Tens of thousands of people had perished, while hundreds of thousands more were left homeless. It is undoubtably one of the saddest moment for the Chinese people. The mainstream media, namely the televsion and newspapers, were all dedicatng their resources on the reporting of everything and anything related to the earthquake. The Chinese government’s swift and decisive actions to send in the rescue troops and medical teams to the quake-torn regions also won praises around the globe. Next, international aid came in from all corners of the world.

While I was there,  from the 19th May to the 21st May, the Chinese government had declared that these 3 days will be the mourning period for all Chinese, especially the survivors, to commemorate the  deaths of the victims and their loved-ones. And all entertainment outlets like KTV, nightclubs, disco, internet cafe were being ordered to close during that time as a respect to the deceased.

This happened for the first half of my stay in Tianjin. My heart goes out to the surviving families of the victims, i know their pain and anguish. I almost cried when watching the news segments and pictures of the disaster site and the heart-wrenching moments when bodies were being found or dragged out from the debris; when body parts had to be amputated in order for the rescue mission to continue.

There is this police woman whose entire family passed away in the earthquake, helping out among the crowd, she looked dazed and tired from days of waiting for news of her only son. When the news came that the rescue workers had found her son’s body, she collapsed. Such sad stories were endless. I hoped that the deceased will finally rest in peace and that the living will find the courage and be strong and pull themselves together. Life still goes on.

Besides spending my time watching the news. My most frequent activity is just to go out and walk all over the place, especially DVD shops. If you will remember, my trip there was basically to stay there, not doing any tours (though i would most love to). I must admit, collecting DVDs is one of my passions, I like to watch movies, especially the movies that I liked; I buy the DVDs, collect a whole string of them and then keep them. Now I won’t go into details of my collection because I can go on and on and on about it. My aim here is to tell you that I had walked the streets, bought some rare-find DVD titles, bought a handful of sourvenirs for my friends and colleagues.

The other thing that I did most was having dinner out with my friends, well to be more exact, my wife’s friends. The place that I stayed is my wife’s home town, it is known as the Number 3 Yard (三号院), in the Dagang Oil Field (大港油田) of the Dagang district (大港区) in Tianjin (天津). So naturally, those are her friends/old classmates.

But I enjoyed the food down there. I ate dishes that I don’t normally do in Singapore, and I can drink beer to my heart’s content. Which is a BIG PLUS point because I don’t have any drinking buddies with me in Singapore.  So my overall experience staying in Tianjin is relatively good, if we did get the chance to go some place to tour, it would be better. Let’s hope the next round I get to travel to places like Xi’an, Qing Dao, etc.

Below is an abstract from one of the funny entries on mop.com, it is in chinese and I thought it was very funny, so just to share with you, and hope that you have a good laugh or at least brightens up your day a little:

从前有位秀才，某天随太太回娘家，向岳父拜寿，因一时高兴多喝了几杯，当场醉倒，被送回书房休息。没多久，他的小姨子到书房拿东西，见姐夫睡的枕头掉地上，便替他捡起来，顺手扶起他的脖子，想替他枕好，没想到秀才人醉心不醉，一见机会难得，便拉着小姨子不放。小姨子用力挣脱后，愤怒之余，就在墙上题诗以泄愤：
好心来扶枕，为何拉我衣？若非姐姐面，一定是不依。该死！该死！

秀才等小姨子走后，下床一看，觉得很不好意思，便题诗辩白：
贴心来扶枕，醉心拉你衣，以为是我妻，不知是小姨。失礼！失礼！

秀才题完后再睡，其妻见墙上诗句，不禁醋火中烧，也题诗一首：
有意来扶枕，有心拉她衣，墙上题诗句，都是骗人地。彼此！彼此！

不久，小舅子也看到，不觉技痒，也提了一首：
眼见来扶枕，趁机拉她衣，姐妹虽一样，大的是你妻。清醒！清醒！

后来被岳母听了小舅子说起，不禁勃然大怒，也赶来凑一脚，以作警告：
不应来扶枕，不该拉她衣，两个皆有错，下次不为例。切记！切记！

岳父听了岳母的唠叨后，心疼女婿，只得也题诗一首诗，来打打圆场：
既已来扶枕，也已拉她衣，姐夫戏小姨，本来不稀奇。别提！别提！

后来纸包不住火，事情被小姨的未婚夫知道后，他也气愤的题了一首：
善意来扶枕，居然拉她衣，你敢戏小姨，我就戏你妻。公平！公平！

秀才自己的老爸看了那一大串诗句后，心下颇不以为然，大笔一挥，也题了一首：
应该来扶枕，更该拉她衣，反正大已娶，多个更便宜！努力，努力！

秀才的老妈看到老头子题的后，觉得老头子的想法很好，也题了一首：
小姨来扶枕，你就拉她衣。把她娶回去，洗碗又拖地！幸福，幸福！

Of course this is just a joke. In China, during the olden times, men are allow to have strings of wives and mistresses if they can afford it. This is not male chauvinism but a historical fact, so don’t flame me, ok? 

