I setup my connection to Twitter and Facebook via SSH tunnel again. When the original tools to access Twitter, and Facebook failed, I just lost interest to setup proxy. Now, I am back and just accepted the 109 Facebook friend request. (My rule: Accept everyone in jianshuo@Facebook, but be very selective on Kaixin001.com. Here is how I did it.

The process is pretty straight forward, but it is not free.

First, you need to have an account with any web hosting service provider that supports SSH. My list:

bluehost.com (Cheaper: 6.95 USD/month)

mediatemple.net (More expensive, $20/month)

There are many other very cheap hosting services. The only thing you need to check with them is, whether they allow SSH (Secure Shell) access.

Then you need a tool called PUTTY (download for free)

Double click PUTTY to run it, and enter the server name (your host service provider will give you, typically your domain name) into “Host Name (or IP address)” field under the default Session tab. Keep all the rest unchanged, like port 22, and Connection type as SSH.

On the left Category pan, expand SSH under Connection and click Tunnels.

Under “Add New Forward port:”, enter 7070 into Source Port, and select Dynamic for Destination. Keep the rest unchanged, and click Add. You will see D7070 appear under forward ports.

Then click Open to start the SSH session. You will be promoted to enter your user name and password (given by your service provider). When you are at the command line, the SSH Tunnel is established.

Then you need to setup your browser to use this proxy. Let me just talk about Firefox. IE is similar.

Open Firefox, click Options under Tools menu. The Options dialog appears.

Click Advanced button (on the right most of the pane), and select Network tab.

Click “Settings…” button under Connection section. The Connection Setting dialog appears.

Select “Manual Proxy Configuration” radio box. The input boxes under that become available to enter.

Enter “127.0.0.1” without quotation mark into SOCKS Host: field, and 7070 into Port field. NOTE: IMPORTANT Please make sure only enter into the Socks Host field, and keep all the rest fields empty.

Keep Socks v5 selected (unchanged), and click OK three times to close the configuration dialogs.

Now, you should try to enter “google.com” into address bar. You should be able to visit all the sites that you CAN access without proxy, like Google.com, www.sina.com.cn, or 163.com. However, you still cannot access Facebook.com, Youtube.com, Twitter.com. This is because the DNS record was hacked and changed. A small trick will help.

In Firefox, enter “about:config” into the address bar (Yes, it is a strange URL, just in the location where you typically would enter http://….) After click “I’ll be careful. I promise” button, you will see a long list of configuration options started with Filter input box.

Enter “network.proxy.socks_remote_dns” (without quotation marks) into the Filter input box, and you will see a line with network.proxy.socks_remote_dns as Preference Name appears. Double click it so the Value field changes from False to True (and you will also notice the line becomes bold).

Congratulations! Now you should be able to enter “Facebook.com” into your browser, and starts to surf on the Internet without limitation.

What a day!

This is a not completely-normal normal day. It is not normal, since my typical working day is in office. It is also normal, since this is a typical day in Shanghai. Let me tell you what exactly the life here looks like – since many people didn’t get the change to visit Shanghai yet. Today, I am visiting several places in the Lujiazui area.

Shangri-La

The hotel of Shangri-la is still having a good business. The UBS Greater China Conference 2008 was going on in many floors of the hotel. So many people with black suits and ties attended. Well. Business meeting of a wealth bank is much more luxurious than a meeting of Internet company.

From Shangri-La to Jin Mao Tower

I admit that I haven’t been to the Lujiazui area for a long time. To my surprise, many new buildings appeared. By “new buildings”, I mean those skyscrapers higher than 40 floors, or something around 200 meters.

Side by side with Shangri-la, is the Hopson International Tower. I don’t know when they started construction, but it seems to be opened to public soon in 2008. Behind it is another tower as high as the CITI Bank Tower.

Turning the corner, is the new twin tower (260m) of Shanghai IFC (International Financial Center), or with the new name – HSBC Building, Shanghai IFC. In the same tower are the Ritz-Carlton hotel (second in Shanghai), and the W Hotel (first in China). It is to be completed between 2009 to 2010.

