My father has taught me many valuable lessons, most I didn’t realize or want to believe how good the advice was until years later. The importance of goals was one such lesson. Not merely establishing them, but writing them down and reviewing periodically. For many years I didn’t do a very good job at following through, but have gotten better as I realized how important they are as milestones are reached, bigger ones can be created.
This particular list contains some things that are on my personal goals list but most aren’t and doesn’t contain anything I have already done (at list currently). So without further a do, here is the beginning of my life list…
1. Visit all 7 continents
2. Sail around the world (or at least across the Pacific or Atlantic)
3. Attend an Olympic event
4. Re-learn to play the piano
5. Publish a book
6. Own my own business
7. Scuba the Great Barrier Reef
8. Be in fluent in at least three languages (English, Chinese and Spanish)
9. Cherish my soul-mate each and every day for the rest of my life
10. Attend my 20-year high school reunion in better physical shape then when I graduated.
11. Ride the Trans Siberian railway
12. Participate in building a Habitat for Humanity home
13. Run a mini-marathon
14. Renovate a home
15. Blog at least weekly
Well, that is a good start… More to come.
Wow, yet again an extended period of time between entries. Work is busy, life is good and the weather is absolutely perfect! How else could it get any better?
It has been two months since I have written a post. Life has been treating me well. We spent Christmas and New Year’s in the States, my first Christmas home in 5 years, and had a great time. The weather was screwy, kind of like Shenzhen right now. Almost a month into a new year and is hard to believe it is 2008. There are many things that have been occupying my time, all of which I should be blogging about… We will be headed to Pei Lin’s hometown for Chinese New Year and we are excited about our trip. It will have been a year since Pei Lin saw his folks and since then he has had two trips to the US and met mine twice! Right now the weather is unusually cold not only in Shenzhen but all over China. Travelers headed home for CNY have been stranded all over the country, hopefully we won’t have any problems next week.
Am going to try and blog a little each day…Look for my life list in the coming days.
This summer we adopted a rescue dog that has become the source of a tremendous amount of joy in our lives. In Shenzhen, dogs found running loose on the streets are taken to designated vets’ offices and if not claimed within a week are put down. Our pug was one such dog. We named him Qiu Bi Ta but call just call him Qiu Bi which is the Chinese translation of cupid.
Qiu Bi was amazingly housebroken and is extremely well behaved. I usually take him out every morning around 6-630 and in the evenings Pei Lin usually takes him out when we get home. The last few weeks we have started to walk him together after dinner and letting him off his leash as we walk through our apartment’s garden. He will walk about 15-20 feet ahead of us and then circle back around and us and never going to far.
On one of our walks, Pei Lin ran out of sight as Qiu Bi walked away and thus began our game of hide and seek. As soon as Qiu Bi turned around to walk back to us he realized Pei Lin was gone and began running around trying to find him. Qiu Bi backtracked our steps, running up sidewalks and to the different buildings until he found Pei Lin. We have increasing gone further or hid in more hard to find places and so far he hasn’t failed in finding us yet.
There have been a few articles here and there in the Asian press about the gas shortages in Mainland China but by and large it has not been widely reported. I read the few articles I found with passing interest, since I am after all one of those crazies who drives in Shenzhen. Never really paid much attention to the issue, until yesterday when I experienced the gas shortage issue first hand.
Driving home after our Thanksgiving dinner last night, the light indicating low fuel came on, we headed to our usual filling station only to find it roped off and the workers all sitting outside. I immediately recalled the few words I had read about the gas shortages and thought out loud maybe the station down the road will be open. Well, apparently it has been awhile since we have driven or ridden our bikes around the mountain, we were surprised to find that gas station not only closed but also sitting behind concrete walls that had been erected and painted indicating the location of the new underground subway station. After finding another closed station and two other stations, one of which was only servicing buses and the other trucks, that had lines down the street we wound up back near where we started. The gas station we passed as we left the hotel was not only open, but had fuel and virtually no lines.
Why the gas shortage? From what I remember reading, the Chinese government sets the selling price of fuel and the refineries lose money producing and selling fuel at the state mandated prices. Therefore, the non state owned refineries have stopped refining fuel and the state owned refineries have slowed production. Two weeks ago, the government raised the price but that few percent increase was the first price increase in almost a year and half. At the current price of CNY5.6 a liter that equates to a little less then $3USD a gallon. Prices most Americans would be happy paying to fill up their cars.
While the retail selling price of fuel is capped, the Chinese government gives subsidies to many. Taxi drivers who see their take home pay decreased due to the rising fuel costs; dividends and other lost revenue payments are made to state owned refineries who must sell at the state mandated price; bus companies since ticket prices are set by the local government and not based on reality; employees of the gas stations that are closed continue to show up to work and get paid just as if they were actually doing something.
Supposedly the theory is that retail fuel prices can’t be increased otherwise the average working man will feel the effects in the prices of the consumables that he buys. I would argue that if gas stations can be segregated by who they provide service to then they should also be able to be segregated by pricing. Maintain mass transit prices by charging buses one fuel price and base that price on the highest allowable bus ticket price that maintains social harmony without any subsidies back to the bus companies. Do the same for taxis and trucks that move domestic goods. For private drivers, charge market prices that allow for market fluctuations and a reasonable profit for the refineries.
Then again, what do I know? Only thing I can be certain of is not to count on having a foreigners only station.
