龙门　　：：　Dragon Gate

I posted last year about Indian recruiters starting to see Western managers applying for jobs to the subcontinent; now there's a BBC story about young Westerners applying for call centre jobs. (Sorry, Cogito - I know India isn't all about call centres! Or cows.) I found it via this discussion on Slashdot. Of course, the title exaggerates: these people aren't migrating, they're basically taking a working holiday. I really like this comment by 'Torpor': Globalization is a reality, folks. You can either: a) pretend it doesn't exist, b) complain about it, or c) live in it, as a globalist individual I chose c). If big-corp's are gonna go multi-national, so am I. The days of stick-dwelling are over .. this is the Era Of The Nomad, in my opinion. Hear, hear!

Lots of interesting stuff in today's IHT. Joseph Kahn writes a very long and very interesting piece on the spiritual void in China's coutryside, and the profusion of cults that are springing up to fill it. This fascinates me, because the same sort of weird groups are mushrooming in Japan and Korea too, and they have lots of money. This is why I keep harping on about the Falun Gong and other cults: money, tech skills, and fervent belief in weird religion is going to lead to strange things happening in the future, I'm sure. William Gibson, please write a book about this!

On a happier note, the Chinese are on their way to becoming the biggest source of tourists in the Pacific.

Continuing the globalisation theme, there's an interesting article on Tibetan artists: "Many people simplify Tibet," says Gade, a 33-year-old Tibetan painter who also teaches fine arts at Tibet University. "They ask, 'How can Tibet have things like Christmas trees or fast food or Nikes?' But young Tibetans have already accepted these things. Tibet isn't an isolated Shangri-La anymore, eh Cogito?

I've just been reading an entry in Tom Peters' blog - about how China is inescapably a part of the future for the West. Absolutely true... I'm glad that I'm restarting my Mandarin lessons: first one tomorrow. What also got my attention was one of the comments, which was that [the US?] is now consulting with China on how to deal with environmental problems. That reminded me about this Wired story on China's development of Green Technology. Goodness knows, they're doing it because of the terrible problems they have, but if they go green on a big scale, it will make the technology affordable for everywhere else in the world - finally counteracting the way that eco-friendly technologies have been neglected by Western governments.

I see that a new blog, OpenAsia has been launched, watching the fortunes of Open Source software in Asia. One to keep an eye on for Asian geeks, or geeks in Asia.

Also, another Asia Times Online about the dollar's woes.

Aiyoh - things are getting desperate: the US army has called up a 53 year-old Vietnam veteran for service in Iraq. Dunlap's wife was quoted as saying the entire family "prayed that he wouldn't pass his physical." I'll bet they are.

An ACNeilsen global survey reports that 28% of American consumers have no spare cash in the runup to Christmas, compared to 12% in Europe and 8% in Asia. And as the dollar sinks - I was going to say 'plummets', but I'll save that for future use - this suggests interest rates will rise soon, possibly a lot. I hope those consumers can cope with that. A Straits Times article sourced from AP, Bloomberg and Reuters says that US home sales have unexpectedly risen. Well, my guess is that means people are trying to buy with fixed-rate mortgages before rates go up. Unfortunately, I can't find an online version of this report.

According to the Financial Times, Russia may restructure its forex reserves, moving from roughly 75:25 Dollar:Euro to 50:50 or even 40:60. I linked recently to another story the Chinese Euro bond offering, and OPEC's increasing preference for Euros.

In yet another wow! moment, an article about using sensors on the tongue, or the skin of the back, to replace lost vision, balance, or other senses. Astonishing.

Strong words: China's central bank tells the US to stop whining about currencies and concentrate on becoming more competitive. The original Financial Times story is here. Top quote: "The appreciation of the RMB will not solve the problems of unemployment in the US because the cost of labour in China is only three per cent that of US labour. They should give up textiles, shoe-making and even agriculture probably.". Morgan Stanley's Andy Xie ia now urging Asian Central Banks to start selling US government bonds, in order to pressure Washington into putting its financial house in order.

Meanwhile, Indian software firms have so much work, they are worrying about where they will find enough coders...

Namechecked on Smart Mobs - fame at last!

Wow, following on from that story about cellphones in North Korea, now the Falun Gong have hijacked another TV satellite. High-tech, street-level dissent; William Gibson's world becomes truer every day, it seems.

What's your mental picture of North Korea? I have no idea what society is like there: I have a vision of Stalinist-style personality cults and mass military, huge labour camps, and a peasant-based economy. It turns out, though, that one of the leading vectors for anti-government dissent is the humble handphone - the government has just banned them, and I didn't even know they had them. This is from an article in the IHT. This is reminiscent of the role handphones played in the Philippines a few years ago.

I've been following Ziboy's photoblog for a few months now, because I really like his pictures of a slice of life in Beijing. After sleeping on it, I guess I made the link between his blog and 24in48 because they are doing similar things, and because - although Beiing and New York are very different - it seems to me that the people who appear in them would like each other and get along well...

