Timely Snow

<img alt=”Ruth&Andre.jpg” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/Ruth&Andre.jpg” width=”480″ height=”415″ border=”0″ />
Last night I went out to dinner with my daughter and Andre Deckrow, a student at Amherst with whom she’s been going out.

<img alt=”SmithCenter2.jpg” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/SmithCenter2.jpg” width=”480″ height=”360″ border=”0″ />
This week I’m travelling again, visiting Smith College and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, then going to see my parents for Thanksgiving.

My current, refined strategy for transPacific travel to minimize jetlag goes as follows:

1. stay up all night the night before the trip.
2. take melatonin at night time in the destination
3. get a window seat (which gives you just a tad more space for sleeping). If possible, get one on one side of the plane for one leg and one on the other side for the other leg.
4. take one of those inflatable neck pillows
5. take one of those travel blindfolds
6. take a bottle of water

<img alt=”Troll.jpg” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/Troll.jpg” width=”480″ height=”675″ border=”0″ />
Another picture from the ethnic minority park in Shenzhen. I leave for the airport in a few hours for the arduous flight home. I figure it will take about 26 hours door-to-door, although this includes a fairly long stop in Detroit (and it may take longer than that, because [...]

<img alt=”Cowboy.jpg” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/Cowboy.jpg” width=”640″ height=”480″ border=”0″ />
This is a picture from the ethnic minority park in Shenzhen. I’m not sure what group this guy represents – he just suddenly came by on the path, riding a cow. If you look closely at the shed he’s passing, there are quite a few cow skulls hanging there, [...]

<img alt=”Blank.gif” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/Blank.gif” width=”300″ height=”391″ border=”0″ />
One of the things I was really curious about this time is what lasting effects of the SARS experience I would see in Beijing. I guess it’s a mark of the resilience of this place that the answer is that one is hard put to find any visible signs.

<img alt=”Persistence.jpg” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/Persistence.jpg” width=”640″ height=”508″ border=”0″ />
This is a picture of me in front of a billboard in Shenzhen (which means “deep ditch,” I guess), the Special Economic zone just outside of Hong Kong. The billboard, sponsored by the local Communist Party committee, shows Deng Xiaoping, architect of these zones and enjoins viewers to “Persist [...]

<img alt=”Party.jpg” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/Party.jpg” width=”640″ height=”480″ border=”0″ />
Tonight I gave a party for the students from my undergraduate class last Spring, plus the grad students in Shu Hua’s lab. It was really nice because I haven’t seen some of the students from the Spring yet, and it was strange to have school suddenly stop in the [...]

<img alt=”MacaoMarketWeb.jpg” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/MacaoMarketWeb.jpg” width=”640″ height=”480″ border=”0″ />
During my trip South, I walked across the border into Macao. It took longer than I expected, because at emigration there was a special line for Hong Kong residents and one for Macao residents, but foreigners, Taiwan residents, and Chinese citizens were all lumped together in one very big [...]

<img alt=”HappyFish.jpg” src=”http://ruixue.cogsci.uiuc.edu/mt/snowtime/archives/HappyFish.jpg” width=”640″ height=”435″ border=”0″ />
Yesterday I gave a talk and then listened to a talk by Kaiping Peng from Berkeley, whose work I’ve always found fascinating. One aspect that struck me this time as very interesting is illustrated in this picture, from his presentation. In one task, they asked Americans and Chinese whether [...]