In my Legal Writing class this morning, we had a guest speaker visiting from Ottawa — Lynn, General Counsel and Director of the Legislative Services Branch, Transport Canada Regulations Section. She spoke about the process of legal drafting in Canada, i.e. how statute is written and some reasons why statute can be so convoluted. Here are some interesting bits of knowledge for anyone interested in the legal system.
I just received this result from a student survey of the PDEng program at University of Waterloo. For those who don’t know, this is essentially a high-school careers course spread across the co-op terms of all undergraduate Engineering students. A similar program, PDMath, exists for Math students as well.
As for why the program was introduced, what I heard from others is that the co-op department received complaints from employers that oftentimes Waterloo co-op students were too proud and had poor communication skills, so they created a program both to help students and to show they were addressing the issue. Students hate it, and have all manner of complaints, particularly that the program’s a waste of time, and in reality students learn little from graded questions like “if you have a conflict with your boss, what would you do?” or “please re-make your resume following our guidelines for verb tenses and the number of points in each past job description.”
So, they commissioned the following student survey. Here’s what our students say.
There you have it — 89% of students are dissatisfied with the program. What to do?
I would suggest scrapping PDEng entirely. It’s been a failure for UW’s reputation among its students, and clearly the course designers had inadequate understanding of the realities of today’s workplaces while they were designing the course. Instead of PDEng, co-op could simply do these two things to get most of the benefit while removing all of the annoyance:
I just finished ten weeks in London, England, learning what it means to be “kiasu.” That’s a word I learned from a Singaporean-Chinese girl who came to Waterloo and it fits my ten week internship in London perfectly.
In choosing work life, there are decisions one must make — do you prefer a demanding environment, where missing deadlines will get you fired immediately but you know people are relying on your work, or do you prefer somewhere you can arrive plus-minus two hours and nobody notices but you have plenty of time for your friends and hobbies?
I’ve spent time at various high-tech companies in California that are the latter, but my experience here was my first bona fide experience with the former.
I’ll be doing a lot of thinking over the next few days. Now is an extremely good time to talk to me.
Flew back from Taiwan last weekend from a 3.5-day trip to Taipei with a couple of friends of mine — Sita from Vienna, and Zohar from Purdue. It’s a very relaxing and friendly island — the people are refreshingly good-mannered and they make no attempt to scam foreigners with inflated prices. Here are some memories.
Night Markets & Food
Night markets are so popular in Taiwan, you wonder if the country ever sleeps. (Morning MRT congestion suggests otherwise.) Taipei night markets are quite evolved, going beyond the clothes shops you find at night markets elsewhere in Asia and becoming something more like everyday evening carnivals. They have airsoft balloon-shooting stands, food including candied apples and delicious boiled meat and vegetables, arcades, shops selling cute puppies, and of course bubble tea cafes, not to mention the standard clothes and electronics and such. And as mentioned, prices are fair.
We tried two big markets — Ximending and in Danshui. Danshui’s set near the ocean, and looks like a popular date spot as well as having friendly markets. Ximending was downtown, and schoolkids could be seen roaming the streets, looking at cute shops full of Sanrio Hello Kitty gear and stylish Taiwanese clothes. Both were definitely worth visiting. The food floor of the Mitsukoshi we tried, however, was a disappointment. Stick to the markets.
Sita’s Laptop
Taiwan is of course renowned for high tech gadgets and computers, but honestly I was unprepared to experience just how good shopping for technology in Taiwan would actually be. The ASUS store we visited had not only the entire line of beautiful Eee netbooks (i.e. the new slim ones) but also stocked hard-to-find machines such as the beautiful U6v “bamboo laptop” that Sita had been eyeing since Australia. She promptly fell in love and soon bought it at the Taiwan offer price: 30% off retail. Then she got a tourist tax refund, and brought it back to Hong Kong where there’s no import duty. Smart girl!
