hong kong day 1 and 2

oh hey haha remember i had a bunch of blogs sophomore year about hong kong? well its my fourth time going to hong kong now but this time it is with my father and not mother xD ah my writing will be a bit choppy because i havent been to school for 3 months now @.@ Day 1 The trip from San Francisco to Hong Kong was a long 12 hours. I remember these 12 hours used to be a lot longer when i younger, perhaps my perception of time has changed. We left America at 1:10am Thursday Aug16 and arrived 5am Friday Aug17 so by the time we arrived, a new day has started. i learned that on longer flights i should sit near the aisle because i took like 6 bathroom breaks. =o There was 1 hour until the shuttles started for the destination that we were headed to when we arrived. When i was waiting for my luggage i tried to observe the people around me. i saw a phalanx soldiers that were carrying machine guns around. I was tempted to take a picture but i was too scared of their reaction. After we went through immigration and got our luggage, i went to 711 and bought some tea to get change. We took the A11 shuttle to Fortress Hill, enjoying the scenic view of smog and trees on the way. Since my dad wanted to save some cash, we stayed at this place called yesinn, a sorta cheaper hotel hidden in the middle of a street. After we left our luggage here, we went to the Coral cafe to eat breakfast. It is still a bit bewildering how cheap the food can be here, it was 24 hkd for a meal, about 3.5usd. Sometimes i wish i lived here because then i can eat all day and sweat all day from the humidity and never get fat. haha. After food, we ventured our way toward causeway bay to look for sogo, a big shopping mall. Along the way the restaurants sure had interesting names, one was 阿妹好串. Next to one of my favorite clothing shops in Hong Kong, Giordano, had another weird sight of military personnel, my dad,brother, and i saw one holding a rifle like a sword. aiyahh. One thing i noticed is that when crossing the road, the people do not have priority. I rarely see stop signs but i see signs on the ground that tell the people to be cautious of vehicles on the right or left. For the afternoon meal, we went to McDonalds. McDonalds has some minor differences than the one in the states, for example there is chicken drumsticks. After exploring causeway bay, tin hau, and fortress hill, i was so tired. By the time i got back to the room, i ate a few bites of food and fell asleep for the next 12 hrs. Day 2 There isnt really that much to do in Hong Kong after you have been here for 3 times already. On the second day, we explored the other side of town. First, we had congee at a place called Hoi Wong, i think. I miss the fried donuts wrapped in noodles. droool... We took a ride from the shuttle 102 to get across the pond to Kowloon. On the way, i noticed some things. In the tunnel the roads had double white lines, meaning that cars had to stay in their lanes. Before the tunnel there was a lot of advertising. Once in Kowloon, we searched the famous Nathan Road which would lead us to all the destinations we wanted. Before we found Nathan Rd, we went to this one shopping mall with a M&Ms theme. We found this one restaurant that my brother and i had fond memories about, Toi. It was were we ate rice pizza, unfortunately the brance in Causeway Bay closed down. One thing that I dont exactly like traveling with my dad is that he can more frugal than my mother sometimes. He carried all the cash so i couldnt really buy anything too expensive. I bought some penguin tshirt that was designed by leo ku at giordano. We walked from tsim tsa sui to jordan to yau ma dei to mong kok all along Nathan Rd. Along the way, we got some fish balls (better than frozen ones but idk what the best fish balls really tastes like) and milk tea at Gong Cha. We walked the through the forest of Women St, about 4 blocks full of chinese men and women trying to sell fake goods. I saw a bunch of beats headphones that looked too good to be true. In Women St, you can bargain, something i am afraid to do. My brother got a plushie for his ex and my dad asked why i didnt get some tshirts haha idk i dont like fake shirts? but what is a fake shirt o.o . We took the 112 bus back to fortress hill and ate beef with rice at this restaurant endorsed by the famous ABC, MC Jin. haha woot havent written a while, imma try making tmrws more structured.

[RE] Going for the look

This week, for our weekly response post, we were supposed to respond to a montly essay. I decided to talk about Katherine’s essay since it was one of the intros shown in class.

In the society we all live in today, where outside beauty is emphasized more than inner beauty, businesses have realized how to utilize that view to their own benefit

It is quite true that his is happening in our society in many ways. Outer beauty is something people pay good money for until they reach the perfect image they want. It will keep sucking more money to keep his outer image too. You never about commercials selling you inner beauty like the ability to donate or to recycle. It is because those stores do not earn enough to pay for commercials and it is not a priority in America.
Business thrive by showing you what these perfect images can look like with their clothes on at their stores. It is static to help them money and it works quite well. Mannequins and workers wear new hip clothes. Is this the business owners fault or the consumer’s fault that they make so much money? It could be part both both but mainly the culture of the United States.

The differences in the prices of the clothes sold in for example, Walmart, and those of Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus is due to image.

