Chinese New Year

Tonight is Chinese New Year 's eve, I didn't realise that until last night. Just got home from my anut's family, the whole big family had dinner together. Sitting in my room, the sound of fireworks is really noisy outside, I want to be quiet.

Though Chinense New Year is coming, I'm not excited or anthing, it's just like a regular day.Walking in the street this afternoon, I couldn't feel much atmosphere of the eve of Chinese New Year besides there're few people in the street, and some stores will be closed earlier today. When I was a kid, I was really excited about the coming of Spring Festival, in the past, China was not that developed, people saved the best things for the holiday. My family started to perpare for the Spring Festival one month ahead. I especially enjoyed the dinner on lunar New Year's eve, it's the best dinner of the year, I saw lots of food we usually couldn't afford .I also expected the new clothes made by my aunt, but we were not allowed to put them on until the first day of Chinese New Year, it's a tradition, leaving the new clothes for the New Year. People all considered the Spring Festival important, at that time, life was simple and happy.

But now, my excitement has already gone, partly because the whole atmosphere is different -- the lives of Chinese people has been changed dramaticly ; partly because as get older , I've a new attitude toward holiday ; partly because my family don't celebrate Spring Festival as much as we used to do.

I've mentioned that I don't like lunar calendar that much, confusing. It's changing all the time, sometimes the Chinese New Year is in early January, and sometimes it's in late February. It's kinda meaningless for me to celebrate the day from the caleandar I've never used. I like January 1st, it's probably my favourite holiday, I do feel something new on that day, and I like seeing the year jump from 1999 to 2000 to 2001 to 2002 to 2oo3 to...

In the past, people all saved the best things to the Spirng Festival, but now, lives are getting better. We're able to get what we want anytime, rather than wating for the Spring Festival.

What do you think of Spring Festival ? I once did a survey at my university, I asked 100 or so students there, here're some of their answers :

A. I'm not interested in the holiday itself, what I like is I can take one month off , getting together with my family and haveing a good rest.
B. I don't care much about it.
C. I'm a little bit happy, but not as happy as before.
D. I'm excited , looking forward to it.
E. I don't like this traditional festival, it's meaningless.
F. I like celebrating some Western holidays like Christmas more.
G. I'm tired of observing the proprieties like visiting or treating relatives , friends....that I'm not close to.


Well, I think these thoughts probably reflect some young people's attitudes toward this traditional festival . If the question were" Do you like the Spring Festival?" , most of the answers would be YES, I guess, as there are no reasons to say NO. As for why you like it, it seems more people would say they like the free time rather than the holiday itself. But maybe for older people or the people living in poor areas of China, the answers would be totally differently.I don't really know,China is too big, and it's changing too fast...

Bai Causeway

Bai Causeway is one of my favourite places on this planet . There's a huge lake called West Lake in Hangzhou, Bai Causeway is lying on that lake. I'm not good at describing the beauties in words, here're some pictures I took yesterday, please enjoy ...
Pistures of Bai Causeway

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A little bit more about Bai Causeway

After reading Clarence's newest entry ( he just started a cool blog , as well as a brand new music site Music Distributors ), I thought it would be better to add more information about Bai Causeway , here they are : ( NOTE : They're not written my me, I found these information in Google )


"Whenever Hangzhou is referred, West Lake is invariably reminded. It is so named because it is located on the west side of the city. Many men of letters favored its picturesque scenery. In the Song Dynasty, the great poet Su Dongpo wrote a poem about it,

Likened West Lake to Lady Xizi (one of the four ancient beauties),
Charming she looks whether richly made up or only slightly so.

On three sides West Lake is sheltered by hills, with open flat land only to the northeast where downtown Hangzhou is located. There are two causeways on West Lake, one known as Bai causeway after Bai Juyi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, and the other known as Su causeway after Su Dongpo. From the wooded hillsides peep out temples, pagodas and towers and pavilions. Bai Juyi was once the governor of Hangzhou and he had the Bai causeway built. Just before his departure, he wrote down the lines as follows,

Lovingly my eyes dwell on every familiar sight,
The lakeside view I'll miss most sadly of all.

About 260 years after Bai Juyi left Hangzhou, Su Dongpo was appointed the deputy governor of the town. During his term of office, Su Dongpo, like Bai Juyi before him, also had the lake dredged and a causeway constructed, which is the Su causeway today. "

Anway,about these two poems, they sound really nice when in Chinese, but the English version don't make much sense to me at all.Greg showed me the English versions this afternoon. It's my first time to see the English verson, my first reaction was -- the English versions sound really strange. When translated into English, the beauties of the original poem have lost, it's almost impossible to translate Ancient chinese poems into English.

Ordinary

I'm just an ordinary girl, as ordinary as could be .

Two weeks ago, I was picked as an angry Chinese blogger, I've been getting much unexpected attention which I was not supposed to get.

Until now, the hype has gradually gone , everything is back to normal. Good, really.

Actually, I'm not that angry , full of complaints , insight or anything, I'm just a regular Chinese girl who happens to have lots of free time to write in English. The same girl who's eager to get many birthday presents, the same girl who's not confident of her English, the same girl who has hard time making genuine friends ... I'm not smarter than my peers, the only complacency I've got is I listen to more music and watch more movies , I love music and movies, I'm proud that I have a better taste , besides that, I'm nothing special.


As for China, I simply write honestly from my point of view. When seeing people pick my words in one-dimensional way, I feel sort of used, I feel complicated that some reports are so negative to China. Aslo when seeing people come here with the expectation of getting to know more about China and Chinese people, I feel kinda... how to say, " pressure" is not the right word... hmmm, well, I don't want to let them down, but I feel I'm too small to take all these, and I don't have enough to offer. I don't deserve to stand for anything, I'm just myself.

"Is it dangerous to talk about politics in China ? "
I know many people worry about me , I really appreciate your consideration. Politics used to be a sensitive topic in China, but I don't think it's still that dangerous . Some reports are overexaggerated , at least China is a safer place than reported I think. I hear Chinese people talk about politics a lot, including complaining, criticizing, or making fun of the leaders... most of them still feel a little bit uncomfortable talking about politics in public though, they usually choose talking about it among their groups or at home. As for me, politics is just like any other topics I pick, I don't intend to criticise all the time, but when something I care about comes up, I don't want to shut up. Outspoken is one part of my personality, comparing to other Chinese, my thoughts are not that atypical, I'm just not afriad to say what I'm thinking, and that's all.

Yeah, that's all. I'm just an ordinary girl, having a simple life, this is where I live ( pictures ), this is my school ( pictures ).

Hangzhou, the city I live in is a really nice place, but I'm a little bit tired of everything around. I've been living here more than 20 years, actually I haven't been to many other places, I know I'm pretty ignorant of the world outside. Life is comfortable here, for most of the time, I enjoy my simple life , but it makes me lazy, everyday seems the same, I feel kind of stagnating. I need to change, I need to move on. I like China a lot, I don't expect to find a better life somewhere else , I've already got a pretty good life. But I want to experience something new , I want to see the world more, and I want to be different.

Saturday's Street

Today is Saturday, it's crowded outside. I took some new pictures this afternoon, here are the scenes from the street : New Pictures !