Apple have finally sent a reply; it seems that the problems I'm having are caused by NTU's proxy, which doesn't surprise me. That reminds me - one reason I turned to an MBA was that I felt my internet-development skills were getting stale. I was talking recently to a number of people who run apparently successful internet development companies in Singapore, and none of them knew any XML or had heard of the HTTP Accept-Language header and how it could be used for multilingual site development, so maybe this is still an option for me after all.

I've just joined the Ryze business network, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the authors of almost every blog I read on a regular basis are already members.

I seem to be coming down with a cold. Boo.

Asian faces... Looking through the 24in48 site I referenced earlier, I found this picture, taken by Lia Bualong in New York:

which for some reason made me think of this picture taken by Ziboy in Beijing:

...don't know why.

Just spoken to my parents, who are helping me out by taking some of my stuff out of storage and selling it on eBay - like Melly, I'm starting to have to raise funds by liquidating my assets! Some of this stuff I've had for years and I'm quite sentimentally attached to but... too bad! The nice thing is, at least it's raising more money than I expected.

TOMA and I had a great day together, walking around campus, and then going swimming. It's the first time I've been swimming for about a year, so I expect my shoulders will hurt tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be going more often now, though.

Other news and events: I've booked lessons with a retired Professor of Chinese for 1-on-1 lessons, starting next week. Got to get my Mandarin going again!

Apple sent me a fairly useless email suggesting that my keychain might be corrupted, so I created a new one, and it fixed nothing. A reply to Apple support telling them the results of their advice is still unanswered after four days. It annoys me that the email I got from them was totally anonymous. Anyhow, I'm starting to wonder how I can get a refund; maybe I should get in touch with my credit card operator.

Via Roland Piquepalle, I've found 24in48, a neat moblogging experiment. Also, via Slashdot, this CNN piece about how Singaporean researchers are developing real-life Pacman, based on ubiquitous computing, virtual reality and collaborative technologies.

This made me think: I'd forgotten how cool Singapore seemed to me as a geek when I first came here: now I take it for granted that I can get a Coke here by dialling the vending machine with my handphone. There is really good use of technology happening here. On the other hand, it isn't always as good as it's made out to be: yesterday's Straits Times carried a piece saying that the Biopolis project is nearly full, and construction had started on phase 2. Interesting, but I later spoke to someone who actually works there, and who says it's nowhere near full, that the construction has been problematic, shall we say.

Nevertheless, I'm kind of reinspired that there are very intersting and innovative things happening here: living on campus, I've been feeling kind of cut off from that side of life.

Just got back from a great evening: one of our intake organised a barbeque by the pool at his condo. Great time; and an opportunity for me to talk to some of my classmates, full-time and part-time. Lots of very interesting people: one a very devout Buddhist had been on pilgrimages to Tibet, India and Sri Lanka and had many stories to tell... It was very nice to catch up with some of my intake with whom I've been too busy to talk for a while.

The Taiji is coming on well: spent some hours midday practising the sabre form. I'm still finding some parts difficult, but I'm making progress.

In the afternoon, the World MBA Fair was held in the Raffles Swissotel: can it really be a year (only a year!) since I was there as a nervous applicant, handing over my resume..? I had a good time attending as a 'student representative, answering questions from the student's POV (and not always what the school would have wanted, perhaps).

On a more business-studies level, I found this article in the IHT to be very interesting: not just that politically South America is increasingly tending towards partnerships with China, but also that countries in the region are signing long-term agreements to supply scarce, high-quality resources exclusively to China for a decade or more. Where will the US turn to get its supplies? Also, I wonder to what extent the US is - very slowly, and slightly, to be sure, but also increasingly - becoming sidelined as economic ties develop between China, India, ASEAN, Latin America, Central Asia, and Europe... See also this article on the convergence of the Indian and Chinese economies, and this one about China's increasing cultural and educational prestige in Asia. Of course, not all is well in China, as an Asia Times article shows, domestic unrest is increasingly a problem.

Up early again this morning for Taiji; I met with my tutor again this morning. I'm finding that this is a lovely routine: up at 6, and walk right across campus. At this time, the dawn chorus is getting up momentum; the light is still very grey, and there's a light mist beneath the trees. Apart from the birdsong, it's very quiet, with only an occasional car. I practice for somewhat over an hour; today, we worked on improving my Taiji fist form, and on recalling the sabre form, which I've forgotten a lot of. Then, my tutor goes home, and I work for a little on my Ba Gua. I need to buy new shoes for this; the soft-soled slippers I wear for Taiji don't grip well enough around the heel, and slip off. After a little while, I head back, stopping in one of the canteens for a cup of 'kopi' (really thick, black coffee sweetened with condensed milk) and a couple of rounds of toast. Then back to my room, past yawning undergrads. By this time, the sun is breaking cover above the treetops, illuminating the spiderwebs between the bushes, and the dragonflies which dart around according to some purpose only they know.

