I realize that I'm not the first person to have thought of this, but I feel like it needs saying anyway.
Quidditch has the worst rules I have ever heard of in a sport, and that includes all of these. Let's review them, in case you forgot:
1.) Three chasers try to throw the quaffle through a ring. This earns 10 points. The keeper tries to keep the enemy chasers from doing this.
2.) Two beaters try to injure the enemy team with bludgers. They do this by using bats.
3.) The seeker's goal is to catch the golden snitch, worth 150 points. Once someone catches the snitch, the game is over.
I showed this to my seven year old brother and he saw the gaping hole in this system within sixty seconds. Here's the problem: Catching the snitch is literally all that matters.
Yeah, I know there was that one world cup where the team that caught the snitch lost, but that's because neither team was playing correctly. If we assume that each position on the team is only allowed to touch their respective ball (e.g. only seekers are allowed to catch the snitch), then the best way to play Quidditch is this:
Have everyone on your team fly around your goal so the enemy team can't score. At the same time, have your players constantly look for the snitch. Once someone sees it, immediately inform the seeker where it is and have her beeline straight for it while you bludgeon/distract the hell out of the enemy seeker. Seriously. You should have your eyes locked on that golden ball the instant it is released, and once you find it, you immediately tell your seeker where it is so she can get it. You should be tracking that thing like you are the NSA and it's the American people, because catching it means victory. Guaranteed.
Imagine if in basketball, all the rules were the exact same -- except there's a really difficult jigsaw puzzle on the side you can do, and if you successfully complete it, your team gets 250 points and the game ends. If that were the case, I'm pretty sure there would be a lot more jigsaw puzzle solvers in the NBA than there are now. That's all I'm saying.
-Me
Friday, February 28, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
On Paradoxes
One time in middle school, I saw someone trade away their pencil for two sticks of chewing gum. One minute later, I saw that same person complain about how they had no pencil. <Insert trite but appropriate meme here>
This other time, I gave a beggar $5. Later that day, I found $20 on the street.
My point is, life is weird. And nothing better shows the weirdness of life than a paradox (well, two).
I recently stumbled on the Two Envelopes paradox, which basically says the following:
There are two unmarked, identical envelopes, each with some amount of money inside. One envelope has twice the amount of money than the other. You get to choose one of the envelopes and take all the money inside. Once you choose an envelope, before you open it, you get a chance to switch envelopes.
Here's the problem: Mathematically speaking, it is always in your best interest to switch envelopes. The logic is as follows:
Assume the envelope you chose has $100 in it. Then the other envelope either contains $50 or $200. There's a 50% chance of either one. You, being the math genius you are, know that your expected payoff is equal to (Probability1*Payoff1)+(Probability2*Payoff2). In other words, the expected payoff for switching envelopes is .5*50+.5*200 = 25+100 = $125. The envelope you're holding is worth $100 -- so it's in your interest to switch.
But... you can apply the same logic you just used, again. It's always mathematically beneficial to switch envelopes.
It gets weirder when you realize that the paradox is only possible because you have the opportunity to switch envelopes. If you didn't have this opportunity, then the probability of you getting the envelope with more money in it is a straight up 50%. But when you're allowed to switch, you become trapped in an infinite cycle where it's always better for you to do so.
Another paradox I find to be interesting is the Sorities Paradox. (This one is named after a Greek philosopher, so you know it's a Big Deal.) It says the following:
1.) Fifty million grains of sand is clearly a heap of sand.
2.) If you remove a single grain of sand from this heap, it will still be a heap of sand.
3.) One grain of sand is not a heap of sand.
The trouble is that, given (1) and (2), you can keep removing single grains of sand from a heap of sand, forever and ever, and you'll always have a heap of sand -- so (3) can't possibly be true. But (3) is clearly true. So where does a "heap" of sand end?
Similarly, I can "prove" that there are no big numbers. We all know that 1 is a small number. If you take 1 and add 1 to it, we get 2, which is also clearly a small number. So if you add 1 to a small number, you get a small number. Repeat the process infinitely, and you see that there are no big numbers. But there are. 10^1000 is obviously an enormous number.