Now that HellGate: London has hit the shelves for like 7 or 8 months, I was beginning to wonder its penetration level in the market. But it did comes as a shock that the pick-up rate of this MMOG titles is pretty low.

If you’re still clueless as to what I am getting at, “HellGate: London” is the first gaming title from Flagship Studio, which comprised of some of the former founding members of the Blizzard North team responsible for creating the famous Diablo II games and franchise.

HellGate: London is surprisingly similar to Diablo II in terms of its concept. The gaming element are all about the same, but added it strong and realistic 3D engine. In a nutshell, it’s like 3D version of Diablo II.

But unlike Diablo, the setting in the game is in the futuristic year of 2038, when the world then are overrun by demons and monsters from some unbeknownth parallel dimensions. This is achieved through inter-dimensional gateways call “rifts”. While the entire world is under despair, a secret legion of resistance forces is being formed in the London Underground. From here, you (the player), will choose to become a hero from one of the six playable character classes. One important thing to note is that the six character classes are actually sub-classes from three disctinct groups. The three groups are:

1. Cabalist: which consists of 2 sub-classes called ”Summoner” and “Evoker”
2. Templar: which consists of 2 sub-classes called ”Blademaster” and ”Guardian”
3. Hunter: which consists of 2 sub-classes called “Engineer” and ”Marksman”

Players can choose to play from any one of the character classes. I have so far tried my hands on “Engineer”, “Blademaster”, and “Evoker”. They offer different kind of gaming experience to the same game, for eg. Engineer and Evoker are range attackers, but engineer can construct robotic drones to fight alongside him, whereas an Evoker is an expert on magical attack. The near equivalent of an Engineer in the Cabalist class would be the Summoner, who can raise spiritual pets to fight alongside him (much like the Necromance in Diablo II)

For the Blademaster, he is a highly skilled melee fighter who has the ability to wield 2 weapons at the same time, he is a true ‘hack and slash’ character in the game. I have not tried the other three characters, perhaps when I do I will write a sequel for this piece here. Generally speaking this will be a fun game if you are die-hard Diablo II fan.

I sometimes use Yahoo Messenger since Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger can now see and send messages to each other. The best thing is that you can starting chatting right away once you logged in to your Yahoo mailbox.

Although I used IM mainly for chatting, I also use IM to for advices from my friends on IT problems, tips, etc. Or using IM to fix appointments, to send urgent messages regarding ICT, reservists, etc. And finally, there always the need to make new friends and meet new people.

So IM-ing people has become my everyday routine, like eating and sleeping. But to be too indulging in something is always not healthy, the reliance keeps building upon itself until it becomes an addiction. No use telling me to moderate my IM-ing, I think I’ve got IM-mania, and the only cure is to keep messaging people.

IM.. can’t live with it, can’t live without it.

Just now, while having our morning break, I had spoken to Irene Ong, a fellow colleague and lecturer from my department, about taking up a degree course. I had not been keen on this as I felt my age is a bit advanced for a bachelor degree education.

But Irene’s comment and encouraging words sort of turned things around a bit. And I was quietly agreeing with her myself, that being slow or late in something is always better than not starting it at all. At least set a target, get the ball rolling and see how the ball can reach the target.

So I told her about the concerns that I have if I were to go for a degree course now. The concerns were plain and simple, commitment to both work and study, to my family especially my 2 little young ones. Secondly, financially I must be able to cope with supporting a family, the daily expenses and of course, supporting of my study.

We did a little more discussion on the topic and had to end it when the tea break ended. But I think this discussion opened some window in my mind, and I had to re-look at things outside of the window again and maybe re-think about it.

But my blogging has already started, as i wrote (typed) this far.

So for the record, this blog entry was created in the Multimedia Room 3 in block N4, NTU, while I am attending the edUtorium course on “Blogs, Wikis and PodCast”, taught by Mr. John Larkin.