Funny Google Doodles

Google really has some good ways to promote itself, one of them I like very much is from time to time, when I open the home page, some funny logos spring out. Logos for holidays or in memory of important events or celebrities, make Google interesting and use-friendly. Another funny website Oddee has selected several interesting logos.

science fantasy Google: to remember the 104th birthday of sci-fi writer HG Wells.

Frankenstein Google: to memory the British writer Mary Shelley’s 213th birthday, looks a little bit scary.Google for blindsCookie Monster Google: the 40th birthday of sesame street Frida Google: the famous artiest Frida Kahlo’s 103th birthdaythe Scream Google: the master piece of Edvard Munch in Googleπ Google : the logo of 3/14/2010Pac-Man Google: 30th birthday of classic game Pac-Man, you can actually play the game on the page Pop king Google: the logo after the death of Micheal JacksonFlintstones Google: the 50th anniversary of Flintstones

Imagine Google: not long ago, the 70th birthday of John Lennon, there is also a 32 seconds video, which is quite nice

Marketing of iPhone 4 in China

iphone 4 is officially on sale in China, in order to meet the customers’ buying habits, and broaden the influence at the same time, while cooperating with Chinaunicom to sell in caps but iphone 4 is also retailed in Apple Dealers, the result is pretty good. But somehow, Apple declares to change the way of retailing iphone 4 in China. Firstly you have to book it on the Internet in advance, and in order to buy iphone4 you need to show the ID card of China or your passport, to ensure the purchaser’s name and the booker’s name is the same. Why a good marketing turns out to be so troublesome? Relating to the phenomenon of the recent hot sales in China, I think the smartness of the people is the main reasons why Apple suddenly changes the policy.

Since the first day when the iphone4 is retailed, it is reported that there are some so-called“ ticket scalpers”, that means to hire somebody to buy the iphone4 in queue, and add more money and sell them to the real users. No wonder at the first of the sale, it is out of stock. But somehow in this way, it is much miserable for the real fans of the Apple product, not only the queue ,and you have to bear the extra price the ”ticket scalpers” put on the product, and even more there are some customer’s complain about the policy of Apple. At the same time the complain comes form the salesman, who is the ”ticket scalpers”, who is the real user ,it is hard to tell.

I think Apple should be aware that this kind of circumstance is of great delicacy, as “ticket scalpers” is quite common in China, they even appear in hospitals, let along cell phones. Not long time ago, Microsoft China launched a program which offers discount Office to university students, soon it became a fiesta for those “ticket scalpers”. They paid students for their personal information, bought discount Office, and sold them to others, making profits for just hundreds yuan (no more than 50 AUS dollars).

It’s really hard to understand that is Chinese market changes the business rules, or the latter ones are just adapting Chinese market. It is not Apple to be blamed to have so strict identity registration, it’s not lack of respect, and the company just doesn’t have a choice. I believe that genuine Apple fan could understand Apple’s choice, anyway, no one likes “ticket scalpers”.

It is indisputable Steve Jobs is pretty smart, it seems Chinese is so “clever” that Apple has to adjust its marketing in China. But they are just too “clever” to build a company like Apple or Microsoft. It’s difficult to tell the change of marketing is the misfortune of Apple or the misfortune of Chinese people.

Rethink of Google China

Since the opening policy and economic reform in 1970s, China has attracted numerous international companies to expand their market share. In the 21^st century, any international company which does not do research of Chinese culture, does not pay attention to the market in China, is not a mainstream international company. There is the largest population, the biggest market, the most generous consumers, who, due to historic reasons, believe that foreign products have better quality, they are also proud of consuming international brands, from cars to food, on the other hand, mostly, international brands’ marketing skills and high quality products satisfy them. It’s a win-win situation. It’s also a huge opportunity for international companies, like a gold rush.

As the political environment suddenly changed in 1989, many companies left, but after Chinese government made a speedy recovery, most of them came back in the early 1990s. in general, the social and commercial environment is getting more and more stable and open, some can even say now it is the most open period since the communist party established the people’s republic.

However, Google left China anyway. Even it is now not news, it is worthy to rethink the whole event. I think the choice Google made is not so responsible.

