.The students from the elite Peking, Tsinghua and People’s universities railed against ‘American and European culture’ expanding throughout China along with ‘their technological and economic domination’, the China Daily said.

‘Occidental culture has been more like storms sweeping through the country rather than mild showers,’ the paper quoted the petition - dated with China’s traditional lunar calendar - as saying.

It was a ‘failure on the part of the government to maintain Chinese traditions, while encouraging the economy’.

The authors criticised retailers for using the festival to boost business and local people for revelling without knowing the origin of the occasion, the paper said.

Western festivals like Christmas and Valentine’s Day have become popular among China’s youth in recent years, but some have worried traditional Chinese culture is being swept away in the country’s headlong economic boom.

China’s Communist rulers only officially recognise one traditional festival - Chinese Lunar New Year.

Others, like the Dragon Boat Festival, are still formally marked in Hong Kong and Taiwan. — REUTERS

I don’t know whether Christmas means much to me. I’d grown up celebrating Christmas with family members but there wasn’t much of a big party anyways. It was always at some relative’s house and an exchange of presents…years of shirts, towels, chocolates…that’s it. Even with girlfriends and boyfriends of mine, it was never a really big event in our lives. I didn’t feel the relief of a public holiday either because it was always during school holidays. I worked during the Christmas of 2004 at Borders, though. I remember wearing a Christmas hat and greeting everyone Merry Christmas. That was nice. But other than that, Christmas actually holds no significance to me actually…I think I just got sucked up along with most of us in the whole hooha, and succumbed to retail gimmicks and whatnot, striving to achieve what the media keeps depicting, that everyone’s Christmas must be special and must be spent with loved ones.

Okay, anyway, so I spent Christmas eve wandering around downtown Shanghai on my own. Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, Shanghai Museum, Foreign Languages Bookstore, and Nanjing Pedestrian Street, and basically the area of People’s Square. I wanted to catch The Nutcracker at Shanghai Concert Hall, but tickets were sold out, and the scalpers refused to give me a cheap price because the tickets were too hot. Bah. I just loitered around after that.

Watched people fly kites

Watched entrepreneurs at work
Watched them get caught

Watched out for holes on the ground
Got tempted at this, but decided against it.

I think Raffles City is the only place to be done up with exterior Christmas decorations along with the soapsuds snow effect (so familiar)
Watched people go up a bus to donate blood

Streets were packed full of people. Constant choruses of whistling (the traffic police) and car horns had to make do for Christmas carols.

You see couples everywhere, but this is really interesting — there was a group of students wearing these sweaters saying “Damn you couples”, and “Go and die you couples!” in Chinese. They definitely turned heads.

So I stayed as close to home as I could get, CapitaLand’s Raffles City. Merry Christmas to all at home. Can you hear me from Raffles City, 30 latitudes away from you?

You can very well learn a great deal about the heritage of China here. It’s like a China museum, just that it’s located in Shanghai, so don’t let the name Shanghai Museum give you the impression that it’s filled with Shanghai stuff, ‘coz it’s not.

To give a brief introduction, there are the following galleries :

• Ancient Chinese Bronze Gallery
• Ancient Chinese Sculpture Gallery
• Ancient Chinese Ceramics Gallery
• Chinese Painting Gallery
• Chinese Calligraphy Gallery
• Chinese Seal Gallery
• Chinese Minority Nationalities’ Art Gallery (more like a showcase of their costumes and some customs and not Art)
• Ancient Chinese Jade Gallery
• Chinese Coin Gallery
• Room of Ancient Central Asian Coins on the Silk Road
• Chinese Ming and Qing Furniture Gallery

Very interesting, but too many things to see in a day. Nevertheless, a must-visit if you should ever come to Shanghai.

Shanghai Museum

201 People’s Avenue （人民大道201号）

Opening Hours: 9am - 5pm daily

Adult ticket: 20RMB

Children/Student ticket: 5RMB

You know, I was very proud of Singapore’s Science Center, for all its interactivity and it seemed to have so much to offer. That was before I had a look at Shanghai’s Urban Planning Exhibition Center.

Or it could be that I have always had high expectations from Singapore’s information centers since she boasts so much about it anyways. Whilst I am surprised at such a modern presentation of the city. After witnessing some ugly stuff in Shanghai, this urban planning exhibition center made me go “whoa” everytime I reached a new section or a new level in the building. It was surprisingly rather deserted for a Sunday afternoon.
Shortfall of the exhibition would probably be that some of the video clips, like the major ones for the 360 degrees Circarama and the 3D film, are only in Chinese.

