08
Dec 2003
Favicons
Personally, I think “favicon” is a really stupid name, but that’s what Microsoft came up with. A favicon is a tiny little icon (.ICO file) which goes on your bookmark (favorites) list in your browser when you bookmark a website. I’m sure you’ve seen them. Yahoo has one. Google has one. Most major sites have one. This site even has one. If a site doesn’t have one, IE users will just see 
.
Several people have asked me how I made mine, so I thought I’d give a little description of the process. There’s actually plenty of documentation on the web about it, but if you don’t know the name “favicon,” it can be kind of hard to find.
First, a .ICO file is not just an ordinary image file in a tiny size. It’s a special format, and the only one that can be used for the purpose of creating a favicon for your website. Second, the favicon must be 16×16 pixels big and be in 16 color mode. All the instructions you need can be found on this site, as well as links to the one small program you’ll need. There are many ways to make an .ICO file, but I think the IrfanView image viewer (also linked to on the above page) is the easiest way to go about it, and I’ve done it several different ways before.
So, in a nutshell, this is the process:
1. Go to this site, read it all, and download and install IrfanView.
2. Choose or create the image file you want to be your favicon. The more exacting favicon creators will probably want to start big in Photoshop, then shrink the file down to 16×16 pixel size. Make the appropriate modifications if you don’t like how it looks tiny, then save it as a .BMP file. (I do not recommend creating the icon file from scratch pixel be pixel. You will get very choppy-looking results.)
3. Open the image file in IrfanView, and then save it as a .ICO file. Remember, it must be 16×16 pixels, and only 16 colors.
4. Upload the favicon.ICO file into your website’s root directory.* That should do it!**
* If you don’t have your own .COM, you can still have a favicon for your site. Refer to the page above for detailed instructions.
** If you had a different favicon before, or have already bookmarked your site before, you will have to follow the steps explained on the page referenced above in order to see the favicon. Unfortunately, your readers will as well. New readers will see the favicon as soon as they bookmark your page.
It’s actually simpler than it sounds, but you see very few favicons on personal sites. I’m thinking bloggers just don’t realize how simple it is, but if they did, we’d see a lot more favicons out there. I’m hoping, anyway.
[Further reference on favicons.]
07
Dec 2003浩室音乐
你知道“浩室”（House）音乐是什么吗？好像在杭州这种音乐越来越流行，但是人人并不一定知道是什么。我也不是很了解这种音乐，不过我知道一些。
浩室是一种舞曲音乐（这里有更丰富的解释），比杭州大多数的蹦迪音乐轻松一些。杭州蹦迪喜欢放的是pop trance，在国外已经很土的一种舞曲音乐。
杭州早就有一家酒吧叫“浩室就把”，但里面放的音乐不是浩室音乐。今年南山路上开了一个“绝对浩室”迪吧。我只去过一次，但我觉得放的音乐很不错，挺有个性。的确是正宗浩室。下面“Launch”party也是浩室。很好跳的。
如果你没听过浩室音乐的话，我建议你听听。不过其实光听也不够。应该在蹦迪或者酒吧里享受着气氛听。而且真的要欣赏这种音乐的话，得跳舞。
07
Dec 2003Ichi
I just watched the movie Ichi the Killer tonight with some of my ZUCC co-workers. Carl and Alf have been itching to get me to watch that movie ever since Carl borrowed my DVD collection while I was in Japan this past August. I told them I hadn’t seen Ichi the Killer, and they misremembered my mention of the movie as a recommendation. Anyway, they watched it and were psychologically scarred, so they wanted to return the favor.
The movie was very disturbing. Ultra violent, and just plain sick, sick, sick. I really don’t see the point in making a movie like that. The director, Miike Takashi (三池崇史), is evidently pretty famous for the movie Audition. I haven’t seen it, but I don’t plan to.
Perhaps the only semi-worthwhile part of my movie-watching experience was a reflection I had about Japanese and Chinese relations. Anyone who has studied the rape of Nanking (Nanjing) knows that some sick, sick atrocities were committed on Chinese civilians. All kinds of people have tried to explain the actions of the Japanese soldiers — their dehumanizing of their enemy and their blind obedience to their superiors.