Weirder still, I can use this exact same logic to prove that there are no small numbers. If we start with 10^1000 and subtract one, it's the same thing, except reversed. How does this work?
Referring back to the original sand question, people have tried to claim that a "heap" of sand isn't actually a thing. Therefore, Premise 1 is flawed; therefore, everything about the paradox falls apart. In the same way, you could claim that "small" and "big" numbers are not real boundaries. I guess this explanation works, but I'm not satisfied with it. I mean, 1 is obviously a small number, and 10^1000 is obviously a big number... Right? It seems like a bit of a cop-out to me.
Anyway, the point of all this is that sometimes, we have to be happy with weirdness. We have to embrace it. Because if we don't recognize and come to terms with how strange the world is, we might just switch envelopes forever.
-Me
This other time, I gave a beggar $5. Later that day, I found $20 on the street.
My point is, life is weird. And nothing better shows the weirdness of life than a paradox (well, two).
.jpg){kind=link}
I recently stumbled on the Two Envelopes paradox, which basically says the following:
There are two unmarked, identical envelopes, each with some amount of money inside. One envelope has twice the amount of money than the other. You get to choose one of the envelopes and take all the money inside. Once you choose an envelope, before you open it, you get a chance to switch envelopes.
Here's the problem: Mathematically speaking, it is always in your best interest to switch envelopes. The logic is as follows:
Assume the envelope you chose has $100 in it. Then the other envelope either contains $50 or $200. There's a 50% chance of either one. You, being the math genius you are, know that your expected payoff is equal to (Probability1*Payoff1)+(Probability2*Payoff2). In other words, the expected payoff for switching envelopes is .5*50+.5*200 = 25+100 = $125. The envelope you're holding is worth $100 -- so it's in your interest to switch.
But... you can apply the same logic you just used, again. It's always mathematically beneficial to switch envelopes.
It gets weirder when you realize that the paradox is only possible because you have the opportunity to switch envelopes. If you didn't have this opportunity, then the probability of you getting the envelope with more money in it is a straight up 50%. But when you're allowed to switch, you become trapped in an infinite cycle where it's always better for you to do so.
Another paradox I find to be interesting is the Sorities Paradox. (This one is named after a Greek philosopher, so you know it's a Big Deal.) It says the following:
1.) Fifty million grains of sand is clearly a heap of sand.
2.) If you remove a single grain of sand from this heap, it will still be a heap of sand.
3.) One grain of sand is not a heap of sand.
The trouble is that, given (1) and (2), you can keep removing single grains of sand from a heap of sand, forever and ever, and you'll always have a heap of sand -- so (3) can't possibly be true. But (3) is clearly true. So where does a "heap" of sand end?
Similarly, I can "prove" that there are no big numbers. We all know that 1 is a small number. If you take 1 and add 1 to it, we get 2, which is also clearly a small number. So if you add 1 to a small number, you get a small number. Repeat the process infinitely, and you see that there are no big numbers. But there are. 10^1000 is obviously an enormous number.
Weirder still, I can use this exact same logic to prove that there are no small numbers. If we start with 10^1000 and subtract one, it's the same thing, except reversed. How does this work?
Referring back to the original sand question, people have tried to claim that a "heap" of sand isn't actually a thing. Therefore, Premise 1 is flawed; therefore, everything about the paradox falls apart. In the same way, you could claim that "small" and "big" numbers are not real boundaries. I guess this explanation works, but I'm not satisfied with it. I mean, 1 is obviously a small number, and 10^1000 is obviously a big number... Right? It seems like a bit of a cop-out to me.
Anyway, the point of all this is that sometimes, we have to be happy with weirdness. We have to embrace it. Because if we don't recognize and come to terms with how strange the world is, we might just switch envelopes forever.