Hot Springs
Taiwan was Japan’s first colony, and apparently the Japanese wanted to show their might and imperial ambitions by treating its people very well. They brought all manner of traditions over to Taiwan, including hot springs. Now, at Beitou/Peitou MRT stop, and around the country, there are a variety of hot springs resorts. We tried the rooftop public pools of a hotel called Spa Spring Resort, on an Internet recommendation. It was small (four pools, two each hot and cold) and very serene, and as a first for a traditional-looking place and conveniently enough for me with my female group, it was also swimsuit co-ed. We enjoyed relaxing in the hot pools and talking about life.
Here’s a tip, Internet hunters: Taipei hot springs can be found on the Japanese website TaipeiNavi. Use Babelfish or Google to translate that page if you can’t read Japanese. Of note, they had an article on Tang Spa, which is probably where we should have gone. It’s apparently similar to Oedo-Onsen-Monogatari in Tokyo where I used to bring guests in town to visit. Yukata provided, waterslide available, inside and outdoor pools to be found. Try that one.
NCO Concert
We found on the Internet a concert called “Blowing the Wind with Leisure” at the National Theatre Concert Hall which sounded intriguing. I present the English description from their website:
After the Lohas and Remix of the Globe Series,“Back to the Past?is another small-sized yet elite series NCO presents to musi
lovers. We sincerely hope you will purchase a ticket to get on the trolley, take a seat, and let the trolley take you “back to the past”.cAlthough the trip is just under eighty minutes, the impression will last forever.
In this concert, NCO will employ the most appropriate wind instruments, which will include dizi, suona, sheng, hulusi, and others from
different periods, to display the rich yet pure sounds of the wind instruments. The soloists of NCO will employ the glissando and
overtones of the“mouth dizi?to imitate the birds’ chirping, and master the hulusi
Sound like something you’d like to try? We did, because it sounded like our best chance to hear some authentic Chinese music, not European classics that Sita especially already knew. In fact the show was an incredibly interesting mix of traditional Chinese wind instruments, and NCO stands for the “National Chinese Orchestra” so they were played very well. Some sounded respectible, such as the “hairdryer” (the guts of an organ in knee-mounted form) and “sledgehammer” as we nicknamed them, but some were just silly and at one point we could barely contain our giggles… we’d never seen or heard anything like them in our lives. In fact these expertly-wielded-by-the-NCO instruments all have respectable names, such as the “sheng” or “erhu.” Interesting, no?
Have pictures, will post soon.
Last week I spent traveling with some exchange students (one Canadian, one American, and three Korean) around Yunnan, a province in southwest China, home to various poor regional minorities, where tourism is an important economic force. At last, I’d traveled far enough away from civilization to start see serious differences in how people behave and how society is built.
Why? Well, for the passing, I think this is evolved behaviour to handle the varying speeds of things on the road. Everything from bicycles to horses to pickup trucks operating way beyond their suggested load levels to the ubiquitous aging imported minivans [picture] and the uncommon but occasional modern sportscar shares the same infrastructure. Without mastering the art of passing, one would never get anywhere quickly.
One bus we only rode because we arrived too late to catch a proper one, and it was indeed very sketchy. It packed five beds across, width sufficient for me but not for my heavier-built Canadian traveling companion, length too short for anybody 5’10″ or taller. The bus left an hour late, during which we sat inside with the ventilation system turned off breathing stale air. But the real sketch was the movie they played, which was basically Mandarin-language pornography. The second bus was better — only three beds across, and it departed on time and the movie was a Japanese yakuza flick.
The train ride was 24 hours, and we took it because everybody wanted to save cash versus flying. Since one gets a real bed with a blanket, it turns out to be more comfortable than flying, I’d say. Just less efficient. My particular train was broken into various types of cars: “soft sleeper,” with wood paneling similar to green cars in Japan and four beds per compartment; “hard sleeper,” with six beds (three each side) per compartment, and enough space for three to sit on the lower bed; and a few cars of five-across seats that must have been quite uncomfortable overnight. There were many seniors riding, which was explained to me as being because the government forced many people out of their homes in exchange for cash payouts, which they now spend traveling around the country. Annoyingly, the dining car was really a smoker’s car, making ordering food not from the trays pushed to each car quite unpleasant.