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Virus !
It's the virus attack, no wonder my computer acted strangly yesterday. Now most of the problems have gone, but I still couldn't access my Hotmail account, I'll use Yahoo account for the time being, that is leylopleylop@yahoo.com.

The problem of the whole world ?! Wow, I've never thought about anything related to that . Yesterday was a depressing day. When the problems appeared, my first reaction was there's something wrong with my computer. I rebooted more than 20 times, but the problems were still there. I wanted to asked other people online, but I couldn't log in ICQ, MSN Messenger either. And few people I know were on Internet at that moment. I felt sort of being isolated, pining all the blame on my poor computer.

Today, I know more about what's going on, it's not my computer's fault at all. I'm surprised by the power of the virus, the virus can attack the whole world.(It's my first time to see such attack .) I didn't lose anything besides a frustrating day, but the virus must cause the big damage to other people who work on Internet. Hope the problem will be solved soon. The more we rely on Interent, the less damage we can take. I'm just an ordinary Internet user , but a little bit problem could ruin my day. I spend lots of time online, too much time , I think, life without Internet would be boring. Though several years ago, without computer, I had a pretty good life too, content with the pleasure the newspaper, radio, TV... gave me. But once I've got something new and better, it's tough to lose it or go back to the past. I believe the new technologies mostly make our lives better, and I'm happy about that the times I'm living in.

*Songs of the day
Richard Ashcroft -- Science of Science
Custom -- Beat Me
A3 -- Peace in The Valley

Update
Here're some of the pictures I took yesterday, most of them suck, I want to show them though. I'll put more better pictures in the furture...

My computer acts stangely today,it took me 10 minutes to load a page, and I couldn't access lots of sites or send email,I don't even know if I can send this message , hope I can make it...


Digital Camera

Finally, I've got the digital camera.
I'm really excited, I took 100 or so pictures today , but most of them turn out to be terrible , hmm... still need time to figure out how to take good pictures.

I want to show these pictures , about China, about Hangzhou ( the city I live ), and about my life.

But I'm not sure how to present these pictures. I could post the pictures in this blog ( have no idea how to add pictures to Blogspot though, if you can help me , please e-mail me ), or start another blog to put all the pictures, or upload the pictures to some websites then give the links ( are there many websites like this ? I'm so ignorant, if you know it, please recommend me some ).
I'm completely clueless about how to deal with the pictures, I need some help and suggestion.

Anyway, I've got some pictures of mine. If you're curious about what I look like, I'll e-mail you.


*Songs of the day
Brown Eyes -- Already One Year
G.O.D -- Gil
Fly to the sky -- Shy Love
Jinusean -- How Deep Is Your Love

21

Right in the first minute of Jan. 21st, I posted " Coming Soon : 21 " to my blog. Well, it's kinda selfish, but I'd like know what's it like being told " Happy birthday".

I almost never celebrate birthday , even when I was a kid . Few people noticed my birthday. My family only remember my lunar calendar bithday . I don't like lunar calendar which's been used as the traditional Chinese calendar , for the date is changing all the time, that's annoying. Here comes the problem, on Jan.21st, the day I want to celebrate, they hardly ever notice ( this year is no exception). On another birthday they consider is important, I don't really care. Anyway, though they consider it's important, the only celebration in my family is simply eating noodles together , it's a traditional way to celebrate one's birthday in China, noodles are like cakes. For the old, eating noodles also relates to the wish of living longer. Well, that tradition is not bad, but I want MORE than that !


Apart from family, people usually celebrate birthday with their friends. Um, but there're few friends around me . Kinda pathetic, nobody cares about my birthday. ( Note : not totally pathetic though, still working on finding the places I can fit in and the people I want to be with )

But I really want to hear " Happy birthday". I envy people who seem so happy on their birthday, I envy that they have a big party with cake and presents , I envy that they have so many friends around. I enjoy my own small world , but I don't want to be alone all the time. So this year, I take advantage of my blog , announcing the news here.

21
Jan.21st is my birthday.
I'm 21 .
Before 20, I was alway getting proud on my birthday every year -- I'm getting older than last year, I'm not a child any more. But after 20, But after 20, the feeling of pride has gone. I've started to feel the ages. Though still young, getting older is no longer a cool thing. And age doesn't help with maturity that much , I still act like a kid sometimes, like viewing the world with curiosity and a little bit stupidity ( one line I say it a lot : "Huh ?? I didn't know that ! it's my first time to see it ! " ), easy to get excited, and a little things can make me happy.

After annoucing the news , wow, it worked, I've been getting the words "Happy birthday". I've never got so many " Happy birthday " before, I'm so happy about it. Thanks !!! You cheer me up. Oh, another exciting thing, I also got a present ! John gave me a book. I've almost never got any present, really excited about it. I'm lucky to meet so many great people on Internet. Glad that I'm not alone on my 21st birthday. .



...

Update :
It's the next morning now, after reading some comments here, I've got something new to say.

Jane
"My parents never took me out or gave me presents on my birthday either. My birthday is just like any other day. I think Chinese parents express their love through other ways."

True. Chinese parents don't express their love so directly, and the children don't show their love directly to their parents either. I've never said anything like " I love you" to my mom, and I've never heard that either. But we both know that love each other from the heart. As for the birthday, just because they don't remember my birthday, doesn't mean they don't care about me. They care a LOT about me, I shouldn't complain about anything. (Thank you, Jane, for telling me all these ). I've got a great family, I love them.


Kim
"And you know, as an official grown-up, you can start having abirthday party yourself--just invite friends to eat, or all go to a movie together or something like that. People always enjoy celebrating. "

Right, I'm always waiting, waiting for something special to happen to me. In the night of that day, I went out after sitting in front of the computer during the day. I wanted to come across someone interesting , I expected to find something different. But I didn't know where to head for , ended up wandering around in the dark street for 5 hours, and sure enough, nothing happened. Always wating is OK, but always waiting with complaint is stupid. If I had done something active for myself, everything would be different. ( Thank you, Kim, for letting me realize all these).

I think I'm lucky, lucky to have this blog. I keep writing, some of the thoughts are so immature and uncertain that I thought they might be intolerable. Though I'm not afraid to show them, I don't want to bore you. But actually I've been getting great responses every now and then , which are helping me get over my uncertainty , somewhat open up my mind and change the way I look at the world. I appreciate what I've got, and it's time to move on.

Coming Soon : 21
I was supposed to post the story of "21" here, but something new just came up. So I decided to move the story to the next entry.

What's going on here ?
Well , someone ordered a galaxy of shrimp for me (check out the 10th comment made by "DL") . If you had read yesterday's post "I Need Your Support ", you probably know what I'm talking aobut . If not, check out the discussions there. I was mad at "DL" yesterday, but now I'm not angry anymore. It's wasting time to pay attention to this "troll", the more statements he's made , the more stupidity he's presented. I've already ended the story yesterday. But today, "DL" did it again -- attacking my blog. I didn't mean to bring up this old topic , I can delete or ban his comment in few seconds, but I don't want to, let's keep it there. Today is my birthday, everyone is saying Happy birthday to me, I'm turely happy , thanks a lot ! But "DL" came here using his nonsense words to attack me, like I said in my review yesterday, that's nothing but hatrd , BLIND hatrad. My good mood won't be ruined by these stupid words, by contrast, I'm laughing at him.