-Me
Thursday, February 13, 2014
On Blogs
Apparently, my blogging has indirectly caused other people to start blogging. Here is my friend's blog; this is a blog criticizing that blog. This is a blog criticizing the blog criticizing that blog. Here is another blog. Here is another.
I, for one, embrace it. I raise my head proudly, awash in the austere-yet-somehow-beautiful blogsplosion. Let the blogs come.
I am ready.
In the cycle of meta-blogs that have cropped up, I am both the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega. That's right. I see the realization dawning on you. In this small but somehow still relevant blogosphere, I have become Blog God.
The position comes with surprisingly few benefits.
Unrequited, unquestioning obedience/servitude is optional. For sacrifice, I accept cash money, debit, credit, or uncut diamond. No killing fatted blogcalves, though. That's not cool.
-Me
*I think I maybe went a little overboard with this joke.
I, for one, embrace it. I raise my head proudly, awash in the austere-yet-somehow-beautiful blogsplosion. Let the blogs come.
I am ready.
 |
| Me.* |
In the cycle of meta-blogs that have cropped up, I am both the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega. That's right. I see the realization dawning on you. In this small but somehow still relevant blogosphere, I have become Blog God.
The position comes with surprisingly few benefits.
Unrequited, unquestioning obedience/servitude is optional. For sacrifice, I accept cash money, debit, credit, or uncut diamond. No killing fatted blogcalves, though. That's not cool.
 |
| Seriously, if I even see one of these things show up in blogheaven, I will not be happy. |
*I think I maybe went a little overboard with this joke.
Monday, February 10, 2014
On Advertising
My pet sheep died last week. The funeral was today.
As I stood there, giving my sad, reminiscing speech, I realized something: Ewes Only Live Once. So treasure your sheep while they live, dear reader. You never know when they will bleat their last.
Advertising is more than scary. It's terrifying. Whenever I want to feel paranoid, powerless, and disgusted, I let my thoughts wander to the advertising industry. Ads are specifically designed to make people unhappy, because happy people don't buy things.
There's a term advertisers throw around: "clutter". This buzzword refers to the ever expanding and ever more meaningless aggregate of advertising. Advertising is always there, lingering on our peripheral vision. It saturates our cultural consciousness. It takes endless forms: annoying popups, enormous billboards, catchy jingles. The end goal of any advertisement is to "cut through the clutter", to make a commercial that sticks with the consumer. Brand retention is key.
Here's the thing: In its desperate attempts to cut through the clutter, advertising inevitably becomes a part of it. There's a bitter, crushing irony there. Imagine if your friend told you that he didn't care about designer clothes. Fashion shows are a stupid waste of money and time, he says. There are much better ways we can spend our resources. Every time he sees someone on the street with a brand-name article of clothing on, he complains to no end. He has declared a War on Fashion.
Yet despite this, he is always wearing designer clothing, shops at the most expensive department stores, and spends every cent he has keeping up on the latest trends.
You should tell your friend to consider going into marketing, because his thought process is similar to how the advertising industry works. It's almost like a satire of itself. This is an industry so far removed from reality that it says when you open a can of Coca-Cola, you are opening happiness itself. Now that's weird. Weirder still is the fact that advertising is so branded into our cultural consciousness that this message seems perfectly normal to us.
The weirdness doesn't end there. When you aren't paying to use an online service, it seems like you're not consuming any product. In fact, you are the product. Your very presence is how corporations such as Google or Facebook make money. They are selling you, giving other companies a chance to bombard you with commercials, hoping to extract maximum profit. It's important to recognize that our time and our attentions are worth just as much -- probably more -- than the dollars in our pockets. The next time you see a 'vert for an idiotic online flash game, Facebook has successfully sold you, the consumer.
We as consumers are a product. Something something bitter, crushing irony again.
Isn't it unsettling to realize that, in all likelihood, search engines and social media companies know more about us than our friends? Our family? Ourselves?
-Me
As I stood there, giving my sad, reminiscing speech, I realized something: Ewes Only Live Once. So treasure your sheep while they live, dear reader. You never know when they will bleat their last.
