So, I landed in China yesterday in Shanghai. I spent all day today (it's 12:13 AM here) touring the city. The flight was like 27 hours long with lay-overs. I'm not really jet lagged, as my sleep cycle was fucked to begin with (if anything, the flight helped it). The food is a lot different from what you get in American Chinese restaurants.

Tomorrow, I leave Shanghai and go to Hangzhou, about 2 hours, by car, away.

I have taken well over 1000 pictures today, but I have yet to sort through them all. Many of the nighttime pictures I will have to clean up, as I had to jack the sensitivity up to like 1600-3200, and rarely 6400, as I was on a boat and needed to keep the shutter speed to around 1/25 of a second.

Pictures WILL be coming.

5/19/2010 12:17:59 PM

you there on vacation or business or what? how long are you in town?

5/19/2010 12:26:34 PM

show us the womed

5/19/2010 12:32:56 PM

how is Tdub NOT censored in China, of all things?

5/19/2010 12:42:04 PM

so you were just taking pictures of literally everything?

5/19/2010 2:24:01 PM

i had no problem on tdub in china

except when the trolls knew i was in china started posting anti-chinese propaganda in threads i was posting in

then i got nervous

5/19/2010 2:58:23 PM

I'M IN BANGKOK!

5/19/2010 3:01:42 PM

Quote :

"The food is a lot different from what you get in American Chinese restaurants. "

Really? Man I never would have guessed.

Anyway enjoy your trip.

5/19/2010 3:05:20 PM

1,000 pics in a day? Try living life and enjoying it from beyond the lens...

5/19/2010 3:05:41 PM

Quote :

"1,000 pics in a day? Try living life and enjoying it from beyond the lens..."

says the guy sitting behind his computer...
some people enjoy taking pictures.

[Edited on May 19, 2010 at 3:53 PM. Reason : d]

5/19/2010 3:53:20 PM

not all of us are fortunate enough to be traveling at the moment. It's called being in the office.



hope the pictures are great. Just be sure to enjoy the moment while you're there

5/19/2010 3:55:41 PM

i'm mad jealous....

i hope there's a lot of fun things you plan to do in China other than getting on TWW!

5/19/2010 3:59:33 PM

Quote :

"how is Tdub NOT censored in China, of all things?"

I seem to remember thewolfweb being behind the great firewall at some point in the past, we had a thread about it...

5/19/2010 10:47:51 PM

Quote :

"1,000 pics in a day? Try living life and enjoying it from beyond the lens..."

...Do you enjoy showing how clueless you are?

5/19/2010 11:03:51 PM

tiananmen square massacre

5/19/2010 11:38:18 PM

5/20/2010 12:53:06 AM

Quote :

"1,000 pics in a day? Try living life and enjoying it from beyond the lens..."

dude he's asian, that's what they do... I know it sounds racist, but there is some fact to it :-)

5/20/2010 5:47:55 PM

Its seriously not cool what you guys are doing and the mods should remove/suspend these posts. This could easily get op's property confiscated at the very least.

5/20/2010 8:37:31 PM

here, I'll balance it out a bit:

ALL IS GOOD IN CHINA. 2008 OLYMPICS WAS HUGE SUCCESS. WATER AND AIR CLEAN. GOOGLE BAD.

5/20/2010 9:33:16 PM

^^^he's not asian

5/20/2010 10:27:46 PM

China is a shithole totalitarian country. If you visit such a place you endorse and enable their crimes. Don't fault me for enjoying my freedoms here.

5/20/2010 11:15:22 PM

Ok. I'm in Hangzhou at Zhejiang University to do Study Abroad for Mechanical Engineering. So far I'm having a blast. It's all very different, and you can definitely tell that China is definitely a fast paced society that is advancing quickly.

For instance, China is building a high-speed mag-lev train from Hangzhou to Shanghai (about the Distance from Raleigh to Richmond Virginia, maybe DC). It is taking them a little over a year to do it. Something like that would take 5 years or so years. I think the US has some catching up to do in terms of efficiency in its infrastructure support when compared to China.

