Hmm

I think I'm just too bored at this time that I started writing this thing... I moved my house again today. Hopefully no more drama this time...

After all these had happened, I couldn't help but thinking of how life was like in Melbourne and I know I miss it. Adelaide was way different than I thought, and not in a good way. I was quite prepared to get used to a quiet place before I came but not a shit hole. It is ridiculous more bad stuff happened to me within this three months I was in Adelaide than the whole three years I was in Melbourne.

Thinking about the good side of it, I started to make a new bunch of lovely friends here, my study was going slow but smoothly so far and hopefully a better career prospect afterwards, I was lucky that I met these people who are able to help just when I needed it most, without whom I would've been all pathetic living on the streets now. I am glad after all, and things are looking up.

Impress me Adelaide, if you please.

Dramas

And yes, I did realized this might happen since the day you came back. You just don't look right. It still happened a bit enexpectedly.

You make too many promises that you don't keep, you told me this is sort of his family tradition, I don't think so after meeting your family (without whom I wouldn't know where I'd end up). He's just too good at lying. I was to stay because of the place, thinking that you might get a bit better after all those, you have left me with no choice and seemingly acted faster than I did.

I would consider myself reasonable to you by all means, I tend to think Cancers are all like that, I could be quite soft but not when things go bad enough for me to having to turn my back on you, once you made me make that decision it's irreversible. I don't have tolerance on those stuff I think you have noticed. I would not let myself be fooled again.

It is a difficult choice but I made it. The bad has outweighed the good. It will cost me a bit but yes this is my hard earned lesson. Waking up in the morning not knowing where I am is not a good feeling, but at least I don't have to worry about anything else.

You are just hopeless. Men just wouldn't change. I think I learnt that better over all these days.

Sam, Misha and me

Suddenly the house was all empty and I'm all alone.

Sam is my recent housemate and Misha is his old cat.

As Sam will not be in this house for quite a while I had been feeding Misha and playing with her. She is all black and 14 years old, very decent and friendly I would say, and it is the first time ever I sort of own a mammal as a pet. (I've had ducklings that were dead overnight, fishes that reproduces way too much and birds that found their own way out of the cage before) I started to grow quite close to Misha since Sam had been away, lying on the same bed with her and letting her claw dig into my hand, looking her deep in the eyes, scratching her neck and caressing her fur and feel the warmth of her.

Until last night.

I fed Misha 5PM sharp as usual and she did not finish the food as usual. I let her out to play around 7PM and started playing a bit with my computer cos it had been such a shit day for me, I had screwed up everything that I possibly could. I will know Misha wants to come in if she scratches the door.

It was just before 11PM that the neighbour knocked at the door and said she thinks Misha was hit by a car and probably dead. I rushed out with her and found Misha on the edge of the road, somebody might have moved her but she is still warm. It was very dark there. I couldn't think. The girl next door fetched me a shoe box and a pair of disposable gloves while I just stood outside and looked at the lights through the window, then we went back to Misha and I picked her up, squashed her a bit into the shoe box. I was sure it's Misha only then, with her purple collar and the bell that always informing that she's around.

Back to the house I had a closer look of her, she had ants all over her expecially around the head. I called up Sam's mother and she was about to go to sleep, but she popped in immediately. I don't know how to tell Sam about this I hope his mother will do that for me. I thought I felt some sort of shriver when I touched Misha again but it turns out it was just myself. Sam's mother sprayed some fly spray to get rid of the ants and took Misha with a few towels, leaving the shoe box.

When I looked into the shoe box today there was Misha's blood, sort of gel like inside the box. And there's a few dead ants.

I left the box there.

I can't remember exactly where on the road she was, some blood stains indicated for me.

I tipped Misha's bowl where her leftover food started to stick onto.

I brushed the cat food stain on the kitchen floor.

I left the door open.

It all turned silent.

Adelaide Complains

Not a very exciting place I would say, not much night life going on around, and you will have to shop early or the shops are closed. You could count on the buses being late, they are never on time anyway. Train service looks nice as they are fast and punctural, but there are not many of them around. But this Belair line is such a joke that goes like a huge loop way outside of the city around the hills. What's the point?

The Day of Drama

I finally had a chance to update my blog (Well it's not the first chance but I've been slack...) and I always wanted to talk a bit about Adelaide, but no I'll leave that for the next one so this one's about my last day in Melbourne, 1st Feb 2010. The big drama day.

As my flight is leaving like 5:35pm for Adelaide I booked my taxi on 4pm (bit stress in the first place I might not do that again), and I handed over my keys to my housemate cos I am no longer renting the place. And they are all at work.

I went out to tip the last bit of my rubbish out at 3:45, made sure that the door was not locked when I leave, but it's locked when I came back. So I have a flight to catch, and all of my stuff was locked in the house. I asked the neighbour for help and they are calmer than I am and decided to drive me and pick up a spare key in the real estate agent after calling them.

At 4pm we are about to set out to the office and I saw the taxi just outside of my place. I went to talk to the driver explaining the situation and asked if he could wait up for a bit and he agreed. The traffic is starting to get busy on our way to the agent and Carmen gets quite angry at the drivers ahead. There was two locks on the door and they only gave us one, I was hoping that it was the right key because one of the locks is not locked.

Not quite 4:20pm we are back and I could see the taxi still waiting. I rushed up and tried the keys and it was not the right one! Carmen's boyfriend started try to bust the lock and it didn't seem all that easy although he told me that he was a locksmith for some time. I tried to call my housemate but somehow he exchanged his SIM card with his cousin and I didn't mark down his new number right.

4:35pm I start to think that it's over that I would not make it to Adelaide today that my housemate comes back home from work and opened the door for me. And he drove me to the airport, we arrived at 4:55pm

Collecting my boarding pass and waiting to drop my bag and it says the plane is already boarding, so I was on the fast track. Then I was not able to check in my backpack because my suitcase is too heavy, I was fiven a choice either pay $50 to check it in or take it onboard. I'm not paying obviously but I was a bit worried that there might be something that I couldn't take onboard with in that backpack because I was planning to check it in.