Advertising is more than scary. It's terrifying. Whenever I want to feel paranoid, powerless, and disgusted, I let my thoughts wander to the advertising industry. Ads are specifically designed to make people unhappy, because happy people don't buy things.
 |
| This is a interesting comparison. Source |
There's a term advertisers throw around: "clutter". This buzzword refers to the ever expanding and ever more meaningless aggregate of advertising. Advertising is always there, lingering on our peripheral vision. It saturates our cultural consciousness. It takes endless forms: annoying popups, enormous billboards, catchy jingles. The end goal of any advertisement is to "cut through the clutter", to make a commercial that sticks with the consumer. Brand retention is key.
Here's the thing: In its desperate attempts to cut through the clutter, advertising inevitably becomes a part of it. There's a bitter, crushing irony there. Imagine if your friend told you that he didn't care about designer clothes. Fashion shows are a stupid waste of money and time, he says. There are much better ways we can spend our resources. Every time he sees someone on the street with a brand-name article of clothing on, he complains to no end. He has declared a War on Fashion.
Yet despite this, he is always wearing designer clothing, shops at the most expensive department stores, and spends every cent he has keeping up on the latest trends.
 |
| Is... is this trendy? It's the first result in Google Images for the term. |
You should tell your friend to consider going into marketing, because his thought process is similar to how the advertising industry works. It's almost like a satire of itself. This is an industry so far removed from reality that it says when you open a can of Coca-Cola, you are opening happiness itself. Now that's weird. Weirder still is the fact that advertising is so branded into our cultural consciousness that this message seems perfectly normal to us.
 |
| Seriously, what does this even mean? |
The weirdness doesn't end there. When you aren't paying to use an online service, it seems like you're not consuming any product. In fact, you are the product. Your very presence is how corporations such as Google or Facebook make money. They are selling you, giving other companies a chance to bombard you with commercials, hoping to extract maximum profit. It's important to recognize that our time and our attentions are worth just as much -- probably more -- than the dollars in our pockets. The next time you see a 'vert for an idiotic online flash game, Facebook has successfully sold you, the consumer.
We as consumers are a product. Something something bitter, crushing irony again.
Isn't it unsettling to realize that, in all likelihood, search engines and social media companies know more about us than our friends? Our family? Ourselves?
-Me
Friday, February 7, 2014
On Life
What is the purpose of life?
I think I have a serviceable answer -- not good, but serviceable. I want to start by saying that I don't think the purpose of life can be neatly summed up by a cute one-liner or witty aphorism, although those things are certainly valuable. Life is, first and foremost, tremendously complicated, with countless parts, no assembly instructions, constant interference, and that one guy who won't get off his damn cell phone even though he's speaking at a volume you previously thought unattainable by human lungs.
1.) Kindness and compassion. When we realize that, ultimately, all our peers, friends, and enemies are experiencing the same inseparable humanness we experience, we owe it to them to live compassionately. I am not unique in my capacity to think, to feel, or to act; quite the opposite. I share my humanness with the most brilliant scientist and the most vile murderer. We all need to eat, drink, sleep. We were all born. We will all die. We are all united at some fundamental level. I've said all this before.
Consider a great teacher, whose students always learn more than they expect from her. Consider a quirky movie director, whose film deeply resonates with a select few. Consider an anarchist graffiti artist, whose work satirizes the corruption and irony of our corporate, racist, bureaucratic culture. Consider a car mechanic, who ensures the safety and reliability of her customers' vehicles. Is it reasonable to say one's life is worth more than another? I'm not sure it does.
If my life positively impacts someone else's, then I transcend my own mortality. I've made the world a better place. Making others happy adds meaning to life. It gives us purpose and direction. Best of all, it makes us happy, too.
