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The Tablet Tavern

Sorry Liam, about that eurovision song contest thingy :o

Ireland's never did well since they took out as a joke one year and had Dustin the puppet perform. I think the other countries took offense by it. I'll try post a video of it in case you never seen it.
 
Think I lost interest in Eurovision sometime in the late 70s, when it all became la la la la la type lyrics.

Kaat I was kidding earlier of course. Since I've been here, I've never heard any mention of Eurovision Song Contest at all.
 
Good morning everyone.

Thought I'd share this essay about Shenzhen I found on Flickr some time back.
Welcome to Shenzhen: China's Tiajuana- border city to wealthy Hong Kong | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Welcome to Shenzhen: China's Tiajuana- border city to wealthy Hong Kong

Twin cities usually grow up together. For Hong Kong and its dark alter ego Shenzhen, the relationship is something more akin to step-twins. Shenzhen was virtually decreed into existence: in 1980 Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping clicked his fingers and invited the people of dynamic, British-owned Hong Kong to make something of the 3.5 sq km stretch of fishing villages and rice paddies just over the border. What arose was a kind of twisted sister, a town of skyscrapers and sweatshops, laissez-faire business and institutionalized lust. Shenzhen is where Hong Kongers go to make love and make money, and a magnet for people from all over impoverished China, who sneak or bribe their way in. (Two-thirds of the population doesn't have a residency permit.) It's a city of big-time crime, beggar syndicates, drug trafficking, restaurants serving lobster sashimi to mafia-entrepreneurs and a home to what the Hong Kong government says is a half-million illegitimate children. The population now totals 4 million, and the economy is growing at 31% a year. Call it China's Tiajuana.

Hong Kong is now a part of China with its own laws, a set-up known as "one country-two systems." Nowhere is the demarcation more striking than at its border with Shenzhen a line that Hong Kong people can cross freely but most mainlanders can only gaze at. The one-way traffic has become a nonstop flood: up to 200,000 people a day, 100 million crossings a year, numbers likely to triple by 2010. (Currently the border is open 16 hours a day; some want it to be 24/7.) Hong Kong businessmen have poured $15 billion into 70,000 firms in the border province of Guangdong, much of it for the manufacturing that once drove the Hong Kong economy. Office workers are escaping Hong Kong's ludicrous rents by moving to Shenzhen and accepting a 45-minute commute across the border.

Shenzhen is Hong Kong's parallel universe: it has the energy of the megapolis across the border, the patented southern Chinese get-ahead ethos and a towering respect for the power of a buck. But thanks to loose laws, loose women and dirty officials, you can get anything you want: cheap labor, even cheaper Prada bags, pirated DVDs, ecstasy pills, one-night stands. (And people from across the border spent $846 million last year, 10% of Hong Kong's total retail trade.) But once inside this looking- glass world, nothing is quite the genuine article. The Louis Vuitton bags are made in Guangdong; many of the impressive skyscrapers are empty; the women are lovely, but that beauty might have been bought from Shenzhen's army of plastic surgeons. Even the money, Shenzhen's raison d'etre, is suspect: local buses alone collect $160,000 in fake coins every year. Shenzhen has all the license, 24-hour fun and behind-the-set tragedy of the world's worst border towns albeit one with skyscrapers and a blizzard of cash.

The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, as the city is officially known, is literally at Hong Kong's border. After immigration, a visitor walks across a narrow bridge spanning a stinking, black canal the first whiff of something rotten in the air and steps directly into a city overeager to offer its wares.


I shall be crossing over that "stinking, black canal" sometime tomorrow afternoon, when I go into Hong Kong. Although today my friend tells me, "We're going to visit the KIRF tablet mall, then the KIRF phone mall, and then to SEG Electronics", because he wants to buy a new PC mainboard and HDD.
 
Here's some pics of today's visit to the KIRF tablet and KIRF phone malls:
IMG_20130520_163030.jpgIMG_20130520_163052.jpgIMG_20130520_163126.jpgIMG_20130520_163208.jpgIMG_20130520_163233.jpgIMG_20130520_163352.jpgIMG_20130520_163309.jpg
Click to view full-size images.

These are mostly wholesalers and trading companies peddling their wares here. The sort of thing that one often finds on Ebay, and many of the lemons found in General Tablet Talk and Other Androids. I was with a couple of my Chinese friends, and so pretended to be an international buyer.

I did see a rather convincing knock-off iPhone 5, with Android modded to work very much like iOS....until one went to the device info stuff ...and boom... "The process android.process.system has stopped unexpectedly." :rolleyes:
 
Those subways look spotless and the people riding them look young and well dressed. Hardly like riding the NYC subway.
 
Those subways look spotless and the people riding them look young and well dressed.

There's a few things particular about the Shenzhen subway, which is like most subways in China. It's brand new for a start, they're still building it. There's very high profile security as well. One thing you'll almost never see anyone eating on a subway train here, which is one of the rules, no eating, almost no litter, and I've never seen any graffiti at all. Standards of dress is another thing, Chinese always seem to be much better dressed than Americans, and most Brits for that matter, from what I've seen.

There's something I noticed about the Shenzhen subway's logo.
200px-SZMetro_logos.svg.png

Compared to the Hong Kong subway's logo.
250px-MTR_Corporation.svg.png

KIRF subway?

Hardly like riding the NYC subway.

I've ridden the NYC subway. And I've seen it in plenty of movies of course. It looked particularly bad during the 1970s. I don't think the London Underground is any better either.

On the other hand bus stations in China can be rather grim places, often dirty, dingy and quite dilapidated. Railway stations are always beautiful though....apart from the toilets.
 
There's a few things particular about the Shenzhen subway, which is like most subways in China. It's brand new for a start, they're still building it. There's very high profile security as well. One thing you'll almost never see anyone eating on a subway train here, which is one of the rules, no eating, almost no litter, and I've never seen any graffiti at all. Standards of dress is another thing, Chinese always seem to be much better dressed than Americans, and most Brits for that matter, from what I've seen.

There's something I noticed about the Shenzhen subway's logo.
200px-SZMetro_logos.svg.png

Compared to the Hong Kong subway's logo.
250px-MTR_Corporation.svg.png

KIRF subway?



I've ridden the NYC subway. And I've seen it in plenty of movies of course. It looked particularly bad during the 1970s. I don't think the London Underground is any better either.

On the other hand bus stations in China can be rather grim places, often dirty, dingy and quite dilapidated. Railway stations are always beautiful though....apart from the toilets.

I suppose I've been conditioned to tolerate less than ideal conditions on mass transit, but I thought the tube in London was rather nice as was the metro in Paris. Washington D.C. has it's own Metro which, from my experiences, is one of the the cleaner subway systems in the U.S.

Most of the rail system in Europe is a pleasure to ride, although it can get a bit crowded at times.
 
I suppose I've been conditioned to tolerate less than ideal conditions on mass transit, but I thought the tube in London was rather nice as was the metro in Paris. Washington D.C. has it's own Metro which, from my experiences, is one of the the cleaner subway systems in the U.S.

Most of the rail system in Europe is a pleasure to ride, although it can get a bit crowded at times.

And saying less than ideal is putting it lightly.
 
Our trains are often late, overcrowded and no toilets on board.
Mike's subway looks really neat :)
 
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