Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

I came to China with very different expectations. It was vacation (OK, so I did two boards meetings, two business proposal, four business meetings and one financing proposal and a time to find some of my past. Instead, what I found was deep mourning, then anger then perplexity.) Woke up thinking about two people who…

I’ve been searching for this word for every, luster of pearls, 皪 (li4), for some reason, the Mac input system doesn’t find have it, but it can be displayed http://hk.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?dss=1&wdqchi=%E7%9A%AA&wdqchim=3&wdrst=0 Thank goodness for the old fashion, non-pinyin way of finding words, http://chineselanguage.org/dictionaries/ccdict/view.php?query=76AA&encoding=text&mode=bushou〈=en&beijing=pinyin&canton=jyutping&meixian=pinjim&sound=0& fields=bushou,mandarin,english Part of the problem might be the word can also be pronounced…

Trying to find an address in China is kind of tricky because everyone’s handwriting is sloppy and the different regional accents make trying to figure out the tones and the words hard. For instance, my mom pronounced wu2 as “hu2” so mixes these two sounds. 苏州市 su3 zhou1 shi4 Suzhou 吴中区 mu4 zhong1 qu4 MuZhong…

Talked to a buddy who lives in Ho Chi Minh City. Fascinating place with a good T+L guide There are some amazing hotels: http://www.travelandleisure.com/hotels/list/vietnam-asia/awards * Evason Ana Mandara & Spa www.sixsenses.com a T&L 500 winner on Ninh Van Bay* Park Hyatt Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City* Caravelle Hotel, across the street and runner up for…

A common day trip from Shanghai is to see Suzhou. I have never actually been there but http://wikitravel.org/en/Suzhou is actually quite a good guide. It takes about two hours with no traffice to get there. It is 86 km from Hongqiao and 120 km from Pudong Airport. It’s famous for the canals (of Mission Impossible…

!http://www.smartshanghai.com/pix/flyer116435779621881112122.jpg! Wow talk about massive construction, but the underground road on the Bund is going to make it an amazing place. Nice night and some great pictures. “Sun with Aqua”:http://www.smartshanghai.com/venue/2602/SUN_with_AQUA_shanghai. Some great sake and terrific sashimi particularly when you hang with someone who has lived in Japan.

Help! i don’t know what is happening, but somehow i’m getting intermittent “database connection failed” and then sometimes the WordPress Install screen comes up like it forgot there was any connection at all. No idea why this has happened, but bluehost.com support did understand it. I haven’t tried http://www.bluehostforum.com/ No help from bluehost faq, wordpress…

Found another piece of the mystery. Dad had remember the name of his street as “Nagala lu”. Well, we found it by going to the a police station and was told there are only two elementary schools in this area so a quick walk and we found it. Nagala is really Dan Shui Lu between…

I just love the lyrics. It’s about the bright future ahead: What day is it? And in what month? This clock never seemed so alive I can’t keep up and I can’t back down I’ve been losing so much time Cause there’s you and me and all of the people with nothing to do Nothing…

Some places i’ve been to this go around: DR Bar. Incredibly hard to find, next to Ye Shanghai in Xintiandi. It is a minimalist bar that is quiet in the noise of Xintiandi. 4PM-1AM. I actually liked the selection of whiskeys. 100 Century Avenue Restaurant. I thought this place would be more like Ye Cafe…

Had a long conversation with a close friend. What a mess. Sometimes all you can do is empathize. There comes a time someone hits a low point and then something happens. It is hard to see. The psych books talk quite a bit about it. But everyone hits it at the different time. Doesn’t matter…

Here are some pronounciations 翠湖 顺昌路。 shun4 chang1 lu4. A city in Fujian Road 自忠路. Zi4 zhong1 lu4。 Oneself Loyal Road. 住户自有公寓 [zhù hù zì yǒu gōng yù] condo. rental yourself apartment Or more simple 房间 fang2 jian1 which also means room or apartmen