2.) Pursuing your passions. To me, nothing is more beautifully human than the struggle to find personal resonance and accomplishment. It's an enormous world out there, yet each of us has something that speaks to us in a way nothing else does. Part of the purpose of life is to do what you love, to let it challenge you and push you to new heights, to lose yourself in it. Also, when you truly care about something, it greatly extends your ability and willingness to make a positive impact on the world.
3.) Human connection. In general, I feel like the people I know make me better, smarter, stronger, and more of an all-around frood. Our friendships, our family, our romances, our bitter rivalries -- these add enormous meaning and value to life. Part of being human is knowing that there are billions of humans around you, sharing your experience. Connect with them. Learn from them. Laugh with them. Cook them tasty food.
People are awesome.
-Me
Here is something funny.
I think I have a serviceable answer -- not good, but serviceable. I want to start by saying that I don't think the purpose of life can be neatly summed up by a cute one-liner or witty aphorism, although those things are certainly valuable. Life is, first and foremost, tremendously complicated, with countless parts, no assembly instructions, constant interference, and that one guy who won't get off his damn cell phone even though he's speaking at a volume you previously thought unattainable by human lungs.
1.) Kindness and compassion. When we realize that, ultimately, all our peers, friends, and enemies are experiencing the same inseparable humanness we experience, we owe it to them to live compassionately. I am not unique in my capacity to think, to feel, or to act; quite the opposite. I share my humanness with the most brilliant scientist and the most vile murderer. We all need to eat, drink, sleep. We were all born. We will all die. We are all united at some fundamental level. I've said all this before.
Consider a great teacher, whose students always learn more than they expect from her. Consider a quirky movie director, whose film deeply resonates with a select few. Consider an anarchist graffiti artist, whose work satirizes the corruption and irony of our corporate, racist, bureaucratic culture. Consider a car mechanic, who ensures the safety and reliability of her customers' vehicles. Is it reasonable to say one's life is worth more than another? I'm not sure it does.
If my life positively impacts someone else's, then I transcend my own mortality. I've made the world a better place. Making others happy adds meaning to life. It gives us purpose and direction. Best of all, it makes us happy, too.
2.) Pursuing your passions. To me, nothing is more beautifully human than the struggle to find personal resonance and accomplishment. It's an enormous world out there, yet each of us has something that speaks to us in a way nothing else does. Part of the purpose of life is to do what you love, to let it challenge you and push you to new heights, to lose yourself in it. Also, when you truly care about something, it greatly extends your ability and willingness to make a positive impact on the world.
3.) Human connection. In general, I feel like the people I know make me better, smarter, stronger, and more of an all-around frood. Our friendships, our family, our romances, our bitter rivalries -- these add enormous meaning and value to life. Part of being human is knowing that there are billions of humans around you, sharing your experience. Connect with them. Learn from them. Laugh with them. Cook them tasty food.
People are awesome.
-Me
Here is something funny.
Monday, February 3, 2014
On China
This is the story of my trip back to China. The time is summer of sophomore year (age 15). The characters are many, but the most important ones are my parents, me, Joshua (brother -- age 11), Connie (sister -- age 10), and Benjy (brother -- age 5).
A little history: My parents left China in 2000. I was 4 at the time.
Since my siblings were all born in the U.S., the trip was like a vacation to them. To my parents, the trip was like returning home. For me, it was somewhere in between -- although closer to the latter.
We got off the plane at an airport in Beijing late at night. My first memory of the trip is of my cousins, all female, jumping and whooping with excitement. In my half-awake state, the whole thing seemed a little surreal. I felt like we were celebrities. Of course, it was a reunion ~12 years in the coming, so it was a big deal, but it was still pretty awesome to see people so excited.
Something I felt very strongly in China which I've never felt before is the power of the word "family". I'm not sure what it was specifically -- listening to my aunts' and uncles' stories of Past Weiliang, perhaps, or maybe the first-time-we're-seeing-these-people-in-12-years part -- but I really felt the significance of my cultural heritage, in a way that I hadn't before. The entire atmosphere was different from normality.
