Last year, Shanghai played host to the first Chinese Blogger Conference. As a favor to folks who were held up by the language barrier, I translated the registration instructions.

This year, the Chinese Blogger Conference will be held in Hangzhou on October 28th and 29th. I'll help with translation if needed, but that event is still in the planning stages.

Luckily for us Shanghainese and Shanghailanders, we are hosting another event this year, albeit a slightly smaller one. The first annual Chinese Wiki Conference (首届中文维客年会) will be held on Saturday, August 12th at the Shanghai Library. Already, people are using Upcoming to announce their interest, and an official English language introduction is online.

Registration for this conference closes on August 5th, so I'm going to translate the registration procedure here:

• Conference registration will be opened on July 23rd. In order to reach an accurate estimate of the number of attendees, registration will occur as follows:
• Option 1: By phone. Call the Conference Committee Secretary weekdays from 10:00am-5:30pm at ＋86-21-54475686.
• Option 2: By e-mail. Send e-mail to the following address: Cwc@cnic.org

• Please submit the following:

  1. Real name or online alias.
  2. Your current city of residence.
  3. A contact phone number and a way to reach you online (E-mail, MSN, QQ, Gtalk, Skype, etc).
  4. Your willingness to give a talk at the wiki conference. (We welcome your interest!)
  5. Your personal blog or related site address.
  6. Your willingness to create a link from your site to the conference site.
  7. Any other relevant information.
• If you have any questions about the registration process, please contact Cwc@cnic.org by MSN or inquire directly by phone with the Conference Committee Secretary.

Registration will be halted on August 5th. Only registered participants will be allowed into the venue, and there will be no registration on the day of the Conference. Thank you for your support and participation!

Remember that this translation is unofficial, and that there will not necessarily be English speakers taking registrations. I recommend keeping English-language registration e-mails brief and phone calls only in Chinese.

We made it back to Shanghai in once piece with all of our luggage. I'd like to thank: my parents for driving us to the airport and seeing us off, the Narita security guard who coordinated with Japan Airlines to let me keep my Swiss Army knife after I forgot to put it in my check-in luggage, and the Shanghai taxi driver who was sport enough to balance both of our 20x20x20" boxes on the edge of his open trunk for the short drive back home from the bus stop.

Amazon order arrived:

• The Elements of Typographic Style

• A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

• The Death and Life of Great American Cities

• Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

• Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance

• The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919-1937

• Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945

• Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922-1943

• Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century

• How to Prepare for the AP Statistics (Barron's How to Prepare for the Ap Statistics Advanced Placement Examination)

• Activity-based Statistics

• The Practice of Statistics: TI-83/89 Graphing Calculator Enhanced

• A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN

• How (Not) to Speak of God

Now we're packed and ready to go home. See you Saturday.

From the "things you've never realized you always wanted to know" department:

The Chinese for "Juche" is 主体 (source).

Does this mean that the "Juche means self-reliance" axiom is a very loose interpretation?

We're in California and having a great time. We got home yesterday and found ourselves locked out by virtue of arriving first, so we had lunch at Brea's Best (hamburgers) where Jodi was introduced to American obesity and sagging. Pictures are forthcoming, which I'm not sure is a good thing. In the evening we went shopping at Stater Bros. Not in many years since coming back from Spain has a routine shopping trip been so exotic.

Today we breakfasted on deluxe oatmeal, toast and cereal, and packed a lunch and swimsuits for a trip to Newport Beach. In the evening I'm planning on a drive to Pasadena for a visit to Caltech, shopping in Old Town Pasadena, and a movie at the art house theater. In the evening, Ani and Brian will be back in town.

The plan for tomorrow is to hit up Disneyland in the morning, and then be back at Grandma Lo's in time for the shower being thrown for Jodi by the women of the extended family. Friday should be another busy day, I'll keep this weblog updated and hopefully have pictures by then.

(I've just reviewed my parents' pictures of the wedding. Combined with Megan's and the DVD we'll get back in Shanghai, I think we have a fabulous record of the whole thing. If only I could get them using Flickr...)

I went out with my brother and his girlfriend to Windows Scoreboard to watch the world cup final (2am-5:30am). What a game! The place was packed with about 2/3 France fans and 1/3 Italy fans. I was surprised by what a clean game it was, as both teams were very civil. What a change from when Brazil or Germany reaches the final! Most of all it was nice to have a crowd to roar along with when a goal was scored (and also when Zidane pulled that stunt; could you believe it?).

You know Jodi's parents are visiting when...

• ...you find used tea leaves discarded in the toilet bowl.
• ...the fumes of hot peppers cooking in the kitchen cause you to cough in the bedroom.
• ...you sleep in, still get served breakfast, and then still eat lunch on schedule.
• ...there's some sort of strange root drying on the air conditioner outside the bedroom window.
• ...laundry gets done every day.

They're good folk, and they raised a great daughter.

This morning Jodi and I went shopping. We bought my pants, a shirt, browsed Chinese clothes for a while, had an ice cream float at McDonalds, bought her shoes and then went to Ikea for dinner. After roast chicken breast, meatballs and a slice of Scandinavian cake, we bought a frame for the 迎宾牌 ("guest welcome poster"?) and a straw decorative ball for Poopy. Back at Zhongshan Park, we dropped by the new Lucky Greens miniature golf course on the 6th floor of 龙之梦 and discovered that they're free through July 31st with a coupon that they happily supplied to us on arrival. After a merry 18 holes, we headed home and spent all night cleaning the house and watching a very boring England vs Portugal. I'm writing this entry while I debate with myself about whether to stay up and watch the Brasil vs France match at 3am, given that Jodi's parents pull into 上海南站 early tomorrow afternoon.

Last night I dreamed that Asa and I were trekking through some part of Shanghai I didn't recognize, and we ran across some massive cathedral. I looked inside and noticed that it wasn't layed out in the shape of the cross but didn't go inside because I don't like to go into people's private spaces, especially churches. Then Asa told me he needed to use a restroom so we looked around and saw several signs saying "McDonalds this way" but not actual stores. So we hiked into some gated community at Asa's suggestion, which was like a forest with mini-villas perched on the hilly terrain, walked down some stairs to a playground where boys were playing soccer. While Asa used the restroom I fiddled with a confusing drinking fountain that had several heads, none of which seemed to be for drinking. The End.