Well, it is confusing. After 1940, the street names in the French Concession were changed to Chinese names. And it is unclear what the original Chinese alliterations were. We think that “La ke le lu” was really Lafayette but can’t find a translation. And the cross street is “Ya fei lu” http://www.talesofoldchina.com/shanghai/places/t-plac02.htm indicates that new…

Man what an exhausting day heating non-stop for most of the day everything that is important to someone who has been around for 75 plus years. Spent the day with my parents learning about how they see China, past, present and future. A great set of lessons for me. Pictures are here. Here’s a building…

(The last post for a while. It is kind of cool that WordPress for iPhone let’s you store your posts and then push them out.) Fire in the Belly was one of those 1980s, “men are good books” but still an interesting read. I loved two stories that mean a lot to me: bq. One…

Well been a little while since my last Chinese lesson: Shanghai Park Hyatt. 上海柏悦酒店。 Shang4hai3 Bai3yue4 Jiu3dian4. This is the really big building. So the Park Hyatt is Bai3 Yue4 and the Grand Hyatt is Jun1 Yue4. Confused yet? Shanghai Grand Hyatt. 上海金茂君悅大酒店. Shang4hai3 Jin1mao4 Jun1yue4 Da4jiu3dian4. Really directly translated as the Jinmao Grand Hyatt.…

Someone was asking about components for home theater. Man, there was lots of things going on. “Sim2 HT5000”:http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=799229 is an amazing 3-DLP projector. Expensive though. 3800 lumens and 6000:1. Most folks are worried about the 50% drop in light output as the lamp ages. The Sim2 HT3000 is 1-chip 1080p while the Sim2 HT5000 is…

I haven’t really read *anything* in a year. Not the newspapers, too depressing. Not my usual science and non-fiction, too escapist. And lately, not even the web, really escapist. But lately, I’ve had some time to really consider things. Read “Gods in Everyman”:http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC16/Bolen.htm and “Goddesses in Everywoman”:http://www.intuition.org/txt/bolen.htm, “Iron John”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_John_(book), “Narcissism: A New Theory”:http://books.google.com/books?id=AuBnyWBvoHoC&dq=new+theory+of+narcissism&pg=PP1&ots=QeDR3Cf5c5&source=bn&sig=dAcZgCpRYSYE7dHCi8-HpJv_zPY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result as usual,…

Well after hearing about the “Atacama”:http://www.cntraveller.com/Guides/Chile/Atacama_Desert/ desert from Quantum of Solace and also seeing Easter Island is out there, what an interesting spot plus the currency has fallen 20% vs. the USD. * “Explora Rapa Nui”:http://www.explora.com/rapa-nui_thehotel.php. If you want to see the famous Easter Island, its five hours from Santiego, but a pretty amazing spot…

There are the usual suspects and then there is the “Hot List”:http://www.cntraveller.com/Special_Features/The_Hot_List_2008/ which are new stylish hotels that Conde Naste has found. Here are some: Well there are the usual hotels like the Grand Hyatt (the pool!) or the harder to find Beijing Shangri-la, but Conde Naste found an interesting spot called the “Hotel Cote…

Well, given these destinations, “Travel & Leisure” has their 500 top hotels as well as “Conde Naste Traveler Gold List”:http://www.cntraveller.com/GoldList/2008/, so what’s in these areas. In “Anzac and the South Pacific”:http://www.travelandleisure.com/tl500/2008/region/australia-newzealand-southpacific, we have some obvious ones: In Australia, * “Langham Hotel”:http://www.travelandleisure.com/tl500/2008/hotel/langham-hotel-melbourne in Melbourne. It is normally a high A$500, which is now US$300. Try the…

Well, another way to think about travel occurred to me while I was in Australia. Where an incredible hotel room that costs A$500 is not more like A$300 because of the Exchange rate shifts, so how about going to XE.com and finding out what countries have dropped the most compared with the USD or Euro…

A buddy of mine, said, hey, I don’t want to get stuck in a trip by myself, but I want to see the world a weekend at a time when I’m stuck somewhere far from home. So what am I going to do. Well, another 15 minutes and I found that the “London Times”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/your_say/article421779.ece covers…

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