Tommy says…

The People’s Daily reports that the “White House district secretary” of Anhui, China, has been charged (in Chinese). See a post from another blog here. The “White House district secretary”, for those who don’t keep up with the weird and wonderful world of Chinese provincial politics, is Zhang Zhi’an, the Communist party secretary in Yingquan district, Fuyang city, Anhui province, who ruled his district like it was his fiefdom. He earned his monicker by building a gargantuan office building for the district government (i.e. a local council) that the locals have nicknamed “the White House” (see pic left - a bit more like the US capitol to my eyes). When Li Guofu, one of his underlings, dared to air this extravagance in the national press, Zhang teamed up with the district prosecutor to persecute Li, who eventually committed suicide in custody. I’m not here to discuss the socio-political implications of this case and Li’s prosecution. Rather, this news piece piqued my interest in disproportionately ornate government office buildings, which the Chinese appear to have perfected into an artform. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you — The Land of the Supersized Government Office - A Tour.*

Changxing county (pop 620,000), Zhejiang province; completed 2008, cost A$150m

City government office, Chengdu, Sichuan. Completed 2008, cost A$300m

New UN headquarters? Space port? No - Harbin city hall. Completed 2005, cost A$1bn

City hall of Hangzhou, Zhejiang - due for completion 2008, cost A$300m

Las Vegas? Not quite. Dongguan city government building, Guangdong province

Ji’nan city hall, completed 2007, cost A$1bn, featuring 40 elevators and 45,000 phone and network sockets

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

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* All images are used in good faith for the purpose of review and criticism, and news reporting 

Events, Random facts, Reviews, The Sydney Grind architecture, china, city hall, corruption, government office

Yesterday, London’s Telegraph carried a piece about how iPhone’s new voice-recognising Googling tool fails to recognise British accents. Then today, its antipodean and tabloidal namesake tells us that the iPhone gets confused by Australian accents.

I bet the same thing is happening across the world: every paper puts a local spin on what is really the same story (”iPhone’s new voice-recognising Googling tool is crap”). Just imagine it:

“US English accent confuses iPhone” — the Seattle Bugle.

“Vaticano Latin too much for iPhone - Cardinal warns against playing God” — the Vatican City Bull.

“iPhone refuses to understand Korean - Comrade Kim Jung-il denounces evil imperialist plot.” — the Pyongyang Times.

Random facts, Reviews, Technology, The Sydney Grind australia, google, iphone, north korea, telegraph

Name: Sushi Tei
Address: 1 Chifley Square, Cnr Elizabeth St and Hunter St, Sydney 2000
Website: http://www.sushitei.com/
Phone: +61 2 92327288
Type: Sushi restuarant/sushi train
Cuisine: Japanese/other Asian
Opening hours: 11:30am-3pm, 5pm-10pm

Sushi Tei (”Sushi pavilion”) is a chain of Japanese restaurants concentrated in South-East Asia (and even has a branch in Shanghai). Its Sydney branch is conveniently (for me) located at Chifley Square.

Sushi Tei specialises in lightly flavoured dishes that play on the natural flavours of commonplace, perhaps even mundane, ingredients. Its specialties include sushis, grilled rice dishes, and soups. On my most recent visit, the two of us shared a seafood paper hot pot, a salmon steak, a crispy sushi roll, and a soft shell crab sushi roll. The food was not ground-shattering, but I found no major fault with it. The paper hot pot looked elegant, and was delicious, with salmon, scallops, enokitake mushrooms, tofu and some kind of noodly thing on the bottom. I also recommend the sushi selection. Apart from the two mentioned above, the crispy salmon skin makizushi excellently combines the flavour of salmon with a crunchy texture. Highly enjoyable.

My only grumble coming out of this visit, though, is that serving sizes seem to have continued to diminish. I am fairly certain that the last time we ordered the soft shell crab roll, the crab legs protruding from the ends of the roll were not so juvenile looking. Considering the price, though, the meal was still fairly good value. Plus, the speed of service makes the restaurant a good choice for a quick, working dinner.

