October 30th, 2007 Chris
Dalian is not the easiest place to stay on top of news. National news, sure, that’s everywhere, but local news? Not so much, at least not in English. About six months ago, a few of us here started working to fix that.
The result thus far is here: DalianDalian.com. Last week I applied for a Knight Foundation News Challenge Grant to fund the project, explaining it this way:
DalianDalian.com is a hyperlocal, community-driven site that will provide news, information and ways to connect for people living in Dalian, China. The city is home to six million people and a growing foreign population, divided geographically and linguistically among an urban center, rural suburbs and special districts. DalianDalian will use geographical search and integrated social networking to build links within and among this city’s disparate communities.
China’s second-tier cities are experiencing a boom in foreign investment and becoming more attractive to expatriate communities. For newcomers, the first year is often trial and error, full of horror stories of people living on instant noodles because they can’t find decent restaurants, of missed opportunities, of wasted time and money. When people arrive, there is no easily accessible, frequently updated source of information about the city.
Much of what can be found is scattered among blogs and forums, passed haphazardly by word of mouth, or in Chinese. Large media organizations rarely noticed Dalian until a few weeks ago, when the city hosted the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” conference, and those that did come have since disappeared. But Dalian is being discovered: Intel is moving in, and the city is already renowned as an outsourcing hub, hosting IBM, Dell, HP and local firms. There is a growing need for people here learn about their community, to connect, to find out what is going on. Nothing currently available fulfills that need.
The site is being built in Drupal and will feature databases, maps, forums, and wikis. It will host and aggregate local blogs, sharing ad revenue with contributors to give everyone who joins a stake in the site. It will integrate existing web2.0 applications to build on and localize those social networks. Wherever possible, information will be posted in English and Chinese.
Eventually, we believe this model of an online, multilingual, interactive site could be adapted to China’s other fast growing second- and third-tier cities.
Unfortunately, the Knight Foundation wasn’t as enthused about the project as the rest of us are. The upshot is that we open-source software and content aggregation technology have reached a point where it’s possible to build quite a bit with little more than knowhow and spare time (working on getting more of both). Everyone doing this is a volunteer, each with our own reasons, each bringing a different skill set. It’s a fun project, and we’re trying to keep it that way.
The crew so far: Alex of China Webmasters, Rick of Panda Passport, Patrick of Lingua Nostra.
Wanna join the party?
- Sign up as a member
- Start posting your own blog, events, listings to your favorite restaurants, whatever you like and think other Dalian folks should know about
- Jump in the forum
- Tag your Flickr photos “daliandalian” to send them to the site. (Eventually, this mechanism will change, but for now, just tag them and your set.)
Questions? Contact me (eyeseast at gmail.com) or one of the other guys listed above and we’ll help out. Promise.
Posted in projects, the Dalian life | 2 Comments »
October 28th, 2007 Chris
Thousands of students across Asia hoping to enter American graduate schools took the GRE yesterday, finishing the second half of the split administration given in China, Taiwan and South Korea. And I was sitting right there with all of them.
I took the computer-based analytical writing section in July, just before I flew to Madagascar. I scheduled it a week prior and went in on a Tuesday. I was the only one there. The administrator made me leave my bag, phone and everything in my pockets in a locker. A security camera watched me the entire time, and cubicle walls kept me from seeing the empty stations next to me.
Yesterday was the opposite. When I arrived at DaWai, several hundred students were already waiting outside the academic building, reviewing and cramming, waiting to be let in.
The paper side of the exam is only given twice a year, and only in certain cities, so students flowed in from across the Northeast. We piled at the door, then piled inside, then piled into the testing halls.
Even in China, the GRE is an English test, and none of the material is in Chinese. A Chinese professor read an English script to a room full of Chinese students. Only after several runs through was anything translated, and then only the most essential directions.
As the administrator was reading and re-reading instructions, the student next to me picked up his test booklet and pushed the ends together to bow out the pages. Separating sheets of still-classified material with the point of a pencil, he examined the questions he could make out in that skewed angle. He was cheating.