I think I've made my statement clearly yesterday, and thanks to the support of Sam, Anonymous (the 5th post), Mike, Lily, Political Pulpit , Bokane , Anoymous ( the 14th post )... I said this before, I want to say it again : It's really great to know you're on my side when I need your support. Well, I won't be bothered by his words anymore. But since he brought the fire again, I won't simply shut up ingoring him either. I don't care anthing about how he rates my site, I don't need his appreciation, but I just feel his standpoint is ridiculous. What I want to do today is prsenting two sides here, if you have something to say , please leave a comment or two there. If not , let's just forget him, he's nothing, nothing...

Winter Vacation

Done!
I've finished all the exams. I'll take one month off, exciting... Here're some things I want to do or get most right now, though pretty simple, I enjoy this simple life .

1. Cleaning my room :
I haven't cleaned my room for month, you can imagine how messy it is. But I kinda like keeping the room messy, I don't like organizing everything too well. When they turn out to be too disordered, it's fun to manage them though.


2. Writing and reading blogs (sites) .
I like what Political Pulpit said-- " It is fun to write, it is also fun to read what others write." Exactly . I'm happy writing my own blog, I'm also happy reading yours. I like blogs, they're personal and authentic. We're living in different world or having different lives, it's interesting to hear others' voices and open up our own mind.

3. Buying a digital camera :
I want to take pictures, I want to capture everything around in China, I'll put them on my blog later, so the stories with pictures will come soon. And I think I spend too much time staying at home and on Internet, I need to go out more.

4. Reading more ( English ) books :
I don't read books that much, getting most information from Internet. Now I have lots of free time, I'd like to read some books. And I need to read more : I want to write better, absorbing new stuffs is necessary.

5. Getting a ski mask like this (Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3 ) :
You probably have known that I kinda fantasize gangster's life from the previous post. I really like that ski mask . I can wear it as a regular hat during the day . During the night, I can put it down to cover my face. The weather is still cold, wearing a mask must be warm. What's more, when wearing the ski mask like this , I would be the safest person in the street. Nobody dares to close to come me. Cool !

6. Travel :
Well, I really want to travel. I'm not sure where I will go, I've just got the feeling that I want to go somewhere. But one thing that kinda bothers me , I cannot find anyone to travel with, and I don't want to travel alone. It seems everyone all has their friends to be with, but I haven't got many yet. I hope I can find some interesting people who happen to need other people too.

7. Music and Movies
Like always, listening to lots of music and watching lots of movies. I love music and movies , they cheer me up.

8. Practise spoken English
I've mentioned this in my previous comment. I cannot speak English that well. Partly because I was kind of lazy to practise, partly because it's hard to find people talking in English, partyly becuase I was not that confident on speaking... Well, they're all excuse though. Now I really want to speak, and I guess I need some help .

9. Learning Computer
I have to admit that I've got little knowledge to computer. I use Internet a lot, but I don't really know computer that much, even the basic technical stuffs. Before I thought it was useless to learn . Well, it was useless at that time. But now I want to learn, and I need to learn. It's great to learn something we really want to know. I'll start with learning HTML, almost know nothing about it , but apparently, it helps a lot for managing my blog better. I'll work on it.





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I Need Your Support
This review (Rating: 1 by The Dali Lama, 01.18.03) made me mad ! I need your support. Please take a look at those stupid words , if you agree with me, leave some reviews there . I need your support, thanks...

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1 Hour Later
Now I'm not as mad as the first moment I saw it. I was angry with that guy for his words to China. I don't care anything about how that stupid guy views about my site.(I'm sure he never take a look at it at all.) What I care about is his words to Chinese people and China. I know I shouldn't care that much , it's not a big deal, but I just couldn't care less. We've talked about this in last entry's comments, I really like your comments:

Political Pulpit -- " Just be you. Don't take on the burden of what others might think about China. Those people are misinformed and suffer in their ignorance. "

Ken Loo -- "Don't think too much as a Chinese as a whole, the burder might be to heavy for you to carry. Rather, be yourself and that for sure will help to change the image people have towards China or Chinese."
...
more comments from alex , jess , Dave , Brendan , Sam ...

I tend to feel bad that the criticism to the Chinese government goes to China and the Chinese people, it's not fair. Maybe I do think too much, I couldn't take this burder at all.

Thank you, thank you for letting me know all these, thank you for your support. I need to get out of this feelings, I won't be bothered by it anymore, I'll move to my next entry...


...
5 hours later
I'm not angry any more. It's stupid to get angry by such a stupid guy. But I'm glad what I've done this afternoon. I expressed my feelings towards his words , with the help of Sam and Anonymous , we totally beat him. This time he would probably get mad when seeing our rant. Cool.

Interesting to see my changes, I think they reflect some parts of my personalies : quick-tempered and impetuous. When I freak out , I tend to react with strong emotions and do some things without too much consideration. Plus, at that moment, I can't listen to anyone's advice . I'm stubborn, kind of extreme. After calming down, sometimes I'm pretty proud of what I've done when getting angry, sometimes I regret my stupid mistakes, and some times I have a good laugh of myself. Well, that's the end of today's story, another side of leylop.

Anyway, it's good to know that people stand by my side when I need the support, I'm not alone, I feel great !

Now I'll statrt enjoying my winter vacation and the Chinese New Year...

Cursing in Chinese

HOLY SHIT, this movie is awesome : South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut. . I've never watched any South Park episodes or TV shows, and I'm not a big fan of animation, but I really love this movie, it's incredibly funny, smart, and satirical. What's more, this movie is full of profanities-- a huge datebase for swear words in English. I'm not crazy about these words, but as a non-native English-speaker, I'm really want to know these words. I think to learn some swear words is important for learning a foreign language, not for using, but at least we need to understand some of them.

Cursing and swearing are all over the world though different cultures have devloped different ways. What do the Chinese curse and swear? Well, the curse words in Chinese are quite different from English.

How to say fuck in Chinese? Once I was asked by someone chatting on ICQ. Fuck? I tried to find the specific Chinese word for fuck, not the word with the meaning of having sex with someone or sleeping with somebody. But I couldn't come up with any word at that moment. When watching the English movies with Chinese subtitles, the Chinese word for fuck is 干（gan） or 操（cao）. But these two words mostly appear in movies subtitles. In real life, we don't use them that much. I don't think they're the right Chinese words for fuck .

Anyway, 操 reminds me of another Italian word ciao, the word for greeting or saying goodbye. But at first I didn't know it, when people online saying ciao to me, I always thought they were talking about fuck. Because ciao has the similar pronunciation with the Chinese word " cao " , since I've watched too many movies in English, when hearing the Italian word ciao, I related it to fuck immediately.

Go back to the Chinese word for fuck. I think instead of four- letter word in English, we use so called three-character word to insult people. The word is 他妈的（ ta ma de） or 妈的（ma de）. It has nothing to do with sex, but it's as offensive as fuck in English. When translated into English, it's not offensive at all , which means " his mother ", but in Chinese, it's a very common curse as fuck or shit in English.

It seems the topics of sex and excretion are the two largest sources for obscenities in English. But in Chinese, we don't say these words that much(Chinese people are conservative on talking about sex). So we curse differently.

