“I can’t eat any more of this,” I finally said. “It’s delicious, but I can actually hear my arteries clogging.”

“Don’t worry, Meg,” Roy said, “By the time we’re old, we’ll be able to buy new cybertronic organs. And nanobots will maintain them.”

“You’re so right! I don’t have to maintain a healthy lifestyle, I just need to be fit enough that nanobots catch up before these fries do! Yay for science!”

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Nanobots

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If you’re a girl who likes programming, who are your role models? Too few and far between, says UK-based freelance software consultant and tech blogger, Suw Charman-Anderson. Which is why she’s named March 24, 2009, Ada Lovelace Day, the first of what could become an annual Internet event.

Ada Lovelace Day is meant to be an international day of blogging to highlight women in technology – more than 1000 people have pledged to write a blog post today focusing on women and their contribution to technology. Charman-Anderson called for the day after observing the feelings of disempowerment experienced by her female friends in the tech industry, and after recent research showed that women need to see positive female role models more than men need to see male role models.

Via mental_floss Blog » Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

First. I love Ada Lovelace! “Lovelace” was actually one of my first online handles. (Although it was back in the old AOL chatrooms, so it was probably more like Lovelace2575820582.)

But I’m rubbed the wrong way by the kind of female empowerment that makes a big fuss when a woman does the same thing a man does. If we were really equal, there wouldn’t be this excitement when a woman does something men do all the time. Commemorating Lovelace as a brilliant proto-geek is awesome, but the focus on her gender bugs me. It makes it seem like smart girls are really unusual.

I’m a bit of a hypocrite in this, because I blog over on my gaming site about women in game development whenever I can. It’s pretty much the same thing, highlighting a woman for doing what guys do all the time, because even though I want everything to be equal, there just aren’t as many female game devs. I’m also connected to a bunch of female China expats, like Gabrielle and Anna, it’s a stronger connection because there are so few girls in the expat blogosphere.

What do you think? Does Lovelace Day have a bit too much amazement that someone can have a uterus and be good at math? Or is a long-overdue appreciation of women in technology?

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Ada Lovelace Day

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Mandarin Superpowers And More On China

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1. Beijing Boyce - A Somewhat Young China Hand on the Local Drinking Scene – Looks at pubs, clubs, and bars, wine, Whiskey, and cocktails, in the nation’s capital, often through the somewhat blurry lens of nights out with friends

2. Thomas Crampton – China, Media and Technology as seen by a recovering journalist – China, Internet and new media seen from Asia

3. Absurdity, Allegory and China – The Kingdom from another angle

4. China Hope Live - a Canadian-American couple with M.A.s in Intercultural Studies trying to live into and love – and some days just survive – China.

5. Reflections in a Chinese Eye – American expat, retired, part time teacher, my experience in China for the past two years.  Opinions, news, musings of an uneducated, ignorant, but still learning “Old Man.”

6. Expatriate Games - An America experiencing mid-life in The Middle Kingdom, living in, working for and learning about China. I agreed to teach English to the

7. ISpyShanghai.com - Popular funny blog based in Shanghai. Originator of Shoe Tuesday- the only footwear / day combination you will ever need.

8. Simpson’s Paradox – Living, working and playing videogames in Beijing. (Formerly Violet Eclipse)

9. The Humanaught: Life In Suzhou – The discursive writings of a Canadian expat somewhat trapped in China. The blog follows his life in Suzhou, with topics ranging from the mundane to insane.

10. Ambassador Doodle - Stories of travel, education and adventure.

Via PanAsianBiz >> The 60 Best Blogs On China In English

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Best China Blogs

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Everything negative that Hilary and the republicans said about Obama’s lack of experience backfired with me. Probably not just me, probably other people disappointed by entry-level jobs and looking wistfully at the positions available to those with more experience. (Am I the only person who cringes at those success stories about slowly working one’s way from minimum-wage mail clerk all the way up to management? I’m not, am I? Tell me a lifetime of waiting for a promotion makes you feel just a little bit dead inside, too.) I think references to Obama’s lack of experience just make a stronger connection to twentysomethings.

Obama’s really made an “us” feeling with this references to growing up struggling, working while in school, and so forth. It would be great at any time to see an alternative to rich old men, but it’s even sharper focus with McCain’s recent goof about the number of houses he owns. That was an unlucky soundbite for McCain, but there’s just no “us” connection with someone who’s got so much stuff he can’t keep track of it all. I know Obama isn’t exactly struggling to put gas in his car now, but he’s been broke in his life. When I mentioned this to Stick, he said that he doesn’t feel connected to McCain even though they were both in the military because McCain was an officer.* And beyond Obama’s message, his use of texting, blogging and Facebook really shows a level of connection to everyday people** and not faceless corporations, without going the faux-folksy Bush route.

I know that an election race is 99% show, but I’m thrilled to see a candidate who cares to put on the show for twentysomethings. I’m a bit worried about whether the Facebook-friending college-age crowd will actually register to vote and show up at the polls, though.

*Hope it doesn’t ruin my feminist rant to add “And my boyfriend thinks…” in the middle.

** Everyday people  = Blog and twitter nerds

Related: My last political rant was Parallel Parking For Kerry.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Oligatory Election Comments

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Topping the list of forbidden clichés is the phrase “coming out party.” As apt as it may have been when first used with reference to the Games shortly after they were awarded to Beijing back in 2001, after appearing in 75.4% of stories about the 2008 Olympics in the seven intervening years, it now incites English-speaking expats to an ugly, violent rage. Use it at your own peril; you have been warned.