I kinda agree and kinda dont agree with this statement. Prices of products and/or clothes depend on the amount of demand and supply that object has. That amount is from the attractiveness of the object or the way it is presented. In the example of Walmart and Nordstorm, walmart has high supply and demand so things can be cheaper. There are less supply at Nordstorm but high demand so prices are high. For example, an cupcake can be awful on the inside but very cute outside, people will want to buy it. Everything depends on presentation nowadays. They can be presented through product or the price of the product. If something is really really cheap, it would make you want to buy it more.

haha sorry i feel very tired, ill do better next time.

[ce] inflation means free money for elderly

In this article, it is said that the 55 million social security beneficiaries will receive a 3.6% raise in benefits for 2012. In 2010 and 2011, there was no increase at all but in one year there is a 3.6% bump. The elderly need money to spend that is up to date with inflation but is that much of a bump necessary? If each recipient got average 1000 dollars a month, then an increase would be 36 dollars. For 55 million dollars that would be nearly 2 billion dollar increase dent in government spending per month. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

The government currently has around 14.3 trillion dollars of debt and they are increasing benefits. They should be thinking of social security reforms that could be used to change the program. That extra 2 billion will not be magically printed out; the workers will have to pay for it through taxes. Since the government is paying out more money than it is taking in, the problem of debt is getting worse every day. From the research I was finding for my mock congress note cards, I learned that the government wrote IOUs in the trust fund. Social Security had $ 2.6 trillion surplus money in previous years of extra tax money but that money does not actually exist anymore. The other parts of government just borrowed that money and used it all already.

The current beneficiaries need to save money and worry about the years ahead. Millions of baby boomers will retire soon meaning benefits will only go down. Future generations, lets prepare ourselves for high taxes with low return rates.

[Free] the art of strings

not my machine , this one is ~$3500






Last summer I started learning the art of tennis stringing. I bought a Eagnas crank machine from my tennis buddy Ron for $90 which has become part of my room. For a beginner, the process of giving life to a racket can be quite annoying, frustrating, time consuming yet awarding at the same time. Patience is a something important that you need to have in order to accomplish this task.


There are two main types of stringing a two piece and a one piece. The three piece is for those professional hobby stringers. I was taught the two piece by my friend Terrence. A two piece means that you use two different strings for that mains and crosses. While the one piece uses the same string for the mains and crosses, you loop around after you finish the mains. I learned that rackets with 16x19 string patterns are good for hybrid while rackets with 16x18 is not good for hybrids.

Unfortunately I messed up stringing at least 10 times already. A few times I didnt flare a hole on a new racket, leading me to waste a set of strings. Sometimes i chose the wrong hole or forgot to skip after the 6th and 7th main. And another time i didnt know that some specific string patterns need one piece jobs. . . . Mains usually are less strings than crosses because there are more crosses. Through constant practice, I learned what not to do during stringing a racket and what to do. Without rackets to practice on, I would not be able to string a racket in around 40 minutes, it used to take me 2 hours. O.o

[monthly] Going for the looks, man.

Imagine a store full of people without pimples or imperfections of the face and everyone had perfect bodies as workers. It is hard to tell apart one person from another because they are the same age, race, and size. Marshal Cohen argues that hiring for looks helps represent and make that particular brand look good. He is also implying that good looking workers mean better profits. Cohen is only targeting the “younger, fashionable market” while it is not true that the older generations do not buy clothes. It is important for retailers to keep in mind all age groups or groups of people. I do not agree with Cohen’s argument from the beginning of this quote until the end of it. I will try to use some of my ideas to make Cohen’s seem a bit narrowminded, although what he says are just his opinions.

These walking “billboards” become an image that the company wants and not necessary a good image. For the people who aren’t hired, they think that if they were to be hired, they would make the brand look bad. Those that are rejected will have their self-esteem hurt slowly. Through constant rejection due to looks, the paradigm of that person will change. Cohen says” it’s really important to create an environment to the community”, but an environment where customer can feel lesser than someone is not very welcoming. A good environment should be making the customer want to be there. From my experience, Abercrombie & Fitch is not a very welcoming place. The moment I enter the store, I inhale the stench of their overly strong perfume that makes my head dizzy. This aspect of the store is not very welcoming like the aspect that the employees feel better than you.

Another point is that are “walking billboards” that important or that beneficent? Although Cohen is talking about retailer brands, let’s imagine real human walking billboards. Think back to when you see the people dressed in Subway’s sandwiches or another food company’s hotdog. These real humans that are representing their company do not make me want to buy their products but to laugh at the creator. We sympathize with these workers that have to project an image for a living. The person in the suit or in our example the models do not feel very comfortable because their job is from their looks. Going for the looks can make these young people feel insecure due to the fact that one day they will lose their looks and therefore lose their jobs.



