Pinhole Glasses

I ordered a pair of Pinhole Glasses from Pinhole-Glasses-Direct.com while surfing the internet a couple weeks ago.

I spend a considerable amount of my working and leisure time reading and sitting in front of computer screens. So I often found myself using eyedrops to refresh my eyes, especially after sitting long hours in front of computers. I was hoping that Pinhole Glasses would provide a nice alternative to the eyedrops I was having.

According to the information provided on the website, Pinhole Glasses work by feeding the pupil inside the eye with direct rays as far as possible. Light rays coming at extreme angles require a large amount of refraction by lens to form the correct image. Wearing pinhole glasses prevent these rays from entering eyes. This checks them from distorting the image and consequently you see a better image. This image is of better definition, clarity and brightness. They claimed that Pinhold Glasses could improve my vision and also reduce tiredness in my eyes.

I must say I was very skeptical about Pinhole Glasses at the beginning. After a week of wearing them, I have not experienced significant improvement in my vision after looking through an optometer. But I did feel less tiring after spending long hours working in front of computer screens. I used to use eyedrops to refresh my eyes every hour after looking at the computer screen directly, now I only use them occasionally. At $14.95, I guess it would be too much to ask if it could really work magic on your eyes, but in my case, I already saved me more than $14.95 in eyedrops.

The design of Pinhole Eyeglasses could be improved significantly. If they could design them to look more like a pair of Oakey or Bolle, I'm sure a lot more people would be interested in trying them.

The Intern

Interns has been coming into our office during the summer holiday since five or six years ago. It's part of a government-sponsored program try to provide real life working experience to young people. Most of them are between 18 and 22 and studying at universities. Some of the interns I met were pretty interesting fellows. A few of them were both innocent and ambitious - one of the biochemistry student actually believed that he would find the cure to AIDS and was destined to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

There are all kinds of people in this world. But somehow the intern we have for this year still raised my eyebrows. On the second day of his internship, we gave him a draft copy of our in-house magazine for him to proofread. It's a four-page document. I thought that's an extremely easy assignment for a senior majoring in Chinese literature. So I was pretty nervous when I saw him snoring on his desk when I returned 20 minutes later.

"Are you sick?" I asked him.

"No, I'm fine. I'm really sorry for falling asleep in my desk."

"Is there a reason for what had just happened?"

"The materials you just sent me is very boring. I can't explain what had happened. It's just that I somehow fall asleep halfway reading it."

"I know. An in-house magazine about who had won the inter-department bowling competition isn't the most exciting stuff out there. But this is just the beginning, you'll be working on more challenging jobs later on. We will make sure that your talent as a Chinese literature student will be fully utilized." I assume he probably thought the job was minimal for a future best-selling writer or Pulitzer winner and was trying to give him some encouragement.

"Then I have no choice but to quit this internship. If I couldn't proofread this document, how could I handle more difficult job?"

I was shocked. I didn't know how to respond to his question. I just kept asking myself what's wrong with this guy? I tried to ask the question from another perspective, "Aren't you studying Chinese literature because you're interested in the language? Don't you want to be a great writer or journalist one day?"

"I go to university for just one reason - I don't want to find a job. I wasn't interested in anything. I'll let you know when I found anything interesting in my life. Is that alright?"

"Alright." I just didn't want to keep this conversation going. So I turned and left. While I was walking away, I kept wondering whether it was the previous interns over-ambitious or this one was should become a monk instead of studying Chinese at a university.

Dongbeiren Restaurant in Macau

After lining up under unbearable summer heat on Rua do Campo for almost an hour, I finally got inside the newly opened Dongbeiren Restaurant in Macau. Although I already went to one of their restaurants in Zhuhai a few months ago, the wonderful experience made me eager to try their new branch in Macau.

This restaurant serves family-style Dongbei, or Manchuria, dishes from the northeastern part of China. Dongbeiren successfully turned traditional family food served at ordinary Chinese homes 40 years ago into a fashionable business. Typical countryside food such as steamed corn bread, soybean bread, traditional dumplings, coarse food grains and fresh vegetables were listed on the menu. The decoration of the restaurant is also very interesting, with tables decorated just like the traditional village beds in the 50's Chinese villages and the walls are cleverly decorated with memorabilia from the cultural revolution period. The waiters and waitresses are also a group of fun-loving people. If you order one of the more expensive dishes, they would all group together and perform a traditional folk song while delivering the food onto your table.