However, when you are outside the cities, the rural areas are horrible, unless you are in a farming village.

And for the car people, you see a lot of European and Japanese car brands, and a lot of Buicks, many of which are just rebranded versions of crappier cars. However, you don't really see the small coupes and hatchbacks that you see in Europe. The cars, on average, are a bit smaller than ours (if you exclude SUVs and Trucks). Additionally, the drivers are very aggressive, and they don't yield to pedestrians, but if you pay attention and follow the locals, you should be fine.

When in Shanghai, the air quality was just horrible. After the first day there, I blew out black snot from all the smog. So obviously, all the industrialization and fast pace advancement does have a price in that arena. It makes you appreciate the air quality of Raleigh so much more.

And I forgot to mention, I will be in China for a little over 6 weeks, so half of my summer vacation.

Quote :

"1,000 pics in a day? Try living life and enjoying it from beyond the lens..."

Errr... I am enjoying it from beyond the lens. Usually when I take a picture, I try to take it 3 times, as I often times don't have the time to check the picture. Many of the pictures were taken from the bus as we traveled to our destination and many were taken on a river boat ride at night. But most of the pictures from my full day in Shanghai was taken at the Historical Museum. Unfortunately, I was only there for an hour, which wasn't enough time to see everything in the Museum. We saw SO MUCH in such a small amount of time. If you were there, you would understand why I took so many pictures.

On the bus ride to Hangzhou, I took a lot of pictures as well, as it was a 3 hour road trip. I'm hoping that it will allow you guys to be able to compare and contrast the differences in city life to rural life, as they are TOTALLY different.

I will see if I can upload the pictures tomorrow, as I just got Internet at the University, and I don't feel like dicking around with all the settings right now (as I would rather live and enjoy life, than sit behind the computer talking to T-dub).

Quote :

"here, I'll balance it out a bit: ALL IS GOOD IN CHINA. 2008 OLYMPICS WAS HUGE SUCCESS. WATER AND AIR CLEAN. GOOGLE BAD."

Please, stop trolling. Everyone knows that China isn't perfect, and the very people here see China as a developing nation, not as a first world country. Everyone knows about the censorship in China, it's no secret (FYI, you can actually access Google just fine in China, you just go through Hong Kong's Google servers).

When I post pictures, I'm not going to hold back the ones of the rural, shitty areas. China has many problems, but this thread isn't about discussing and blowing this into a huge political debate, so knock the shit off. If you want to have a political debate, bring that shit into the Soap Box.

Quote :

"China is a shithole totalitarian country. If you visit such a place you endorse and enable their crimes. Don't fault me for enjoying my freedoms here."

Get the fuck out of here, troll.

5/21/2010 3:24:11 AM

China is a shithole with shit people. Fuck China.

5/21/2010 8:11:37 AM

[quoteFor instance, China is building a high-speed mag-lev train from Hangzhou to Shanghai (about the Distance from Raleigh to Richmond Virginia, maybe DC). It is taking them a little over a year to do it. Something like that would take 5 years or so years. I think the US has some catching up to do in terms of efficiency in its infrastructure support when compared to China.[/quote]

Yeah, you can have a really efficient country when there's no (or little) competition amongst businesses, laws to protect workers or safety laws.

I mean, only like 2 or 3 thousand coal miners die there every year.

5/21/2010 10:00:40 AM

^^ If all you're going to do is just troll the thread, then you can just get the fuck out of it. I didn't make this thread so you can show everyone how much of an ignorant piece of shit you really are. Sorry for the confusion if you think that was the case.

^ Yeah, the entire reason why Hillsborough Street is taking something like 2 years to re-do for about 2 miles (if that) of pavement is due to "workers safety" in the extremely competitive DOT. Cut the bullshit and stop acting like the fact that there is very little of the bureaucratic bullshit that goes on in the US. You act as if you've never had to deal with the government in ANY fashion. America is a great country, but stop acting as if it is perfect.

[Edited on May 21, 2010 at 10:31 AM. Reason : .]

