I was invited to be the judge for “SJTU English Song Competition” last year, and I was invited to be the judge this year again, thanks to Shady. Of course, as a monitor of “WesternMusic” on BBS, I am always quite honored and excited to do the job. This year’s “Idol” competition finished several weeks ago, but I decided to put it up here to remind myself of this. I am the kind of person who is eager to have my stage to show what I got, and if it’s the right time I would not let the opportunity slip away. So after I was given the microphone to make some comments on the contestants, I did not hesitate to preach whatever I had prepared on my mind. Although I don’t even remember exactly what I was speaking, I just felt so cool to be like “Simon Cowell” for one minute. Surely, my attitude was not as nasty as Simon’s. It’s awesome to be a judge down there, but I am sure it would really rock to be on the stage to show the talent. Unfortunately, singers were not that professional, and the judges and the performers were quite amateurish to some extent as well, quite frankly speaking. The nerves in the air just killed some of the contestants, and of course it did not make us feel right either. But, again, I did feel good to be one of the judges down there to give any kind of “professional” comments on the contestants, although the result might not be what I wanted to see. After all, I was not the only one who decided the winner, but I was just glad that I did my job and had my judgment without any bias.

SJTU Idol
Belly Dancer During the Break
All the Final Contestants

Actually, this is the first time that we have 3 days off to celebrate this traditional Chinese festival-Dragon Boat Festival. I miss the Zongzi mom made when I was a kid, and I could really feel what Dragon Boat Festival was during that time. I am quite pessimistic that Chinese traditional culture is fading away at a faster speed than we would expect. To some extent, Taiwan is conserving our culture traits better than we do. Maybe I have not reached the real rural area to observe the real Chinese traditional culture reality, but I heard people are building Christian churches all over the country in rural areas. Frankly speaking, It’s quite scary. However, an interesting thing I noticed this time I went to Sanmen was I saw there were lots of Chinese temples in almost every town I passed by-I did not see one single church during my trip. Maybe Sanmen town is still on the southeast coast where its economical development is faster than those in inner parts of China. So I kind of feel that the more developed a place is, the more willing people are to conserve their own culture. Japan is the perfect example on this. My grandma is a Christian, and she converted my grandpa. Every time we went back to see her, she tried her best to convert me as well. My father believes in traditional Chinese Folk Religion, and he does not allow me to listen to my grandma’s words on the Christian thing. As for me, I think it’s the our rights to believe in whatever we want to believe as long as it’s not threatening the safety of others and the nation. Yet Christian is just a bit too far for me, and it’s very different from traditional Chinese culture. I am scared that one day when everybody believes in Jesus, Chinese culture will vanish on this planet. Or maybe Christian can be localized as Buddhism was thousands of years ago. But this will be such a long process that I won’t be able to see it’s happening in my life. Although most Chinese claim that they are antitheists, yet deep down they all believe in Chinese Folk Religion which is a combination of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. It’s like the genetic mark in our skins, and it’s how we were raised up.

Well, I am trying to record every little piece of my life here. Although Sanmen, the little town in Zhejiang Province, is not that famous, I still went there with two of my best friends in school to see another friend of ours. The trip was relaxing and lots of laughter, and the plain view of the town will not fade away in our memories for sure. It took us 4 hours to get there from Shanghai, and the moment we got there we had big crabs and some other sea food, thanks to someone who is familiar with the strange place.

Yeah, food we had was awesome in Sanmen. Although it's not as cheap as we thought and it's more expensive than some in Shanghai, we agreed on the fact that eating well matters. So dinners and lunch were quite satisfactory, even the breakfasts were better than I expected.

Before we went there, we had expected how Sanmen would look like, since the city will be blossomed by its nuclear plant instead of tourism. Laohu's hospitality did make our trip much easier and I got the chance to catch some crabs beside the sea. It was great fun. Had it not rain heavily on Saturday, I would have caught more crabs there! Also I played with the octopus and some weird creature I don't know...