1. As a commercial giant which is influential globally, such a sudden quit is irresponsible, Google always declaims itself as making decisions transparently, but not this time.
2. Whether Google has communicated with Google China remains unknown, it is reported that employees didn’t know the whole event until the last second, from the standpoint of the employees, they are not well respected, and Google at least should inform them in advance.
3. Google has a lot of clients and cooperators in China, which care about Google’s policies very much, like those employees, they hadn’t received any news before Google quitted.

It’s a pity that Google made such a decision, although Chinese can still use Google via Hongkong’s server, I really doubt that what behind Google’s quit is to stimulate a debate at a political level, which starts from the censorship in a communist country. I also believe that someday Google will come back to China, even Chinese has a Chinese version Google—Baidu.

How much does it cost to study in universities in China?

One of my old friends was a little bit surprised when I told him how much I paid for the education in Australia, “Quite expensive” as he said, it brought me the idea to calculate the price back in Chian when I was an undergraduate, though my mathematics sucks.

My uni is , I can say, the typical university you can find in China, has long history, subsidized by the government, the parents would not be too upset when they know their children will study in it, it’s called Huazhong Normal University. Back to 1 year ago:

I paid about 1000 aus dollars per year for tuition fee.

Besides that, unlike here, the accommodation fee was compulsory, but unlike here, it was about 200 dollars per year, that was two semesters, amazingly cheap!

Plus food, books and other relative cost, I spend about 2,500 dollars per year.

Now the mathematics. There were 34 teaching weeks per year, in average about 25 classes (including lectures, seminar and so on), that was 750 classes in total, so I paid about 4 dollars per class, it means two classes equal a film ticket.

In term of teachers in uni, in average there were 40 students in one class, that was about 150 dollars, in big lecture hall, there were about 100 students, that was about 375 dollars, in total.

In term of universities, except the tuition fees from students, the financial support from the government is substantial. In case of my university, as it is not bad, the government pays another approximately 950 dollars for each student per year.  That means the cost of a class of 40 students is about 200 dollars, in case of a big lecture of 100 students, that is about 500 dollars, it means the cost of 3 big lectures equals the income of a farmer in Zhejiang province in a whole year.

As students will not ask universities how their tuition fees are spent by the universities, of cause, the money does not go to the teachers entirely, what the students know is they try to spend the money for knowledge that makes them different. My calculation may be quite armature, how the universities and the teachers make full use of the money to create maximum benefits for the students, and make the education worths the money is an issue deserves attentions.

Why Chinese Don’t Buy Dryer

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An interesting report in the Seattle Times called Western convenience that Chinese shun&, it argues that Chinese lifestyle has been significantly shaped by western lifestyle except the use of dryers.

Indeed, as the economy growth, latest appliances are more and more common in Chinese families, like Plasma TVs, double-door refrigerators are not only in rich families anymore, but even among those rich people, dryers are not popular. As in that report, Chinese’s attitude is “Don’t want them. Don’t trust them. Won’t buy them. And, even when they have them, won’t use them”. Which sounds pretty funny!

There are many reasons, I prefer that Chinese people really care about their carbon footprints! Actually, in traditional culture, the access to the sun, even this kind of in-direct access to the sun, is believed good for people’s health.

However, it can be quite annoying, especially in urban area, because this kind of lifestyle create sometimes hilarious land views, as the picture has shown. Telephone wires, trees, or any space can be used, are decorated by all kinds and al colors of clothes, from jeans to underwear, even shoes, nobody cares about the privacy on that or this kind of phenomenon is really offensive to the eyes sometime. I know this kind of no-hanging rules in western world, but it is interesting to know that a organisiation called Project Laundry List in the US encourages people to hang laundries outside, because it is said that dries count for up to 8% of family electricity consumption. As the global trend of Americanization, this kind of exception can occur too!

The Dumbest Generation?!

The title comes from a book I accidently found (The Dumbest Generation) by Mark Bauerlein, who is a English professor of Emory University in US. The book criticizes Internet, especially Facebook, makes young people stupid. It’s a very strange question.

I ask myself, even if nowadays the young people was the dumbest generations, does it suggests that the older people who “produce” and educate them is even dumber?

