I was stunned to see the Troutgirl's shitcanned
post. This is just as weird as their decision to move away from Java in the first place. Unbelievable.
Another thing that stands out is the degree of our interest in the Olympics. The Chinese TV, as well as the Russian TV, seems to be doing a much better job at covering the events. We care a lot less. Whereas in China and Russia other sports events are temporarily eclipsed, we still have baseball, football, and other stuff on TV.
This is actually pretty remarkable. I guess, it means that we don't care much for things that take place outside of our country.
This post was prompted by my today's visit to Costco in San Ramon :-)
China may not be as wealthy nation as we are, but the Chinese certainly do not have the obesity problem. I recall that about 25% of Americans are obese, and an additional 50% are overweight. So, only one in four is "normal", and the situation has been steadily getting worse over the past thirty years. In China, however, it is rare to see even an overweight person. This difference is very obvious and disturbing.
The answer, at least partially, must be the food. Healthier food in China is a lot more diverse and, in general, a lot more available than here. As a result, people aren't walking around eating chips and sipping on their Cokes. Not yet, anyway. So, I think the junk foods lawsuits have some merit. You can't let a handful of corporations do this to us.
I've noticed some time ago that getting into the old routine is remarkably easy. During an enjoyable vacation you tend to regret going back to work. But very quickly after that, the routine takes over completely. Weeks begin to zig by, and the vacation becomes but a distant intangible memory.
We'll see if I am able this time to leverage the lessons of this vacation to improve my schedule somewhat. At the very least, I have a tangible artifact with me this time: on my keychain, there's now a key to our beautiful apartment in Guangzhou.
And we are back from this amazing trip. There was too much to see and not enough time to be blogging, so I will attempt to follow up with travel notes in the next couple of weeks.
Trips like these help you look at things from a different angle. Some things that we are used to in our every day life we end up revering as ultimate truths of sorts. We don't necessarily understand why, say, hamburgers are so popular, but we assume that they are because the humanity hasn't come up with anything better. Different countries and cultures don't have a whole lot in common, though, which helps question the mundane.
The past few weeks have been spent in hectic preparations for our vacation in China. We are leaving for Hong Kong, Guangzhou as well as some other places, hopefully, this Sunday night. Hoping to be photo blogging during the trip :-)