Laohu's company locates at the seaside, and he sees sunrise over the sea in the morning before he goes to work, with dormitory and office both facing the sea-the kind of perfect life everybody hopes to have. Yet the problem is he cannot go anywhere else unless he takes the shuttle bus, which has a set schedule every day. For me, it's a bit of limitation of freedom, as I cannot live without shops and nice restaurants.

Lately, I have done something I don't do usually. Rock climbing, the kind of sports I did in high school, I knew it's tough, because it requires the right techniques and some training on the arms. I did not sleep well after I went back home that night, since after reaching the top twice my arms were totally worn out. But I am quite proud of myself already. As for the archery, I did not know it's been quite popular here, and it's not as easy as it looks. It was my first time to shoot the arrows. After three rounds, my left arm was so stiff and sore that it cannot lift the bow without shaking, and then I gave up. It was great fun though, not as exhausting as rock climbing. I would love to do it again, definitely.

Reached the top
Aiming At the Center!

Last year one devastating earthquake killed almost 100,000 innocent people in Sichuan province, and people in the whole world were shocked by the cruelness of mother nature; and they were amazed by how strong human beings can be when confronted with the darkness at that time. My family had to live in camps for about 2 weeks after May 12th, and it's a blessing everybody is fine as well as major properties at home in Chengdu, except our TV fell on the floor and some glasses were broken. I cried many times when watching TV and the only thing I could do was wishing the well-being of everybody holding on there. The news just spread out quickly and soon everybody in the world knew the massive earthquake. Ever since then, people are quire sensitive about the keyword-"earthquake". I did lots of online research on the safety of Chengdu, and I was consoled that Sichuan basin where Chengdu locates is on a relatively safe plate without any major fault. The chances of this type of strong earthquake happening in the mountainous areas are quite slim, but once it happens, it's so catastrophic that we can barely take, especially when those areas are relatively quite undeveloped in China. There were lots of touching events and lots of tears, and I am glad that our spirit is still existing and getting stronger. We are blessed.

As a matter of fact, Windows Live has a very good photo service. Compared with Flickr and Picasa, there is much bigger space on Windows Live Photos, and the photo quality does not shrink too much. So in order to keep my massive future pictures that I might take, I will continue using Windows Live Photos as my first priority online photo album. For this, I can be the most consistent Microsoft user, and I am supposed to be awarded by Microsoft. Currently, there are lots of networking websites, like Facebook, Twitter, Xiaonei, etc, and it's quite frustrating you have to register lots of accounts to keep in touch with your friends, because not every one of them is using the same service. I am using Windows Live Space since 2005, and I thought it would grow as fast as Myspace. Yet the reality is Windows Live has too many problems, and it's obvious there are not many people using it up till now. Later, Facebook began even more popular than Myspace, so apparently there is not much chance for Windows Live Space now. Although WLS is starting to apply SNS in its networking service, I am not sure if it's already too late for WLS, as Facebook is dominating the internet while Microsoft is cutting employees worldwide. One main reason why I am sticking to WLS is because it's connected to MSN, and it's convenient to let others know the update on blogs. Otherwise I could have chosen other blog services, like Blogspot or Blogger who provides unlimited blog content service and faster speed. Another reason is Windows Live knows they have problems, and they brought us Windows Live Writer which makes blogging much easier and more fun. There are issues sometimes, and it's still not perfect. But based on the faith that Microsoft is still one of the most prestigious companies in the world with almost infinite resources, I am going to continue using WLS and its related photo service as my blog publishing site.

I don't even know why I am writing this, maybe I was mentally controlled by a Microsoft engineer who is doing Voodoo magic on me just now... :D

I prepared the beach trip for the May Day, but when we got to the bus stop station, we were stunned by the crazy traffic jam-everybody was getting out of Shanghai! Luckily, the bus stop station is just outside our campus, and we headed back to school on the beautiful sunny Friday. We decided to go to the river in the end. It was quite windy on the banks of the Huangpu River, and we had our lunch picnic. Lots of fun!

The River
Lots of people getting married on that day