And there was. I spent some 5 minutes at the security gate because they found a knife inside the bag but could not find it. It was my first Swiss Army Knife and I had to throw it away because there is no time for me to get back to the check in and put it in the suitcase. When I am finally inside the gate, I heard my name called and it was the final call for boarding.

And this is it, my eventful adeventure towards Adelaide.

Last Day in Melbourne

Sunny outside, shutters shut, and I am sitting in front of a quite empty now room staring at the sheets of sunshine escaping through the slits of the shutter, swaying as it breezes.

The jeans that hadn't been worn for ages, trashed. Socks that are bit worn, trashed. dustbin itself, to be determined but I'm not taking it. Rents, cleared. All packed up. Keys, handed over. I only just realized how rusted my keyring had become.

Almost three years now, about time to leave, about time for a change. Am I ready for that though? What is so wrong with my current life in Melbourne? I never felt this way towards Melbourne before. Nasty weathers, annoying flies, what is so good about it?

(2 hrs Later)

Had some dumplings for brunch, nice. The sun's still bright, but went past my window. called for the cab to pick me up at 4pm, should be alright. Not wanna turn off the computer yet but still have to dump the trash first. Opened the lid and saw the shoes I dumped yesterday was still there, I hate this pair too much that I would swear never to buy a Converse again, ever.

Time to go.

Google Pulling Out of China?

I made a statement on Facebook yesterday that if Google pulled out of China I am not going back either, I meant it.

Well, Google is the first search engine I had ever known, and I could not imagine a life without Google now. Although I had only been out of China in the recent years Google had been part of my life way longer before that. Opening my browser when I wake up in the morning my homepage is iGoogle, then the first thing I would check is Gmail, following by Facebook, website of my uni etc., and I am obviously using Blogger, Google Earth/Maps, Youtube, Docs, Picasa, Wave... The list goes on. I wouldn't deny that I am a fan of Google that I might use more services from Google than many others, thing is it is almost certain that all people who have access to the Internet are using some services provided by Google.

What had enraged Google to have threatened to leave China was that it had found on its servers attacks from China attempting to access Chinese human rights activists' Gmail account. I'm not going to repeat the story so just see here.

It is not just about human rights, it is not just about Google China's proportion in the market did not meet the expectation of the company (It is still substantially profiting), it is more about the conscience of the company, realizing that it is no longer possible to and feasible to cooperate with the Communist government and help them with their censorship while in the end compromising its own users' privacy and rights of speech. Ever since the launch of Google.cn, the company had been through animadvers and pressures from the government, increasing by the year. And many of them are actually traps planted by government and government-run media aiming at detrimenting the public image of Google, Google did nothing and just continue what it was supposed to do. This time however, the Chinese goernment had broken the bottomline of the company.

Towards Chinese people the government is obviously lying again saying human rights was an excuse Google use for leaving China with bad business in a cover, or stating giving up China is giving up half of the world. Well, from what I have seen on the blogs and forums, complains are dominant, mourning that they have to use alternative ways to go around the GFW and continue using Google service, as Google.com will definitely be blocked once Google.cn pulls out of China, alongside with all of the Google services (although many of them are already blocked, such as Youtube and Picasa), and that Baidu will take over the place where Google used to be in. (Well I myself only get on Baidu for free music downloads back in the time, and now I buy CD's or if I really can't find the CD, iTunes. Baidu is a disgustingly greedy company anyway forcing companies to auction on the placement in search results or they would be taken out of the search literally by placement tens of pages back no matter how relevant the content actually is)

Is it China's or Google's loss if Google do pull out from China? The Chinese government would not mind Google pulling out, they might actually be happy 'one less naughty boy' in the country. For the people however, the loss of Google is more than one less search engine, instead it would mean a significant tightening of the internet environment within China, rumours are are already everywhere saying that the Chinese government is planning to switch from a 'blacklist' policy on the Internet, which blocks the blacklisted websites etc., to a 'whitelist' policy which blocks anything that is not registered with the government. I honestly can't imagine internet looking like that, with no voice from outside of the government at all, not even personal websites. It is matter of time that China will cut its internet communication from other countries and be isolated from the rest of the world fearing any criticism of its illegal regime in the first place.

This statement was found on the internet: It is not that Google had given up on China, China had given up the world.

Interesting Shift

I realized this only after I watched 'the Lovely Bones', there is something different from most of the other movies these days: there is no 'politically correct' African background part in this film, instead, they put an Asian girl in as Susie's guide to paradise.

And I do realize there are more movies like this thinking back, 'Eating Out: All You Can Eat', those two illegal immigrants from Vietnam(?) working in Tiffany's nailing salon and Tandy obviously, no African background casts again. I'm sure there's more but I'll stop here.

It is quite obvious that most of such parts given to minors in the movies and TV shows are not necessarily ethnically specific (well illegal immigrants maybe) and sometimes even inappropriate (The one popped right into my head was Gwen in the BBC TV series Merlin because there would have been very rare case of African people 'in the land of myth and the days of magic' let alone being a royal servant and probably Queen later). They only serve as 'politically correct' disclaimer.

My point here is, is there a shifting in terms of 'politically correctness' from African population towards Asian population? If so, does this mean a realization of racism had turned from towards Africans to towards Asians? Or, does it mean Asian immigrants in the Western world are playing a bigger role by the date in the community comparing to Africans?

I am not going to answer these questions because I don't think I know the answer. What I do know is, African people are affecting the culture of Western countries in a deeper way than Asian people do. For example there's Eminem and there's Whitney Houston. But there's no white J-Pop star or Manga artists and there's no mainstream Asian artists in Western countries either, at least none as big as Whitney Houston.

Well, maybe it takes time?