I looked around the room. Nearly every student in the testing hall was trying to get an advanced look at the test questions while the administrator continued reading instructions. No one was shy about it. Some folded back covers; others bent the pages like the computer science major next to me.
A proctor walked up and down the aisles, either oblivious or (more likely) unconcerned. I looked at a student two rows back. He shrugged, as if to say, “You know a better way?”
A friend taking the test, another American, complained afterward that students near her were working ahead when they finished the designated section, or going back to a part of the test that was finished. I didn’t notice this, but I wasn’t looking for it, either. The guy next to me kept working after time had been called, almost up to when his exam was collected, and several minutes after mine was turned in.
I hate to make this sound like a “This would never happen in America” post, but, well, it wouldn’t. In the universities where all these students are applying, breaking rules on a test will get you at best a failing grade, if not a ticket home.
The student who sat next to me wants to attend NYU, pursuing a doctorate in computer science. There’s more opportunity there, he said. As fast as China is developing, it’s not fast enough for some, and won’t ever be. For some, studying abroad still conveys an advantage that can’t be gained here.
Maybe he’ll get in. Hopefully, he won’t try the same thing and be thrown out.
Posted in the Dalian life | 6 Comments »
October 12th, 2007 Chris
My old high school tennis coach used to say before every match: “Don’t take anything onto the court, and don’t take anything off.” Or something like that. It’s been a while. The point was that all the hormone-driven, stress-induced, angst-ridden teenage crap we normally carried around with us wasn’t supposed to be in our heads during the match. Focus on serves, ground strokes and volleys. Coach Kellogg is big on this mental-game stuff.
So I’m a little curious what this soccer match scheduled for tomorrow here in Dalian will look like, considering the teams: China’s National People’s Congress and Japan’s Diet:
The match has been in the making for three years ever since Yohei Kono, speaker of the House of Representatives of the Japanese Diet, proposed the idea during a meeting with China’s top legislator Wu Bangguo in 2005 as a way of improving relations between the two countries, according to Sheng Huaren, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC).
Rather than citing thorny diplomatic relations in recent years, Sheng said China took so long to accept the invitation because the NPC didn’t have a football team at the time.
Probably best not to bring up those “thorny diplomatic relations,” much as I’d enjoy seeing a legislator—any legislator—take a World Cup class head butt.
I suppose a more immediate concern might be what kind of a game we’ll get from two teams made up of middle-aged legislators who’ve been practicing for just over a month, but maybe that misses the point. Sport has a long history of bringing countries together, from ping-pong diplomacy to the Olympics. If two dozen out-of-shape lawmakers can help keep things calm in East Asia, I’ll resist the urge to poke fun (at least for a day or two).
Dalian is an obvious choice for China and Japan to meet up in a no-history-mentioned goodwill soccer game, given it’s history. This was, after all, Japan’s city for 40 years (and Russia’s for a decade before). Now it’s the go-to locale for outsourcing, drawing largely on a pool of Japanese speakers whose parents and grandparents grew up under colonial* rule. A large Japanese expat community still thrives here.
For better or worse, Dalian provides a longstanding link between the two nations. I tend to be optimistic about that.
*A good friend of mine recently disputed my labeling of Dalian as a colony, saying it was a concession, much like Qingdao and other treaty-ports. I should know this better, but if anyone has a definitive answer, drop a comment.
Posted in News, the Dalian life | 1 Comment »
October 4th, 2007 Chris
Four local photographers have work on display right now in Heping Guangchang. The exhibition, called “I love Dalian” (they didn’t get to choose the name) runs until Oct. 15, after which two of them will move to their own show. Details aren’t available for that one yet. Directions to the current show are at DalianDalian.com.
All four studied photography in Dalian over the past year, three completing masters degrees from Bolton U./Dalian Medical University. Much of what they photograph is the same, or follows similar themes: beaches, migrant workers, strange food, blue skies. Yet they see it very differently from each other.
Curious about their perspectives, I interviewed each one and built audio slide shows with their photos. The result is here.