In traditional values, Chinese curse what people care most: ancestors, family and death. Like 断子决孙（duan zi jue sun -- Die without a son. die withour a grandson. (literal meaning), it means swearing your family tree will be cut off; 死无葬身之地（si wu zang shen zhi di） -- Die without being buried; 天打雷劈（dian da lei pi）-- Hit by thunderbolt... There are many phrases like these in Chinese, but I think they usually appear in the books, movies, or used by old people.

I've been trying to collect people's most favourite curse words in Chinese. But making a list of curse words in Chinese is much more difficult than making the list in English. People from different parts of China have their own curse words, and they cannot understand each other. For most Chinese people, the first language we learn is not mandarin but our local dialects. We usually speak to our family and friends in our dialect. So I think most people like cursing in dialect more. There're tons of dialects in Chinese, which makes my collecting job harder.(I'm expecting that some Chinese director can make a Chinese movie like South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut ). I'm still working on it though.

Oh, there's one thing I find quite interesting, the Chinese word for egg is 蛋（dan, this single word is not offensive, but we can make many offensive words by putting dan into phrases, like:
混蛋（hun dan）
-- bastard ( literally : mixed egg )
滚蛋（gun dan）
-- Get out of here ! ( literally : rolling egg )
坏蛋（huai dan）
-- villain, wastrel, possible criminal. literally: bad egg
王八蛋（wang ba dan）
-- turtle-egg" something like a cuckhold. BAD.



Sinosplice blog's Chinese Version
John has started his Chinese blog. He's an American TEFL teacher in Hangzhou, you probably have known his English blog well. Now he's using Chinese to write about his experience in China, and his Chinese is awesome. If you can read Chinese, please check it out, it would be interesting !

Complicated

I feel a little bit down today. I had another terrible exam this morning, three terrible exams in a row. Today's is the worst. There were only three questions in the final paper, I knew none of them. I was blank, in 2 hours, I did nothing but wrote a letter to my teacher. I told him honestly how I really felt , why I didn't like that class, what I've been doing outside the class, and apologized for that paper. I felt sorry, sorry for what I've done. I didn't regret that I hadn't spent more time on that book I don't like, I didn't expect he could understand me, but I hope that paper won't hurt that teacher's feelings, I didn't mean to hurt him, it's all my own fault. Now I don't want to read , I don't want to talk, I don't want to do anything.

I've got complicated feelings these days. I'm happy about my blog, it's like magic , I really appreciate all the support I've got, almost too overwhelm to take them. But I feel at the same time I'm losing something or some people too, I don't want to lose them. I won't change anything, I'm still that leylop I used to be.

It's good for my blog that I was quoted or linked, but what I don't want to see is that actually some repotrs are pretty negative towards China. As a Chinese, I feel bad even sort of guilty about the way I got my unpredictable fame . I love China, I love this country. I keep criticising because I know a person's patriotism is not defined by blind faith in the goverment or the nation's leadership, it's more sophisticated by that. But people outside China might get the wrong idea of this country by certain reports. It's a shame the mistakes made by goverment ruin the whole image of China . I don't want to argue for the goverment , they don't deserve. But I want to agrue for China, for Chinese people. They deserve more positive and objective reports . Trust me, China is a better place than what appears in the media report.

I'm glad you like what I write, and I hope you like me not just for the dissident views I've got or few other Chinese having other own vocies, but for who I am, I mean the full sides of me.
-- leylop

The Story of Leylop's Blog

Hi, I'm glad you're reading my blog. Probably you haven't known me yet, welcome to Leylop's blog !

Everything happening is unpredictable to me , I'm kinda overwhelmed by all these. The whole story started from Jan. 8th.

At the late night on that day, I was sitting in front of computer to write my newest entry. Suddenly, I found that I was not able to access my own blog. ( the editing page was fine). My first reaction was there's something wrong with my computer, so I rebooted my computer, but it didn't work, and the problem was still there after I tired more than 10 times. I thought everything would be fine the next day, but I was wrong. The bad news came : Blogspot was blocked by the government , we couldn't access any blogs of Blogspot from then on. I was freaked out by this news. As I said before, blogging has become one part of my life, I didn't want to lose it. I had to set up the proxy, and it worked. ( Thanks to John's proxy servers list and Wilson's instructions page). I was able to access my own blog again and keeping blogging. But I thougt my blog would be dead because most people in China who are my main readers couldn't view my blog any more.

About my blog, let's go back to one month ago. I started my blog on December 15th, before that I'd read many blogs about China written by foreigners living in China ( John's China Blogs Page) , I thought it would be interesting to write a blog like these from a Chinese perspective. So I did it, "leylop's blog about china" got started.

I think I had a pretty good start, with the help of many other bloggers (I'm really appreciative that they comment actively here
) , and some visitors who are my classmates and people I know in real life, my blog has been doing fine. And I start to like writing (almost never wrote in English before ), writing about the things going on in China, and what I'm interested in or caring about, like music, movies, culture... I'd like to get more readers, since my blog and myself are so small, it's not easy to get noticed by others though.

But since Jan.8th, my blog has got much attention suddenly. First, I got the e-mail from Greg asking if he could link to my blog report about using proxy . Sure, I e-mailed him back, and got to know more about the whole blockage thing from his site. And I also found " leylop" appear in some other sites too. Pretty strange to me.

Since they blocked Blogspot in China, I've lost most Chinese visitors. But the visitors outside China are growing every day. My blog kinda stands out for few Chinese bloggers are writing in English, people outside China are curious about what's going on here. Plus, because of proxy service, I'm able to access any websites, including the banned sites in China. I'm sort of excited to explore these sites I haven't seen before. Ironically, what I've got is much more than what I've lost from the blockage.

Jan 13th, I received an e-mail from Juliana, a reporter from Reuters. She wanted to report the blockage thing and need the perspective of a Chinese blogger . So she sended me some questions and I replied her. At first I didn't notice she works for such a big news agency until I saw her report everywhere on Internet the next couple of days.

And last night I also found my blog in Guardian as " The best journalism from around the web " . I was kinda shocked the moment I saw it. I didn't know how they found me. "Journalism" ?! I don't think I deserve. I'm just a regular Chinese girl who's blogging her life in China, I've never expect I would be put in the spotlight like this.

Well, that's my story. I've got many e-mail and new visitors since yesterday. Before I've never dreamt about all these. But I'm really glad that you find me, and hope you like my blog .

Though today's entry's kind of boring, I want to explain what has been going on with me these days. I always want taste the feelings of fame. Sounds stupid, but when knowing people around me get the chance to show up on TV or newspaper, I keep saying, "Why not me! I want to be on TV too !". I don't want to be famous or anything, and I won't , but I'd like to know how's it like. Well, I think I've got what I want today, it's not a big deal, enough for me though. I have a hard time dealing with my confidence. I used to think I am good at nothing, and few people understand or like me . But now, I'm getting more confident, good to know people out there like what I write, I have something to offer too. And I think I really need more friends...


Update
Just found out that I was able to access Blogspot again, and Aaron said he could do that too. ( Aaron is in Shenzhen China ). It seems they've canceled the blockage , great !