Google Wave

Quite by chance that I got an invitation from a friend on facebook and laid my hands on this thing. I didn't quite understand the concept that I only heard about some friends mentioning it to be quite nice and stuff, I didn't expect much either. But well anyway I went ahead with it and watched like a third of that hour-and-a-half long video. (the length is putting me into sleep but the idea actually quite exciting, that you could do things that are very different and you could actually see a lot of potentials out of Google Wave)

Well I got excited obviously and then I found a big problem here, one that didn't come with gmail when I got the test account: I don't actually have friends to wave with except the guy that invited me and two magically added contact within my I think gmail contact list that had never showed up. It hadn't been a problem in gmail because it's only an email account that you could start sending any email to any people with email addresses, but with google wave, you don't actually have heaps of people to start with because it is a social network and it is invite only... Well like a day and a half after activating you do get a new wave saying that you are now able to invite people, well, 8 people. That's better than nothing but far from satisfying I would have to say, yes I do reckon I will get more invites later but Google Wave is still considered a social tool, and quite dependant on a social network.

In a word I am satisfied with the idea and stuff that come with Google Wave, but not the way that they open for testing like this. I do understand that resources are limited but 'by-invitation' should not be the mode one social network builds up. Facebook did not limit their access by 'invite only', they purchase new resources when it is used up, and btw what is facebook when it gets to the benchmark of 50,000 users? As a giant like Google, Wave should get more resources and open for public testing IMBO.

Well I bet this thing will be banned in China, with its powerfulness that fears its miserable government with potentials way more powerful than current social networks and wikipedia and youtube conbined, literally.

Wrapping up the Year 2009

It wasn't supposed to be a good year according to the Chinese Fung Shui for me, and it wasn't.

I counted myself lucky that at least my study goes smoothly, although I did not achieve very good results I managed to get myself graduated in time by the end of the year and got my honours offer from University of Adelaide.

Jobs are pretty hard to find I would say, none of my applications were even responded. But as I decided to continue my study and escape for another year, all I could hope for is that the next year would be better. I'm still on a part time job but changed spot, worse than the last job obviously but I won't stay in Melbourne for long anyway so I don't have to cope with it for long.

I've met the first horrible landlady in my life and stayed in her house for a month and a half. I've never met anyone so greedy, and slutty enough to screw the tradie working in the house in front of us, to get a special discount maybe?

I am starting to feel that I am getting old. I never had this thought before. In my plan for life ten years back I decided that I would never grow old, that is, I will kill myself when I'm... Back then I set a target of 30 so that I would not grow older than that. Seems this date had to be changed because I am already feeling myself old? That is, if I still wish to do so, which I'm no longer sure.

No luck in love as I said many times before. broke up with one and nothing comes my way after that. Melbourne is not the city for the one that I was meant to be with, it's quite obvious now after all these years. And I'm leaving Melbourne.

Will the world really come to an end at 12.21.12? I wasn't worried. There is nothing I could do if it is true and nothing would change if it isn't. Just live as we always live until the day comes then see what happens. Getting prepared for the end of the world is like an ant training his muscles the second before he was crushed between your fingers.

Copenhagen

Media coverage on the climate change conference in Copenhagen is everywhere these days that you can't actually turn a blind eye on. Seems that I should not just keep quiet on this one.

Although many would say that there is not yet scientific proof that human activity is causing global warming, I do personally believe so the same way that there is no scientific proof of existence of God but many still believe in it. Anyway this is not the point of this post.

The developing world is playing a bad role in this conference as far as I heard, taking climate change hostage to ask for economical compensation/benefits from the developed world. China, again, is one of the most shameless countries amongst.

The amount of greenhouse gas emission in China is only second to the United States at the moment and growing fast. It is foreseeable that the country will soon be releasing more greenhouse gas than any other country in the world. However, China is trying to evade its responsibility of reducing greenhouse gas emission because the US is saying that the funds it is giving would not go to China because they consider China a developed country. (Well it would do so anyway, that's just an handy excuse)

Should China actually be seen as a developing country? The Chinese government insists so naming a low per-capita GDP. Well, while the metropolitan people are enjoying every convenience of the developed world, there are people in the countryside living in extreme poverty. While the poor Chinese might be responsible of releasing ignorable amounts of greenhouse gas the metropolitan people are responsible of emitting the same or even larger amounts of greenhouse gas than people in the developed world. While one could split the poor countryside of China from metropolitan China and demands that funds only go to the countryside, the government would almost certainly never do so (just track back where did the donations for Sichuan earthquake go last year), all they want is free patented technologies and funds from the developed world and use them to boost its already deformed GDP, then use the data to continue deceiving its people of its growth despite the fact that people are ripped off by the government, and keeping its governence.

New vocabulary seems to be what the Chinese government is playing at the moment, 'reducing 45% of emission per unit GDP', clever, but hypocritic nonetheless. As we all see, China's GDP is growing at a significant speed and momentum (although its people are actually getting poorer). With the growth of GDP switching from second to third industry the emission per unit GDP would naturally reduce, but that does not mean the total emission of the country will decrease, quite the opposite, it would still be increasing. Let's do the maths, say the total GDP is 10 per year and per GDP unit emission is 1 in the year 2005, the total emission would be 10. There are 15 years between 2005 and 2020, with the GDP growth rate of 8% per annum, the GDP will become 31.72 in the year 2020, with 0.55 per GDP emission target achieved the total emission of China would become 17.45. See that? A 74.5% increase in the amount of emission! while the Chinese government blames that the target set by the US of a 17% reduction on greenhouse emission as not 'serious' enough, what about themselves trying to deceive the world and emit more greenhouse gases themselves? It is just a dirty trick because it's so obvious to most people that 45>17.

Tackling global warming is a global project that requires cooperation among all countries because the developed world and the developing world exist on the same earth. If the developed world works hard to reduce emission while the developing world is doing nothing or even increasing the amount of emission, it would just be an expensive political show with no winners eventually, because the global warming is not stopped and the huge amount of money the developed world spent on themselves and helping the developing world is giving nothing in return. The developing world might be benefitted by the funds at first but when consequences of global warming kick in they would be as fragile as everyone else.

Eventful Day Huh?

Well.

Got a call from my boss in the afternoon, telling me that I don't need to work on Friday, which means, I completely lost the job I've been working for two and a half years... Well I am leaving Melbourne anyway and I have told my boss that, but I still need that money to pay back my credit card obviously... :S Anyway I couldn't say nothing hanging up the phone, all desparate and started working harder on my job hunting.