Meeting in Jinmao Tower

The meeting in the afternoon is in the Jinmao Tower. We talked about the office rent price. Compared to the office building of 3.8 RMB or 0.5 USD per sq. meter per day, I guess the price of Jin Mao must be high. I am right. It is more than 1 USD per sq. meter per day. My host told me that the World Financial Center on the other side is asking for pre-leasing price of 3.3 USD per sq. meter per day.

It was a law firm, and they are expanding rapidly. Their staff is working days and night (seriously, till 2 AM sometimes) but still cannot meet the demand. With more and more office buildings and the moving-in companies, I can see their business must keep growing.

The other side of Jin Mao

When I stepped out of the busy Jin Mao Tower, I realize the restaurants on the other side of road were already closed, and many of them were pulled down. That is also a reserved space, called Z3-2. That piece of land is for the future skyscraper named “Shanghai Center”. The final design has not be chosen, but the idea is to have something between 550 to 700 meters in height. Hmm…. Another tall building.

Crazy? Pre-Bubble?

Maybe the photos in this post: World Financial Center give you some idea about what the skyscrapers in Lujiazui looks like.

Everyone is very optimistic about the future of Shanghai. I am so too. However, most of the bubble happens when people get over optimistic.

Yesterday, before Wendy’s parents went back home, we finally had some time to sit down together as a family and chat. It was a wonderful hour. We had the chance to know more about their experience in the old days, when they were young.

I don’t Know China Well

I admit (as I always do) that I don’t know China well. No matter how people claim, the history of this country is a mystery for many people, including me.

We chatted about the “three dark years” from 1959 to 1961, which is officially named “Three Years of Natural Disaster”. It is actually NOT. The three years is a blurred image for me. I know many people starved to death during the three years, but it is still hard to connect this piece of history with the person before me, and myself. It is not a far away history anyway.

Why and How

From 1959, before the Great Leap started, there came the order from Beijing. People in the whole country were not allowed to own any private property, and were not allowed to cook at home. Anyone who setup fire to cook would be sentenced as criminal. Everyone had to go to public dining rooms to have “free meal”.

It was not bad in the first year, since there was so many food that was more than people can eat. However, at the same time, people were almost not allowed to work in the field.

The second year, not surprisingly, there were not enough food left from the previous year. Since the order from the top were the same: No cooking at home, no private property (especially food), and no working, people started to starve.

During the three years, so many people did nothing, just wait to starve to death. I read about this in history books (of cause not the current official version), but I was still stocked when parents described some real stories. They emphasized this is not a story on TV or film, this was the real life. They saw it with their own eyes.

Their neighbours were found death. One with 5 persons – all found dead in their own home, quietly. The other family had 3 persons. The parents died, and lied on the bed. The child didn’t tell anyone, and went to dining room to collect three persons’ food. Although the food was still less than one normal meal for one child today, he ate them all, but it was too much for this child who barely didn’t eat for months, and die because eating too much. People found three bodies in their home long time later, two in bedroom and one in kitchen. In other families, after people died, the neighbours could do nothing because they were so weak to carry the bodies.

The lives of our parents, and their brothers were at the edge of death. Mom said she opened her eyes but was not able to see anything clearly. Even when bird flow by and drop shit onto ground, people would put it into their month…

Well. This was the real situation in the year 1959 to 1961 in the normal small village. Record shows overall, the weather for the whole country were good, and there were no natural disaster, but millions of people died. No one know the exact number.

It Changes Lives of a Generation

Before, when I talk about common sense, my example was: parents always keep food left from this meal to the next, and I only want fresh meal the next time. My parents’ common sense is “to save money”, and my common sense is “to get best experience”. I compared and claimed: there are two different common sense, and people seldom communicate about this, and this is the reason of conflict.

Now, I’d like to say, I was partially wrong. The common sense of parent generation was not “to save money”, it should be “to save food”. I deeply understand when a person witness his/her family member or friends starved and died just because there was nothing to eat, how uncomfortable he/she would be if he/she throw away food – for the rest of their lives.