Yao Ming and Shaquille O'Neal
Derrick posted this link in this entry's comment, I'd like to post it here. This story makes him very very angry that this has not been a bigger media story in the US. I read it , and I've got the same feelings.
( check out the discussions from Racingmix )



*Songs of the day
Alkaline Trio -- Radio
Pink -- Just Like A Pill
Minnie Ripperton -- Loving You
Avril Lavigne -- Anthing But Ordinary

Wow !
Type in "leylop" in Google news, I'm in ZDNet, Yahoo News, Reuters UK , Forbes, ABC News, CNN Asia, Times of India , Guardian ( at the top of "The best journalism from around the web " -- they didn't know I'm a girl, but never mind , it's cool to be anonymous. And hi to everyone from Guardian, I like this site. I don't think I'm deserved to "The best journalism from around the web", glad you find me though, please feel free to comment here. ) It seems my words are flying round the world today, I almost become the spokesman for all Chinese bloggers. Cool. That's something I've never thought about . And the western media has started the massive coverage to the blockage issue.(More Into ).
I'll tell you more about it tomorrow....


Today's Entry

The Exam of Deng Xiao Ping Theory

Damn I've slept all afternoon! I felt kind of guilty the moment I woke up. I should have read books, and prepare for my final exams. It's the only time I pick up the books from school. How could I spend the whole afternoon on sleep !

I screwed up my last exam. I think I'll be flunked by that teacher I've never seen. The exam is about Deng Xiaoping Theory. In every Chinese college, we have to learn Deng Xiaoping Theory , Mao Zedong Theory, and Marxism. ( *I'm a college student , in case you haven't known that ). These greatest theories are just stupid to learn. We've been learning the same stuffs from our elementary school ( 6 years), to junior middle school ( 3 years), to high school ( 3 years), and now to college ( 4 years). I'm really sick and tired of them. These books are saying nothing but how great these leaders are, how perfect our socity is, and how wonderful our lives will be . Bullshit ! I'll never buy these meaningless words. There're might be some sophisticated wisdom inside these books, but they can't push us to learn these old stuffs again and again. The more I learn, the less tolerance I've got.

Go back to the exam of Deng Xiaoping Theory. How come I have no idea what that teacher this course looks like ? That's because I've never been to that class the whole semester. Sounds crazy? Not really. Even if I was in that classroom, I wouldn't pay any attention to the teacher. I would either read my own books or sleep. I consider skipping that class is the best way to avoid wasting the time. But how could the teacher stand the students like me ? Well, there're too many students like me in that class. Usually, only 1/3 students are there. Among these students , most of them are doing other things like reading their own books, sleeping, talking to each other... the classroom is like a super market, it's not easy to hear the teacher's voice. I guess the teacher has already got used to that, or it's tough not to cosider herself as a loser. I know these words are too harsh, but that's the way it is. To save her own face, the the teacher hardly ever takes roll. She did it only once, so there's no difference between absent for one time and absent for the whole semester. Though we don't like these classes, we have to learn them ( for me, I have to take the exam) , or we cannot graduate . The exams are not difficult, all we need to do is memorize everything printed on books, The students usually cram for them , and most of them can pass.

But I don't think I could make it this time. First, I did a really a bad job on final paper. Before the exam, I didn't prepare much, I should have spent more time on it though. But , well, as you know, Blogspot has been blocked in China since past few days ago . I was preparing the exam Deng Xiaoping Theory right on that time. I was kinda mad, which made me disbelieve more everything printed on the book. I couldn't stand it anymore. So I didn't finish read the whole book I was supposed to read. The result ? I made a real mess-up of the exam. But the story hasn't finished yet, before I took the exam, some classmate told me they'd wrriten an essay two months ago as the midterm exam which is also very important when considering the final scores. Embarrassed, I've never heard of that essay. I'll be dead.




*Songs of the day
Blue Cantrell - - Hit Em Up Style
Gorillaz -- Clint Eastwood
Commodores -- Brick House
Cake -- Sheep Go to Heaven

Hey You

Hey you, I'm talking to you. You don't know me, I don't know you, we haven't met yet, probably we'll never ever get the chance to meet. But I know you're there, I'll like you, and you'll like me. You may live right next door or another totally different world, I don't really know, the world is too big, it's not easy to find or to be found.

Hey you, I say we'll like each other because we can talk, understand and share with each other which are really important to me. I need somebody to talk to, who'll listen to me with heart and care about my words no matter how pointless they are. Hey you, you're the one. And I'll listen to you with my heart and care about your words mo matter how pointless they are, I know you also need somebody to talk to .

Hey you, I'm kind of a loner, I can't stay long with most people, I don't feel any connection with them. I spend lots of time being alone. Not that I like that, but there's few people I feel like hanging out with. I can't stand being with people I don't like, and I'm not confident enough to be with people I like. Hey you, I know you understand what I'm talking about, you'll never do something like showing your sympathy to me or trying to help me out. They won't help, I don't need to change, all I want is to find someone like me, someone I'm comfortable to be with. Hey you, you're the one. You understand exactly how I feel, because you have the same problem too. I don't expect to find someone who turns my life around or totally changes my life. Two loners can be a perfect couple. We still need our personal space, we still need time to be alone. Hey you, I have hard time expressing my feelings, I mean he feeling to the one I like, I'm not sure if the one I like likes me too, so I'm always waiting. I let you this in case you think I don't like you.

Hey you, I don't believe falling in love at first sight, that's an illusion. What is "first sight"? First sight is to see or judge people from the way they look. If they're attracted to each other, the chemistry is from their appearance, not seeing through the beauty inside. Hey you, I've never been in love before, I mean the real love, have you? I even don't believe the existence of true love . I don't know why, I just hate love stories or love songs. Two people getting together at the end in a story doesn't mean anything, keeping love is much more difficult than falling love. Hey you, don't mind my take on true love, I don't think I can fall in love with you so easily. Our relationship won't be like the cliched movies. So don't like me at the beginning, you can even hate me. After spending more time together, we can get to know more about each other. It's good to know someone from the bad sides. Too many people are pretending to be good, but when they get closer, the bad sides are showing more and more. So let's show our ture selves from the beginning, both the good sides and bad sides. Hey you, I'm pretty straightforward, I know you won't bother by that, and always be honest to me too.

Hey you, I don't care much about if your're smart, attractive, funny, rich... because I've got none of them. I know you don't care about them either. We can hit it off without anything special.

Hey you, if you've been reading my blog, probably you could figure out more and more about me. What I write is what I think, what I think is pretty much like who I am. I wish we have something similar to share with, also somehting different to offer.

Hey you, where are you ?

Hey you...

Blockage and Freedom

Blogspot has been blocked in China since Jan.8th, more and more discussions are going on around this topic. Today I want to talk about it too.

My first question is : " Who did this ? "
It's done by the Chinese government , I think that's 100 percent for sure. But some Chinese people carry the different views ( in Chinese), who think the problem is for Blogspot. I don't know why they think in that way , but I believe some time later, they might change their views.

Another question is, why did the government block these blogs? (first let's assume they did it.) .
China is always notorious for it's ridiculous censorship. Blog's popularity is booming in China ( partly because it's so easy to use), they're not happy about hearing so many different voices. I used to have the bad feeling that the blockage would be inevitable someday, but I didn't expect the day came so soon.