Production notes:
This started as one slide show but became four when the interviews got too long. I figure anything over two minutes better be damn important, so I gave each photog their own piece. Doing that meant I needed a launch page of some kind. There are ways to do that in Flash (tutorial at Multimedia Shooter) but I neither know nor own Flash. And considering that I really just started learning web design for real, I figured that was a bit out of my league anyway, so I did it in html. So, for those of you keeping score at home, this would be soundslides number three, stand-alone, coded-from-scratch web page number one. As always, critiques are welcome and appreciated.
Posted in multimedia, the Dalian life | 2 Comments »
September 24th, 2007 Chris
The Irish (and those aspiring to be so) invaded Dalian this weekend. The city hosted the All China Gaelic Games, a round-robin tournament of Irish football. Teams from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen came to compete.
Shanghai took the men’s cup, with Dalian coming in second. Beijing won the women’s division, beating Shanghai in the finals.
I spent Saturday squinting through my camera’s view-finder getting video of the event, which I’ll put up over the next few days. For those who’ve never heard of Gaelic football, let alone played it, I’m starting with an overview of how the game is played. Here, Joe Keating, a staffer at the Irish Embassy, explains the rules of the game:
I recommend using headphones if you have them. The wind was awful and I did what I could to fix the audio. If you can’t make it out, here’s what he’s saying:
Unlike soccer you can catch the ball in Gaelic Football. However, after four steps, you have to release it. That can be a bounce, or it can be a kick. It can only bounce once and then you must kick. However, as you’ll see in the game, you can kick to yourself, and the better players will continually kick to themselves. Others find it easier to bounce.
So, four steps then bounce or kick. Second four steps, you must kick, but can kick back to yourself.
At any time you can hand pass the ball to one of your teammates.
You eventually score either a goal or a point. The goal is equal to three points.
After that, it’s easy. Just hit the ball, kick the ball, over the bar, under the bar. What else can you say?
The game often gets described as a combination of soccer and basketball. To me it looks sort of like rugby, but since I don’t actually play any of these sports (tennis, anyone?) I’ll leave it to others to explain.
Coming up: Why the heck are you playing Irish football in China?
Note: This is cross-posted at DalianDalian.com. Since I was shooting video all day (three gigabytes worth) I didn’t actually take any still photos. If anyone has stills of the event, tag them “daliandalian” on Flickr or send them (or a link) to eyeseast at gmail.com.
Posted in multimedia, the Dalian life | No Comments »
September 20th, 2007 Chris
Here’s a tough job: Spend the next year traveling to every province in mainland China. Hang out with cool people. See everything you’ve ever wanted to see in this country. Blog about it.
David DeGeest and Lonnie B. Hodge (aka One Man Bandwidth) somehow landed this job. Theirs is the China Dream Blogue (like travelogue, get it?), and the project aims to raise money for two charities through ad revenue and help deserving people make good one their own best hopes. The pair stopped by Dalian last weekend, and I grabbed them for some barbecue and brought the video camera. Here’s how they explain the project:
The two charities directly involved are Tom Stader’s Library Project and the Reading Tub, run by Terry Dougherty.
Now, I’m a little skeptical of the amount of cash a blog can bring in. I know there are those that make heaps, but there are mountains more that don’t. So I gave Tom a buzz, and he’s optimistic. Even if it just brings his cause more attention, that can translate into money or volunteers or more opportunities. “I have had good luck with getting donations from blogs,” Tom said. “I received one US$300 donation from Lonnie’s previous blog.”
Three hundred dollars built Tom’s first two libraries. Both are in Dalian, and I watched each be hammered together by energetic volunteer teachers who were already thinking of ways to expand the project. Tom’s planning to be back in Dalian next month, so I’ll get a progress report then.
Posted in multimedia, projects, the Dalian life | No Comments »
June 19th, 2007 Chris
On certain days, according to certain people, Dalian has a population somewhere around 2 million. The next day, if you ask someone else, more than 6 million live in the city. So, really, how many people live in Dalian?