According to statistics, the percentage of adult user of Facebook or similar websites is getting higher. Who is the real dumbest generation?  In the book, the writer asserts “They spend unbelievable amounts of time electronically passing stories, pictures, tunes, and texts back and forth, savoring the thrill of peer attention and dwelling in a world of puerile banter and coarse images.” The interesting thing is that from somewhere I’ve read that Albert Einstein said the information that can be found in libraries is not necessary to remember, there should be more room in the brain for thinking.  Of cause, Einstein didn’t suggest pilots to fly with their manual books of their planes.

Today’s young, not just young people are consuming tons of digital music, images, films, games, everything, any kind of information or knowledge is accessible on the internet, how to use it properly is the real question. It is not the websites like Facebook make people forget the principle to manage their times, some of them are simply lack of those principles.

However, it is true that people who gain knowledge by observing and experimenting is getting less, the number of people who gain knowledge by clicking is increasing. May be that is problem which deserves attention.

The truth of studying abroad

I have a friend, who is also studying abroad, like me, the difference is he is sent by our government. He told me, he’d rather die, than go back now.

He told me the reason:  to maintain a similar lifestyle like here, assume he has a stable income, he needs at least 5,000,000 yuan(817,460 AUS dollars), to afford a decent apartment, 3,000,000 yuan(real estate), by the way, the price of real estate is ridiculous nowadays; to have a decent wedding, and some cost of raising a baby, another 1,000,000 yuan; some money for parents, to appreciate their great efforts during his growth, another 1,000,000 yuan.

 That’s not exaggerating at all. He doesn’t need a luxury life, only a relatively similar lifestyle as here can quite satisfy him.

In most people’s opinion in my country, studying abroad is something unusual, in a good way: either from a rich family, or smarter than other peers. Actually, it not all right. There are many cases like my friend, sent by the government. If fortunately, can successfully apply scholarship, can assure several years of accommodation fees, if not, it will cost a fortune, it can be the saving of the whole life’s saving of their parents plus weary part-time jobs. On the other hand, the situations abroad may not be so good, the fruitless research can lead to immediate end of the life of studying abroad, and it happens a lot.

After study abroad, another problem the students have to confront is going back, what will happen after going back? After usually years of hard work, most students expect to have a good opportunity to apply what they have learned,  however, in the markets nowadays, graduates with studying abroad backgrounds are not popular. They are facing the same problem as other domestic graduates– hard to find a job. It is not difficult to imagine, before they study abroad, they are saturated with all kinds of expectations from parents, relatives, friends, without any achievements, this kind of embarresment literally kill Chinese. So many of them choose to stay.

Thus, many of them are under lots of pressure, to meet the expectations from home country, and from themselves. To avoid the expectations, to avoid the steep price of real estate, to avoid the ill-developed medical, educational system, they choose to lead a wandering life abroad.

Ultimately, some students are accused havent studied hard enough, or aim at the moon, but maybe, there are too much pressure on them. more than they can afford.

China, world second largest economy?

Last week, the internet is full of news that my country, China has surpassed Japan, became the second largest economy in the world, just after America. Mainstream media including BBC, SKY news covered this news. Economist made this conclusion by comparing GDP.

On the other hand, China still emphasises itself as a developing country, because unlike the reports of the western media, we have a different view. The western media believes that we are not willing to admit we are “big” because we try to avoid the responsibility of being “big”. But actually, the “second” compromises because the huge population and the huge consumption of resources to achieve that “second”. To be exact, the average GDP per capita ranks 100 in the world, to us, this means more than the “second”.

Anyway, the rapid expansion of economy at least indicates that China is on the right track, comparing to the recent 200 years history, we are doing a pretty good job. But such a speed also makes me feel uneasy. The quality of life in Chian has improved dramatically, but it’s easy for me to say that compare to western country such Australia, we still have a long way to go. From a standpoint of the country, we still have problems at Taiwan and Tibet, our political system draws a lot of criticizes, our technologies are still our weak point, all of these diminish our power, though we are really big.

Maybe China should not pay too much attention to the tittle of the “second”. For each individual it is difficult to be totally understood by others, let along a country, there is no way to block the declaim of the theories such like “China Threat”, the important thing is we have to be more powerful while “playing” with other countries, we take care of our own business.