When Chinese people say they hate the Japanese, I try to suggest to them that what happened during the war was committed by people in a different time, who were products of their particular circumstances. I don’t mean to excuse what those people did, but the youth of today’s Japan didn’t do those things. But the Chinese often hold onto a “you don’t understand the Japanese. They’re clever. They’re twisted. You just don’t understand” mentality.
Movies like Ichi the Killer lend credence to those kinds of opinions. At least the “twisted” part. Miike was born in post-war Japan.
I’d like to see more GTO, Spirited Away, and Kikujiro. I’m going to stay away from Miike’s films. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
(Oh yeah — also, Carl and Alf are mean.)
05
Dec 2003Asia Weblog Awards
What could be geekier than blogging? Blogging about blogging, perhaps. (Yes, I’m guilty.) But if you want to get even geekier? Starting an award system for blogs, with votes and promotion, and all that stuff. OK, it’s geeky but it’s kinda nice. And Phil put a fair amount of work into it, so let’s give it some attention.
I speak, of course, of the Asia Weblog Awards over at Flyingchair.net. You can nominate blogs and vote for blogs, and all that good stuff. It’s a pretty slick system that Phil put together. I think I’m in the running, as are a few others in the Sinosplice Network.
Anyway, give it a look.
02
Dec 2003Making the Band
Recently my co-worker Greg (of Sinobling) developed a really fun activity for English class. A lot of the other teachers here (including me) have tried out his activity as well, and it has gotten top scores all around. It’s been weeks and he hasn’t blogged about it. I guess maybe describing an TEFL activity doesn’t lend itself well to Greg’s awesome powers of humor.
The concept is that you break the class into groups of 4-6 people each and give them the task of creating an imaginary band. Clearly, there’s plenty of “pre” work to be done. What is a band? What types of music can bands play? What instruments can be played in a band? After you discuss these questions with the class and make sure they understand what’s going on, you tell them to come up with some of the following (be selective depending on how much time you allot to the activity):
- Band name
- Genre of music
- Band member names (these should not be the same as their English names — this is the time to come up with creative English names!)
- Musical instrument that each member plays (don’t forget vocals!)
- Story of the unusual circumstances under which the band met
- Name of the band’s first smash hit
- Lyrics to the hit song (if you have a lot of time to kill…)
This activity absolutely works magic on the students. I can’t explain it, but it seems to awaken deeply buried creative juices in the students’ cute passive little skulls. The activity inspired some of my students to write lyrics when I didn’t even ask them to, and to even voluntarily perform their songs in front of the class! Greg says he got almost all his groups to perform by telling them that any group that performed got him as a backup dancer. Cool trick.
Greg’s favorite band name out of all his classes was Milk Cow Goes to Australia. I gotta admit, it really works. Carl‘s favorite hit song out of all his classes was Love me, love my dog.
The following are some of my classes’ results:
the hit song Transform.
11pm is a light music band.
Playing violin, piano, lute, and bagpipes, their hit song is
Dreaming of Tiger Spring at Hupao Valley.
The industrial band Noisy is:
Shadow on guitar, Blue on bass, Kid on drums,
Dust on vocals, and Ghost on the keyboard.
Their hit song is Waste Gas.
Seasoned Band is a rock band
comprised of Curry on bass, Mustard on drums,
Vinegar on vocals, and Ginger on the keyboard.
Their hit song is The feeling of sweet and sour.
Super Chemical Girls is a hip hop band
comprised of Oxygen on guitar, Hydrogen on bass,
Atom on keyboards, Silver on drums, and Carbon on vocals.
Falling Angels is a metal band.
The band members are Ghost, Sorceress,
Demon, and Satan.
[The 4 girls in this band are
some of my sweetest students, too.]
Their hit song is Hell Gate. Below are some lyrics:
Wings broken, Falling falling
Soul gone, leaving leaving
hell gate, opening opening
Death hands, waving waving
Rock on, Chinese students. Rock on.
01
Dec 2003Hong Kong Bloggers
I don’t regularly read Hong Kong blogs, so I was in for a surprise recently when I visited Flyingchair and took a good look at his blog links. There are so many new ones! Flyingchair is pretty much the gatekeeper of HK blogs, it would seem. You may want to check out the Hong Kong blogs in the China Blog List to see the new additions.