It was within a few minutes that I got an email from the honours coordinator in University of Adelaide telling me that I have secured my place for the Honours program for Viticulture and Oenology. I thanked him promptly of course and does not know how to react now, should I be happy or sad? It was all too sudden.

Then, just before dinner, I got another call from a restaurant that I left my resume last week, I was to be on training tomorrow there as a waiter. Well, a job is absolutely something that I am desparate for, and there it is. I thought my hope was gone and there it is. Well, hope this works out. This really relieved me a bit although I don't think this job would pay any good.

That's two good news against one bad then. I would consider it a good day.

Now

Exams, finished. Honours application, submitted. Job hunting, bit lazy but working on it. Results,my greatest fear is not how I did but rather whether they would be out at all. Visas, haven't started applying as I don't even know which to apply yet, depends on whether I'm getting a job or go for further study. Family, coming to visit me in Australia in exactly two weeks. My room, needs tidying. Graduation ceremony, depends on my results and whether they come out at all. Weight, I am scared to weigh myself now. Computer, upgraded to Windows 7. Love, no luck as always.

Well so here I am. Sitting here in front of my computer for the first time in quite a while - I've been cut back from my job as they needed to save costings and replaced me with the boss herself so they don't pay wage on weekends. The resumes I've sent out the other day got no reply as expected. But my situation is delicate anyway - I could work most of the time til one week before Christmas, then available again after Christmas. I don't think I could get a job before Christmas at all because there's only like two three weeks til then.

I think I might go out with friends tonight, well it's been too long since the last time I did so as I always work on weekends. Yes as I was cut back from my job I'm now pretty tight on money but I'll still go for it, just for one night.

BidPax?

While you would think wow $13 for an iPod Touch 32G or $15 for an Xbox is cheap, think again.

Each bid allows you to raise the price by 1c, while the bid itself costs $0.6-$1 depends on how many bids are you buying in bulk (buying 500 bids for $300 gives $0.6 per bid). Let's just say everyone is buying the largest bulk and hence every bid costs $0.6, a $13 iPod Touch would cost all bidders 1300 bids, i.e. $780, look, the final price $13 is nothing comparing to the bidding cost. How much does that iPod Touch cost? $399 delivered on the official Apple store. Same calculation, you could see bidders paid $900 bidding cost for the Xbox.

So how much did the winning bidder actually paid? Only one bidder in this bid is not possible because nobody is competing you might get the goods for 1c that's $0.61 for the whole thing. So start from two bidders, the case is still easy, $780/2 = $390 for each bidder, meaning that the winning bidder paid $403($390+$13) for the $399 iPod (surprise surprise) while the losing bidder paid $390 and get nothing! In the case of more bidders the bidding cost for each person cannot be calculated for exact but if one bidder is intending to outbid anybody whenever a new bid is placed, he pays half of the bidding cost, which in the iPod case is $390.

I would love to be a seller on BidPax but I think the company is the only seller here cos they obviously make a lot of money out of those who didn't do the math prior :P

Vegetarian Hypocrisy

I have noticed that increasing population of this world is going vegetarian. Reasons?

Animal cruely. As if there wasn't cruelty practiced on plants! Potatoes, tomatoes and many others are skinned and cut into pieces. Leeks in eternal torture whenever the leaves grow to a certain level is cut and they have to grow it again. Basil and parsley planted in pots in the kitchen are nipped off their best leaves whenever needed. Cabbages and cucumbers are left immersed in salty, sour and stinky solutions until totally rotten before eaten. The only difference is that you (consumers) are often the ones who practise such cruelty towards their vegetarian food. That plants do not express their feelings like a dying cattle or lamb with their eyes in those stunning pictures does not mean they do not have feelings.

Health. Nutritionally speaking, a vegetarian diet hardly supports the well being of human. A simple example is omega-3 fatty acids, which are not made within the body and are responsible for modulating inflammation and other allergic reactions are mostly sourced from fish, vegetarian wise they are only found in tiny amounts in nuts. Omega-6 fatty acids, on the other hand, although also essential, are responsible for enhancement of such allergic reactions. Omega-6 fatty acids are the ones that are available abundantly in plants. A shifting to a vegetarian lifestyle is a huge interruption to the balance of intake of omega-3:omega-6, suggested ratio 1:3-4, is currently 1:30-50 in the developed world. This could also be one of the causes of people getting increasingly allergic to increasing number of materials in these countries.

Obesity. Well at first I found it interesting that vegetarian people in Australia are still way overweight, but when I found out their only non-alcoholic drink is sodas I don't wonder anymore.

I am not suggesting a better way here, I don't see one. This is a cruel world, if you are not able to be cruel to any other species, you die. Going vegetarian does not mean you are any less cruel, you are just hypocrite plus you are risking your own well-being.

Future

I'm graduating. Sounds cool? What about the things after that? Find a job, if I'm not lucky enough, continue my study for an honours project, and if I'm not lucky enough even for that, keep finding a job until the next year honours open application... In whichever case, I'll have to get a new visa to stay in Australia.

I don't actually know where to from here. I don't see a future ahead of me yet, I am not even sure if I would be graduating this sem (well 70% sure I could but anything could happen). A job is even more blur. I haven't started applying for many of them yet, well there are vintage jobs available in Mildura which I have applied but even if I get an offer it's only a vintage. The chance of staying after the vintage is quite slim. On to honours, I don't know if my results are good enough among the applicants, they weren't very good to me at all... I hope I could talk the professors into having me, but then if I got a job somehow I'll have to defer that offer, which doesn't seem quite good... Anyway, I'll try to apply for both and see what happens. Wish things turns out OK...

And for now, I should only concentrate on my upcoming exams in these few weeks left as a student, probably ever.

Adults in China Anyone?

I have been thinking whether there are actually any adult in China in the government's eyes these days.