5 levels and a mezzanine floor, it has plenty of interactive touch-screen monitors, simulated scenes, and F1 racing vehicle simulator, 3D film and TV system without the use of eyeglasses (1st in China), and the most advanced 360 degrees Circarama in China (Okay Singapore’s IMAX theatre produces a better effect). On the 3rd floor, apparently it is the world’s biggest model of a city. The model reflects the urban landscape of Shanghai within the inner ring route up to the year 2020. I heard it’s constantly updated. I searched high and low, walked around the whole plan 4 times but couldn’t find Fudan University nor my area of residence. Ah, no wonder. INNER ring…Haii. Shanghai is SO BIG.

Basically the whole exhibition made me feel that we’re going to be looking at Shanghai like it came out of a computer. Concrete jungle, and very Jetsons-like.

This looks like you can flip the book, but actually you just have to touch the bottom right corner and the page will “flip” electronically

Proposed appearance of one of the metro stations. Feels very very futuristic.

I also had good glimpses of Shanghai’s past.

Aurora University?!

Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center

100 People’s Avenue, Shanghai (上海市人民大道100号）

Opening Hours:

Mon - Thurs 9am - 5pm (Last admission at 4pm)

Fri - Sun 9am - 6pm (Last admission at 5pm)

Adult ticket: 40RMB

Adult group ticket (more than 20 pax): 32RMB each

Handicapped ticket (need proof!): 32RMB

Senior Citizen (above 70) ticket: 20RMB

Student (Primary and Junior High School) ticket: 20RMB (I paid this price too though, using my university pass)

Child below 1.2m accompanied by adult: free

Approximate time viewing the exhibition: 1.5 - 2 hours.

WHILE ‘intelligent’ gadgets such as self-guiding vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers are widely available on the retail market, a range of increasingly sophisticated machines are being deployed by government departments.The British National Health Service is currently testing a robotic surgeon capable of carrying out complex bladder, prostate and kidney operations.

The military and security sector is the biggest driver of advances in artificial intelligence. The need to conduct operations in volatile environments while minimising human casualties could see the US military deploy a robotic soldier within the next 20 years.

But while violence leads the way, sex is not far behind. Japanese scientists are thought to be close to unveiling robots capable of ‘making love’ to humans in a responsive manner. Trial features on the robots include real human skin.

‘People are going to be having sex with robots within five years,’ said Mr Henrik Christensen, a member of the Euron ethics committee.

Wah I’m just speechless. It goes to show that sex is an inherent human need even in the information age, or perhaps even more so, but to integrate this basic instinctive human need with a what can be described to be a technological gadget at best? What is the world coming to?

Hmm, so in 5 years’ time, if I’m financially capable of it, I shall order in these robots and give my sex-deprived friends a Christmas gift they can really use. Is it satisfaction guaranteed though?

Maybe it’ll lift women’s status. Now we have a literally genuine sex object, a sex machine.

An unfathomable thing like love – how can I possibly go about defining it on my own terms?

Love to me has been and is going to be an arduous journey. I do not foresee myself walking down the mainstream aisle in wedded bliss, nor will I be able to produce offspring through the physical union with my partner as most people do. I also have to endure endless questioning, ridicule and criticism for being a deviant in the eyes of the majority.

Experiencing the difficulties and still wanting to be with her makes me know that this is love. I want to be there for her always – her nurse when she falls ill; her pillar of support when she breaks down; her source of strength when the going gets tough; and her party thrower when it is time to celebrate an achievement. I am also thankful that she wants to be all these things and more, and that she is waiting patiently for me to complete my studies before we embark on our lifetime journey hand in hand.

I start to overlook her flaws as time goes by. Her tantrum throwing translates to me as gestures of concern; her uncleanliness signifies she is completely at ease with me; and her poor language skills imply that our mutual understanding surpasses language.

I appreciate her small gestures of affection –- scrimping and saving to buy international calling cards to talk to me; letting me have the thigh meat whenever we eat fried chicken; making me shower first because the hot water will only flow for the first fifteen minutes or so.

At my most vulnerable and unguarded moments, I trust her wholeheartedly. She is the confidante of my woes; my counsellor; and my punching bag. She knows about the dreams I did not fulfil due to inertia, the selfishness I cannot get rid of, and the insecurities I have about everything. Yet, she sticks by me, even when I wanted to give up, despite all my shortcomings, and in spite of my sojourn overseas away from her.

Pop culture portrays love unrealistically and feeds us with images of instant gratification, and many of us get sucked in with these illusions that are merely created for entertainment. Contrary to that portrayal, it has been a long journey for her and me and there is still a long bumpy road ahead to persist, but we never complain because we have each other to walk the rough path with.

It is amazing how two different people inexplicably want to form a togetherness. Perhaps it is simply part of human nature to want a constant someone to rely on, to mutually appreciate each other’s company, and may even be interpreted as a kind of dependency. During this continuous swimming against the tide of heterogeneity, I have learnt to look upon love as something mystical and powerful that transcends all boundaries. No one should be scorned for simply loving someone for who the person is.