Also, the HK bloggers had a pretty big face-to-face meeting of bloggers recently. Kinda reminds me of my high school BBS days. We had a few meetups back then (oh man, it was scary!). Anyway, if you’re interested, Ukjoe gives a pretty complete account.
[Side note: Simon provides graphical evidence of the “Muzimei Spike” phenomenon rippling through the blogosphere. The idea is that any blog that writes about Muzimei gets a huge surge in traffic. Hailey reported it almost a month ago, but it seriously intensified a week or so ago. Sinosplice hasn’t felt it.]30
Nov 2003Movable Type
This past weekend I finally made the switch over to Movable Type. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while, influenced by John B, Russell, Andrea, Brendan, and Adam. I recognized the superior blogging technology and wanted to use it, but I was just lazy.
I didn’t completely relinquish my lazy ways, though. The switchover is not yet total. Although the installation was utterly painless, I haven’t done the archive pages and some other fine tuning. There’s no good way to import the Haloscan comments. (This one looks good, but apparently the plugin is not online!) There are lots of little problems.
Why does my <p> text formatting go awry any time I post a picture, use a blockquote, or use a list? (It’s especially obvious on my Chinese blog; I’ve made some cosmetic alterations on this one.)
Why doesn’t the Textile plugin work even though I followed the installation instructions exactly?
OK, sorry this post is incredibly boring. Everything should be squared away soon. In the meantime, the old Blogger archives are still there.
28
Nov 2003Thanksgiving and Melancholy
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and ZUCC teachers and friends had a great meal at the Holiday Inn. 148 rmb per person is pretty steep, but it was all you can eat (and all you can drink), and the food was top notch. I had at least 5 plates. I was hurting. It was all worthwhile.
There was great turkey, with gravy. There was cranberry relish. There was pumpkin pie. There almost wasn’t mashed potatoes, but Heather, having read my account of Thanksgiving at Holiday Inn last year, fixed that problem. She called ahead and requested mashed potatoes at the buffet. As a result, there were mashed potatoes, and they were good. There were tons of other non-Thanksgivingesque selections as well, such as sushi, steak, “roast beef salad,” and pasta. But we were all happy to see the Thanksgiving traditional dishes represented.
So I guess now it’s back to Chinese food every meal, every day.
Regarding the melancholy, there are a whole lot of factors contributing, and it’s a strange mix of emotions. I have already committed to a move in early January, and I’m not looking forward to leaving Hangzhou and all my good friends here behind (look at Greg’s sweet Thanksgiving post). Yet it’s time for a change. So there’s a lot of excitement and uncertainty too. I think I’ve found a great job, but it’s not quite finalized yet, so I don’t want to announce it publicly.
Also, next month I take the HSK. That’s the big Chinese “TOEFL.” I have been skipping too many classes lately and not studying nearly enough. It’s time to really buckle down. If I don’t get an 8, I’m going to be sorely disappointed and pissed at myself for not working harder. I know I can get an 8.
Also, I haven’t been blogging much lately. It’s partly because I don’t have much time for it, but also because lately I’m feeling a little unhappy about the whole deal. I’m not sure why, exactly, and it’s hard to pin down the exact emotions, but I have some vague ideas.
One of the biggest changes to the “China Blog Community” of late has been the addition of Living in China. It’s a community blog in every sense of the word, and the founders did an amazing job. The site looks awesome, and there are new posts frequently, on a wide range of topics. The site is just so professional. It deserves every hit it gets.
Still, there’s something about it that feels strange. I agree with Richard’s assessment. I suppose I really like the process of browsing blogs, and I’ve never been a fan of RSS feeds. Now it kind of feels like if you don’t have an RSS feed then you’re out in the cold. I guess the need for RSS is an inevitable development given the tremendous surge in the number of China blogs. But I still feel a little bit like the Wal-Mart of China blogs has arrived, if that makes any sense.
I’m not trying to criticize Living in China, though. What they’re doing is great, and my reaction is strictly a personal one.
Along those lines, though, it’s been disturbing to me seeing the personal, nasty side of the China blogs. Attacks on Glutter, Hailey…. Why is “who’s right” always the most important issue? Why do blogs tend to encourage raging, ruthless egos?
