I meant to write this one a week ago but well... Here I am anyway.
I left the Japanese kitchen that I'd been working for almost a year in Central Market, and started my new job as a cellarhand in Clare Valley. When handing me my last payment my boss included a thank you card in the envelope. My boss' wishes were brief and straight forward but his wife gave me a relatively long one, in which she said I was the first Chinese person she met that is reliable and modest when it comes to topics about China.
I was thrilled to be given such a comment, but I wasn't that surprised because I know exactly what sort of Chinese people she's talking about and I've met plenty of them. They are brainwashed going through the Chinese education system that aimed at anti-intelligence and reverse-elimination of elites. I would have been exactly the same had I not come to Australia to study. The thing is, those other Chinese people she's talking about also live in Australia, what do I have that is different?
They did not open their eyes to what the Communist Party hadn't informed them. Although there are no heavy censorship of the internet in Australia (The fact that the government is proposing one enrages me) as in China many of those people are still voluntarily limiting their internet experience to what they were used to offered back in China, using the Chinese mimic of Facebook, Twitter etc instead of the real thing. I was like that for the first few months being in Australia, reading news from Xinhua instead of Reuters and other trustworthy news outlets.
But then I accidentally discovered a Chinese forum rxhj.net, which were set up by overseas Chinese who are extremely hateful towards China, Chinese people and the Chinese government. They hated the brainwashing education and came to realize it after going overseas and they set it up to tell the truth, reverse the brainwash process and try to educate people to adapt to a conservative Western life, they discuss current Chinese events on the forum but in a very different perspective than the official news outlets in China. I was pretty angry the first few times when I read about what they were saying, but I was also extremely curious so it started to become a daily task for me to check on there for new posts and see what they have to say about things. I started comparing their version of the story to what was told on Xinhua just to see how different people interpret or how they lie about an event, using my conscience instead of what I was told when it comes to judging. And gradually I dropped Xinhua as a source for news, and when it showed up on google I try to avoid clicking it. I realized I have been living in a big fat lie for such a long time, and all the Communist Party cares about is stupefying its citizens so no one voices up against its dictatorship. The result is immensely arrogant and greedy creatures that is not fit to be called human, and there are 1.5 billion of them. They do not have morals, they scream out their patriotism towards China whenever they can and they claim you being racist when you have anything against their views. It is until you got rid of every bit of "Chinaness" in you that you are reborn to be human.
Now I am living a China-free-wherever-possible life, simply to survive. Chinese people put toxins in infant formulas and heavy metal in toys, they produce vaccines that kill, cars that guarantee death during a collision and online chat clients that scan your computer for 'suspicious' files and report them secretly to the National Security. How could I trust anything Chinese? There are genuine and good quality 'made in China' goods out there but for now they have lost my trust completely and wherever there is a possible alternative to Chinese made goods I will go for it and I am willing to pay more for the quality and trust. I use English operation systems on my computers and avoid any Chinese software running on it as much as possible and I pay for German antivirus software instead of Chinese ones which themselves are like viruses. I buy Chinese books published in Hong Kong or Taiwan instead of the mainland. I own a $10 Swiss made potato peeler and a pair of $20 made in USA scissors (as opposed to Chinese made $1 peeler and $2 scissors), I am proud of them and they have never let me down. Anyone that got to use them have expressed surprise of how good a potato peeler can be. What I told them was that they are always supposed to be that good but the Chinese just never made it that good. People that fell for cheap Chinese made goods had severely cut back their quality of life.
My attitude towards things had also changed over time, I will focus more on human life above anything. For example historic events such as the Big Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Chinese people are too used to avoid the damage these events had done to them and only call them minor mistakes made by Mao Zedong that should not harm his glorious reputation. The fact is during the 28 year regime of Mao, which is a period of peace instead of war, more people died than the sum of casualty of the two World Wars. It is rightful to say Mao is eviller than Hitler.
I feel there are things here that I could expand further but I think I might do it later.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Goodbye Adelaide
I'm leaving this Sunday and the new job will start from Monday.
For the time being I'll keep my room in Adelaide while renting another one up Clare, but if I do get ongoing positions in Clare Valley I'm planning to take a house up there for my own, so that I could either rent spare rooms out or keep it for myself. Things have been planned out and I'm getting oh so excited.