The third question is why didn't they block Blogger ?
Blogger still works ,we're able to access editing page to write and post entries, even view them from proxies. If they want to stop people in China writing blogs, why didn't they simply block Blogger instead of Blogspot ? Or why didn't they block both? I'm not an expert on some technical things, I haven't figure these question out yet. I think they're not only trying to stop bloggers in China from posting their blogs, but also stopping all Chinese Internet surfers from seeing these blogs and other blogs outside China. They probably think that blockage might beat down bloggers and stop them from posting message for losing Chinese audiences. But we bloggers are much stronger than they thought.

The next question is does it help ? ( Note : this question is asked from their standpoint)
I think they'll never see what they expect to see by blocking Blogspot . Blockage only causes more dissents, they're just putting themself in the firing line. Actually the bloggers who have something to say won't be deterred by the blockage at all, we'll find other ways (like using proxies.) to deal with this tough situation .The only people might be stopped by them are the ones who have little to say , register blogs just for fun, and might be too lazy to find other ways to keep blogging. And this news will bring more Chinese people's discontent to our political environment , also get more Western media's attention to china's censorship policies and negative coverage about Chinese government. ( see, leylop is a good example, I used to be a blogger who are mainly fond of music and movies, but today I turn out to aim at politics .)

The last question is how long the blockage will last ?
I hope the blockage is temporary like what they've done to Google last year. It would sure suck if all Blogspot sites end up like Angelfire or geocities.com. But Google is different from Blogspot because it's more well-known, and tons of Chiense rely on it a lot. So it's got more attention , complaint, and discontentment when being blocked. The most ridiculous thing is the Chinese government's explanation is it's not blockage but the technical problems. Liars! Luckily, eventually they realize blocking google is like suicide.

Ending
I'm not sure the future of Blogspot, I hope it turn out to be fine. Good to see more disscussions are going on, we cannot change everything, but at least we can make some things a little bit different.

Proxy

Wow, I'm really excited ! Finally, I'm able to access by own blog and any other banned sites in China because of proxy service . I've been trying to get one for quite a whlie, but none of them worked. Now I know it's all my fault, there's wrong during the setting. Glad that everything is OK now :)

...

Access
I'm still not able to access my blog in China, and I really miss it a lot. It seems that Blogspot has been blocked by China. This afternoon, from sitemeter, I saw some some people get the access from a strange link . I tried, but it just worked for a short time, and doesn't work now .I don't know what it is or how it works, if you know what I'm talking about, please e-mail me.

I'll keep blogging as long as Blogger works, it has become one part of my life, I think. Before I thought my blog was dead, I couldn't see my page, and the comments have been stuck in 0 for days. I'm appreciated that you keep coming .(and thanks for your e-mail ).


...


January 9, 2003

Election? ( I rewrote this entry, because I'm pissed off )

Do every Chinese citizen have the right to vote? " Of course you have ", the the authority affirms, these're their words. ( it's better not to read it because they're all wrong , skip these two paragraphs )

"1.The People's Republic of China practices the system of people's congress. China's Constitution stipulates that all power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people (people don't have any power at all ), and the organs through which the people exercise state power are the National People's Congress and the local people's congresses at different levels. Local people's congresses at different levels are elected in a democratic way , and are responsible to the people and subject to supervision by the people ( it's a joke). Deputies to the people's congresses at county and township levels are elected directly by their constituents. All citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of ethnic status, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education, property status or length of residence. Such citizens make up 99.97 percent of the population who are 18 years of age or over. Over the past dozen years, more than 90 percent (that's a lie) of the electorates participated in the four direct elections of deputies to the people's congresses at county and township levels. Deputies to the people's congresses of the provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, autonomous prefectures and cities divided into districts are elected by the people's congresses at the next lower level. Deputies to the NPC are elected by the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and by the armed forces. Candidates for deputies to the people's congress at various levels are nominated on the basis of electoral districts or electoral units. The elections shall be by secret ballot.
2.The NPC is elected for a term of five years. It usually meets once a year."

Today is a big day -- the election day . I voted for the first time of my life( too young to vote in last election five years ago ) , the real vote running by the pathetic government.

The elections have been going on in my shcool (and any other places in China) for a couple of month. First, we picked two students from my classes, then the whole department, then... (I'm not sure how many "then" in the middle)... then it comes today -- the election day. We were asked to pick two people from three candidates who get chances to be the deputies of the local congress. (* there're more elections left before being allowed to local congress). I don't think these three candidates were elected by us, they're all well-known figures in my university, they were supposed to be picked without any corrupt election.
At the beginning ( during the voting in my class) , I didn't even know why I voted, and nobody really knew. Our monitor asked us to choose 2 best students in class. I didn't quite understand the meaning of "best", so I chose two top students everyone picked. Two weeks later or so, another election, we were asked to pick 3 people from a long candidates list , I knew none of them, so I simply chose two at random, and everyone did the same thing, choosing people at random. And I still didn't know what I was doing. As the elections going on, I've got more clues : what we're doing is voting for deputies of the people's congress. Also some red banners have started to appear everywhere which are saying "����������ѡ��������Ϊ����"(People choose duputies, duputies serve people) -- I'm really sick and tired of these superficial slogans.

Actually, the voting is nothing but hypocrisy, we all know that. We vote, not for picking the leaders of China, but for picking the deputies of the people's congress. What the deputies do is taking part in a big meeting every five years to agree on the important rules the authority have made, and vote for the leaders they have already decided , in other words, they're doing nothing -- Wait, I'm wrong, they're doing SOMETHING -- they show up in front of TV camera and spend hours on VOTING for China's new president. I think I have more tolerances to put up with the fact that we can not vote than the lies being told that people have the real power of China. Nobody cares about the elections like this , we couldn't decide or change much at all.

About China's democracy, first of all, I think we don't have any democracy, so I won't buy any words from the authorities. And I don't care about it . I hate to hear something like " We need to search for our freedom , we need to learn from democratic countries ". What for ? For ordinary people, we can't decide or change anything no matter where we are. I hate political propaganda, politicians make me sick, maybe I'm too cynical, but I think most of these so called democratic policies are uesed for their own sakes like getting the support of public. I hate other countries's politicians always criticize China on democratic issues for themselves, pretending how they care about the democracy of the rest ot the world. So hey Dubya, I know you worry a lot for the democracy of China and the freedom of Chinese people, thinking about coming over here, freeing our people, reforming our societies, liberalizing, and democratizing... ? Let me tell you, I don't need your help, and I don't like you.

( check out these greatest moments, my IE crashed several times when searching in Google picture 1 , picture 2 , picture 3 , picture 4 )
...

Blogspot

I haven't been able to access any blogs from blogspots since last night. The editing page is still fine, so I can put in messages but I cannot see it myself. Almost everyone here I've asked have the same problem. I hope the problem is temporary, they didn't block these blogs in China like they'd done to many other sites. I'll be back soon...

*Songs of the day
Mozart -- Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major ("Eine kleine Nachtmusik"), K. 525
Mozart -- Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550
Morzart-- Turkish March
Morzart -- Symphony No. 41 in C major ("Jupiter"), K. 551
...
I love Morzart !!!

Look out of the window

Hey everyone, if you're in hangzhou, and you're reading my blog at this moment, look out of the window. See anything ? Snow ! The real snow. ( the world is gettting white now) . Maybe you think it's nothing, but I'm really excited about it, and want to share this news with the world . It has snowed several times this year, but all stopped soon, and turned out to be snow + rain.(that's annoying). I haven't seen real snow for years. I wish when I wake up tomorrow morning, it's still snowing....