And then back to bed! I'm changing my sleep pattern from sleep late, rise late to sleep early, rise early, and it's taking me a while to adapt!

I signed up for Apple's .mac service earlier this week. Ever since I gave up my own servers, I've been without an online data backup, and .mac seemed like a good solution - especially as it came with Apple's software for this prpose, iDisk and Backup. Now, like many people, one reason I'm a mac fanatic is that everything just works. Not .mac though. Backup can't connect to my online account and iDisk keeps falling over due to unspecified 'major internal errors'. So I seem to have paid a lot of money for what? An email address I don't need, and a few other things I could have got for free elsewhere. I've submitted a request to Apple support, but no response yet. Guess I'll just have to wait and see...

Saturday was really busy. In the morning was a Services Marketing class, moved forward from this evening because of Hari Raya. My group was presenting, having used my old martial arts school, Nam Wah Pai as a subject. It was actually quite a tough assignment, and it took a long time to do all the research - which meant I was badly short of time to prepare for alll my other courses. Then, after a rush back to campus in a cab, to an afternoon class for Life Sciences, where my group were due to present on Merck and the withdrawal of Vioxx.

In the evening, I went to the Theatres on the Esplanade (which the Straits Times regularly reminds us are 'popularly' called the Durians, even though I've never heard anyone call them that). I wanted to catch 'Sacred Flame', a performance of the sacred dance style of Odissi. The second half of the show was an excerpt from the Ramayana, showing how Rama's wife, Sita, is abducted by the ten-headed demon king, Ravana. I was left speechless, by the grace, strength and agility of the two dancers (Surupa Sen and Bijayini Satpathy) - and even more by their ability to switch in an instant from depicting the tenderness and fragility of Sita, to the fury and power of Ravana. How this would appear by candlelight in a temple, rather than on stage in a theatre, I would love to see. The after-show talk with the dancers was also fascinating. They are based in a dance village academy, away from all modern facilities in rural India, and practice daily for 10-12 hours. They have to grow their own food, and depend on the goodwill of gurus to provide the means to study their art. Such dedication; they run a programme to take traditional INdian dance out to the villages, where they provide free training in dance to villagers. I would love to find out more about this. Tonight I'm planning to go back to the theatre for a Qawwali performance.

I'm really glad about this, actually: I do feel it's important to complement the business studies with artistic activity, and last trimester I just didn't have any time; I only managed to go to the cinema a couple of times (I enjoyed 2046, by the way, but I don't think it will be in my lifetime top 10. I may buy the soundtrack, though).

Managed to get up early this morning to practice my Qigong and Taiji, plus a little bit of Bagua. I've discovered the perfect place very close to the Graduate Hall: surrounded by trees, out of sight of traffic and passersby, and with a smooth, flat surface which is suitable for the sliding Bagua step. Hopefully this will become a daily routine. It's vital that I buy some mosquito repellent, though!

I also need to start going to the gym. TOMA has been making veiled comments about how I gained weight last trimester. And when I say 'veiled', I don't mean Afghan burqa-styled veils, which totally conceal their contents. No, not that kind. Think more silky, Salome, thin - even transparent - style veils that don't conceal very much at all. I think I need to start going to the gym :-)

Via Andrew's blog, I found a site that can generate a map of the world showing where I've been:

create your own visited country map

Unlike Andrew, I'll tell you where I got it: World66.

Our results for trimester one have come out. Mine were better than I had feared, although not as good as I had hoped for: I did badly in Financial Accounting, but that was hardly unexpected. It seems that the effort I put in to my Sun Zi essay paid off, as well. Hurray!

Yesterday was a real day of extremes. I slept very badly the night before, so by the time I got to my Knowledge Management exam I was really feeling woozy. The exam was the toughest I've had so far; partly because of the state I was in and partly becasue the questions were really badly prepared (IMHO): some seemed to be repetitive, and some depended upon analysis of graphics which were so low-res and blurry that they were illegible. It's a real shame because although I really enjoyed that course and got a lot from it, I've blown the exam, I think :-(

On the positive side, I had my first meeting with my old tutor, and started the Qigong and Taijiquan again: definitely badly needed. I've felt my health getting worse as the course progressed, and lately I've been getting headaches. The qigong session immediately helped my posture; I could feel the results all day. It also started to clear out some of the tensions and qi blockages that have accumulated, including the cause of the headaches. So, that's good.

Had a meeting with my services marketing team today; we're going to take my old martial arts association as a case study. Now, I'm just about to go into the first life sciences tutorial.

Chance conversations with strangers... Chatting with a guy in our student lounge just now; he's not an MBA student, but communications studies, and he's given me a really, really useful tip which is going to make a big difference to my career hunt. Cool.

TOMA is still away, so I think I'll try to go catch 2046 tonight; it's still showing, but only on one screen...

Came across the Change this manifesto site last night. Great files available for free download.