Kevin Miller: GeneralThis is the general category for items to be postedReading- May 18, 2003 One of the interesting aspects of living in Beijing is the kind of English language books that are readily available. There are many old classic British novels, which Penguin sells cheaply ($2-3 per book), so I always end up reading class books I never got around to reading. There are also "bilingual" editions of books that often have badly munged English text. For example, I picked up such a copy of "Gone with the Wind," because I'd never read it. I was struck by how badly written it was, but.http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/18.html#a29 Listening to SARS- May 9, 2003 Some thoughts on what the SARS in Beijing might mean for the rest of the world, with a focus on the United States. Information can't be controlled. During the period before the amazing press conference on April 20 (somewhat sanitized transcript at: http:www.chinaembassy.seeng47200.html), rumors abounded, some of which were even more extreme than the reality (which was extreme enough). The lack of reliable news about the real situation didn't equate to a lack of news or a lack of worry, but...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/09.html#a26 Forbidden City visit- May 9, 2003 If you are in Beijing this Spring, and not quarantined, it's actually a great time to be a tourist. Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to tour the Forbidden City. I can never remember a time when it was so empty. The picture belows gives some sense of how quiet, majestic, and deserted it was: This would ordinarily be the busiest time of year, but we saw perhaps a couple of dozen tourists during our whole visit. The audio tours were discontinued, out of...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/09.html#a23 Darth Vader- May 2, 2003 Just to change the subject, I finally watched the second of the new series of the Star Wars movies last night on DVD, and it wasn't half bad (unlike the first one). As people probably know, DVD prices in China are quite low, about the cost of a cheap rental in the U.S. Given how much it costs to stamp a DVD, I wonder if U.S. studios will ever decide that they could manage with a system where they mailed DVDs out to users at a cheap price and never asked for them back. I suspect that that could..http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/01.html#a10 |