The best thing about the restaurant is the ambience, which is relaxing even at the busiest of times - with light wooden lattice dividers separating the tables, but not detracting from the light and airy atmosphere lent by floor to ceiling windows. The kitchen is open plan. If you want a better view of the sushi chef in action - at the expense of sitting on stools instead of 60-minute chairs - there is a sushi train counter.

Conclusion: Good value, good ambience, and ideal for a quick, quality meal.

Food: 7/10
Service: 6/10
Ambience: 7/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

Reviews, The Sydney Grind

A favourite book genre of mine is museum books. When I say “museum books”, I mean those publications which sit curiously between a catalogue and a scholarly publication. These are not meant to be academic treatises. Instead, they showcase the highlights of the museum or gallery’s collection. At the same time, they are more than a mere catalogue. The works are presented in their chronoloigcal and stylistic contexts. For a well-resourced museum or gallery, this means an entry-level introduction to the body of artworks and artefacts represented by the collection, which is accessible but at the same time, of sufficient depth to be interesting for the keen amateur.
This loose categorisation covers a whole range of publications. On the one hand, there are brief highlight catalogues with small blurbs introducing the period or style - in the nature of a (rather heavy) souvenir brochure. On the other, there are comprehensive introductions to an entire movement, illustrated with the museum’s own collection.

One of my favourites from the latter category is The Asian Collection from the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I happened upon this book while roaming the stacks one day at Fisher Library (as one does). Published on the occassion of the opening of the new Asian galleries at the AGNSW, the book traces the development of several strands of Asian art, with comprehensive illustrations from the Gallery’s extensive collection. One part I found most fascinating was the coverage of Chinese and East Asian porcelain - from which I understood exactly what “celadon” is - what it corresponds to in Chinese, and how it fits in with the styles that came before and after it. The illustrations are superb, of course, but the writing was a delight as well. Authoritatively authored and edited, it was also great prose, with great clarity and narrative quality. Read more…

Random facts, Reviews, The Sydney Grind, Travels

Name: Garden Buffet
Address: Level 1 - Star City, 80 Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009 - map
Website: Garden Buffet Restaurant  
Type: Buffet
Cuisine: European/Asian/international
Opening hours: 11:30-4:30, 5-9:30, 7 days

Enoch the Gambler (not his real name) recommended this restaurant hidden in the den of iniquity that is Star City Casino in Sydney. The buffet was surprisingly good. A good range of food, all of a fairly high quality. There are Asian stir fries and Indian curries, pasta, fish and chips, roast meats, a couple of casserole dishes. The seafood selection consisted of fresh prawns and sauteed mussels in shell. I always say that the roast beef is the best indicator of an all-you-can-eat buffet’s quality - and the beef here was great. Generally, despite my reluctance to set foot in a casino, I would go again.

(In Melbourne, I passed up the Crown casino buffet for the Hilton buffet - both were the same price ($65) and had the same top range food, but I thought the 5 star hotel would be better than the casino. The Hilton was not so impressive. Having been to the Star City buffet, I’m now quite keen to check out the Crown buffet the next time I’m in The Other City.)

Highlights:

• All-you-can drink soft drinks on tap, including an Orangina-Fanta hybrid product called “Refresh”, which I don’t remember seeing before.
• Skilfully prepared and well stocked dessert bar - a must for any good buffet.
• Sauteed beef shank with onion and red wine sauce
• Soup (with bread) was surprisingly nice
• Chocolate AND vanilla ice cream

Low lights

• It’s inside a casino
• Not only that, but you have to join the casino membership scheme to get a (big) discount, which means 1) stepping into the gaming floor and 2) spending 15 minutes registering. Though you do get a free $10 to squander on slots.
• Super busy, with a long line to just pay and sit down. Man at the door looked harassed and was impatient in directing us to queue up or stand aside
• The chocoalte ice cream looked disturbingly fecal in its shape

Conclusion: Nice food, good environment - once you get registered and manage to get inside

Food: 6/10
Service: 5/10
Ambience: 6/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 6/10

Epilogue: a week later, I went back and spent my $10 free credit on the pokies. After being shown how to operate the complex piece of gaming technology by an old Chinese lady, I won $10 out of the $10 free credit. Free money!

