ESUG 2008 Presentation

I'm in Amsterdam and just finished my ESUG 2008 presentation on the evolution of Seaside this morning. The gist of the talk was that Seaside has evolved through Experimentation, Stabilization, and Optimization and is enjoying a bit of an Adoption phase which should be encouraged. Sort of a call to arms.

I also took the opportunity to try to communicate the architecture and key metaphor of Seaside through illustrations. Finally, I rounded it all out with a few examples of less obvious (read badly documented) places people might consider extending the framework.

I think it went pretty well overall. I had a few people come up afterwards saying either that it had helped them understand some part of Seaside, that the historical perspective was interesting, or that they agreed with the need for documentation and advocacy.

I imagine James Robertson will post video on his blog at some point as he was filming all the talks. In the meantime he's posted a quick summary (wrong title and name spelled wrong, though! :) ). I'm guessing the slides will be available on the ESUG website sometime soon but I'll post them if not.

Update: Slides are available here.

Teaching a nation how to wave (part 1)

Friday was a national holiday, declared only days in advance in recognition of the Olympic opening ceremonies. My poorly judged trip to Tiananmen Square that day revealed more people than I have ever seen in one place in China. Flags, stickers, and headbands were being sold, purchased, and worn everywhere I looked. The Olympic excitement seemed to have finally hit.

Trying to get home, I eventually give up on taking the subway after finding stations closed and streets blocked off at every turn. With the heat finally getting to me, I fall into a taxi (the best 30 quai I ever spent!) and head for home. All of a sudden, the driver is trying to talk to me. We manage to communicate that I come from Canada and he from Beijing. He pats my leg and says jianada a few times with a big grin on his face. I try out jianada yo shan yo shui (Canada is beautiful, literally: there are mountains and there is water), messing up the pronunciation but earning a smiling correction from him instead of a disinterested grunt. Finally, he rests his hand on my arm, rubbing my arm hair between his index finger and thumb. As I'm beginning to find this creepy, he starts miming shaving his face. Now I get the joke! I mime back that it may be stinking hot in China but in Canada I need this fuzzy layer.

Heading to a bar to watch the opening ceremonies, I carefully write out the chinese address, copying it character by character from a book. I hop in a taxi and the driver studiously examines my scrawled lines, picking out the characters he recognizes and piecing it together. Finally, he gets it. He turns to me and mimes, "Did you write this?" Yes, I laugh. Hen hao, he smiles (very good) and gives me a thumbs up.

It seems the city is suddenly filled with high spirits and friendly good will. The drive to the bar is the quickest I've ever experienced, despite two of the four lanes being set aside for Olympic vehicles; apparently residents were asked to keep off the roads. The street is lined with police officers and vehicles and, at every intersection, bus stop, on-ramp, off-ramp, and pedestrian overpass, a soldier in dress uniform stands at careful attention. Beijing is about to throw a party and everything seems to be ready.

(to be continued)

Random Thoughts

I'm not quite sure what to write today so it will be a bit of a stream of consciousness.

I saw a man on a subway platform today repeatedly slapping a woman (presumably wife or girlfriend) in the face. It was truly horrifying. I thought we were all supposed to be desensitized by violence in movies, games, and the news but the sheer brutality of it was absolutely shocking. I mean this is something I have literally never seen before in my life. Hours later, it still makes my blood flash boil thinking about it. All I could think to do was to start screaming at this guy in a language he didn't understand, indicating by gestures that he could try it on someone else, but the subway doors had closed and all I could do was grimace and talk myself out of taking the next subway back. Apparently domestic violence is a big problem in China.

Only three weeks to go before my departure from China and (much like my last job) I don't really want to stay but the departure is still sad. I won't miss the slow, spotty Internet. I won't miss ordering bottled water. I definitely won't miss the pollution or the heat. I won't miss the one channel of English propaganda on television, or the staring, or the spitting, or the manually controlled traffic lights that don't give pedestrians enough time to get across the road, even if you get a head start before they go green.

What will I miss? I don't exactly know. I'll miss the cheap taxis and cheap beer. I'll miss the variety of food choices (at least compared to where I'm going next!). I'll regret not having got the most out of the country (no travel!) and not having learned enough of the language to even have a basic conversation with the taxi drivers. I'll miss the way something noticeable has changed every single time I go outside. But these all seem insignificant and I think there's something more to it. Or could it be just sentimentality because it was "home" for a while? It may take some time for me to figure this one out... and I think I may be back sometime to see a bit more of the country (maybe they'll have fixed the traffic lights!).

One final observation: I seem to be getting restless. It's been 5 or 6 months since I went on leave and this appears to be a pattern. When I returned from Europe in July of 2002, it was just after Christmas that I started working at UBC. When I returned from Australia, it was about 5 months before I started working at Emily Carr. And I became restless in Australia after about five and a half months of being there. It seems that's about as long as I can stand being unfocused (at least in one place). Julia commented that for her it would be more like a few hours but it's good to know what my limit is.

It's raining, it's pouring...

... the Old man is... yeah well it's really raining here again this morning. This is serious heavy rain (and I come from Vancouver, so I know whereof I speak). And the thunder and lightning is setting off car alarms again. It's really cool to live somewhere where storms are accompanied by huge rolling thunder crashes and the tremendous, powerful cracks of lightning bolts.

With the exception of the tropics, I have never been anywhere where it rains so much during the Summer. For a month or more now, we have been saying we should follow everybody else and buy umbrellas to hide away in a pocket or a bag. But it always feels like we're about to leave and the rain has to stop... sometime. It doesn't seem like it's going to.