I spent hours in the computer lab finishing up my Flash assignments. Am so glad they are all done. Have a look at some of the ones I took a damn long time to do. It’s quite a feat. I’ve done over 20 flash mini movies!
beijing20081.swf

It is the middle of week 16, and my exam dates are still not finalized. We know the exam dates for our core modules should be on week 19 and 20, but the schedule isn’t up yet. In fact, the exam dates that were actually set for week 17, 18, and 19 are beginning to change because of the New Year’s Day holiday. Apparently it has been declared that it is a holiday from 1-3 January, Monday to Wednesday. (I’m not sure whether it’s a public holiday). Therefore, to compensate the loss of valuable time from school, classes for the 2nd will be held on Saturday, 30 December, and the 3rd on Sunday, 31 December (the same routine they use for Labour Day and National Day public holidays). So the exam timetable is still not fixed, making us get our exam schedule on very short notice, and even after jotting the dates down, we gotta reach for that correction fluid almost immediately.

You know it’s really in the little things.

I suddenly recalled that I used to have my own little corner of the old fridge back at home, where I would place all my candy stash and it was a silent agreement that no one was to touch it. I miss the quarrels I would have with my brother whenever he took anything from that stash and thought I wouldn’t notice it. But mostly, I miss that sense of belonging.

It saddens me when my father messages me on MSN and asks me about my brother, whom he hasn’t had the chance to talk to, and asks me to encourage my brother to just finish his studies and go on, that he’s worried about him. My father also included a crying face and heartbroken emoticon, and says that my brother is grown up and he’s leaving it to my brother to decide his own future.

Suddenly I want so much to be shopping at Suntec City’s Carrefour with my mother. I’m willing to listen to her nagging and want to laugh at her peculiar ways.

My family has never really been close, and now that 1 of us is in the north hemisphere, 2 at the equator, and the other down under, it’s really going to be a long time before all 4 of us will be in one place. And even when we are, I don’t know whether there will actually be a glue of any sort that can hold us.

I’m sorry I keep sounding negative. I can’t seem to muster any happy thoughts at 0 degrees. Smiling would make my skin crack anyway.

Bear with me. 5 more weeks. 5 more weeks and I can watch programmes on an LCD screen, and drive around in a Nissan Latio with her beside me.

And I will be able to perspire.

I’m very tired right now. What did I do the whole day? For more than 12 hours?

I watched Seinfeld.

Yup, apart from leaving the couch to cook, I spent the whole bloody day planted in front of the television watching episode after episode of Seinfeld.

So as usual huh. I cannot tick off anything on my to-do list, and am only one week away from the start of exams, and what activities am I using my time on?

Oops.

My 2-hurdle day is over! Yay!

The presentation in the morning went fairly alright, then TOEFL was tremendously tiring.

Have you ever taken an exam that lasted for 4 hours? With only a 10 minute break? In front of a computer screen the whole time? Well, I did today, and my back sure hurts.

The relatively new TOEFL iBT (internet-based test) is perhaps quite an effective way to gauge whether a student is ready for the kind of academic life in English-speaking countries. There are 4 sections to it — Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing. However, they have modified the test from past years such that the Speaking and Writing sections actually integrate reading and listening skills as well. So they make you read and listen to something, and then you’re supposed to speak in response to them.
Reading: 3-5 passages, 12-14 qns each –> 60-100 mins

Listening: 4-6 lectures, 6 qns each, 2-3 conversations, 5 qns each –> 60-90 mins

Break: 10 mins

Speaking: 6 tasks: 2 independent and 4 integrated –> 20 minutes

Writing: 1 integrated task –> 20 minutes, 1 independent task –> 30 minutes

In the Reading and Listening sections, you are randomly selected to do the extra portions…I very unfortunately had to do 5 reading passages, which was really very tiring to read, and might have drained me of my energy reserves and thus left me rather lacklustre for the other sections. Bah. It’s over, I just hope for the best now. We shall see on 5 January 2007.
I was questioned as to why I was loitering outside the toilet during break time though. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to do that?! Anyway, I was just eating my bread and didn’t want to go in because the toilet stank. The guy asked me for my test id number though. I hope I don’t get into any stupid unnecessary wronged trouble.

I took my test at East China Normal University. It was conducted in their computer lab, so there were no barricades for each desk, and we were separated by just one seat. It was very easy to get distracted by people speaking , as well as people walking in and out of the room since we were seated one by one and therefore had our tests started in a staggering fashion. So we had our breaks at different timings and finished at different times, so there was quite a lot of movement around so I cannot say that I was entirely focused.

I started the test at about 4.30pm and ended at about 8.40pm…I think it is already quite a feat, eh? I’ve never sacrificed dinner to take an exam before muahaha.
If you’re interested to take TOEFL in China, do take a look at this site, or the international TOEFL site for more information.