It's really cold today (comparing to Hangzhou's weather), the West Lake has frozen up this moring. ( the last time was 1976). I hate cold weather, but snow makes me really happy... :)

Why do I hate these shows

I can't stand they ruining the shows like that !
I'm completely fed up with these shows !
I totally hate these TV stations !

What the hell you're talking about ? What shows ? Why are you so mad ?

Well, let me explain more to you. I'm talking about some shows on TV which were bought from oversea media, like Discover Channel, National Geographic, History Channel... In most areas of China, these Channels are not avaliavle yet, so some Chinese TV stations have brought some programs , and put them on TV (like a show running one or two hours a day ).

I like most of these shows, and enjoy watching them. Anyway , besides one show. There's a really dull game show playing on dinner time. The show is about a cool guy and a bunch of hot girls playing stupid games in a castle. Every chicks there have huge breasts, (if you ever catch this show, don't forget check out their breasts in outline ), wear hot pants, and put on lots of make-up . From their big wave hairstyle and outfits, I guess the show was pretty old, probably from late 80's or early 90's.I couldn't believe that TV staion pay money for such bad quality show, and I wonder who will ever watch the show like that.

Go back to good shows. When I'm saying "I like these shows", what I refer to is the original shows . But when they put them into Chinese version, the tragedy begins -- these shows turn out to be horrible.
Why horrible? That's because the lousy dubbing work, here' re my reasons :

1.In these shows, we can only hear one or two voices (no more than three). The guy is handling all male voices, plus narrator; and the girl is dealing with all female vocies, plus children's voices.

2.Sometimes the original talking voices are still there, we can hear them clearly. Or when they removed the original voices, everything all shut up ( nature sounds, noises, animal sounds ... ), the world becomes completely silent.

3. They've never shown a little bit effort to fit the Chinese voice to people mouths.
( *I know it's hard to do. Even in some well - dubbed movies, fitting the movements of mouth is still challenging . Like " I - love -you " is totally different from " wo - ai - ni " (�Ұ���), but at least I can tell that they've tried )
But in these TV shows, they simpley ingore the existence of mouth .Usually, the original voices still keep on talking after Chinese voice has already finished his/her words seconds ago .

4. Since there're only two Chinese voices there, they must be great?
The answer is NO, never expect on that. They don't have good voices. And the voices turn out to be worse when they're trying to pretend different voices of different ages and personalties, terrible.

5.Yes, I have more reasons, but I think it's too harsh to list more, so I stop here.

In original shows, everyone has their own voice , sometimes , people speak different languages, or the same language with different accents. The diversities of voices make these show more interesting.But when dubbed into Chinese, we've lost everything. Everyone speaks putonghua is understandable, which makes Chinese people who don't know English understand the shows. But they can't ignore the dubbing job like that. Why not hiring more people dubbing for different voices ? Though it's not a big movie which can make lots of money, at least they should show the slightest amount of respect to the orinigal shows.To save money, they're losing audience as well.(I guess they've spent too much money on buying the shows like castle game featuring cool guy and hot girls .) If they're too stingy to pay for dubbing professionists, why not finding some volunteers? Here leylop is eager to be part of them. ( I'm not ashamed to admit that I always want to be shown on TV or newspaper. Every time I see news reporters intevewing people in the street, I never give up trying to approach them though I haven't got anyone's attention yet.)

Well, that's why I hate these shows. Fortunately, I've seen some TV station start keeping some original voices, that's great. It would be too selfish to ask them keep all voices with subtitles because lots of kids and old people are watching these shows too. I like these original shows, and I hope they can put more work on these Chinese versions.

Crime Movies

I'm a big fan of crime movies, but I don't like all of them, there's just one type of Crime I really enjoy, it is ---

1. Hongkong crime movies?
I watched many Hongkong crime movies when I was a kid. We call them 黑帮片Ƭ(hei bang pian) in chinese. Since mainland of China is a boring place for developing crime movies, most Chinese crime stories are based on Hongkong. Usually the gangsters are good at gambling, using guns, and fighting (like kungfu). And there're good and bad gansters there , in most cases , good gansters are leading roles. They're loyal and devoted to their bosses (老大 -- la da) , and consider betrayal is the biggest shame. Deep inside, they're pretty traditional : they care a lot about their family (kidnaping one side's familiy member is commonly seen in these movies); they cherish friendship, and personal loyalty (义气 -- yi qi which is very important; they only kill bad guys, even save helpless people sometimes; They are lucky guys who can find romance easily; They are likey to do something out of revenge...Chinese culture and values can be reflected in these gangsters. After watching these movies, they almost become our heroes.

So Hongkong crime movies? -- No, it's not my type. Because they're too perfect who are more like saints . I don't like heroes, and I hate they add love stories into crime movies. It seems that the moviemakers can't go out of these stereotype for getting the general audiences.

2. Mafia Movies?
No, it's not my favourite type either. These movies are usually illustrate a Sicilian Godfather who is a dangerous crime boss and his family. We always see Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, guns, pasta... The stories are fascinating , but I don't like these well-organized groups that much ---they have too much power and too many rules.

3. Others?
There're tons of others. Like the legend of a killer, the process of investigating a case, the story of revenge.... But, still -- no.

4. Then What?
Then let me tell you what my favourite type is. I like gangsters , the real gangsters . They don't possess any traditionally heroic qualities , and have nothing to do with nice people.They are irreverent, witty ,quirky, violent, selfish, humorous, cynical, menacing, manic ...(wow, lots of words) which are considered to be wrong by socity. And these small potatoes don't belong to any big organization. Combining those, they become my favourite type of gansters. I especially like watching a bunch of gangsters work things out or screw things up together.

Here're some of these movies that I'm talking about ...
*Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ;
* Reservoir Dogs
* The Usual Suspects
* A Clockwork Orange
* Pulp Fiction
...

*Songs of the day
Dusty springfield -- Son Of A Preacher Man
Dusty Springfield -- Spooky
Clash -- Police And Thieves
Pete Wingfield -- 18 With A Bullet
Castaways -- Liar,Liar
The Stone Roses -- Fool's Gold
James Brown -- The Boss
Sly & The Family Stone -- Jungle Boogie
Pam Grier -- Long Time Woman
Chuck Berry -- You Never Can Tell
David Holmes -- Rip Rip
Al Green -- Let's Stay Together
John Murphy/David Hughes -- Zorba The Greek
Bob Dillon -- Stuck in the Middle with You
Harry Nilsson -- Coconut
Klint -- Diamond

The songs are from the soundtracks of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch ,Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, Out of Sight ... I like these Funk , Electronica , Soul , Classic Rock...picks, all these soundtracks are great, I think.

English Name

Having a English name is pretty common for Chinese young people. I haven't got any formal English name that I like until today. (I'll expalain to you later )
Back to my junior middle school (about 10 years ago), having a English name was a cool thing, and the kids were really proud of being able to have one. My English teacher was our only resourse for getting the English names, studenets all got English names from her.However, I hate English name at that time. I couldn't understand why Chinese need another name in English , and I tended to dislike anything trendy.

