Micah Sittig: News

Micah Sittig (msittig at wubi.org) — 2009-07-03

Two quotes from recent reading material.

Micah Sittig (msittig at wubi.org) — 2009-07-02

Two quotes from recent reading material. First, from Tressell's "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists":

Work, boys, work and be contended
So long as you've enough to buy a meal
For if you will but try, you'll be wealthy—bye and bye
If you'll only put your shoulder to the wheel.

And from a recent Southern Weekly article, 《科教书：删得掉的文字删不掉的“机密”》:

现在，时隔十年后，当年的学生们才恍然大悟，自己的科教书曾被如此“花季护航”。

Reading this article on the "uncensoring" of public school textbooks since after Deng Xiaoping took over in the late 70s post-facto compounded my frustration at watching an obviously-censored version of Transformers 2: cut scenes and garbled words that interfered with the plot made the movie even less enjoyable than it would have been in its original complete form. Near the end of the article, another paragraph that puts Transformers into perspective:

比如《口技》中的房事，还要调查一下中学生的生理卫生课的开展情况；《葫芦僧判断葫芦案》被删的“酷爱男风，不好女色”，虽然同性恋已经一步步突破了法律惩罚、社会偏见和立法阻碍，但大部分中学生仍在农村地区。

That last line speaks to me the hidden prejudices that handicap us.

It's local election time in our neighborhood.

Micah Sittig (msittig at wubi.org) — 2009-06-30

It's local election time in our neighborhood. Banners are up entreating residents to "Seriously and studiously carry out the legal regulations regarding elections, and ensure the smooth running of an election according to the law."

Posted in the bulletin board at the gate to our community is the list of candidates for being elected representatives to the People's Congress, posted by the Congress 筹备组 (preparatory team?).

Since I'm a sucker for data, this name list is interesting to me.

	Sex	Year	Month	Ethnic	Party	Edu	Work
1	F	1950	6	Han	CCP	MS	gov
2	M	1964	7	Han	Peasants	BA	gov
3	M	1958	8	Han	CCP	AA	gov
4	F	1962	1	Han	CCP	AA	gov
5	F	1944	12	Han	CCP	MS	gov
6	F	1971	1	Han	CCP	AA	gov
7	M	1956	11	Han	CCP	AA	gov
8	M	1955	2	Han	CCP	AA	gov
9	M	1952	3	Han	CCP	MS	gov
10	M	1958	6	Han	Public	AA	com
11	M	1952	3	Han	CCP	MS	gov
12	M	1951	4	Han	CCP	MS	com
13	M	1962	2	Han	CCP	HS	com
14	M	1971	4	Mongol	Public	Masters	com
15	F	1949	5	Han	CCP	HS	gov
16	M	1958	10	Han	CCP	HS	gov
17	F	1941	9	Han	CCP	MS	gov

Some trends:

A majority of candidates were born in the 50s. The oldest will be 68 this year, the (two) youngest will be 38.
Education is inversely correlated with age, and the most common levels of education are completion of middle school and AA degrees (junior college/vocational).
Eighty-two percent of the candidates are members of the Chinese Communist Party. The only other party represented is the Peasants and Workers Democratic Party.
Three quarters of the candidates already work for the government, mostly on neighborhood committees, with titles like secretary, Party team leader, 留守人员(?), doctor at a health clinic, and Party branch committee member.
The private sector candidates come from middle and upper management.
The most interesting candidate — in that his background is very different from the rest of the group — is candidate #14. Besides being one of the youngest candidates, born in 1971, he claims Mongolian heritage status, is not a member of any political party, is the only candidate with any higher education (MA), and works as a manager in a consulting company.

It would take a lot of background information to explain these, which I don't have time for right now. The next step is a narrowing down of the list through discussion by the 选民小组, and then the actual election will take place. It's all laid out in the 上海市区县及乡镇人民代表大会代表直接选举实施细则 (Detailed Rules for the Shanghai Municipal District and Township People's Congress Representative Direct Elections), for those interested.

Incredibly, the UI designers for our office printer seem to...

Micah Sittig (msittig at wubi.org) — 2009-06-17

Incredibly, the UI designers for our office printer seem to have geared it towards people who feel compelled to press the same button over and over again to communicate their urgency to the machine (like at crosswalks). Pressing the green ✔ button over and over again seems to solve any just about any problem aside from paper jams.