Events, Reviews, The Sydney Grind

Name: Din Tai Fung, Sydney
Address: Level 1, World Square, George Street Cnr of Liverpool St, Sydney 2000 - map
Website: http://www.dintaifung.com.tw/ch/index.asp
Phone: (02) 9264 6010
Type: Noodle/dim sim house
Cuisine: Taiwanese, Shanghainese, other Chinese
Opening hours: 11-2:30, 5-10; one hour earlier on weekends

The xiao long bao is a Shanghainese cultural icon. Invented in the town of Nanxiang, it looks like a miniature steamed pork bun, but has the delicate texture of the best steamed dumplings, and a filling made of - traditionally - pork and gelatin that melts into delicious broth when steamed. A slightly fancier version uses Shanghai crab roe mixed with the pork filling, creating an exquisite blend of flavours. In Shanghai, xiao long bao can be found in many restaurants, but probably the most famous location is the Nanxiang Mantou (a kind of steamed bun) Shop located in the old city, which is so popular with locals and visitors that it has a perrenial queue outside - and to get a seat, you have to stand behind the last batch of diners while they eat.

Read more…

Events, Reviews, The Sydney Grind

Yesterday’s SMH carried an article by Mary-Anne Toy (can’t find link on the SMH website, but here is the Brisbane Times’ copy), riddled as usual with factual errors and barely disguised bias.

She quotes the subject of the article, talking about golden retrievers used as guide dogs, thus: ”I noticed athletes from Germany, England and the US taking golden [coloured] dogs to get on and off buses. It has taken China more than 20 years to get its first guide dogs”

 Sounds okay, right? Now consider this: the subject we are talking about is blind - a paralympian. How could she tell that they are golden-coloured? It seems likely that the athelete would have referred to the dogs as jinmao quan (金毛犬) or jinmao (金毛), which literally mean “golden haired dog” or simply “golden hair”, the common name for the Golden Retriever in Chinese. A China correspondent who doesn’t even understand such basic usage should, at least, get a proper interpreter instead of relying on her own shaky grasp of the language. A second likely error from the same sentence is the reference to “England”. In Chinese, there are two - and etymologically related - words used to refer to England and the United Kingdom respectively. Yinggelan (英格兰) is a phonetic transliteration of England, and refers to specifically that constituent country of the UK. Yingguo (英国) is an old contraction of Yinggelan, and might be literally interpreted as “the English country” - and is used as shorthand for the political state that descends from the kingdom of England - today, the United Kingdom. A Chinese person in ordinary conversation would almost never use “Yinggelan” unless they are seeking to differentiate between England and, say, Scotland. The reference to “England” seems like another error of interpretation, confusing between England and Britain.

The premise of the article is the inadequacy of the Chinese bureaucracy as illustrated by its inability to deal with China’s first seeing-eye dog. Of course, the guide dog training program in Taiwan dates from much earlier. But, as I’ve ranted about before, Mary-Anne Toy is for all practical purposes a paid lobbyist for the current Taiwanese executive, so of course she would never pass up any chance to enforce the views of her paymaster. I look forward to the expected election of Ma Ying-jeou next month. Who knows how she’ll change her tune then.

I also note, in passing, errors of grammar such as “When she graduating in the early 1970s“

Reviews

 Went to see UNSW law revue yesterday. Not having gone to the USyd one, I can’t really compare … and Ewok’s claims about a skit dissing USyd’s quad did not prove true.

My favourite bits were:

• “Hi, I’m PC”, “Hi, I am PC from the PRC”
• “Ma ma mia” and Italian diving - especially the Catholic priest one and the Caesar one*
• Asian licence (”I need my licence to transfer to Newsouth!”)
• Net speak (”ROFL” *rolls on the floor laughing*

[*for those who weren't there.... bunch of togaed senators stab Caesar. Caesar: "Et tu Brute?". Enter Mark Antony. "Oh no, it's Mark Antony". Everyone cries "Ma ma mia!" and rolls on the floor clutching one leg. Referee runs up, blows whistle, and says "Penalty!"]