When I told the manager that they have just opened a great restaurant. He told me that he's not satisfied with the quality of service after all 6 local employees had left within 2 days of the restaurant's opening because of heavy workload. It made me wonder why innovations have to come from outside and the locals are so lack of creative ideas or commitment to hard work.

International Youth Dance Festival 2008

The most interesting performance of International Youth Dance Festival 2008, and the obvious crowd favor, of the indoor performance at Macau Forum on July 11, 2008 has to be Pacific folk dance performed by Young Performers Inc. of Westlake School for the Performing Arts. Scheduled right after an incredibly elegant ballet by Seoul Wise Ballet Theatre, the finale got the crowd onto their feet and cheered all the way until the end of the performance. Comparing with the mediocre and boring performance by a couple of local dance groups at the beginning of the show, the Westlake School dancers showed the local young art groups how to deliver a culture-oriented energetic performance that really defined the way to do a youth dance performance. We definitely need more performances like this in the upcoming youth dance festivals.

Wellcome Supermarket Television Commercial

When I watch television, I usually go to the washroom, have a cup of coffee flip over magazines or do whatever to get away for 2 or 3 minutes during commercial breaks. But whenever I heard the music of the latest Wellcome supermarket television commercial, I would immediately rush back to the television set and watch the commercial.

It's a thirty-second spot about a young girl saving every coins available, resisting the temptation of candies and toys, and brought all her savings to his father's boss, in exchange of one hour of his time to be with her. Although the plot is totally unrealistic, but I was still moved by the story. I smiled every time when I watched the commercial. It's like a reminder - always remind me of cherish every moment I spent with the children.

Duck Wars Between Beijing Normal University and Nanjing Normal University

Beijing Normal University and Nanjing Normal University are two of the most prominent teacher training and educational research institutions in China. One situated in the northern part of China and the other one located in the southern part of China. Beijing Normal University was developed from the Faculty of Education of Capital Metropolitan University in 1902, while Nanjing Normal University was founded on the former campus of Jinling College, which was also established in 1902. Both universities celebrated their 100th birthday in 2002. There must had been some friendly rivalry going on between these two universities. But a recent incident I witnessed still left me totally amused.

I was having a meal with a dozen or so people. One of them at the table is a scholar from Beijing Normal University, while the other one is a scholar from Nanjing Normal University.

People were from various parts of the country were smiling and sharing smalltalks about the weather and decoration of the restaurant. A few minutes after settling down, the waitress brought us the first dish of the day - Cantonese style roast duck.

The person from Beijing Normal University took a bite of the duck and announced to everyone at the table, "This is delicious. But Peking duck is even better."

"Peking duck is really oily and contains too many calories and too much fat. It's not the healthiest food out there. I heard that they are not serving it to athletics at the Beijing Olympics," the person from Nanjing Normal University replied.

"What kind of food is healthy then?" I could sense some tension in the air.

"A Nanjing duck is fatless. It's healthy because the duck has been pressed, cooked and brined until the meat firms. All the fat was removed during the cooking process."

"It's just a duck soaked in salty water. That's why it's also called salt water duck." the person from Beijing Normal University laughed at his own joke. But others don't dare to laugh, and tried to keep themselves busy by feeding the Cantonese roast duck into their mouth.

"That's just an ignorant assumption. Nanjing duck is very difficult and time-consuming to prepare. It began as a preservative process like bacon, and took master chefs many days to finally put the dish on the table. It's much more complicated that the backyard barbecue Peking duck."

"Peking duck is now widely considered as the national dish of China."

"But according to historians, the ducks used to prepare Peking Duck originated from Nanjing 2,000 years ago."

"Which historian? What's his/her name? Is he/she from Nanjing Normal University? How can you proof whether or not somebody shipped a dozen ducks from Nanjing to Beijing 2,000 years ago? That has to redefine the meaning of evidence-based scientific research."

... ...

The conversation, or should I say meaningless debate, about the duck dragged on and on for the rest of the meal. It really bored the hell out of everybody else at the table. But nobody was brave enough to interrupt the war of words over ducks.

When we finally finished the meal, the waitress approached and asked us if we wanted to reserve some special dishes for the next meal. One of the persons at the table replied, "We will eat whatever you put on the table, as long as it's not duck."

Feast of Na Cha in Macau

On June 16, 2008, I came across the Feast of Na Cha parade at Leal Senado square in downtown Macau. Tourists from mainland China and abroad were all seemed to be very impressed by kids dressed as Na Cha and others dressed in traditional Chinese folk legends. Plenty of pictures were taken. Everyone was having a great time with the attractions. Maybe Macau does have a lot more to offer to the tourists than casinos and its vice industries.