I guess I just miss the good old days when everything seemed so intimate and friendly. But things change, and that’s fine. For the time being, though, I’m very content with being pretty quiet. But I’ll stick around.
25
Nov 2003Fixing what's screwed up
You gotta admire people who see a problem and then actually do something about it. I’m not talking about just words, I’m talking actions. I try to adhere to this philosophy in my own life (hey, the Sinosplice Network!), and I applaud it when I see it.
One of the things foreigners quickly recognize as very wrong in China is the horrible dance music played in clubs. It’s really bad. You really need a good dose of alcohol to withstand it for any decent length of time.
When Wilson was here, he tried to bring some better music to Chinese clubbers by DJing at two different clubs in Hangzhou. Now some friends of mine are taking a slightly different approach. They’re renting out a club, hiring their own DJs, playing good music, and charging a small admission. They’re even keeping beer prices low somehow. This could be the start of something big. Definitely check it out if you’re in Hangzhou Saturday, November 29th. It’s all going down at “Sacred Chrees Pub” on Ding An Road by West Lake Boulevard.
(Note: DJ “Nasdaq Composite” has his own site!)
25
Nov 2003Clear Skies
I think Hangzhou is a great city as Chinese cities go, but one of the things I really don’t like very much about it is the weather. Particularly the winter weather, not because it’s cold but because it’s basically just rain, rain, rain. Hence my last post, which was basically an elaborate “I hate puddles” whine.
That’s why I am really happy about our weather of late. It’s winter already, but the weather’s great, and doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Loving it. (Too bad it’s causing a drought.)
22
Nov 2003Uncooperative Water
Water flows downhill. This is a simple fact that has been pretty well mastered by the average 8-year-old. Yet somehow it seems to elude Chinese civil engineers. I speak, of course, of the deplorable condition of drainage engineering in Hangzhou. That “the things we take for granted back home just don’t apply here” is a tired, worn-out cliche, but we’re talking about the most basic principles of physics here. Water flows downhill. Place drains in low points, and the water will “magically” drain into them. Is that hard? I don’t know, maybe it actually is. But looking at the drains around my campus, they seem to be almost randomly placed. You know something is wrong when huge puddles and big thirsty drains live side by side in perfect harmony.
Here are some good examples of uselessly placed drains:
Pictures of water on the ZUCC campus not flowing anywhere:
Granted, none of the puddles are really deep. The pavement is reasonably flat. But it doesn’t really drain. If there is an absolute deluge, then the water will find the drains. That seems to be the guiding principle, though, instead of good old “water flows downhill.”
The greatest part is how the stubborn puddles are taken care of. Grounds maintenance staff sweep them into the drains. Yes, they sweep the water. With a broom. (Sorry, I didn’t manage to get a picture of that.)
Come on, China, you’ve got a space program now, for crying out loud. Let’s see a little better display of your mastery of gravity.
21
Nov 2003Mutant Mandarin: A Guide to New Chinese Slang
by Zhou Yimin & James J. Wang (China Books & Periodicals, Inc., 1995)
Review by: John Pasden
21
Nov 2003Outrageous Chinese: A Guide to Chinese Street Language
by James J. Wang (China Books and Periodicals, Inc., 1994)
Review by: John Pasden
20
Nov 2003Muzimei Correction
I made an erroneous assumption regarding “Muzimei” in my recent post about having a cold. Rainbow called me on it. I checked up on it (sort of). Today in my class of 27 college kids (aged 19-20), only 3 had ever even heard of Muzimei. Three! So my “all Chinese people know about her” comment was way off. If the majority of these web-surfing college kids don’t know who she is, then my exaggeration was out of line. Oops, my bad.
Maybe that 27 person sample was somehow ridiculously unrepresentative of Chinese youth, but I really don’t care that much to look into it. Up until today, every Chinese person I mentioned Muzimei to knew who she was (including my Chinese class teacher).
Regardless, China bloggers are going to town over Muzimei. Danwei is grabbing all the stories in Chinese media, the Gweilo is rejecting her, and Brainysmurf is covering it all.