My not so favourite bits are:

• the long long band number.
• the big lights flashing directly into my eyes during the musical numbers - now I can totally empathise with people who get seizures from flashing cartoons.

Overall, I think there were quite a lot of good skits, and a couple of mediocre ones (badly controlled pace, stretched out too long, crap punch line, bad acting etc). Enjoyable, but not consistently brilliant. I give it 3 starst out of 5.

Drove home via South Dowling - M1 - M5. Never driven on that bit of M1 that connects to M5. Had no street lamps, was dark, raining, and trying to figure out how to demist the window. Navigator (Ewok) living off Google Maps on his mobile instead of a street directory… It was good fun.

In other news, my dad has repaird my (19 years old) Darkwing Transformer! His knee joint got broken at some point in those 19 years. but that’s okay. He can still stand, at least.

Events, Reviews, Travels

Iron Chef won’t be on SBS tonight (schedule) for the second week in a row, and no word on when it might be back on. It’s been displaced by “Great Australian Albums - Woodface By Crowded House”. This is the second time this year that SBS has jerked its Iron Chef fans around. Back in January, Iron Chef was replaced - no warning - by the creepy (and crappy) American abomination called Iron Chef America - complete with an obviously Caucasian man dressed in a Chinese shirt waving a Chinese sword around in a tatami covered room, claiming to be Chairman Kaga’s nephew. Following “audience feedback”, Iron Chef America got axed and the original Iron Chef was restored. And now it’s been taken off with little explanation. I don’t know what the programming dudes up at SBS are thinking.

Speaking of programming, I’m still waiting for Nine to bring on the new season of Hotel Babylon. I loved the first season last year, and Channel Nine claimed to be continuing it this year - but no sign of it as yet, 8 months into the year. I might have to go find DVDs in the UK.

Reviews

One of the most disappointing things for me this semester is that I am forced to do Criminology and drop Public International Law. To be honest, I have absolutely no interest in criminology, and very little in jurisprudence in general. It’s not because I’m intellectually opposed to jurisprudential theory. I just don’t have the sociological/philosophical grounding to appreciate it. For me, studying jurisprudence is like a blind man listening to a gallery curator describe a painting. I can hear and understand everything she’s saying about the difference between Modernism and Post-Modernism, but I can’t engage with the painting myself, nor can I try to paint a picture myself. In other words, interesting, but utterly useless.

What makes it worse is that I am forced to drop Public International Law to do Criminology, because the degree structure requires at least one jurisprudence subject - Criminology being one - and I need to do it now if I go on exchange next year. Public International Law is actually interesting to me, and probably the subject I have been most looking forward to in this degree. Now, chances are I won’t ever get to do it.

I understand the rationale behind the Jurisprudence requirement in a law degree. What I don’t understand is why they want to pretend they are offering a comprehensive education when it is anything but. To parrot Howard, it’s about choice, the freedom to choose. If I choose to learn nothing but black letter law with the odd dash of human rights, then I should be free to - just as another person who wants to do six units of jurisprudence is currently able to.

But then, the Sydney law program is much better structured than anything the E+B (Economics and Business) faculty can cough up, a fact of which I was painfully reminded during the investment banking interviews. I realised that, whereas 3 1/2 years of law has given me a reasonably comprehensive understanding of major areas of law, commerce has given me zilch. Up until 3 weeks ago, I had no idea what free cash flow was, or the difference between EV/EBITDA versus P/E, and the haziest idea about weighted average cost of capital. The problem there is that there’s too much choice - and no guidance from the faculty as to how you should make those choices. The problem is exacerbated for double degree students, who are restricted to doing one subject per major in their other degree — so you can’t do both Mergers & Acquisitions and Derivative Securities; and yet you have to do Trading and Dealing - probably the least educational of all finance subjects. The Finance pre-Honours program is even more of a joke. You get taught by a Horrible Creature from Outer Space, who marks on a whim and spends most of the class ranting against successful investment banks. Not a sight to inspire confidence in the honours program.

 So kids, don’t be fooled by their so-called “international accreditations”. Do your commerce degree at UNSW.

Law, Reviews