The government had been censoring the internet, movies, TV shows, books and everything it could get its hand on in the name of providing 'a better environment for the growth of our youths'. How about the adults? They are supposed to have the responsibility for the adult rated materials and the like yet they are not provided access to those materials. No erotic magazines, no porn sites, does that really mean China is a paradise free of any sort of indecency? Quite the opposite. In some parts of China thrives one of the world's most prosperous prostitution industry.

People could still get access to porn somehow if they really wanted to, not all the porn sites are blocked and there would be new ones every day that was yet to be identified, P2P networks could still be used, there are plenty of street vendors out there that sell pirated DVDs.

What is the censoring targeting then? The second largest category of censored websites and other publications is so-called the 'intentions to overthrow the government' or 'splittest voice' etc., i.e. different political views from the government i.i.e. the call for democracy.

It might be laughable to raise this questione 'is there any adults in China?', however, with that 'do as you're told' government having so many followers in reality and on the internet even from outside of China (see comments/discussion of youtube and wikipedia on some controversial pages, which are currently blocked by the Chinese government, there are still plenty of pro-Communist Party voices), it is doubtful that whether people do have their own thoughts at all besides the ones they were told by the government. All they ever know besides the education they had been through is scheming against each other among the closest work fellows and families for their own benefit, the non-existence of everything besides money, corruption and bribery. Total lost of beliefs, total lost of justice, total lost of basic human rights, total lost of morals, total lost of voice of people and dysfunction of media, frenzy destruction of the environment and ecology, lack of sense of security as a result of insufficient medical, housing, employment and retirement assurance, continual decrease of quality of life of people despite booming economics... The problems of China is countless and incurable.

What did I see from the March of the 60th anniversary of governing of the Communist Party? Absolute regularity of steps, absolute emptiness of streets of Beijing, war-time security level of the city.

The beauty of Fascism.

Organic Foods

I kept telling myself that it is time to update my blog but I am still too busy with my assignments and stuff. So here it is, for the first time I am actually slack enough to put my academic assignment from uni straight up here in my blog. It does have a point though, I hope.

Introduction

Organic foods is the fastest growing session in the food industry worldwide, with more than 15-20% annual growth in retail sales comparing to the 2-3% of the food industry as a whole. (Willer and Yussefi, 2006) On one hand the strong growth reflects the awareness of organic food to consumers and the strong concern of them towards their well-being. On the other hand, many of the consumers who ‘eat organic’ do not even have a proper idea of what organic food is and what are the benefits of organic foods, let alone what impact organic foods have in terms of the environment, growers and various other aspects. Most consumers who ‘eat organic’ believe that organic foods are beneficial to health, more nutritious than conventional foods, environmentally friendly, taste better, sustainable. Is that really so?

What are Organic Foods?

According to a USDA definition (NAL, 2002), organic food is

“Produced without: antibiotics; growth hormones; most conventional pesticides; petroleum- based fertilizers or sewage sludge-based fertilizers; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation”
This definition is similar to the definitions given by other scientific authorities; however, there is no implications of health benefit, food safety, enhanced nutrition or even sustainability of the farming practise in the definition of organic foods.

History

Before broad-acre/industrialized farming was introduced in early 20th century, all farming practise could be considered ‘organic’ according to the definition referred to above. It was long after the industrialization of farming that the term ‘organic food’ emerged.
In the earlier years of organic foods while no certification authorities are available, people who are interested in organic foods have to buy direct from the grower, visit their niche farms and get to know the farming practise going on in the farm, the so-called ‘Know your farmer, know your food.’ With the continuous growth of demand for organic food, certification authorities for organic foods were initialized by either government or private organizations and the certified products are then labelled ‘certified organic’ in the marketplace for identification.

Practise

As in practise, production of organic foods could use certain chemicals at limited level if they are sourced naturally instead of synthetically. For example, Bt toxin, a bacterial extract from Bacillus thuringensis, is applied in organic farming as a ‘natural’ pesticide. (Goldberg, 2000)
Instead of sticking to cultivating on niche/boutique style small farms when organic foods were first introduced into the market, as the demand for organic food products continues to grow, large broad-acre style farms practising organic production had emerged. There are concerns that large-scale farming of organic products undergoing similar processes as conventional production, and furthers the intimacy of farmers and consumers to their food. As a result, the concept of ‘beyond organic’ is developed, which aims at stricter legislation on organic production without compromising to synthetics. (Pollan, 2006)

Certification

As demands for organic foods growing fast that people who do not have time or willingness to get to know their farmers are willing to eat organic, many governments establish specific agencies for organic product certification. In Australia the most recognized certified organic products bear a 'Australian Certified Organic’ label awarded by Biological Farmers of Australia.

Current Condition

Organic food is the fastest growing section of the food industry within Australia and around the globe, which accounts for 2-3% of the total retail sales in the year 2006. (Willer and Yussefi, 2006) A large proportion of Australian organic foods are exported to Europe and Japan. While traditional niche farms continue to grow in numbers, the industrialization of organic production is kicking in with large cooperative farms producing in large scales while their products are still certified organic and a large proportion of the products of such farms go into the organic section of supermarkets. (Willer and Yussefi, 2006)
This emergence of large-scale organic farming had sparked debates on whether the cooperative organic farms should still be certified organic. Supporters would say the large scale of organic production helps with the problems of limited availability to demanding customers and relieve the premium price of organic foods and more importantly, take up more market share for organic foods. Opponents of large scale organic farming insist that this architecture undermines the sustainability and community development of organic foods, which are the silent and unregulated implementations of organic farming. (Lyons, 2001)

Difference of Organic Foods Comparing to Conventional Foods

Biology

Contrary to many beliefs, there is no biological difference when comparing conventional products to organic. The plants and animals function the same way despite the different approaches in planting/feeding because such differences do not affect the physiology of the plant/animal. For example, plants will take up nitrogen the same way (uptake from the root system as ions dissolved in water) no matter whether it was from manure or synthetic fertilizer, plants recognizes the ions not the source of the ion. Animals do not recognize whether their feed was from organic crops or not in the same way.