My last post on student organizations may have left you wondering — how come the nominated cabinets of these student organizations work so hard during this promotion period? In my world at Waterloo, the club promotion period is two days, and they certainly don’t give out free coffee and dim sum, provide three kinds of pamphlets about their executive, have choreographed dance and shouting routines, and wear custom maching outfits every day. What is it about the system at HKUST that leads to this kind of behaviour?
Let me explain.
It’s because, if the new nominated cabinet doesn’t persuade 20-50% of the members to stop by the voting booth in the main campus atrium to vote for their new cabinet, then, well, they don’t get to be the cabinet. Or more precisely, the club will need to submit a re-vote request to the Student’s Union, and that is very embarrassing. Who wants to run a club without a mandate to lead from the members?
For example, the Management of Organizations Student’s Organization (MSA) needs a 50% quota, and they have somewhere near 600 members. That means that the new executive needs to find almost 300 people around the campus to vote for their executive. To make matters difficult, the old executive does not provide the member roster or even the current count of members in the club to the new team. As such impressing the current members has been their raison d’être since mid-December. To accomplish this lofty goal, they have been meeting essentially every day (except for a three-day break for Chinese New Year) since mid-December. As it appears, organizations here are not unlike fraternities in America: they provide a close bond with friends, and also, they are known to consume your life. If these students attend class, it’s only because it’s a class where the professor takes attendance — they’d rather be recruiting and handing out free snacks to everybody in sight.
That’s why. Everything is competitive in Hong Kong.
I headed downtown today to investigate shirt tailors in Hong Kong and compare them to my experience in Bangkok.
Low-End: I followed an Indian street tout into “Shaniel Custom Tailors,” a shop in Tsim Sha Tsui. Fabrics were claimed to be Japanese and Italian, just like low-end tailors in Bangkok. They immediately tried to upsell me to five shirts. The price quoted (after I mentioned I was shopping around) was 700 HKD for five. They do not offer mother-of-pearl buttons — in fact they tried to sell me on their “high-quality” plastic. At first they tried to quote me 350 HKD per shirt… watch out, tourists!
Stylish: Jantzen Tailor. Service here is practically non-existent. Nobody asked me if I needed help when I walked in. The shop was messy, with shirt fabric sample booklets haphazardly strewn across a table. There was a wide selection of suiting fabric around — the new shop in fact seems to focus on the (more profitable!) suiting business rather than making shirts. The claim was that everything was made in Wan Chai (a district of Hong Kong.) The sample shirts were very stylish. I’d suggest Jantzen mainly for clubwear and casual shirts. Shirts cost 300 HKD.
Mid-level: Sam’s Tailor. Service here was pleasant. Prices started at 350 HKD per shirt, and construction quality was good. Sample shirts had mother-of-pearl buttons, single-needle stitching, and all the usual signs of quality. Buttons were sewn with circled thread behind the buttons, a sign of quality. Sam was interested in my business and did not try to upsell me beyond one shirt.
High-end: W.W. Chan’s. Shirts here start at 800 HKD, but most fabrics are around 1100 HKD. Fabrics looked and felt great, as they should at that price. Fabrics are mostly Italian, and clearly marked as Super 100′s up through Super 170′s. All signs of quality were present. If you can afford them, just go here for excellent shirts.
In fact I didn’t actually buy anything at any of these shops. I’ll buy some more from Narin Couture next time I visit Bangkok. In Thailand, the high end is affordable.
People on this campus take their student organizations very seriously.
Back at Waterloo, during the first couple of weeks of class, everybody writes an eight to twenty-page paper on their co-op work experience in the previous term.
Here in Hong Kong, at the beginning of this summer semester, the student groups are out in full costume with elaborate displays to promote… get this… not the current semester’s executive but in fact those who will lead in the year session starting in the fall. They call these people the “nominated cabinet” of the “2009-2010 session.” At the booths, there are typically games to play and freebies to enjoy. Examples include:
Also, every day, the various clubs shout. This is best shown with a video. Here are some clubs in action, in video form: Hall clubs, DANSO, Finance, and Utopia.