5/21/2010 10:27:31 AM

I think what people are trying to say is that don't get swept up in the awesomeness of travelling someplace neat; remember that China does some horrible shit.

5/21/2010 10:30:03 AM

^ As does every country. We do some horrible shit as well. Shit that, IMO, is on par with the horrible shit that goes on in China.

I'm well aware that they will execute you if you are caught trafficking drugs, murdering people, ect, without hesitation.

But all I see is a lot of blind patriotism, which nationalism, in general, makes me sick.

Anyway, I have some free time, so I'll upload some pictures and post them with captions. I think I'll start with the pictures of the city.

5/21/2010 10:40:42 AM

I'm all for what you're doing. I'm all against you forming an opinion of China when you just started to experience it. America is fantastic on the outside, until you live here and see the bad. Same way with any other country. Give it some time... and also don't call people blindly patriotic... that is bound to push buttons.

5/21/2010 10:58:47 AM

but people are blindly patriotic.

5/21/2010 11:11:30 AM

Oh no! How will you defend China when they block you from posting in this thread?

Quote :

"democracy human rights dictatorship despotism anti-communist counterrevolutionary oppression overthrow reeducation through labor red terror Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (Shanwei) - refers to the Dongzhou protests of 2005. wei jingsheng wang dan wu'er kaixi chai ling feng congde ding zilin wang ruowang liu binyan dacankao boxun epoch renminbao sino-russian border treaty gedhun choekyi shanwei communist bandits genocide falun"

5/21/2010 2:24:08 PM

Quote :

"Shit that, IMO, is on par with the horrible shit that goes on in China.["

errrr

5/21/2010 5:03:23 PM

Go to a message parlor and get a message.

Trust me.

5/21/2010 9:44:02 PM

Quote :

"Go to a message parlor and get a message."

ahahahahaha

5/21/2010 10:20:26 PM

Quote :

"How will you defend China when they block you from posting in this thread?"

They're not blocking me. I have a bad Internet port in my room that I'm going to need to get fixed.

Quote :

"errrr"

You can say "errrr" all you want, it still doesn't change the fact that the US Government imprisons people without any right to a trial or with any lawyer or that the Government will torture people for information. Yes, IMO, that shit is on par with what the Chinese government will do. We may not do it as often, we may not do it to our own citizens (although, last I heard they want to change that), but we still do it. You can write it off as doing it to "terrorists" (simply re-labling foreign murderers as such, doesn't make them any different), it doesn't make it any better. It may make you feel better, but it's not better from a moral or ethical stand point.

[Edited on May 21, 2010 at 11:31 PM. Reason : .]

5/21/2010 11:21:27 PM

Wow, you're really pissing off everyone that's about to stamp your passport. The United States monitors international communications like this. In fact, merbig sounds like he's expressing terrorist ideologies. I'm not sure he should be allowed back in our country. Guantanamo is really the only safe place for him.

5/22/2010 12:40:38 AM

Quote :

"US has some catching up to do in terms of efficiency in its infrastructure support when compared to China."

I was all on board with you until you said this man.

You honestly believe this to be the case? No doubt they've improved in the last twenty years, but their national infrastructure is absolutely terrible compared to the U.S. Sure, major city infrastructure has improved out of necessity, but you're definitely exaggerating this comparison on the major.

5/22/2010 12:45:44 AM

so you gonna post pics or what?

5/22/2010 12:48:46 AM

Quote :

"You honestly believe this to be the case? No doubt they've improved in the last twenty years, but their national infrastructure is absolutely terrible compared to the U.S. Sure, major city infrastructure has improved out of necessity, but you're definitely exaggerating this comparison on the major."

They only lack adequate infrastructure in certain areas, and even then its rare. They have surpassed the US in their larger cities many times over. Their cities are very well connected. Its amazing what you can build with $2 trillion when unskilled labor runs 10 yuan/hr.


Oh, and yeah China is badass if your a student and just fucking off for a couple months. Live there awhile and its an entirely different ballgame. Enjoy!