On the bright side, it does seem to help keep the ground and the air clean. I wonder how much of it is caused by meteorologists seeding the clouds (they also apparently have technology in place to reduce the chance of rain for the opening ceremonies if necessary). The western media is acting like they've only just been made aware of the air quality problem in Beijing and its potential impact on the Olympic games. All construction in the city is slated to stop this Sunday so we'll see if that makes any difference. Sadly, as a result, streams of migrant workers are packing their few possessions and returning to their home provinces for the duration of the games. I say "as a result" but of course it is equally as a result of the desire to maintain "security" and a "clean" city for the games.

On a related note, I heard a news story on the World at Six on CBC saying that spectators would be searched for banners, flags, and noisemakers and that they would be confiscated. "No flags?", thought I, "That's kind of lame." After allowing this misconception to carry on for the length of the story, they added the extra detail that only flags smaller than 1m by 2m would be allowed. Who the heck needs a flag bigger than that?! Imagine you are sitting behind the guy with a flag bigger than that! Sheesh... Apparently umbrellas will be allowed, which seems like it may be a good thing.

It feels like the anticipation in the city has, if anything, declined over the past few weeks. I really felt like it has been growing since I arrived (maybe it was just my anticipation) but, as the last details get sorted out, I just don't feel any excitement. Oh, sure, there are a few more banners, the signs for the Olympic traffic lanes are going up, and workers are setting up venues around the city with big televisions for people to watch the events. People even lined up for hours at the bank to receive newly-printed 10 RMB notes with the Olympic stadium on them. But I just don't sense the excitement. I'm guessing it will turn on by decree.

The Rain!

It's 9:00am, Julia left for work 2 hours ago, and I'm listening to the morale-building going on outside one of the real-estate offices across the street. The workers in the office building kitty-corner to us often file out and do calisthenics in the parking lot early in the morning. But every morning these real-estate agents line up in two rows (one of men, one of women) on the sidewalk and do cheerleading routines involving chants, clapping, singing, and hand gestures, often to music.

The heat and humidity are already up; the former due mostly to two rare days of clear skies over the weekend. I no longer trust my key-chain thermometer as I have long suspected that it always reads between 27 and 29 degrees. I attribute this defect to the photograph I took of it maxed out at 50 degrees in northern Australia nearly 3 years ago. Google, however, says it is 27 degrees and 74% humidity right now... not bad for nine in the morning. It's amazing to me that a place can be this humid in the summer (wait for August!) and so dry in winter. If the heat doesn't dehydrate you here the air conditioning will and I wake up every morning with a dry throat.

The clear skies this weekend probably came thanks to the rain on Friday (rain seems to settle the fine particulate pollution). Julia and I met for dinner after work on Friday and then decided to go to a movie. As we emerged from the restaurant, it began to rain lightly. As we emerged from the taxi and sprinted to the cinema, it began to rain heavily. Forty minutes later, as our film was about to start, they informed us that Cinema 6 was being shut down because of water flooding into it and that we could get our money back. Upstairs, parts of the street were now flowing like rivers as the rain alternately poured and paused in 5-minute cycles. After half an hour trying to find a taxi that was (a) empty, (b) willing to pick us up (not sure why this is a problem), and (c) closer to us than to somebody else looking for the same thing, we gave up and walked to the subway. Unfortunately the subway was closed, due (as far as we could tell) to flooding. Tiring of waiting, we crossed the street and attempted to decipher the bus system. We did eventually manage to get close enough to home that we could walk the rest of the way, having become wet enough by then that we'd given up caring about staying dry anyway. In total, it took us two full hours to get home... this city doesn't deal well with heavy rain.

I bowled a 162!

For as long as I've known Julia I've been trying to get her to go bowling with me. It's not like I bowl often but it's fun occasionally. Well we finally had the opportunity last weekend at a social event organized by Julia's company and while I couldn't knock down more than 9 pins to save my life in the first game, I managed nearly all strikes and spares in the second as I found my stride. People said I had "good form" which I guess I can only attribute to a few years of regular curling; I did feel pretty consistent.

Sunday was a busy day for us. Julia had uniform measurements and team building with her hospitality staff, then we had lunch and bowling, and then we had a few hours to kill before she and I went to a noodle and dumpling cooking class. Unfortunately, we really only had a demonstration and a little practice of the noodle pulling so I still can't claim to have successfully mastered the art but at least I have an idea how the dough should feel. The dumplings, or jiaozi, were quite successful: pork-and-celery and egg-mushroom-and-bok-choi. And I had left overs for lunch!

In other news, I'm currently struggling under the weight of decisions regarding employment, flights out of here, and their destinations so more to come once those are settled. I won't go into all the details of the complications of obtaining a Russian visa but, after a frustrating experience with the Russian embassy in Kuala Lumpur coloured by view of Russian hospitality, I have essentially decided to put off my trans-siberian trip for another occasion.

We're nearly within a month of the Olypmics here now so the pace is accelerating. Julia is busy at work, we have our spare room rented out, and I have an accreditation that removes the need for me to leave the country one last time. The new subways are nearly open and construction sites are racing to get their landscaping done and their walls down before the construction ban kicks in a few weeks from now. Should be interesting times ahead...

RSS Feed Change

Just a quick note to anyone (Steve) who may be reading the feed for this blog: I've decided to start using FeedBurner, mostly just to provide email subscription for people who don't know what RSS means but also because I'm curious. I've been told that many news aggregators don't follow redirects, so you may need to update your feeds to the new URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlogDotFitzellDotCa

And for anyone who would rather receive an email when there are new posts, use this link: http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=2122389&loc=en_US