I believe on this campus being an executive on the cabinet of a major club confers popularity. My roommate was saying that many freshman dream of being executive, and in fact many of them have been preparing for years, volunteering in the groups and helping out since they arrived at UST. It’s local student phenomena though. Many mainlanders and most exchange students never join these clubs.
I headed to Shenzhen for a day for shopping at Luohu Commercial City. To do this I had to exit Hong Kong and enter Shenzhen, passing through immigration and customs. For immigration I needed to buy a five-day visa (which can be done on arrival) for 160 RMB. As a note to others the office requires payment in RMB these days. I updated the wikitravel page with my experience. It took two entire pages of my passport for the printed visa and the stamps I needed to return to HK.
My experience at Luohu was that the shopkeepers are filled with shameless salesmen and saleswomen who will happily sell you, say, a pair of “copy shoes” for 850 RMB ($124 USD) if you let them. I warn tourists to be extremely careful. The shopkeepers will pass you a calculator to express your view of the price, and I think a good idea is to add up what you think cheap versions of the items would be worth in Canada, multiply by the exchange rate (currently 6.8), and then divide by at least two. Shopkeepers will protest, so walk out of the store, and they’ll chase you down and eventually lower their offer. It is very important, I repeat very important, to not buy without first comparing prices with other nearby stores. This is your greatest (perhaps only) weapon when negotiating, because nothing drops prices like the prospect of you buying instead from the store’s neighbour. Also, seek the less assertive shopkeepers. They are easier to bargain with.
The clever shopkeepers have figured all this out long ago, and will attempt to grab you as you first enter the complex, when they have a strong information advantage as you have no way to know whether nearby shops sell for more or less than the one you’ve been brought to visit.
On the bright side (see below and comments), I visited Stephanie Yang of Lark International Apparel, an internet-famous LCC tailor in shop 5060, and had her start on a shirt for me. Many shops were closed for Chinese New Year, but hers was miraculously open. Here, I had plenty of information advantage, because I know suits and shirts quite well, and could compare prices to similar shops in Thailand.
Even in Stephanie’s shop, one must be careful. If I’d walked in and ordered a shirt without specifying anything, I’d likely have returned to pick up a cotton-polyester blend piece with unaligned shoulder patterns and plastic buttons — what you get in Bangkok at a so-called “tourist tailor” for 1000 THB (195 RMB, $29 USD) on a good day. However, Stephanie is a competent tailor (we had a nice discussion about, for example, hand-stitching versus machine-stitching of suits, complete with diagrams she drew) and was happy to oblige my requests. I asked for mother-of-pearl buttons (no extra cost) and properly aligned shoulders (40 RMB extra) and angled cuffs (free.) One can’t be too picky about the fabric, though. Only Chinese cottons and blends are available at her shop or any others I visited.
Update: I since received the shirts. The “mother-of-pearl” buttons were not mother-of-pearl — they looked rather strange. On my first visit, the shirt was a poor fit. I told her to fix it, ordered another at the same time, and came back in a week. The fixed version looked fine for casual wear, however, it still had alignment problems when fully buttoned up, making it impossible to wear with a tie. The second shirt’s fit was fine in both styles. In short, Lark Apparel remains a budget option. One can do much better in China — my jackets made in Shanghai and shirts made in Beijing both notably exceeded the quality from her shop. Don’t expect much.
I remember first arriving in Tokyo and being impressed by how different it was — vending machines were stocked with completely different drinks, they were on every street, every street was spotlessly clean, skyscraper restaurants were everywhere, the convenience stores were stocked with exotic dinners cashiers would microwave, and stores would use dry ice to pack desserts you buy.
When I arrived in Hong Kong, the vending machines were stocked with Coke and bottled water and familiar Western names, the skyscrapers belonged to banks who kept public restaurants in the basement, and I had sausage and eggs for breakfast. I thought, in a way, the city was just too familiar.
Well, first impressions can be misleading. Sure, you can live like an American. But you can also live like a Japanese. Here’s what I did today.
Maybe, this really is where East meets West.