It also explains about why the whole generation (above 60 in age) went along from the Culture Revolution have such a strong sense of “insecurity”. They save money, because they don’t know what may happen; they are very cautious to talk, because a political movement easily swipe their lives away. The more I learn about what they have experienced, the more I appreciate their decisions, and their behavior, and the more I understand about this country.

This is a scar in the heart of that generation. I saw it, but I didn’t realize why there is a scar before.

I have only been to Japan once.

If I hadn’t tried to organize my old pictures, I even forget that I have been there for 5 hours at the end of 2004.

I enjoy travel, especially to places I have learnt about. For example, Japan.

Citizen in China can enter Japan without a visa for up to 72 hours. I have tried that. The only thing you need is a shorepass, although I was Rejected by ANA and Postponed Travel once in Shanghai.

I planned for a long time for it. Here are the pictures I found out in my picture folders on my laptop:

Mao and I met today and we wanted to go to Starbucks and chat. The large Starbucks store at Metro City was full of people, and there were no seats. We went to another coffee shop inside Metro City and there are only two seats at the door. We didn’t like it because many people passed by the table and it seemed we were drinking coffee at the platform of Metro Station. We went to Chatea in Metro City, a Taiwanese tea house. It was fully packed of people. Anyway, we finally settled down. People are competing with each other to get a seat in cafe shop. When we left, more than 10 persons were lining up to wait for those inside to finish their tea or dinner quicker so they can get in.

Outside the Metro City, at the exit 10 o Metro Xujiahui Station, Mao couldn’t find a taxi. It is impossible to hire a taxi during the two rush hours in Shanghai. Empty taxis are rarer when it rains, like today. Finally, Mao has to take bus although he well affords taxi expense.

I called Wendy to have dinner with Jin and Peng. Wendy asked me to go to the restaurant one stop away to occupy a table for them first. I argued that there are thousands of restaurants in Shanghai and why I need to go to this specific restaurant. “Just because we can book there?”. Wendy confirmed my guess. She told me it had been the first restaurant that offered four seats when she booked. She had failed on other five. It turned out Wendy was right again. I happened to step into the wrong restaurant on the opposite of the Hua Shan Road, and they said “Sorry. We are full tonight.” to me. Well, well. No matter good or bad, expensive or cheap, as long as it offers something to eat, it is full on Friday night.

On Friday night, Shanghai seems to be a city with too much demands and too few resources.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is my limited observation in Xujiahui area – the most crowded regions in Shanghai. I hope I didn’t mislead you and help you form an impression that everywhere in Shanghai is the same; or every city in China is the same or it is more wrong to claim it is the general life in China. I have to put a disclaimer anywhere when I can think of. Otherwise, I may be challenged to describe only a small part of life in China. It is true, that I am only one person and I can only experience a very small sample of the world at a time.

P.S. Claire, one of the most-frequent-travellers I know, arrived in Saigon. BTW, where is Saigon? In which country? I know I can easily find out the answer by typing it Google, or even select it and right click and choose Google Search (after I installed the Google Toolbar), I want to record my first impression here. How poor is my geographic knowledge? And how about you?

The real time video is paused. The video above is recorded from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the night of Jan 21, 2003. It is a pity that the video recorded from 11:30 to 12:10 PM was lost. At that time, fireworks are everywhere from my window.

Happy Chinese New Year! At the night of Chinese New Year, fireworks will be on show all of the city. I have setup a webcam to broadcast the exciting time to the world. :-D The window above is in real time with about 30 seconds delay. Happy New Year!

Real Time Broadcasting Successfully Completed

From 11:00 to 12:30, the real time broadcasting successfully completed. Video clips and pictures will be available soon. Happy New Year!

I am the trainer of DEVP203 in Shanghai Library today.

Checking the car park where the questions of the trainees gathers.

The flip chart.

I’d like to thank S, E, H, L, W and all who have invovled to prepare the training. This is a wonderful experience for both the trainees and me. Check here for more. Here is the permlink