A Geek in China

3 minutes of Silence

Jacob Redding — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:42:29 +0000

While in Shanghai China recognized the victims of the Sichuan earthquake with a nationwide 3 minutes of silence. At the time I was on a subway, everyone on the subway stopped, stood silently and waited until the 3 minutes passed.

Shanghai_software_park.mp4

Jacob Redding — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:33:57 +0000

Most tourists like to travel to resorts, amusement parks, or fancy restaurants. I like software parks!

yup, I'm that geeky

huangzhou_developer_conference.mp4

Jacob Redding — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:26:10 +0000

May 24, 2008 I attended the 2nd annual developers conference in Huangzhou. I have to say that I was quite impressed with the line up of speakers and with the quality of the presentations. I was always extremely interested to compare how I, a big white westerner, and the local Chinese students interacted within the sessions. Or maybe I should say that lack of interaction within the sessions. I was extremely excited to ask questions, to probe deeper and to really get at the "meat" of the matter(s). The Chinese students seemed bored and also as if they knew all the answers or maybe they just didn't care.

I was cool to attend and to see how the local developers interact and to watch this ecosystem grow. In 10 years (or less, according to the Chinese government) the world is going to see a lot more highly skilled, very talented developers hit the industry.

Working in China

Jacob Redding — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:31:36 +0000

Working in China, for someone coming from the "West", comes with its own unique set of difficulties. The first difficulty, of course, is the language barrier which may be present even if you speak perfect 普通话（Mandarin, Chinese) as many Chinese people still speak in local dialects. The second is another obvious one, the cultural differences. Cultural differences may not be apparent at first but they creep up on you and can present interesting challenges from time to time.

The biggest challenge/difficult when working in China may not be these obvious ones but rather these things that we take for granted in the "West".

1) 24 hour power. Power at all isn't always guaranteed even in the big cities. I know of several technology shops that have regular power outages. How does a tech-company operate without power? answer, it doesn't.

2) Internet access. Yes you have the challenges of the great firewall and the impositions it places but you also massive inconsistencies with the web itself. You may be paying for a 2MB line but there is no guarantee that you are going to get that or anywhere near that. Now when you combine spotty Internet with the fact that most of the Internet is hosted outside of China you get a really bad combination for doing any sort of web related work unless, that is, your web is 100% focused on China, your hosted in China and all of your resources are within China; a highly unlikely scenario even for China-based sites/companies.

As an example of one of the challenges, I uploaded 100MBs of file to a server in the U.S, the upload was done on a 2MB up/down business class ADSL line. The picture shows my upload times. As you can see one 34 MB file took 2 1/2 hours to upload, at a whopping 3.8KB/s but roughly 2 hours later a 13MB file took only 4 minutes at a, moderately faster, 54.7KB/s. This sort of inconsistency reigns supreme here and its just something that, for the moment, you just have to live with.

Doing any sort of web-based work in China is, in a word, challenging.

I'm cool

Jacob Redding — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:53:50 +0000

Although the earthquake hit the country of China Beijing is far away from the epicenter moreover I was in Hong Kong at the time. It was reported that people in Hong Kong could feel the aftershocks but I didn't feel anything.

In short, I'm cool. I thank you all for your kind letters of support and checking to ensure my safety. I (We) are cool.

Listen to my Horrible Chinese

Jacob Redding — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:52:36 +0000

Yes its true I do speak a little Chinese and a lot of horrible Chinese. At our last Drupal meetup in Beijing I was stuck as the only presenter and I didn't have an interpreter handy so it was just me and a room full of Chinese Drupal folks just waiting for me to speak. Very intimidating but I think I managed to get my point across.

These videos only prove one thing. I need practice!

Coming down off the great wall

Jacob Redding — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:38:00 +0000

After a long, hard day of climbing the Great Wall you really don't want to climb back down. Fortunately Chinese people are incredibly smart. They setup an "Inertia Ropeway" which allows you to get down from the Great Wall with the greatest of ease.

Simatai Great wall

Jacob Redding — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:34:49 +0000

I've been attending a small private Chinese language school here in Beijing in an attempt to improve my Mandarin language skills; which are currently at the baby talk level. The school took a trip out to the Simatai section of the great wall. Previously I had only visited badaling so it was nice to see a different part of the wall, especially one that is less touristy.

Beijing Pollution

Jacob Redding — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:16:54 +0000

I shot this video several weeks ago and after I shot it the air cleared up for a few days and then got worse again. The last two days the SEPA index has been over 100. Fortunately today the rains and wind came to wash and blow away all of the pollution! yay!

Jacob + Raincity Studios = Drupal China love

Jacob Redding — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:29:01 +0000

I'm happy to announce that I have joined the great intercontinental team of Raincity Studios. Raincity has a great team in Vancouver and Shanghai as well as awesome folks scattered throughout the world. Since moving to China last year I have been looking for a way to get more involved in the local Chinese Drupal scene and to do my little part to help it grow. Additionally when I became a board member of the Drupal Association I made a pledge to do whatever I could to help encourage the growth of Drupal-related events around the world.

I'm excited that my work with Raincity Studios will allow me to do exactly this!