Please do not write “Beijing is a city of stark contrasts” and refrain from using any variation thereof — “a city of startling juxtapositions,” or (needless to say) “a city of yin and yang.” Not that it isn’t a city of, um, rather pronounced differences; it’s just too damned lazy an observation to make. A special enjoinder to photographers: please resist the temptation to position yourself in a hutong with a decrepit but charming tile-roofed courtyard home in the foreground and a shiny, hyper-modern steel-and-glass skyscraper rising behind. No using Blade Runner comparisons for Beijing. You’ll want to save those for Shanghai, believe me.

The bureaus of reputable western papers here in China have a rule against quoting taxi drivers. But since Beijing’s cabbies are so fabulously colorful, you will be permitted one exception. Make it a good one. Helpful hint: That story about efforts by our city’s cabbies to learn English phrases? That one’s been written several thousand times so please, anything but that one.

Dead on, Kaiser Kuo! (But it’s still ok to try to work “as if by an occult hand” into your stories.)

Via Forbidden Cliches: A Guide for Visiting Journalists

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A Guide To Visiting Journalists

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I’m leaving for the US tomorrow. I finished my semester at the high school and I’ve decided not to renew my  contract. A visa to stay through August, and the Olympics, would require a one-year’s contract, and I can’t bring myself to sign up for another year without Stick. Maybe this will all blow over, and he could come back in September. Maybe not. And I’m not entirely sure I want to stay dependent on short-term visas that may not be renewed.

(My school has invited me back in September, if I change my mind, overall they seemed quite relieved not to be expected to get me the promised renewal. I wonder why?)

Stick has been home for a while now, and when we talk in those odd morning-evening phonecalls, he talks about the Raleigh job market. I don’t know if that’s the next step for us. Eventually I want to settle down near family, but I don’t know if eventually is now. There are some great things back home, I’m really looking forward to reading Cosmo,  eating rye bread and catching up with friends. And there are lots of jobs in exotic new places! It shouldn’t be hard to land another ESL job with a few years of experience, and I do want to keep traveling. And there’s part of me that really wants to come back to China — that would be the part of me that isn’t giving up on my Mandarin attempts!

In a few months, I’m going to be posting about how everything worked out for the best. I know part three is going to be awesome too, but right now it really sucks.

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End Of Part Two

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Teachers were affected about a year ago when the government stopped processing visa renewals and work permits regionally. Now, all education hires must be processed outside of mainland China. In Guangzhou, a highly qualified business visa holder could once have lectured at a college or university and bypass myriad education ministry rituals meant to ensure teacher quality with their “foreign expert” certification requirements. But the police searched records this year and several local colleges were forced to let go of instructors, some in the middle of their teaching semesters. Ironically, the new rules have not upped the standards, but have driven institutions scramble and they solicit anyone (anyone white) and with a pulse for positions. And because institutions know that the new teachers won’t be around for long, especially now, the foreigners are generally saddled with mind-numbing oral English classes even if they hold credentials or have experience that qualify them for other jobs.

He also says:

And this week I volunteered my time to a new NGO that asked me not to recruit too many expats. They expressed concern that if too many foreigners became a part of the relief efforts in Sichuan that the government might revoke their politically fragile charter.

It is really rough that visa difficulties are affecting expats like Lonnie Hodge and company.  Lonnie’s worked for children’s libraries in China and for earthquake relief, and given so much time and effort and love to China.

Michael of The Opposite End of China is having his own troubles on his visa vacation:

I went into New York yesterday to drop off my application and paperwork for a Z (working) visa and was completely and utterly rejected. Seems that my working permit indicates that I’ll be living in China for purposes of employment, while my invitation letter says I’ll be participating in a vague-sounding “exchange program”.

My employer ensures me that this is the same phrasing they’ve used to obtain Z visas for other foreign experts in the past… but as you all know, what used to be good enough isn’t cutting the mustard these days. A new invitation letter is on the way, but since it’s issued by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs there’s no telling how long it’ll take. My flight back to Beijing on July 17 is in serious jeopardy.

Michael has lived and worked in Xinjiang for a couple years, and has volunteered there, and has brought the world of Uighur music and culture to the ‘net, and just been an amazing travel blogger. (I seem to remember you were on a Korla documentary, as well?)

China was kind of due for a cleanup, any expat will tell you about the fly-by-night “language centers” and  “English teachers” who’d be completely unemployable back home. But why toss out the folks who’ve really invested into China?

Flotsam of the Chamber of Ten Thousand Flowers has a good theory on the new visa restrictions:

To speak to a native Beijinger a reporter will probably need an interpreter, and the native Beijinger will probably already know what he must [and not] say to foreign reporters. To speak to a foreign resident would not be quite so irksome – and finding foreigners is remarkably easy, just stand in the high street of any large city and see how easy it is to spot the laowai amongst the surrounding sea of jet black hair and tanned faces – and if the questions became too probing who knows what might be said and then reported? Do you now begin to see the danger? So, to present the world with a picture of an unflawed harmonious society the way ahead is to make sure that the only people available on the streets are re-educated natives and first time tourists, that way there will be no embarrassing stories to deal with.

Time will tell.

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Other Bloggers On Visa Changes

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I’ve come to realise that my life is not so interesting and there are many more informative blogs about expat life in China. The only hope I have to distinguish myself is to write with correct grammar and adequate spelling.

–James Huang – Far far away from Scouseland

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True

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Twentysomething

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