Health

There are suggestions that organic foods are healthier to consume than conventional foods, in the sense that organic foods are produced in a more natural way using natural supplies. In fact, as less chemical is applied to organic foods, they are healthier in the sense that less chemical residues would present in organic foods. At the same time, less application of chemical is likely to expose the crops to pest and microbial attacks, which may pose health risks on bio-toxins and infections.

Hygiene

As manure is used in organic production of crops, faecal contamination such as Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli could present a hazard in the product. Although the risk is low as the manure used has to go through disinfection treatments before application, the risk is still higher than conventional foods using fertilizers that are not manure-sourced. (Goldberg, 2000)

Natural Toxins

Preservatives, herbicides and pesticides are strictly limited for application in the production of organic foods. As a result the risk of natural toxins developed by fungi or other organisms growing on the plant may increase. However, under current study no evidence is supporting this claim.

Chemical Residual

As strict limitations are applied to the practise of organic farming, organic foods are expected to have less chemical residues comparing to conventional food product.
A study (Lu et al., 2006) had shown that organophosphorus, a widely used conventional pesticide level in the body dropped dramatically when changing the diet of elementary school children to organic foods. As for children, pesticide uptake of the body is mainly through diet, replacing conventional food with organic food which contains far less chemical residue cuts the main source of uptake of pesticides in children. This is one aspect that organic foods are better than conventional foods.
GM foods should also be mentioned here. With biotechnological engineering, pesticides could be replaced by introducing genes that expressed as pesticidal proteins in the plants, which kills the pest if it tries to attack the crop. This method literally reduces the need of application of pesticide to zero without risking the yield as in the case of organic products.

Taste/Nutrition

Supporters of organic foods always talk about how much better organic foods taste comparing to conventional foods. However, many blind tests had failed to differentiate the difference in taste between organic and conventional foods, (Goldberg, 2000) instead, it might be more of a psychological influence. Besides that, organic food producers do focus on improving the taste of their food produced (Clarke et al., 2008) in a bid to win over customers who do not believe in the cause of eating organic.
People tend to think that organic foods are more nutritious than conventional foods, through the implication of the term ‘organic food’ itself. Again, there is no evidence of better nutrition value for organic foods comparing to conventional to date. (Goldberg, 2000)
On the other hand, organic foods do have the potentials to be more tasty and nutritious than conventional foods when it comes to grocery shopping in the markets or supermarkets. As less preservative was approved for organic production, organic products are more subjective to spoilage and hence the shelf life would be reasonably shorter than conventional foods, which means they could be fresher when reaching consumers’ kitchens. Fresher food does mean tastier and more nutritious food, but that is not actually a benefit of organic food itself.
Environmental Impact
Supporters of organic food claim that organic farming has less impact on the environment because the application of toxic chemicals such as organophosphorus are prohibited in the practise, plus that no fossil oil based fertilizers are used so that greenhouse gas release could be significantly lower than conventional farming. However, increased cattle numbers to produce enough manure would also produce additional greenhouse gases. Burp of cattle is the main source of methane, a greenhouse gas far more effective than carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. Methane is the second most contributing climate change driver after carbon dioxide at a far lower concentration (Forster et al., 2007), and it would eventually oxidize into carbon dioxide and water in the presence of oxygen.

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is a great concern when it comes to farming with the rising cost of crude oil and other fossil sourced energy while any renewable energy alternative is not yet industrialized at a broad scale and at low cost, while the price of agricultural products continue to drop. For conventional farming, higher yield is assured by application of petrol-based fertilizers and pesticides and the heavy machinery to apply them. If a large scale organic farm is the same size as a conventional farm in the same area and they use the same sort of machinery the energy consumption for sowing, irrigation and harvesting should be the same. So it is only a question of whether the additional chemicals applied worth the increased yield in conventional farming, the Yield session of this article suggests that in this case organic farming could be more energy efficient. If the organic farm concerned is a niche style farm the energy consumption would almost definitely be higher.

Profitability

Yield

As modern technologies such as fertilizers, pesticides, advanced breeds are restricted to be used in organic farming, the yield of organic products is reasonably lower than conventional. It was the new technologies applied to farming that enables the planet to produce 300% as much of food on the same amount of land comparing to a century ago hiring far less people. (ERS, 2008) One study in 2002 had found that organically grown crops are around 20% lower in terms of yield with, with a 34-54% save on fertilizers and energy, 97% save on pesticides under current technology. (Maeder et al., 2002)

Pricing

The prices of organic foods are significantly higher than conventional foods. The causes of higher price include more labour employed per unit production, smaller farm sizes hence smaller buying power for supplies, slower growth of crops and animals without application of growth hormones during production, risk of pest damage due to limited pesticide application, shorter shelf life due to limited preservatives and a higher margin expected from the farmers who grow organic. There are some costs saved for organic products too, such as less chemical and less machinery used on organic farms than conventional farms.

Misleading Marketing?

GM is not Good HENCE Organic is?