My second memory, which for some reason is the sharpest out of all of them, was seeing Benjy fall asleep standing up. We had just gotten off another plane and were taking a trolley to a bus (apologies for transportation overload). It was shortly after the 16-hour plane ride from Seattle to Beijing, so we were all still heavily jetlagged. The trolley was packed to the brim (I think we exceeded the intended passenger limit). Somehow, in this enormous crowd, I saw 5-year old brother leaning against my father's leg, sound asleep. I'm not sure why this image stuck with me. Maybe it was because Benjy looked so young and innocent. Maybe it was because I didn't expect to see anything in that trolley, jammed as it was.
Now generally speaking, my mother's side of the family is from the city, and my father's from the country. This is important information, because the wealth gap in China is astonishing. We went to the country first, and it was the most rural place I'd ever been. Everyone was a farmer. Some places lacked electricity; others lacked running water. We helped our uncle do menial assembly labor, screwing two bits of metal together. We later learned that he eared 1 cent for every thousand screwing jobs he did. We washed our clothes by hand until we got tired and didn't do it anymore. (This is important info for later.) I ate chicken feet and pig brain and wild mushrooms. Our cousins collected a lot of herbal tea from the mountains and we brought it back with us. Our dad bought a huge crate of cigarettes and shared a smoke with every family member we met (over 50 people). We had tea constantly.
Then we left for the city. None of us had clean clothes, so my mom called her friends as we were driving to Shanghai and asked for laundry locations.
My mom went to one of the best colleges in China and studied economics, so she was friends with a lot of wealthy Chinese buisnessmen. When we got to Shanghai, we discovered that these people had bought us each outfits costing upwards of $120. Pictured below is one of the shirts they got me.
The first thing we did in Shanghai was take a dragonboat cruise (because my mom's friends went all-out. No expense spared). The friend told us that if there was no traffic, we could get there in 15 minutes. It took us over 2 hours to arrive. Later, I learned that the average commute time is 3-4 hours in Shanghai. In Beijing, that rises to 5-6 hours. That means that some people spend 12 hours of their day driving to and from work.
My siblings played Ninja on the cruise. We ate caviar and jellyfish and other delicacies. We had a pristine view of the gorgeous Shangai skyline, all skyscrapers and architectural genius.
Like I said, the wealth gap in China is absurd. In the city, we ate out every night. Here's how restaurants work in China: Everyone sits around a big, circular table with a spinny thing in the middle. The servers bring in dish after dish after dish, putting them on the spinny thing. Everyone has their own bowl of rice and chopsticks. You grab a little bit of each dish and eat it. Here's where it starts getting a little ridiculous: Most of the time, our hosts ordered 30+ dishes. (One night they ordered over 80.) You have a little of each, then you go on to try the next thing -- often you don't take more than two or three bites out of a single dish. This meant that no dish was even half-finished by the time we were done eating. Every dish was thrown away at the end of the meal. We probably wasted more food in one month than our entire family eats in two or three months. It was somewhat unnerving to realize we were eating this much food, while other people were starving in the streets.
We also went to the Shanghai museum, but the remainder of the trip was mostly a whirlwind of meeting new people.We met a ton of friends and family that I'd totally forgotten about. They told me stories about my childhood over a decade ago. My aunt was the disciple of a kung-fu master. This guy was 70 years old, but he was stronger and faster than me. (More humble, too).
Apologies if this post was poorly-edited and rambly. I'm not feeling great today -- just wanted to get this Monday post in.
-Me
A little history: My parents left China in 2000. I was 4 at the time.
Since my siblings were all born in the U.S., the trip was like a vacation to them. To my parents, the trip was like returning home. For me, it was somewhere in between -- although closer to the latter.
We got off the plane at an airport in Beijing late at night. My first memory of the trip is of my cousins, all female, jumping and whooping with excitement. In my half-awake state, the whole thing seemed a little surreal. I felt like we were celebrities. Of course, it was a reunion ~12 years in the coming, so it was a big deal, but it was still pretty awesome to see people so excited.