I've been in Adelaide for 2 years now. It wasn't as good as what I imagined before moving here from Melbourne. I still think I met way more scumbags here in Adelaide than in Melbourne and generally people are just not as nice here. I'm gonna keep my expectations low for the country this time and hopefully I wouldn't disappoint myself too much.
What will I miss in Adelaide?
The friends that I made over the years of course. But well I'm not going that far away so hopefully I could still catch up with them once in a while. I'm heading out this Saturday night in the hope to see as many as possible of them though.
There's not that much to talk about in the city really. The dedicated CBD area is only 20% built up and there are still plenty of old villas and houses wait rotting. The city feels dead, you will be able to find stores that are clearly no able to hang on in the heart of Rundle Mall, which is absolutely ridiculous. Shopping experience is pretty limited, needless to say, Rundle Mall itself is small, and the stores are just mediocre. I'd rather hunt around either online or to Harbour Town (factory outlets that occasionally gets good stuff cheap) to shop. There are a few charms here and there though, such as the Chocolate Bean, their chocolate filth (better be shared though in concern of diabetes stroke) is the bomb!
Although the city of Adelaide has been quite boring I did find the surroundings of Adelaide pretty enjoyable. Forget Glenelg, go further to beaches with fewer people is always a better choice with clearer water and purer sand but the same undiscriminating sun tan, at times you can even own the whole beach for a while. There are a lot of wicked places hidden in the Adelaide Hills too. Hahndorf is not really considered hidden btw. Try the cheese factory just off Woodside, their 'Monet' is the most beautiful cheese I've ever seen and the taste is not bad at all. Hunt around for pick your own fruits or (if not in season) shed doors to get outrageously cheap and amazingly fresh fruits - peaches, cherries, strawberries, apples, nectarines you name it they have it. Cafe Acqua in Mt Barker, although being franchised, has the best veal (juicy and tender in a creamy sauce to die for) I've ever had for around $20, the likes of Fasta Pasta just can't get anywhere near it at around the same price. Of course there's the bakery in Lobethal and various tiny wineries surrounded by vineyards setting up ridiculous slopes.
Hmm well it's not really that hard to go back to anything that I miss here though because Clare is only 2 hours drive away, and I'm willing to drive anyway.
Turns out it's not really a proper goodbye Adelaide yet? We'll see.
For the time being I'll keep my room in Adelaide while renting another one up Clare, but if I do get ongoing positions in Clare Valley I'm planning to take a house up there for my own, so that I could either rent spare rooms out or keep it for myself. Things have been planned out and I'm getting oh so excited.
I've been in Adelaide for 2 years now. It wasn't as good as what I imagined before moving here from Melbourne. I still think I met way more scumbags here in Adelaide than in Melbourne and generally people are just not as nice here. I'm gonna keep my expectations low for the country this time and hopefully I wouldn't disappoint myself too much.
What will I miss in Adelaide?
The friends that I made over the years of course. But well I'm not going that far away so hopefully I could still catch up with them once in a while. I'm heading out this Saturday night in the hope to see as many as possible of them though.
There's not that much to talk about in the city really. The dedicated CBD area is only 20% built up and there are still plenty of old villas and houses wait rotting. The city feels dead, you will be able to find stores that are clearly no able to hang on in the heart of Rundle Mall, which is absolutely ridiculous. Shopping experience is pretty limited, needless to say, Rundle Mall itself is small, and the stores are just mediocre. I'd rather hunt around either online or to Harbour Town (factory outlets that occasionally gets good stuff cheap) to shop. There are a few charms here and there though, such as the Chocolate Bean, their chocolate filth (better be shared though in concern of diabetes stroke) is the bomb!
Although the city of Adelaide has been quite boring I did find the surroundings of Adelaide pretty enjoyable. Forget Glenelg, go further to beaches with fewer people is always a better choice with clearer water and purer sand but the same undiscriminating sun tan, at times you can even own the whole beach for a while. There are a lot of wicked places hidden in the Adelaide Hills too. Hahndorf is not really considered hidden btw. Try the cheese factory just off Woodside, their 'Monet' is the most beautiful cheese I've ever seen and the taste is not bad at all. Hunt around for pick your own fruits or (if not in season) shed doors to get outrageously cheap and amazingly fresh fruits - peaches, cherries, strawberries, apples, nectarines you name it they have it. Cafe Acqua in Mt Barker, although being franchised, has the best veal (juicy and tender in a creamy sauce to die for) I've ever had for around $20, the likes of Fasta Pasta just can't get anywhere near it at around the same price. Of course there's the bakery in Lobethal and various tiny wineries surrounded by vineyards setting up ridiculous slopes.
