The Adventures of Daniel Kwan

You know what’s lame? Shanghai Metro’s Line 9. The Line 9 bus service, which covers the missing segment (Yishan Road to Guilin Road) separating the line from the rest of the metro system, ends two hours before the metro service ends. Line 9 metro service ends at 10:30 PM, but after 8:30 people coming from the rest of the metro system (basically the rest of Shanghai) can’t even get on it. [June 13 update: Apparently Line 9 ended at 9:00 PM. I guess the 8:30 end time for the bus made sense then. Line 9 now ends at 9:15.]

I had to get turned around twice to find out, because the first time was after 10:30 and I figured I just had to get there before the Line 9 service ended next time. Well to my surprise, no bus service at 8:45 tonight either. Me and others who got off there were like wtf, so I asked the guy there and he’s like the Line 9 bus has always ended at 8:30.

They should post up a big sign somewhere, or at least announce it on Line 3 which takes people to Line 9, because I bet every few minutes of everyday after 8:30, a new group of confused people have to find another way home.

By the way, this website is awesome: www.exploreshanghai.com/metro. Click and drag from one stop to another stop to see the estimated travel time. According to their blog, Line 9’s service should be extended a bit starting tomorrow, but it doesn’t say if that includes Line 9’s bus service.

“Foreigners in Shanghai should carry their passports with them for random checks by police, according to the Exit-Entry Administration of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau.” – ShanghaiDaily.com

I don’t think I’ll get checked. Do I look like a suspicious foreigner?

Didn’t think so.

Success! I got my recently purchased Epson ME 1+ (sold in China only) working with my Mac. It was made for Windows only, and Epson doesn’t have a Mac driver for it. Thankfully there are people who play around with Linux and make free software. So if you’re in China and bought the cheapest Epson printer you could find, here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to this page and download Foomatic-RIP and Ghostscript.
2. While they’re downloading, go to this page and download usbtb.
3. Install Foomatic-RIP and Ghostscript first. Administrator privilege needed.
4. Then with your printer on and plugged to your Mac, install usbtb.
5. Let usbtb detect the printer and try to find a driver for it. It’ll fail.
6. Manually choose the Epson C46 driver. Ignore usbtb’s warning and proceed.

And that’s it! You now have a slow, craptastic printer that you wish would break so that you’d have an excuse to get a better one. You’re welcome!

Originally got the tip from here.

I redid my photography page. All the images on that page now load from my website’s server rather than Flickr, so people in China (like me!) should be able to see them now. I also removed all the unnecessary text, like “Studio Portraiture / These are portraits taken in a studio.” There are 33 images currently, but whenever I feel like it I’ll probably add or remove or replace some.

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
Michael Corleone, The Godfather III

I guess I’m still sort of a photographer. The company wants me to take a bunch of photos for their brochures and whatnot. I skipped my own English class today to go shopping for Nikon goodies, and guess what I found out.

You can’t set the SB-600 to SU-4 slave mode! It only works as a slave in a CLS setup. Meaning it only plays with other Nikons. Not a problem for me since I have SB-800s, but I was just surprised by this.

Source: http://news.163.com/special/00012700/fotodiz.html. Lots more photos there.

Death toll now at nearly 15,000 and expected to get a lot higher.

Here’s a photo essay from Time.com.

Here’s another way to donate, established by the Committee of 100 (百人會).

This is what my English class looks like.

o_O o_o   ?_? o.o   *_* ó_o   O_o •_•   o_o ‘_’

o_o x_x   -.- ~_~   o_o 0_o   >.< o_o   v_v o_o

-_- o_o   o_O ò_ó   O_0 o_ò   ?_? -_-   o.o 0_o

0_0 -_-   o_o z_z   >_< o_o   o_o ó_ò   -_- -.-

o_o @_@   O_O o_o   o_o -_-   /_\ o_o   `_` o_o

>.<;

Some photos of the aftermath and rescue efforts from the earthquake in Sichuan two days ago.

Source: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20080513_1.htm. Go see the rest there. Donation info here.

Yesterday afternoon a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Sichuan Province. That’s way out in the middle of China, but even people in Beijing and Shanghai and neighboring countries felt it. (I didn’t. Probably depends on the foundation.) For comparison with the SF Bay Area, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was also a 7.8. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was 6.9.

I’ve been to Yunnan Province, just south of Sichuan, and if I remember right the buildings were mostly made of concrete – not something that would be able to withstand a major earthquake. (Californians think about this stuff.) I imagine Sichuan buildings are probably the same, and today the death toll estimate has passed 10,000. I had a feeling it’d be bad when I first heard about it, but wasn’t expecting such a big number.

Go to Shanghaiist.com for more info. They’re doing an excellent job keeping updated with the news.

(Photo: Xinhua, Wang Jianhua)

I have internet at my place now. Forgot to mention that. It was installed about two weeks ago. I can’t believe I’ve been here almost a month already.

Tomorrow I begin teaching English to my coworkers. (I thought it was today. No wonder no one got ready for class.) When I was first told I’d be teaching English, I thought I’d be teaching a handful of people, like maybe five at most. Turns out I’ll be teaching a classroom of 26 people, five days a week, 30 minutes per day, indefinitely.

Not a problem. Even though my biggest phobia in school was speaking in front of the classroom, this’ll be cake. Why? No idea. I just keep telling myself that. Nothing to worry about. Not a thing. As long as I don’t wet my pants or vomit or st-t-t-tutter, I’ll do f-f-f-fine.

I chose a small handbook called Business Spoken English to use as our textbook. It’s 300+ pages of nothing but phrases. Just A talking to B, and B responding to A. Not a single technical grammar lesson.

Teaching grammar might work for some people, but I bet repetition of sentence patterns is a better way for most. Plus I don’t want to answer questions like “why do you always end sentences with prepositions?!”

I’ve made a course syllabus, and a questionnaire so I can get an idea of everyone’s current English level. I just hope everyone can at least understand the questionnaire.

If anyone has advice on teaching English to a classroom of Chinese adults, lemme hear!