Something I felt very strongly in China which I've never felt before is the power of the word "family". I'm not sure what it was specifically -- listening to my aunts' and uncles' stories of Past Weiliang, perhaps, or maybe the first-time-we're-seeing-these-people-in-12-years part -- but I really felt the significance of my cultural heritage, in a way that I hadn't before. The entire atmosphere was different from normality.
My second memory, which for some reason is the sharpest out of all of them, was seeing Benjy fall asleep standing up. We had just gotten off another plane and were taking a trolley to a bus (apologies for transportation overload). It was shortly after the 16-hour plane ride from Seattle to Beijing, so we were all still heavily jetlagged. The trolley was packed to the brim (I think we exceeded the intended passenger limit). Somehow, in this enormous crowd, I saw 5-year old brother leaning against my father's leg, sound asleep. I'm not sure why this image stuck with me. Maybe it was because Benjy looked so young and innocent. Maybe it was because I didn't expect to see anything in that trolley, jammed as it was.
Now generally speaking, my mother's side of the family is from the city, and my father's from the country. This is important information, because the wealth gap in China is astonishing. We went to the country first, and it was the most rural place I'd ever been. Everyone was a farmer. Some places lacked electricity; others lacked running water. We helped our uncle do menial assembly labor, screwing two bits of metal together. We later learned that he eared 1 cent for every thousand screwing jobs he did. We washed our clothes by hand until we got tired and didn't do it anymore. (This is important info for later.) I ate chicken feet and pig brain and wild mushrooms. Our cousins collected a lot of herbal tea from the mountains and we brought it back with us. Our dad bought a huge crate of cigarettes and shared a smoke with every family member we met (over 50 people). We had tea constantly.
Then we left for the city. None of us had clean clothes, so my mom called her friends as we were driving to Shanghai and asked for laundry locations.
My mom went to one of the best colleges in China and studied economics, so she was friends with a lot of wealthy Chinese buisnessmen. When we got to Shanghai, we discovered that these people had bought us each outfits costing upwards of $120. Pictured below is one of the shirts they got me.
 |
| This shirt is kind of famous (infamous?) among me and my friends. Can you guess why? (Hint: Sometimes the best answer is the most obvious one.) |
The first thing we did in Shanghai was take a dragonboat cruise (because my mom's friends went all-out. No expense spared). The friend told us that if there was no traffic, we could get there in 15 minutes. It took us over 2 hours to arrive. Later, I learned that the average commute time is 3-4 hours in Shanghai. In Beijing, that rises to 5-6 hours. That means that some people spend 12 hours of their day driving to and from work.
My siblings played Ninja on the cruise. We ate caviar and jellyfish and other delicacies. We had a pristine view of the gorgeous Shangai skyline, all skyscrapers and architectural genius.
Like I said, the wealth gap in China is absurd. In the city, we ate out every night. Here's how restaurants work in China: Everyone sits around a big, circular table with a spinny thing in the middle. The servers bring in dish after dish after dish, putting them on the spinny thing. Everyone has their own bowl of rice and chopsticks. You grab a little bit of each dish and eat it. Here's where it starts getting a little ridiculous: Most of the time, our hosts ordered 30+ dishes. (One night they ordered over 80.) You have a little of each, then you go on to try the next thing -- often you don't take more than two or three bites out of a single dish. This meant that no dish was even half-finished by the time we were done eating. Every dish was thrown away at the end of the meal. We probably wasted more food in one month than our entire family eats in two or three months. It was somewhat unnerving to realize we were eating this much food, while other people were starving in the streets.
We also went to the Shanghai museum, but the remainder of the trip was mostly a whirlwind of meeting new people.We met a ton of friends and family that I'd totally forgotten about. They told me stories about my childhood over a decade ago. My aunt was the disciple of a kung-fu master. This guy was 70 years old, but he was stronger and faster than me. (More humble, too).
Apologies if this post was poorly-edited and rambly. I'm not feeling great today -- just wanted to get this Monday post in.
-Me
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)