Wuhan China – Day 5

Today I noticed a few simple things close to my hotel like a driving school and pets for sale. It was Saturday in Wuhan and I worked out my hotel room, did laundry Skyped all my classes at Capital, etc.

Also check out this label.  It is fascinating how translation can be so difficult.  Getting the meaning is not literal for so many concepts between languages. For example:

“Black food has public reputation that black food must be tonic.”

I get what they are trying to state, but it just doesn’t come across well.  I wonder how funny we Americans sound in Chinese when we converse?

Wuhan China – Day 4

Emperors Club

I am finally a member of the Emperors Club! Whoopee! I feel so cool. I wonder how long my dynasty will last?  There have been so many Chinese dynasties over the years. I wonder what my legacy will be? If I could only be as cool as Li Bing, although he wasn’t an emperor he was the vanquisher of The River God.  Oh well, I’ll settle for being Le Duc, the vanquisher of the Internet God. Whatever that means?

Dates Dynasty
ca. 2000-1500 B.C. Xia
1700-1027 B.C. Shang
1027-771 B.C. Western Zhou
770-221 B.C. Eastern Zhou
770-476 B.C. — Spring and Autumn period
475-221 B.C. — Warring States period
221-207 B.C. Qin
206 B.C.-A.D. 9 Western Han
A.D. 9-24 Xin (Wang Mang interregnum)
A.D. 25-220 Eastern Han
A.D. 220-280 Three Kingdoms
220-265 — Wei
221-263 — Shu
229-280 — Wu
A.D. 265-316 Western Jin
A.D. 317-420 Eastern Jin
A.D. 420-588 Southern and Northern Dynasties
420-588 Southern Dynasties
420-478 — Song
479-501 — Qi
502-556 — Liang
557-588 — Chen
386-588 Northern Dynasties
386-533 — Northern Wei
534-549 — Eastern Wei
535-557 — Western Wei
550-577 — Northern Qi
557-588 — Northern Zhou
A.D. 581-617 Sui
A.D. 618-907 Tang
A.D. 907-960 Five Dynasties
907-923 — Later Liang
923-936 — Later Tang
936-946 — Later Jin
947-950 — Later Han
951-960 — Later Zhou
A.D. 907-979 Ten Kingdoms
A.D. 960-1279 Song
960-1127 — Northern Song
1127-1279 — Southern Song
A.D. 916-1125 Liao
A.D. 1038-1227 Western Xia
A.D. 1115-1234 Jin
A.D. 1279-1368 Yuan
A.D. 1368-1644 Ming
A.D. 1644-1911 Qing
A.D. 1911-1949 Republic of China (in mainland China)
A.D. 1949- Republic of China (in Taiwan)
A.D. 1949- People’s Republic of China

All Table Data from http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/time_line.html on November 12, 2010

Wuhan China – Day 3

The Great Firewall of China!

  • No Facebook!
  • No Twitter!
  • No YouTube! – How am I gonna see videos of monkey’s scratching their butts!

China maintains what is probably the world’s most advanced system for controlling digital communication. Authorities and opponents call it the Great Firewall, and the Chinese take it extremely seriously. At least 72 Chinese citizens—more than in any other country—are currently locked up for things they said online. Firewalls typically block access to certain sites, but the centerpiece of the Chinese system, called Golden Shield, does much more. It’s essentially a national digital surveillance network that monitors China’s estimated 420 million online citizens. This titanic task is facilitated by the fact that all international Internet traffic passes through just a handful of state-run pipelines. – from Wired Magazine Read on . . .

Teaching in China

Today was full-on teaching. Three classes just about back to back. I was a bit tired. I got up at about two in the morning and worked on curriculum until the 10:10 AM class. Teaching was lot of standing and explaining how to work computer programs with a chalkboard and finger pointing one on one. The students are wonderful. They are very collaborative and supportive of each other. Some have programming skills some do not. Interesting for a software engineering class.