In the first place, there had been no evidence so far supporting the view that GM foods are any less healthy or more damaging to the environment than conventional foods contrary to many fears, for the following reasons:
1. Consumption of foods does not mean changing the consumer’s genes, all of the nucleic acid chains are broken down and no longer represent any gene codes in the digestion system, where they are then absorbed as nucleic acids for the formation of new nucleic acid chains representing the genes of the consumer.
2. In some cases GM foods are modified crops that dedicatedly enhance the well-being of human, they can be more nutritious than conventional or organic food is the expression of a particular nutrient is added to the gene. The ‘golden rice’ is a perfect example, fortified with vitamin A planting in developing countries where severe deficiency of vitamin A causes blindness and even death as people in those countries do not have reliable source of vitamin A in their diet otherwise.
3. In terms of environmental impact, GM crops could be engineered so that they are pest-proof and more productive than conventional crops, which mean less chemical (fertilizers and pesticides) would be applied to the land and hence less harm is done to the environment. Tillage of the field is also minimized due to efficient weed management under the GM farming system, which maintains soil structure, traps greenhouse gases in the soil, avoids wind erosion and reserves nitrogen source in the field.
4. Ecologically, GM growers are trying to minimize the impact of GM crops in the ecosystem. There would be a certain size of ‘refuge’ land where crops are non-GM for GM crop production in case that resistance to the pesticidal proteins builds up in the pest population. The mechanism of how refuge works is if a few pests happened to be a mutation that could handle the pesticidal gene, when no refuge available the replication will be limited among these few pests as others die out and eventually the resistant gene would become common in the population; when there is a refuge around, the other pests could be fed on the refuge so that the resistant gene does not expand in the population while the crops are merely affected.
5. There had been studies and researches going on for 15 years before the first GM product is available to the consumers after its development, which is longer than any of the new drugs approved. (Goldberg, 2000) The researches are still going on and GM products are still refused by many of the governments fearing the ‘uncertainty’ of health and environmental issues of GM food.
6. Conventional breeding affects more genes in food than the genetic modification process; moreover, none of the currently used crop breeds appear naturally, they are all domesticated by human to make them suitable for consumption and with feasible yield. GM process is specific, acting only on the target gene/genes, while conventional breeding is completely blindness not knowing what is happening before the outcomes show. Some of the even severer processes of non-specific gene modification such as γ-irradiation are approved for the market, e.g. the yellow or orange capsicums widely available.
As mentioned in the previous sessions, organic foods are no more beneficial to human health than conventional foods in terms of nutritional value. On the food safety side, organic foods have less chemical residuals than conventional foods but might pose a higher risk on faecal contamination. However, GM foods seem to be a have-it-all product, not having problems with conventional foods nor organic foods. It is not responsible saying that GM food is not good and even less hence organic is good.

Feed the World

Land

With the yield expected from organic farming, it is not possible that organic food could feed the current population in the world, let alone the growth in the future. It was estimated that organic farming could at most feed 4 billion people on all arable lands available on the planet. In addition, cattle which produce manure require large amount of land to be fed on. (Leonard, 2006) The claims of most of the manure source currently present in the industry is not collected (Leonard, 2006) is not persuasive enough because arable land alone is not sufficient.

Developing countries

Producing organic is another sense of ‘feeding the world’ for developing countries producing organic products for export to the developed world, which produce economic benefits for the growers in those countries. Cuba is a perfect example, with the disbandment of the Soviet Union and the embargo by the United States this country lost supply of agricultural chemicals and was forced to produce organic because the supply of fossil based chemicals are cut. The country is now self-sufficient of food and exports citrus to the EU and the UK, making the country a major supplier of organic food. (Office of Global Analysis, 2008)

Rainforests

With the expansion of organic produce to developing countries who aim at exporting organic product for economic benefit, there is a risk that the people in these countries need more land for the production and start cultivation on rainforests, which is ecologically disastrous as this practise put many endangered species at even higher risk by ruining their habitat. (Leonard, 2006)

Farming Population

Supporters of organic foods claim that organic foods produced in small farms would be more productive than broad-acre farms in the sense that small farms practise crop rotation, plant multiple crops on the farmland in order to balance the soil, and have livestock on site providing manure as nitrogen source for the crops so that the total output of the farm on per-acre basis could get higher than broad-acre farms. (Leonard, 2006)
However, yield is not the only thing that industrialization of agriculture had brought to farmers. The farming population of developed countries dropped dramatically with the application of broad-acre farming, which frees more people into the second and third industry. The United States for example, 70-80% of the population was involved in agriculture in the year of 1870, while in 2008 only around 2-3% of the population was employed in agriculture. (ERS, 2008)
The drop of farming population is achieved by use of heavy machinery which replaces expensive human labour; single variety planted for a massive farmland to ensure the accessibility of machineries and the ease of management; fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and more productive breed of crops which increases the yield significantly while protecting the crop against pests and weeds. The application of new technologies in farming meant that less people working on the farm, while it feeds more people on less farmland.
Organic farming, on the other hand, if expanded by the means of number of niche farms, is destined to become a more labour-intense industry because the use of machinery on a small and mixed variety cropping land is limited under current technology, while the limitation of application of chemicals and conventionally bred higher yielding breeds of crops in order to be certified organic would not assure the yield of the land. This growth would draw more people who were freed by the industrialization of farming back to the farms to produce organic, in turn, less people would be available for the second and third industry.

Fertilizers

As synthetic fertilizers are not certified to be used in organic production, manure is the only source of fertilizers used in organic farming. However, the source of manure is limited because manure comes from livestock and livestock needs space and feed to survive and produce manure for organic farming. With limited arable land available and world population still growing fast, organic farming would not be able to keep up with the demand of the extra food for the extra population. It is estimated that organic farming would at most feed 4 billion people with all arable lands fully used, (Leonard, 2006) while the earth is already feeding more than 6 billion and expecting 10 billion by 2050. (Goldberg, 2000)

What Next?

Organic could remain as an alternative of lifestyle and remain luxurious, but saying organic is the future of agriculture and that all farms should adapt organic producing practise is not responsible because in the first place organic products are not able to feed the population on this planet. The industrialization of organic farming is also ruining the intimacy among foods, farmers and consumers which alienates organic foods from its initial attractiveness.
On the other hand, some people are switching from ‘eat organic’ to ‘eat local’ and they are no longer that concerned about being certified organic (Lyons, 2001), instead, they are more concerned of the freshness of their food and the benefit to their local community by consuming local products. The intimacy among foods, farmers and consumers are renewed.
GM food, being as environmentally friendly and healthy as organic food and higher yield than conventional food should be considered the future instead, while it just take time for people to be able to accept the idea that GM foods could be not harmful to either human health or the environment.

Conclusion

Organic food does have some benefits, such as environmentally friendly and energy efficient when practised on a large scale comparing to conventional production. However organic foods should not be advertised misleadingly as tastes better, more nutritious etc which are not true. Organic food is not the future of agriculture because it cannot even support the current population without the efficiency of conventional farming.
On the other hand, GM foods seem to be the future of agriculture as they are more energy efficient, environmentally friendly and just as healthy as organic food, the reputation of GM foods is poor at the moment because misleading claims by hate groups and the fear of the unknown of the people. However, GM foods are picking up paces in the recent years because they are beneficial to the growers by reducing management and assuring yields that growers are more than happy to accept.

