TripDingo

Dear Readers,

It’s time to say goodbye. Kango.com has come to its senses in deciding that bloggers in China really can’t blog much about United States travel-related topics because, well, they’re in China and it doesn’t make much sense to pay for content that has little direct relation to their U.S.-centric travel information aggregating semantic-search startup. You may be wondering why they ever sponsored content that had nothing to do with U.S. travel in the first place…and you’ll just have to keep wondering because I don’t really know the answer.

TripDingo.com, under me, your kangaroo and wallaby loving Dingo (cute but unoriginal yet domain-matching pseudonym that it is) focused largely on a random variety of issues, events, and experiences in and around Shanghai and China as a whole. This Friday will be the last day in which we will be paid for our content and then I’m outta here like Rhett Butler (wait, does that make Kango Scarlett O’Hara?). Naturally, I have no idea nor control over what Kango will do with this web-property and the existing content once I’m gone…but I thank all of my readers for their eyeballs and their contributions in the very brief stint I was manning the helm.

For those who are still keen on reading random commentary about China, the blogroll to the right has a few of my favorite links to some great blogs I follow daily. Danwei updates the most, but I find Imagethief to be particularly amusing to read. Of course, there’s always Elliot Ng and Min Guo’s aspiring CNreviews as well. Without my own little soapbox to stand on, I’ll probably increasingly comment (maybe even troll…just kidding…maybe) these other excellent blogs until and maybe, on a lark, one of them will consider me amusing enough to allow some guest-blogging (more fearsome things have happened before). Look for “Kai.”

I imagine TripDingo.com will be recycled or even reinvented by Kango to make a lot more sense to them and I’m sure they’ll find a great blogger to love wallabies and kangaroos as much as I do. I wish that individual or group of individuals the best of luck. Despite still being “almost alpha” with a private developing beta, Kango.com will be a great place for families, retirees, smitten mature couples, and other wholesome individuals to find the right destination or activity for them by bringing together the opinions, reviews, and experiences of everyone before them from all-around the web. If there’s one place to start scratching your itch to go somewhere while having as much information as you can at your fingertips, it’ll be Kango.com. For now, it’s just the United States. In the future, you can bet they’ll try conquering covering the world.

Hey, it’s what I’d do.

Cheers.

Just caught this on CNN as I’m going to bed (to recover from CNY) and decided to throw it up first. I’ll edit in my comments later.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A U.S. Defense Department civilian employee has been indicted on espionage-related charges involving efforts to provide secret military technology to China, officials close to the case said.

Chinese citizens, some of whom hold U.S. green cards, also are to be charged in federal court in Los Angeles, California, the sources said. The Associated Press reported that at least four Chinese citizens were named in the indictments.

According to the AP, the five are to be charged with illegally smuggling out information from places such as research facilities, labs or universities that had access to the secret material.  …more.

Sidenote: Interestingly, my internet cut out moments after searching for “Wen Ho Lee” and “Chinese spy acquited.” GFW filters maybe? Maybe.

Edit: So…I’m finally getting around to adding my comments here. By the way, the article linked to above has been updated over time.

My first reaction was to think of Wen Ho Lee, the Taiwan-born Las Alamos National Labs scientist that the United States government (and media) persecuted for accused of spying for China back around the turn of the millenium. This time, however, they were smart enough to put a white guy at the forefront and keep the Chinese people slightly more on the periphery. That’s definitely one way to lower the risk of this immediately being labeled as racial profiling.

My second reaction was to remark at how awfully cynical and skeptical I am when it comes to what the United States government says or does. Michael Moore would be proud. Do I believe spying, espionage, and treason happens? Most certainly. In the United States? Of course? By the United States? You can be sure of it.

Do I think this news comes at an awfully convenient time? Maybe.

On one hand, news like this certainly feeds into the growing anxieties American’s have against China. With rising trade imbalances, an economy sliding into possible recession, and a government that just isn’t that popular, it would be nice to shift attention towards that largely mysterious (to most Americans) pseudo-communist country far far away. I mean, hell, with all the recent hard-to-forget news about tainted pet food, poisonous toothpaste, and toys with lead, why not throw some Chinese spies in for good measure?  

On the other hand, it isn’t entirely implausible.

I mean, if I was China, I’d definitely have some “assets” in that hegemonic monster of a country known as the United States of Fucking America (yeah!). There’d be plenty of awesome “super-power” secrets for me to find that would invariably help my own efforts towards climbing the world ladder…like the Colonel’s secret blend of 11 herbs and spices that makes chicken so finger-lickin’ good!

Okay okay, I’ll be serious. The problem I find myself torn with is questioning the many possible and political motives of the United States government with such “news” and the entirely possible, plausible, and probable fact that there are on-going Chinese intelligence efforts targeted at the United States (and they were caught this time).

It really is pretty damn delicious. The coleslaw too.

And in other news: Berkeley, again, is just begging for an ass-kicking (can we add that to its list of “things to do?”).

Happy Chinese New Year! For many Chinese, it is now officially 2008.

The usual round of Chinese merry-making is well on its way, an endless cycle of spending money to buy presents, spending money to buy new clothes, traveling somewhere (hah, that was funny), family and friend meet-n-greets, dining, drinking, smoking, mah-jong (ma jiang), card-playing, red-pocket (hong bao) giving and receiving, well-wishing, paying your respects, toasting your elders and each other, and lighting the motherfucking fire-crackers, baby!

Unlike the United States where it often legal to own a firearm but not play with firecrackers or fireworks, the Chinese blast that shit nonstop for something like 2-3 days straight. It is not just loud, it is pervasive…so much so that the Chinese even gleefully wonder aloud if the Koreans to the north and those despicable Japanese can hear all of China celebrating in glorious unison painting the streets red (with spent firecracker shells, not blood, that is). Crack-crack-crack through the night (which is qualitatively different from bang-bang-bang *ahem*) and even through the days, it isn’t just noise, but is also plenty of beautiful fire flowers (yan hua) amongst the residential buildings throughout the city. No silly fire-safety codes here, there’s no problem with a nice big firework exploding right next to your window to shower the facade of your tower with bright gleeming burning particles of celebration.

To say Chinese New Year is festive would be an understatement.