Hmm well it's not really that hard to go back to anything that I miss here though because Clare is only 2 hours drive away, and I'm willing to drive anyway.
Turns out it's not really a proper goodbye Adelaide yet? We'll see.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Cameras
I've never complained about my camera, well maybe I have, but it wasn't like that. This would be a wannabe photographer's amateur review, which means it's my own opinion only.
I have been using a Canon IXY 910 (the Japanese version of IXUS 860) for a few years now, it never really fails to satisfy my needs (which is not that much, usually I take a lot of macro, landscape and embarrassing moments in parties). I've only been using 5MP of the 8MP its sensor provided in a less compressed (superfine) mode. The colour that this little guy gave me has been amazing even without tuning, and I got compliments for my photos when I upload them on facebook. It's quick, silent and to the point.
Then I came across this Nikon S9100 that my parents brought when they came visit me, I've heard good things about it and my parents are willing to swap it for my Canon. I actually loved my Canon but I wanted to see what difference this Nikon can make so I accepted the deal (part of my superficial reason is that now even my phone has an 8MP camera, but the 18x optical zoom comparing to 3x on my Canon makes me drool too). From the photos my parents took with them I could easily tell that they didn't use the camera right. There was two shots with very little difference in time and position taken, one is completely normal but the other is totally redded out. I assumed they might've set something wrong on the camera.
A glitch (probably not considered a serious one but) that immediately annoyed me about this Nikon S9100 is that when in review mode of the photo just taken, the shutter refuses to work, on my 4YO Canon you can just take a photo blindly and immediately in review mode. This prompted me to disable the review function, but the difference this made was marginal, because it wanted to go over the focusing process again every time, while the Canon would just use the last known setting (either that or the Canon's focus works extremely fast that you barely notice). It is the moment that's important, not the review of what you've taken, Nikon people!
On the telescopic side of lens, very slow and inefficient focus, even in sufficient light, which sort of destroyed the purpose of the telescopic lens. The IS is probably not good enough for my shaky hands on the telescopic end too. During focus generally, it tends to make noises all the time shifting lens even when the green in focus label is present instead of telling you "I'm ready" in a click and stayed there, I'm not really sure whether this is a good or bad thing.
On the image size selection, only the full 12MP size offers a "star" option (equivalent to "superfine"), which means when I use my normal 5MP setting the image would be quite heavily compressed. I'm a bit concerned but I'll see if shifting to normal 8MP mode covers the problem by increased canvas size.
I noticed I took a lot of ghostly photos under low light with the Nikon, and found out that the auto ISO selection is not really doing its job. The manual did say when you set it to auto it would shift up to ISO 800 in low light, so why were all my ghostly photos taken at ISO 200 or even 160 and at shutter speed of 1/3s to 2s? That doesn't make sense, 1/10s at ISO 600 would solve the problem beatifully.
On the plus side, the colour is pretty neutral comparing to the Canon. The build of the camera itself is very sturdy (I dropped it a few times already, don't tell mom). Noise level of low light shots are relatively low. Also I liked the design that the flash needs to be separately lifted up because I'm never quite a flash person unless I absolutely have to use it. Video taking now have a dedicated button, which is good too, the thing is I don't really make a lot of videos. The manual focusing system lets you move the cursor around to focus on the object you want to focus (a step forward than my Canon which you have to focus a few times until the AF guessed what you wanted to shoot right, especially in macro mode which I use a lot), but a touch screen as seen on Sony or smart phones would actually do a better job.
I didn't have this camera for long enough to discover too much good things about it, well I hope I would later. For the time being I am a bit disappointed about it, because on the overall experience it is hopelessly losing to my 4 year old Canon. I can't imagine why Canon came up with a slick and witted camera 4 years ago while this new Nikon is still struggling to catch up (if it cared to at all) and it just feels sluggish. Canon and Nikon were both supposed to be very good brands I thought? Maybe only in professional (D)SLR areas. Nikon doesn't seem to care too much about the user experience of their consumer cameras (Maybe the developers were too good to use a camera like this? Then why is this thing even on the market?). Canon on the other hand took care of everything and the experience is just smooth.