Reference

CLARKE, N., CLOKE, P., BARNETT, C. & MALPASS, A. (2008) The spaces and ethics of organic food. Journal of Rural Studies, 24, 219-30.
ERS (2008) Population, Income, Education, and Employment. Fact Sheets: United States. Economic Research Service, USDA.
FORSTER, P., RAMASWAMY, V., ARTAXO, P., BERNTSEN, T., BETTS, R., FAHEY, D. W., HAYWOOD, J., LEAN, J., LOWE, D. C., MYHRE, G., NGANGA, J., PRINN, R., RAGA, G., SCHULZ, M. & DORLAND, R. V. (2007) Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing. IN SOLOMON, S., QIN, D., MANNING, M., CHEN, Z., MARQUIS, M., AVERYT, K. B., TIGNOR, M. & MILLER, H. L. (Eds.) Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. London, UK and New York, US, Cambridge University Press.
GOLDBERG, B. (2000) The Hypocrisy of Organic Farmers. AgBioWorld. Auburn, Alabama, AgBioWorld.
LEONARD, A. (2006) Save the Rain Forest -- Boycott Organic? IN LEONARD, A. (Ed.) How the World works.
LU, C., TOEPEL, K., IRISH, R., FENSKE, R. A., BARR, D. B. & BRAVO, R. (2006) Organic Diets Significantly Lower Children’s Dietary Exposure to Organophosphorus Pesticides. Environmental Health Perspectives, 114, 260-3.
LYONS, K. (2001) The culture and politics of organic food: An Australian perspective. Symposium: Food Safety and Security. Brisbane, Australia, Australian Review of Public Affairs.
MAEDER, P., FLIESSBACH, A., DUBOIS, D., GUNST, L., FRIED, P. & NIGGLI, U. (2002) Soil Fertility and Biodiversity in Organic Farming. Science, 296, 1694.
NAL, T. S. (2002) Organic Food. NAL Thesaurus. USDA.
OFFICE OF GLOBAL ANALYSIS (2008) Cuba’s Food & Agriculture Situation Report FAS, USDA.
POLLAN, M. (2006) The Omnivores Dilemma, London, UK, Penguin Books.
WILLER, H. & YUSSEFI, M. (2006) The World of Organic Agriculture 2006, Bonn, IFOAM.

Recently...

Well whenever I came to have used such titles it means that I'd been quite lazy and haven't been updating my dear blog for a while.

I am still alive. I have been noticing that this would be my 100th blog post so I've been thinking of something special, however, nothing like millennium special had come up these days and I've already been too far away from my last post so this is it, nothing special as most of the times.

Uni's been really busy with assignments, work books, reports and assignments. I was forced to try hard to do them, and they are not finished yet. When they do, there would be exams and stuff, then if I didn't do that badly, I'll be graduated. Don't ask me what after that, graduation is as far as I can see for the moment.

It seems this year is all about love, not mine though. Many of my close friends or casuals got attached, not to me of course. And that means, many of my backup plans are broken. On the other hand myself, I am getting old and way less popular than I used to be and should have been. And somehow, I don't appeal to be the boyfriend type of person, people dated me telling me that they are not looking for a boyfriend in the near future promptly attached to other guys leaving me very annoyed. I don't actually know what part of me is screaming I'm not a boyfriend type of guy, it's just no one thinks so.

I've been to Dookie for like many times, but none so stunningly beautiful as this time in spring. The canola field! I should have got some more pics of myself in the field! It was like heaven, or as one of my classmate states, classic Bollywood scene.

Got a sore throat last week and it still hurts a bit when swallowing. Be it Strepsils, antibiotic or what so ever, none working particularly well.

I don't know why but I've been reading my old blog posts while writing this, which makes the work long for me...

Happy 100th.

This is For Hong Kong

Well I capitalize substantive words on my title usually so the For here is a verb.

People in Hong Kong are currently requiring the right to vote for a government instead of accepting premiers from the Chinese government just like when it was a colonization of the UK. Beijing had promised to give the people in Hong Kong this right of voting before Hong Kong was handed back by the UK, but it had been deliberately pushing off the time of when this will actually happen. At first it was said that people will have the right to vote in 2007, then 2012, then 2017 and they are still pushing it off saying that 'no earlier than 2020'.

What is it that the government fear?

Well the independence of Hong Kong could be voted once its people were given the right to vote. That's obviously one thing. And why does it fear that? Because, China is simply not that good for places like Hong Kong to be willing to remain in, it is just not attractive enough anyway. A country of no freedom, but suppression. A country of no power, only bragger. I would vote for Hong Kong to be independent from China if I were to vote, for the sake of the people in Hong Kong. What good is it to remain in such white terror while you have the right of cutting the shit?

I was angry hearing that journalists of Hong Kong was treated completely unfairly while they were trying to cover the truth behind the recent cases of needle attacks in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomy District. The journalists were unlawfully arrested and even beaten up, and afterwards given the charge of 'interviewing with no journalist ID' while they kept trying to show their IDs during the offense. There were no apologies so far and when the press conference addressing this issue was held days later by the local government, the involved presses are not even invited and they lie shamelessly on their 'research' of the issue. Freedom of press is one of Hong Kong's core value and people of Hong Kong are no longer tolerant to the obvious ignorance of this value of the Chinese government.

Another thing is there are senators in Hong Kong representing the Pan-Democratic Parties are plotting on pressurizing the premier on addressing the voting rights and threatening with a major resignation of the parliament if the premier is not able to come up with a strategic and applicable plan of the realization of voting rights in Hong Kong. The major resignation could mean the dismissal of the parliament which needs to be re-elected or, a formation of a new parliament all together.

The only problem is, the Chinese government had settled an army in Hong Kong and more could be through the border within hours when needed, while the people of Hong Kong does not have an army of their own, it would have to rely on someone else if there would ever be a fight. (well I am quite sure if Hong Kong voted itself independent China will attack without hesitation) Who is out there for Hong Kong to rely on before it gets global attention (which, by then Hong Kong might've already been conquered completely)? Sadly, no one.