Well, Alex finally did some much needed digging for our new site and posted the breakdown. Turns out both numbers are right, sort of, because Dalian isn’t really just Dalian. Consider:
Zhongshan District (ä¸å±±åŒº zhÅngshÄn qÅ«),
Xi Gang District (西岗区 xīgǎng qū),
Sha He Kou District (沙河å£åŒº shÄhékÇ’u qÅ«),
Gang Jing Zi District (甘井å区 gÄnjÇngzÇ qÅ«)
and slightly further afield:
Lushun Kou District (旅顺å£åŒº lÇšshùnkÇ’u qÅ«),
Jinzhou District (金州区 jÄ«nzhÅu qÅ«)
plus Kai Fa Qu (å¼€å‘区) and Jin Shi Tan (金石滩 jÄ«nshÃtÄn) lying within the region of Jinzhou District.
The Dalian Region further consists:
Wafangdian County (瓦房店市),
Pulandian County (普兰店市) and
Zhuganghe County (庄河市 zhuÄnghé shì). Note the Chinese character ‘市’ means city, in English these would be county-level cities.
There are also some outlying islands, Chang Hai County.
What does it add up to? Two million in what I’d properly call the city. Six million in Greater Dalian. A full explanation is at DalianDalian.com.
Posted in the Dalian life | 3 Comments »
June 13th, 2007 Chris
For the second time in a week, a fire broke out yesterday at Dalian Fisheries University, where I live and have taught since last September. A dozen researchers watched their living quarters be consumed by a fast-moving blaze while they stood in their laboratory across the way.
The best guess of everyone on scene was that bad wiring sparked the blaze. That’s how another fire started last week in the library: a poorly maintained electrical panel, according to my students. Yesterday’s fire took two minutes to spread through several dorm rooms in the southwest corner of campus. No one was hurt.
Three women were in one of the rooms that burned. According to people on scene, they went out a window and climbed across a narrow ledge to an adjacent rooftop to wait for rescue. Much of what they owned was destroyed.
I was at a cafe down the street when the fire trucks came barreling through the neighborhood. Smoke was visible, and the smell of charcoal spread throughout campus as sirens wailed from Heishijiao.
I legged it up the hill to my building—lungs punishing me; I’m completely out of shape—to grab my camera and voice recorder. I slowed to a fast walk, and it hit me how calm everyone was. There’s a fire on campus, firemen are blasting water at a burning building a few hundred yards away, and everyone just looks bored. How often does this happen?
A burly, thuggish man stopped me just past the gate, a hundred yards or so from the burning building. I could see one red truck and its crew spraying water over the blackened frame. My eyes aren’t good enough to pick out details at that range, though. I inched forward, and the man—he wore no uniform, and showed no other purpose except to keep prying eyes away—put a hand on my shoulder. I moved around him and kept taking photos at full zoom with my point-and-shoot, careful to keep the camera out of his reach.
When I pointed to the charred building and asked what happened, he said, “Nothing happened,” and told me to leave again. Nothing to see here.
Around back, smoke kept pouring out one window. Punched out panes and frames lay at the foot of the dormitory, barbecued and thrown to the ground by the heat inside. Students and workers gawked in silence.
The smoke continued after the fire crews left. Residents of the wrecked building gathered around the crumbling doorway while a few pulled on galoshes and went inside to search out what remained of their belongings.
One fished out a soaked and soot-covered yearbook from his scorched and now water-logged dorm. He and his hall mates flipped through the heavy pages, laughing at the memories and that they survived. A few feet from their wrecked quarters, they were all smiles.
Others let their sorrow show. The women who’d escaped out the window were somber; one cried on a friend’s shoulder. Some of the residents had large amounts of cash in their rooms; all of it burned. One man, who lost everything but the clothes he was wearing, stood dumbfounded at the scene. A department manager consoled him, then opened her purse and handed him a wad of 100-yuan notes, all she was carrying.
But the mood was light for the situation. “We’re not inside,” one of the researchers told me with an uneasy grin as he pointed out his room. A black halo ringed his window. “We just watched.”
Posted in the Dalian life | 2 Comments »