5/22/2010 1:04:27 AM

Quote :

"Please, stop trolling."

I LOLed at this coming from merbig. This might be the first non troll thread (or even post) that he has contributed.

Do you speak Chinese? I could never understand the Chinese grad students that taught classes at State; I couldn't see trying to study understand the ones that didn't even bother to come over here.

5/22/2010 2:31:20 AM

Quote :

"so you gonna post pics or what?"

I'm having a hell of a time trying to post pictures from my Mac. I'm currently trying to upload some photos right now, but who knows if or when that will get done. If I can't get it to work here, I'll try an Internet Cafe, where the connection should be more reliable (my biggest problem on the school campus is reliability).

I have to say, that this makes me appreciate NCSU's Internet so much more. I already through it kicked ass, but now I think it's the best thing in the whole fucking world, so if anyone here works for NCSU's IT department, you guys kick ass, keep up the great work.

5/22/2010 7:33:54 AM

Alright guys. I have some pictures.

This first picture was outside my hotel window in Shanghai:


This second picture was outside of a museum that we went too:


This is a picture of a lion statue outside of the museum that I thought was pretty cool:


Inside the museum, I found a really cool table that I think is worth sharing (I have a ton of pictures from the museum, that I do plan on uploading at a later date and time):


This is a picture of a budha from a temple we went to in Shanghai. I thought this one is kind of cool, so that's why I'm uploading it now:


Here is a picture from the TV tower in Shanghai. It was pretty smoggy that day, so I jacked up the contrast, and it ended up looking pretty decent.


Hopefully this will tide you over until I go through some more pictures. I'll probably end up posting some more pictures of Shanghai and pictures from the trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou.

5/26/2010 12:07:36 AM

Quote :

"I'm all for what you're doing. I'm all against you forming an opinion of China when you just started to experience it. America is fantastic on the outside, until you live here and see the bad. Same way with any other country. Give it some time... "

Truth. Though if he's only there for 6 weeks he may not reach that part of the culture shock curve.

Have fun while you're over there. I wanted to try to visit China while I was in Asia but it wasn't in the cards.

Quote :

"Do you speak Chinese? I could never understand the Chinese grad students that taught classes at State; I couldn't see trying to study understand the ones that didn't even bother to come over here."

Often the universities hire people from the US, Canada, and England to teach the English-speaking courses they offer.


[Edited on May 26, 2010 at 12:21 AM. Reason : s]

5/26/2010 12:19:39 AM

need more pictures of women

5/26/2010 12:25:36 AM

The Chinese course is taught by a Chinese woman (who's cute ), and the ME course is taught by an American guy who's retired (Dr. Zorowski (sp?)), but still does some administrative stuff.

5/26/2010 12:26:34 AM

thanks for sharing!

5/26/2010 1:11:16 AM

grats on being in China dude!

It's really amazing that you have an opportunity to travel into an environment like that and get perspective from the inside. Don't let the trolls and the haters itt convince you otherwise.

5/26/2010 6:40:29 AM

Thanks man. I'm working on editing and fixing up some more pictures that I hope I'll be able to upload in the next few days.

5/26/2010 8:57:57 AM

Hey guys. I'm back in Shanghai for the weekend. I took the opportunity to take some pictures. Fortunately, it was a nice clear day, so I got some good shots (day and night). While I don't have those pictures ready, I do have some other ones I just put up.

The first two are some pictures of the Chinese Garden:




The next 4 are from rural China.









This last picture is of West Lake, in Hangzhou, China. I plan on taking more up-close pictures of the lake, and hopefully some more pictures from a distance, like this one. I'm going to upload two versions of the picture. 1 is of a slightly edited picture to bring out the lake more. The second is a highly edited version, that I have as my desktop wallpaper.

5/29/2010 12:46:07 PM

Thirty MILLION people were killed during the great leap forward. Fuck China.

5/29/2010 1:33:07 PM

So let's make sure we blame all Chinese for that, ok?

5/29/2010 1:39:13 PM