When Cohen says that a guy, (a guy that goes shopping by himself for clothes) goes to a store, he wants to see pretty girls. There are few things wrong with this statement. Cohen said that guy is “to hang out” and doesn’t involve the act of purchasing merchandise. Hanging out at a particular place could lead to loitering of a group of people and that results in less room for other customers. It is possible that he is too occupied with checking out the employees or other girls that he doesn’t even buy things. It is also possible that he purchases something to show off his wealth at this expensive Abercrombie & Fitch store to impress gals. In the first case, the girl become a distraction and is not actually a profit attraction. In the second case, the guy is buying for the sake of the girl and not the trendiness or quality of the product. Having attractive workers in your store does not always have a positive effect.

I got the idea of targeting the general people from the occupy Oakland. Since Cohen is talking about like a lower percentage of the population, it could be like the 5%. The adults and seniors are the 95%. If companies truly want to profit, they should aim at targeting the elderly, mainly the baby boomers, or the people who actually earn money. There will be millions and millions more people retiring now and they will get Social Security. Companies should make a high quality clothe or electronic which will tempt the senior citizen to use their money for that product. Even if the corporate bosses aim at the youngsters, the clothes should be something the parents would agree to. Since it the parents that pay for the clothes and not that children who pays, they must aim toward the parents. The fashionable child could be attracted to a store for the employees’ looks but if the clothes are low quality, the parent would make them return it.

A company that currently does not need brand enhancer based on looks is Apple. Their product itself is what gets the profit that goes in the billions area. They hire intelligent workers who are familiar with the product, so in this case, brains can be the attractive thing. Advertisements are not even shown quite often for this company because they do not need that extra publicity. Since some guys are interested in computers and gaming, a computer or itouch can possibly sell better than a shirt. Having a representative who “captures the awareness of your brand” could help business but not always in the long run.

Cohen should have thought about his words before he uttered them for this article. To have a real successful company, it should target every single age group. You must make them believe that this object they are selling is something they need even though they didn’t know they needed it before. In the case of clothing company, then one product should be able to adapt to all possible weather. A company should not hire by looks because by doing so, you lose possible terrific potential workers. Gals at a store do not attract customers but only distracts them. Walking billboards advertise the company but at the stake of the worker. I kind of went off topic with this essay but I just went with some different ideas and angles for this problem that I thought of.

[RE] freedom to fly

I agree with Ming about the magically transformed world that there is after the sun goes to sleep. I love it when I have the opportunity to bike home from tennis at 9 pm sometimes. Traffic disappears as everyone is home eating dinner or socializing on the computer. Due to less traffic, there is less noise outside. Since I have an itouch, I do need earphones to ring in my ears. I allow my itouch to roar throughout the empty street of otis. You get the freedom of speed from the newly paved pavement.


Some people are scared of the darkness but I am not. I am not scared that people will rob me because I have tennis rackets to protect me. The darkness actually feels safe for me because when I get to experience darkness, I get freedom from stress.


My mom is also like like Ming’s mom because she restricts my freedom through horrible curfews. Although I am near the age of 18, I am not given more freedom but actually less freedom. During winter, I required to come home around 6 because of the supposed danger of darkness. But I do not fear it, too bad the dictator does not understand that. Well this want for more freedom could be related to the concept of wanting to feel older when you are young and wanting to feel younger when I am older. Does this mean that I will regret wanting higher curfew later? I don’t think so because I would not have been a tennis deprived child. =/

[CE] keep on swimming, keep on swimming. shark fin!

My current event this week will be about a bill that Governor Brown signed. He recently made a law that banned the possession, sale, and distribution of shark fin into California. I think the people who were pro-ban of shark fin were too poor to buy or they were american born chinese that betrayed the chinese. The amount of sharks killed near California cannot be as much as the amount killed in Asia. Shark fins are used by the Chinese culture to make an expensive yet tasty soup that is full of texture. Even if the nutritionists say there is a lot of mercury in this soup, we as Chinese do not drink it everyday. It is only consumed maybe once in 5 years depending on your wealth.

The first thing i could relate this law with was the 18th Amendment to prohibit the sale, consumption, transportation of alcohol. The phrase "If we don't learn the mistakes of history, we are doomed to repeat them." could really work in this situation. It is quite possible that Chinese people will illegal smuggle shark fins and consume more than ever before. Humans are like teenagers, the more you tell them not to do something, the more they do it.

I do not understand this law. I know that it is the save sharks from dying and polluting the ocean but at the cost of Chinese tradition? I agree with our senator Leland Yee that it is racist to only ban the fin and now the whole shark. Leonardo DiCaprio’s opinion should not matter because he is Caucasian and shark fin soup is not part of his culture. This bill is clearly racist because what would Americans say if the government banned hamburgers. If one day cows started dying because of hamburgers, America and McDonalds wouldnt give a cow crap. They would just keep eating it . . .