A bit of hope, a firmware upgrade could definitely address the shutter and ISO problems, but that's only if Nikon's up for it. Second thoughts, do people to custom roms for cameras?
I have been using a Canon IXY 910 (the Japanese version of IXUS 860) for a few years now, it never really fails to satisfy my needs (which is not that much, usually I take a lot of macro, landscape and embarrassing moments in parties). I've only been using 5MP of the 8MP its sensor provided in a less compressed (superfine) mode. The colour that this little guy gave me has been amazing even without tuning, and I got compliments for my photos when I upload them on facebook. It's quick, silent and to the point.
Then I came across this Nikon S9100 that my parents brought when they came visit me, I've heard good things about it and my parents are willing to swap it for my Canon. I actually loved my Canon but I wanted to see what difference this Nikon can make so I accepted the deal (part of my superficial reason is that now even my phone has an 8MP camera, but the 18x optical zoom comparing to 3x on my Canon makes me drool too). From the photos my parents took with them I could easily tell that they didn't use the camera right. There was two shots with very little difference in time and position taken, one is completely normal but the other is totally redded out. I assumed they might've set something wrong on the camera.
A glitch (probably not considered a serious one but) that immediately annoyed me about this Nikon S9100 is that when in review mode of the photo just taken, the shutter refuses to work, on my 4YO Canon you can just take a photo blindly and immediately in review mode. This prompted me to disable the review function, but the difference this made was marginal, because it wanted to go over the focusing process again every time, while the Canon would just use the last known setting (either that or the Canon's focus works extremely fast that you barely notice). It is the moment that's important, not the review of what you've taken, Nikon people!
On the telescopic side of lens, very slow and inefficient focus, even in sufficient light, which sort of destroyed the purpose of the telescopic lens. The IS is probably not good enough for my shaky hands on the telescopic end too. During focus generally, it tends to make noises all the time shifting lens even when the green in focus label is present instead of telling you "I'm ready" in a click and stayed there, I'm not really sure whether this is a good or bad thing.
On the image size selection, only the full 12MP size offers a "star" option (equivalent to "superfine"), which means when I use my normal 5MP setting the image would be quite heavily compressed. I'm a bit concerned but I'll see if shifting to normal 8MP mode covers the problem by increased canvas size.
I noticed I took a lot of ghostly photos under low light with the Nikon, and found out that the auto ISO selection is not really doing its job. The manual did say when you set it to auto it would shift up to ISO 800 in low light, so why were all my ghostly photos taken at ISO 200 or even 160 and at shutter speed of 1/3s to 2s? That doesn't make sense, 1/10s at ISO 600 would solve the problem beatifully.
On the plus side, the colour is pretty neutral comparing to the Canon. The build of the camera itself is very sturdy (I dropped it a few times already, don't tell mom). Noise level of low light shots are relatively low. Also I liked the design that the flash needs to be separately lifted up because I'm never quite a flash person unless I absolutely have to use it. Video taking now have a dedicated button, which is good too, the thing is I don't really make a lot of videos. The manual focusing system lets you move the cursor around to focus on the object you want to focus (a step forward than my Canon which you have to focus a few times until the AF guessed what you wanted to shoot right, especially in macro mode which I use a lot), but a touch screen as seen on Sony or smart phones would actually do a better job.
I didn't have this camera for long enough to discover too much good things about it, well I hope I would later. For the time being I am a bit disappointed about it, because on the overall experience it is hopelessly losing to my 4 year old Canon. I can't imagine why Canon came up with a slick and witted camera 4 years ago while this new Nikon is still struggling to catch up (if it cared to at all) and it just feels sluggish. Canon and Nikon were both supposed to be very good brands I thought? Maybe only in professional (D)SLR areas. Nikon doesn't seem to care too much about the user experience of their consumer cameras (Maybe the developers were too good to use a camera like this? Then why is this thing even on the market?). Canon on the other hand took care of everything and the experience is just smooth.
A bit of hope, a firmware upgrade could definitely address the shutter and ISO problems, but that's only if Nikon's up for it. Second thoughts, do people to custom roms for cameras?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)