Sports in China, just for fun?

As a Chinese, like many other Chinese people back in my country, are very curious about western countries, such as Australia. Since I have lived here for several months, I try to compare some aspects of lives between my country and here, starts from sports, hope it won’t be too superficial or too boring!

In my observation, people take sports, or I should say, people consume sports as a part of entertainment, of cause, besides the basic function of  most of sports–make people more healthy. It is so common to see in trains or trams that a whole family, including very cute little babies, wearing the shirts of their footy team, going to the stadium for a footy game. It sounds like a good plan for weekends, and after that people have a lot of stuff in conversation. The other thing I notice that many homepages of the main publishing media here like the Age, have a section of sports, just after some other “serious issues” like politics. I think it suggests that the significance of sports here in peoples’  lives, because it provides so much fun to them!

On the other hand, sports in China have something beyond just entertainment for public. Take 2008 Beijing Olympic as example, the big event and the result that we rank No.1 on the golden medals list was considered a great triumph of not just those athletes but all Chinese people, the comments like this was so prevalence during the media covering of the game. By emphasizing the achievements our athletes made, the media was actually cultivating patriotism, by rising the common pride of being a Chinese!

As a matter of fact, most of the athletes participated in the game were chosen to be professional athletes even when they were young and had no idea what does it mean to be an athletes, they were sponsored by the government in training and daily lives, to ”fight for the pride of the country and the people”, they were indoctrinated by that discipline. That is why it is so common to see our athletes crying standing on the medals podium, singing our national anthem, watching our national flag rising, they are not just proud of themselves, they are also proud of the 1.3 billion people behind them!!!

My Understanding About Web 2.0

I cannot remember exactly since when the world of the internet has been filled with the term Web 2.0, I have read several introductions about web2.0, some assume it is a new technology, which highlight user experience, some think it is another version of web1.0 and 1.5. I haven’t found a clear answer until the class on Wednesday.

In my perspective, the essence of web.2.0 is communication, and that of web1.0 is just transmitting messages. In terms of advertisement, communication is defined as the process of exchanging messages in the mankind society. Information is the content of communication. The ultimate purpose of communication is to exchange messages, which is the generic terms of the information transmitting and reviewing activity which uses significant symbol between one person and another, between individual and society as well. In another word, communication is point-to-group transmission, which is a single-track activity. For instance, when we read the newspaper, we can only passively receive the news and advertisement which are already chosen and edited by the newspaper office, but not talk with it. The websites during the web1.0 era is just like this, the Sina （which is the most popular website in China ） users can only passively read but not involve, in this way ,the users and the website are two separate individuals. we can only receive what Sina has to offer. During the web1.0 age, everything is stick in a fixed location, waited to be noticed by the users. This is the feature of web1.0. When the movie is on, we are just audiences!

Communication is defined as the process of information, thoughts and emotions transmitting among individuals and groups and by this way come to an agreement for the given purpose. Communication includes the following aspects: firstly, for the given purpose; secondly, the information, thoughts, emotions transmitting process; thirdly, come to an agreement. In other words, communication is a point to point mutual transmitting which is a recycle process. Party A transmits information, and after Party B has received the information, he works over the information and then gives Party A feedback, which forms circulated interaction, web2.0 is just like this , the most notable instance is appeared on Wikipedia 15th January, 2001, which is a liberal encyclopedia and an international cooperation plan with liberal content.  And its purpose is to freely provide the summation of the universal knowledge written by the languages they choose. Every individual in the planet can freely enter the Wikipedia, express his perspective and information they concern, even correct some information you think it is misleading, in this way, the website and the user constitute an entirety, the users become the editor of the website. This is communication, since users are not passively receive information and services, instead they can adjust or even create the content and services according to their requirements.

As the representative if web2.0, the blog is even more so, when the users become the users of the website, they attach themselves with the website which constitute associated entirety. The website can come up with the topics, and the users communicate and interact on interested topics, the users can create new topics as well, among which can turn into the dominant part of the website. You can also hyperlink your favorite board when you become the web2.0 user. So this is the feature of web2.0.  When the movie is on, we are the directors!