When I was in high school, more people got their English names, especially people who were learning English or doing business. But it's still useless to me -- I couldn't find any places to use it at all. (*I never practiced spoken English at that time, so I didn't talk with anyone in English)

But when in college,everything changes, getting a English name seems important and useful. In some English classes, like foreign teachers' classes, we need an English name to be called. It's easier to remember, and easier for communicating. Plus, having a English name is common now, and English names might be used in many other places, like at work.

So I've been starting to find an English name for myself. Most common names have been taken my other students in class, I feel kind of awkward to have the same name as other's (no matter in Chinese or English). Luckily, now English teachers are not the only resource for names,we can pick names from Internet, books, movies... I'm trying to find a uncommon and special name from them, but I couldn't find any name that I really like. Though I've used several English names, it's still kind of strange to be called in an English name, I don't feel comfortable about it.
Some English name used by Chinese are weird, like Season : summer, winter... ; Fruite : apple, banana, orange ;... Food : mushroom, onion ...It seems everything can be used as names.I can't imagine how they can stand being called in these names.

About "leylop", I made up this word in 10 senconds as the nickname of my ICQ, I didn't know why I made it, it just poped up my mind. I like the way it looks, now I use "leylop" everywhere : blog, e-mail, ICQ, MSN Messenger... If I have a website someday, I would name it "www.leylop.com" ( hope nobody uses this domain name ahead of me).

Tonight, I did a little research on names in this website, I started with "l...", and I found " Ley" was there. It catched my eyes because "Ley" is one part of "Leylop", after reading the analyze of this name, I really LOVE this name. I don't believed the things like analyzing names, handwritting... that much, but "Ley" is an exception, I'm surprised by how it suits my personalies, and that analyse does reflect part of me , "Ley" , I probably use it until I find the better one.

The good thing about having English names is we can change them all the time, not like the Chinese names our parents gave us which we may use for the whole life. But many Chinese have hard time finding a English name, and they probably don't like the English name they're using.It always needs some time to get used to a new name. As for me, I'm pretty used to be called "leylop", it's my favourite name at the moment.

About this blog

Leylop's blog is more than 2 weeks old now, thanks a lot for your support ! Here're some questions that I'm not sure, maybe you can help me to figure them out.
1. Is green print easy to read? ( I always have problems reading colored print, green is fine, but I've been thinking about using black print, what do you think green print? )
2. About my mistakes : I almost never wrote in English before I started this blog, so writting in English is pretty new for me. Right now, my writting skill is still not very good, I'm actually not sure how to use some words or sentences properly. And I'm making mistakes all the time, these mistakes can be found each time I read the entries . You probably find more . Is it the drawback for this blog? I always like being corrected, please tell me my mistakes anytime.
3. Do entries too wordy and long ? ( every time, I just write down everything on my mind, kind of unorganized and messy, sometimes I feel they're too long when I read back. You think in that way too ? Please tell me what you think, I can take them).
4. About my impatience: Worried that nobody knows my blog, I did lots of impatient things during my start : sending you e-mail , aking you to comment here, getting you requirement to link me..., I feel kinda bad for what I've done, and I'm apologize for my pushing. Now I know readers will come once they like what I write, and they will never come back once they are not interested in this blog. It's no good to push anyone, sorry.
5. That's all. Glad to see any other ideas from yours.I'll keep blogging in the new year. Thanks to all!

*Songs of the day
Green Day -- Warning
Beck -- Beercan
Sam Phillips -- I Need Love

2003

Woke up in the morning, it's the first day of 2003.
I don't celebrate hoilday or birthday that much, they're no special to me. Nothing really changes. I'm not happier, and everything around are not better than yesterday.
But today turned out to be a great day.
My computer died on me yesterday. And I had a really bad night. Haven't realized that I rely on computer so much, without computer,there're no better things to do. I ended up watching a movie Dead Man Walking ( not bad, but I wasn't in a good mood for any movie ), reading a little bit, and going to bed very early.
Usually a little problem could get me, the only thing I could come up with is trying to get into touch with computer company LEGEND, so-called the best desktop manufacturer in China .(They don't deserve at all).
First I called Hangzhou fixing department, the line was not busy, but no one answer the phone in 30 minutes.
I tried another number in Beijng , finally the phone got through, there was a pretty nice voice over there. I told him the my computer problem , and the nice voice guy gave me a decent solution , " I think the problem is either from software or hardware .(Hey,thank for telling me that) we can come over to fix it, but it charges money. To save your money, I sugguest that you find a friend who knows how to fix the computer to help you, if he can't fix it, call us anytime, OK?". "Hmmm...but...", the nice voice hang up the phone before I finished my words, "...but ...I couldn't find such friend." Frustrating, I have no idea who I could call, and know nothing about fixing the computer.
So I kept calling Hangzhou LEGEND department, still, nobody ansewer the phone. Then I dialed 114(the phone service for inquiring numbers) to ask if there's other numbers of LEGEND hangzhou department. I got one, and I called. This time there was a nice voice girl who pickd up the phone, from her, I knew the phone of fixing department was canceled.
" Canceled?! Then which number I could call? " I couldn't believe that I'd wasted one hours to call a inexistent number printed on warranty.
"Well, you should call Beijing first, leave your message there, and they will call Hangzhou department. Once we get the message from Beijing, we'll get in touch with you soon. So be patient, just wait." The nice voice girl explained to me.
I was kinda confused and impatient, I did call Beijing, but the nice voice guy didn't mention anything about leaving a message.
"Hey listen, fixing the computer is extremely urgent to me. There're two unfinished theses for final exams stored in my computer, I'll get into real trouble if I can't get them back in 2 days. ( * it's not ture, there're no such theses at all). Please help me, give me a number that I can call directly."I begged.
The nice voice girl believed my words, " Exams, oh... I know it's hard...ok, I give you a cell phone number of the guy who charges the fixing department. He can help you, I guess."
So I got the charge guy's number, before calling him, I spent some time on making up a better lie which worked perfectly on him later. He promised to send a computer guy to my home next day.
I was glad that finally I got in touch with the one who could help me, but like I said yesterday, I didn't expect too much on their efficiency.
But I was wrong.
The computer guy called me early in the morning, and he turned out to be good-looking, so I'll call him good-looking guy here. The good-looking guy came to my home at 10:31, 1 minute later, he went to my room and sat in front of my computer. And at 10:33, he fixed the computer. Fixed?! Yes, he fixed the computer in 30 seconds ; my computer was fixed by him in 30 seconds. I was stunned, for another 30 seconds , I couldn't speak anything. "Hey, it's done." The good-looking guy looked at me. "But...how did you do it?! " I looked him back with amazement," It's just a simple error?" "Well, for us who deal with computer everyday, yes, it's the slightest problem." The good-looking guy said. At that moment, I felt kinda sorry for asking him to come here , it probably took him 1 or 2 hours on the way. I told him what I was thinking and kept saying thank you to him. I was so excited that started grabing and shaving his arm ,which made good-looking guy kinda awkard.Anyhow, my overreaction was from heart ,I guess the good-looking guy could feel that too. He left me without charging anything, and gave me his number. In other words, I can call him anytime if my computer is wrong again.
That's the end of the story. Though it isn't interesting, I didn't expect they would fix my computer in such a short time, so I'm happy about this ending. I really like the happiness that comes from expected things and people.When I went out of my room that afternoon, the big smile never left my face,and I just felt everyone was smiling to me too.


Happy New Year To Everyone !