Comments on NYT article: Chinese Students in U.S. Fight View of Their Home

The well-respected NYT has published an article on how Chinese Students in U.S. Fight View of Their Home.

On a good account, the media starts taking notice of sentiments of Chinese people and their supporters. This is a progress compared with the gross imbalanced approach the media has taken a couple of weeks back when pro-Tibet supporters disrupted Olympic torch relay and stood off with pro-China groups. But the story starts off with an incident that a student threw a bottle in a Tibet monk's speech at the University of South California. Once again, the report has taken an imbalanced view to portrait Chinese students as zealots, even gone so far as speculating that these students protest because they intend to return home. US writers tend to base their point with a real story. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

It is true that Chinese students were angry. They also used questionable tactics to drown out different voice in some cases. But there are different opinions. There are Chinese people who stand by the Duke girl and voice their concerns. There are also articles written by Chinese against boycotting Carrefour. The NYT has not reported any of theses. Before portraiting Chinese students as zealots, Mr. Michael Anti (the author of the article) really should have done his homework and interview a good sample of subjects.

It is true, as mentioned by the Times, that Chinese students have little experience in conducting a protest. But the article is missing the whole point here: their feelings are true and spontaneous. Between a no-so-noble but authentic expression of genuine feelings and an artful deception and manipulation, I'd rather believe the former (listening to their true concerns while channeling them into good behaviors). Obviously, the article focuses mostly on students' questionable behaviors, without looking into the true cause of such behaviors. This is ironic because when Tibet protesters (illegally) burnt Chinese-owned shops and attacked their owners in Tibet, few have criticized Tibet protesters, citing that there must be some good causes. This is double-standard.

Am I disappointed at western media's hypocrisy? Initially yes, but I quickly learn that American people have learned this a long time ago. I should grow up getting used to it quickly. As I learn more about western media, as many other non-natives will do, it is fair to warn the media that they shall not underestimate the waken underprivileged -- they will soon learn the tactics be more adept at what they pursue.

How to Receive Two Gmail Accounts at the Same Time

The best way to receive two gmail accounts (and two blogs) is to use two firefox profiles at the same time. The additional benefit is that you can keep a version of firefox strictly for work (the other one for recreational...), got it?

Here is how to do it.

Plus, be sure to get yourself a dual screen setup. Two screens + two firefox windows, yummy....

Top 10 Programming Languages

According to this source, the top 5 programming languages are:

1 Java
2 C
3 (Visual) Basic
4 PHP
5 C++

Luckily, a few years back i decided to pick a script language, I picked PHP. That makes me having experience with all of them (Java being the least). Geek i am :)