My job at RaincityStudios will not only focus on China but also on the rest of the world. In China I've been fortunate to meet some great folks at the Beijing user group as well as the Shanghai user groups and I'm excited to meet new Drupal folks down in Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hong Kong and ???. In North America I've met great folks in Boston, NYC, San Francisco, LA, Colorado and many other places. The great folks in Europe, whom are currently putting on Drupalcon Hungary are awesome as well are the folks in Australia.

In addition to working with the community I will also be providing internal and external Drupal training. I'm very excited to get back to my training roots as it was as a Microsoft, yes that's right Microsoft, trainer that I really became the geek that I am today. I love training and watching others learn it is a wonderfully gratifying experience.

My new position will have me based out of Beijing, China with frequent trips to Shanghai. I'm looking forward to meeting all of my new coworkers as well as the new folks in the Chinese Drupal community!

Shanghai Drupal user meetup

Jacob Redding — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:30:04 +0000

I was fortunate enough to be in Shanghai for their Drupal user meetup. It was great to meet all of them and see the projects that they are working on. Shanghai has a good number of Drupal developers and some of them have worked on some really cool projects. For me the highlight of the entire meetup was when one of the guys introduced himself as "ian" and just in case you didn't know how to pronounce it, it is "Ian" of Deb-ian.

Yes! There are super Chinese geeks! I love this place!

Track the group at groups.drupal.org/Shanghai, they are growing quickly.

Political Olympics

Jacob Redding — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:01:41 +0000

Every time I write a political entry I start it off with a disclaimer that I don't write political pieces. I guess I just need to come to grips that I do write political pieces.

I have been biting my lip, tongue, cheek, hog-tied my hands, and locked myself in darkened closet in an attempt to not write this entry but my stubborn self combined with a sincere love for talking forced me to write it.

The Olympics are a political platform.

That's it. Nearly everyday there is a press release from Beijing as well as numerous blog entries, twits, etc. that call for people to not "politicize" the games or that question why people are "politicizing" the games. I don't understand why people have confused the Olympics with a sporting event.

The Olympics is an amazing event that does what few other events in the world can do; gather people from around the world to watch a sporting event. Yes, I just contradicted myself. The Olympics is a sporting event for two full weeks but the 7 years before those two weeks its a full on political event.

This entry doesn't state an opinion on the recent events in t-i-bet, xinjiang, Taiwan, Beijing pollution problems, food supply, human rights, animal rights, or any other dispute that China is currently in with, what seems to be, the rest of the world. I will make my argument that the Olympics is a political event as quickly and succinctly as possible.

First the quick history.
Moscow, Melbourne, and Germany (do I need to link to this) were all protested and boycotted.
but, of course, those were all exceptional cases.
but what about....
Atlanta, Georgia (USA) was protested against
Salt Lake city, Utah (USA) was protested against

I could probably list protests and/or boycotts of every single Olympic event if I spent more than 2 minutes on a google search but I digress.

That would leave us with the current Olympics and here is my "evidence" that this Olympics has always been a political event.

#1: The Olympics committee has consistently maintained that the Olympics are a "force for good" in opening up the country.

That sounds like one heck of a non-sporting and heavy political statement to me.

#2: I'm in Beijing and I am watching the Chinese news, reading their papers and witnessing the massive billboards around the city. More often than not they are advertising the country's strength and its development and how it is "coming out to the world".
These statements are not about sports, they are political statements.

#3: Having traveled to China over the past several years and seeing first hand the dramatic changes brought to Beijing and throughout China because of the Olympics makes it extremely hard for me to believe that its only about sports.
If it were only about sports.
Why were the coal plants moved out of town?
Why are plants being shut down to reduce airbone pollutants?
Why can I see people cleaning the city's rivers everyday? They are not being used for the sports.

#4: The IOC calls out China

The list could get rather large but the summary is that the Olympics are being used to help China become a developed country and to start playing nice with the rest of the world. This particular Olympics will only be a sporting event for two weeks but for the next 120 days it is highly political and will only become increasingly so.

Of course this does beg the question. Why are we at such strong odds. What we have right now is two things
1) The world saying China is wrong
2) China saying the world is wrong

Now that I live in China and I've had wonderful opportunities to speak to people directly about the situation(s) as well as to read the local news, see the local press releases, etc. etc. I would say that I truly believe that China is sincere in their words.

but... the rest of the world won't believe it until they can see it for themselves.

Freedom of Speech and information is a basic human right and must be protected. If China wants to prove to the world that what they are doing is right and just they simply need to allow the cameras, reporters, journalists, and tourists in and unrestricted.

Giving Blood

Jacob Redding — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 07:25:10 +0000

The picture is of my new "little red book" (he he) which I received after I gave blood at the expat show. My blood type is one of those nifty types that can be used in a lot of people and its clean so I try to give whenever I can.

Expat Show

Jacob Redding — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 06:45:48 +0000

For no good reason we subjected ourselves to the expat show in Beijing. I wouldn't say it was horrible but I wouldn't say it was mind blowing either. It was what it was, a show for expats. I'd go again next year if they have free stuff, its free to get into to, and its convenient to get to.

Cupping

Jacob Redding — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:09:20 +0000

Cupping is a form of Chinese medicine believed to relief a myriad of ailments. Lately I haven't been feeling well and I've been meaning to go to a local Chinese medicine business situated just down the street. Putting two and two together and mixing in a bit of masochism for good measure I went and tried Cupping.