20
Nov 2003Integrated Chinese (Level 1)
by Tao-chung Yao and Yuehua Liu (Cheng & Tsui Company, 1997)
Review by: John Pasden
20
Nov 2003Integrated Chinese (Level 2)
by Yuehua Liu and Tao-chung Yao (Cheng & Tsui Company, 1997)
Review by: John Pasden
18
Nov 2003Wang's Observations
I have a Chinese teacher whose last name is Wang. All her students call her “Wang Laoshi” (laoshi means “teacher”), according to Chinese custom. She teaches my HSK prep class. Since the class only meets once a week for two hours, I see less of her than most of my other teachers, but I feel like I know her much better than the others. For one thing, I’ve known her longer. She tutored me for about half a year during my first year in China. For another, she seems much more straightforward about her feelings than a lot of Chinese people I meet.
Last week she shared with the HSK class a problem she’s been having with another class. She says her current intermediate level Chinese class is simply not willing to talk. At all. When she asks the class if someone can make a sentence using the new word, the whole class just stares down at their books, not daring to make eye contact. She waits patiently and encourages them, to no avail. If she asks a single person, she gets the same response. Trying to get just one sentence out of them is like pulling teeth. Even when she simply asks the class if they understand, she can’t get an answer. The only time the students show definite signs of life is when she writes on the chalkboard. They all magically spring into action, jotting everything down neatly in their notebooks. They seem to prefer it when she simply talks and writes, but that’s really boring for her, and not the most effective teaching method, either.
Wang Laoshi said that in the past she lost her temper and berated the students for their overly passive attitudes, which seemed to help the situation for a while. This semester, however, almost all her students are girls, and she doesn’t want to upset them.
So what’s with this class? Well, for one thing, they’re almost all Korean. Wang Laoshi asked the Korean students in the HSK prep class why they thought her intermediate level students were so incorrigibly passive. The Korean students reponded that it was because of their culture — the traditional Confucian style of education.
Wang Laoshi didn’t buy that. She said that Chinese students weren’t like that. That really made me smile, because I don’t think Wang Laoshi knows how passive Chinese students can be in an English class taught by a foreigner. Still, though, the way she described her students made them more inactive than any Chinese students I’ve ever taught.
Wang Laoshi’s observations on international students of Chinese were thus:
- Students from Western countries are much more active in the classroom. Wang Laoshi prefers there to be at least a few students from Europe or the Americas to liven up the atmosphere.
- Students from Western countries want to spend classtime mastering a few grammar patterns so that they can feel confident about their usage.
- Asian students want to cover as many grammar patterns as possible in class, and review them on their own.
Another thing I think Wang Laoshi doesn’t realize is that a lot of Chinese teachers don’t encourage class participation so much. I think some of the other Chinese teachers wouldn’t be so bothered by the lifelessness of her students. It just disappoints me that an excellent teacher like Wang Laoshi is wasted on such undeserving grammar sponges.
18
Nov 2003感觉不到
今天在汉语读写课上我们看了一篇关于孔子的文章。虽然生词很多，而且带了一点古文的味道，我没觉得特别难懂。对我来说最难的方面就是语气。尽管看得懂作家的意思，我仍摸不着他的态度。我觉得基本上我的语感还可以，但到了高一点的文学水平就不行。
其实这个问题跟我自己写的汉语也有关系。我用中文写文章时，就算我的语法没什么错误，用词也恰当，总是不清楚中国人对它会有什么反应。好象都是莫名其妙的反复试验。当然，到了这个汉语水平，不可能什么都感觉不到，但我总觉得我还缺少一种官能。
没办法，只能这样学习下去，在黑暗中进行…
18
Nov 2003Stupid Cold
I was thinking of writing about Muzimei, since I’ve been reading her for a few weeks and all Chinese people know about her, but I guess it’s too late. Jeremy at Danwei covered it a while ago, and so did Andrea more recently over at Living in China.
“Muzimei” is a Chinese girl who got really famous on the internet by writing all about her sex life, including the identities of her partners. It’s kind of funny to me that someone can get so famous in China just by writing about sex. That trick is kind of played out in the West already.
But I’m not writing about Muzimei. I’m whining about my cold. It’s Day Two. Today I slumbered blissfully through my morning Chinese classes to get more rest, sucked in over 6 liters of water, and pounded vitamins too. Take that. Stupid cold.