Jun Gu – Page 11 – Junjun's Home

THFD: Free Lunch for Researchers

It is widely acknowledge for the researchers on finance and accounting as well as related fields that the access to the data for their researches are undoubtedly essential. Unlike the traditional research framework that our predecessors did in 1950s and earlier, when narrative researches are mainstreams, the research nowadays, defined as contemporary researches in most literatures, are taking great preference on analytical methods and quantitative analysis. For researchers in China, especially for the fields of accounting and finance, empirical research is very popular these days. While, the data for these researchers who are conducting empirical researches means a lot, because they can directly decide the availability of a proposed research.

For most researchers that are employed in top institutions, the access to these data would not be a problem since they are mainly purchased by the library, clients within the certain IP range would be permitted for their visits. But for the graduate students and some researchers who are not in the top institution, the access would be a problem since the library of their institution would not will to, or without sufficient financial ability to afford, to purchase such service. Thus for them, doing contemporary research and publish their papers in top journals would be a nightmare. In fact, due to the lack on access to COMPUSTAT and CRSP, most researchers in China can hardly keep pace with the scholars in US and Europe for top researches, though that does not matter much since we can still do the research within China. Frankly speaking, the market of China itself can be regarded as a good example of emerging markets.

However, for those researchers and graduate students who even do not have adequate access to the data in China, it would be a nightmare. Without sufficient data and strong support for the conclusions (anticipated) in a manner that is based on strict statistical analysis, the research would be regarded of little value and credibility. In the old days, including me, I would use a VPN connection to some other top universities in China, acquiring the data from their databases, especially when I am taking my vacation off campus. Since the VPN service is only available for the faulty in my school.

But now, thanks to the carefulness of Junmei, it is her hard working and strong interest in research that eventually lead to the finding of the THFD, a free solution for the data access for most researchers in China, which is hard to believe in but is indeed the fact. According to the instruction on its site, this database is free to all the researchers who are interested in the China related questions. To start use this service, you shall visit its official site, and you will see the following site. Clicking the registration button would lead you to the site for a free registration. In fact, the interface for this database is quite similar to the Julin, a paid database provider in China. PS: A later test find that the Julin is also the provider of the data in THFD.

After registration, log in with your own username and password, you will be redirected to the main page, where you can start your data collection intermediately.

In an integrated site, you can conveniently collect various types of data in a single sheet and export it as Excel spreadsheet. But the structure for this spreadsheet would be two dimensional, you would need to transfer it into a long structure, which is more beneficial for most analysis. Such operation is quite simple in professional packages like Stata and R.

Considering that the potential readers for this post would be current and potential researchers who are at least, of some familiarity to the usage of such data, and this post is not intended to be an user guide, the details for the usage is not provided. For details and information, please refer to the help center provided in this database.

For users who are using Windows Vista / 7 and Internet Explorer 7/8, please turn your Compatibility View on. And, Internet Explorer is preferred. I have tried to visit this site with Chrome, but some unexpected errors occurred.

Please intuitively follow the copyright law in both China and the country of your residence when using this service. There is no English interface, which may bring you some trouble if you are not good at Chinese.

Career and Romance: A Puzzle?

It can hardly be denied that romance is a strange thing. Unlike the regular events that can easily be controlled in certain routines, the romance can hardly be controlled rationally. More likely, the development of the process for a couple falling in love seems to be a random walk, no matter you are originally determined or not. One may not be able to fully understand this unless you own the experience. It is a kind of experience that involves true loving, demands and even sex, any tiny error made in such process can mean influencing consequence in future. And, under most occasions, it is highly related to the career, another key aspect of human lives.

Loving stories can be easily found in some journals and newspaper when you pick up one randomly in a school library. The stories are frequently similar though figures in the stories vary. The conflict between the career and the romance is typically a permanent topic. For comedy, the couples get recognized occasionally and work together for future, like housing, business, etc. The ending of such story is always quite pleasant and sometimes romantic, that both romance and career are of harvest. While for such topics, tragedy is more common to see. Such story often starts from a couple being like peas and carrots, and then face a single choice for romance and career. Then difference value concept between the man and ladies are exhibited: career is often preferred by the men and romance by the ladies.

In fact, the latter style of choice is more common to see, which is regarded as reconciling. For any parties that are participated in a game called romance, you can hardly expect great outcome without sufficient income, which, in this game, is regarded as a sacrifice in either romance or career. Unlike many other choices that the alternative choice can easily be explained for deny, this choice is a puzzle, because preference to any party in this choice for romance/career are both adequately rational. For preference on romance, it is comprehensive, since the pleasant experience rendered from this can hardly be substituted, and meanwhile, it is a necessarily preliminary step for coming marriage, which is of great demands for majority. In other hand, preference on career is also a wise choice. Career can mean individual success in numerous realms of life, like great profit from running a business, obtaining a demanded position etc. Considering the traditional responsibility for a man that should support the whole families, including the parents, wife and offspring, the success on career is one of the most effective resolution for such purpose. That’s why majority of men are holding their preference towards the career.

Such choice can be more difficult for graduates, no matter you are graduating from a college or graduate school. Difference on cities that a couple works and residents can directly lead to failure of their romance. Comparing to the virtual basis on their romance, which is typical nominated as love, the survival is more essential. The romance can only come into practice when the survival is not a question anymore, which is regarded as grounded. Never try to believe in your determination. Such determination is only valid when the environmental settings are unchanged, which is and is only an assumption. Under most occasions, we have taking too much time and energy to fit for such changes, thus career and romance can hardly be taken into account simultaneously.

And making such decision is not an easy job. A preliminary and necessary step for a decision-maker is to think over. Such rule is consistent to the choice on career and romance as well. For a person who is of great preference on career, his/her romance would be regarded as a kind of sacrifice, or say opportunity cost in economic terms, or vice versa. To make it, everyone must be aware of his advantages and disadvantages, which kind of living they are willing to lead to, and basically, a full perspective of the near future.

I don’t know who such choice would be like in a US setting, but the framework for both understanding and interpreting in this post is of Asia styles. Wise and correct choices are typically regarded as precious, especially one of such importance that fully decides his/her future life. An optimized contract for both career and romance would be fully appreciated. But meanwhile, whether such solution exists is still under questions!

Some Words on Earthquake in Haiti

If you are watching the CNN News daily you would find the earthquake that happened in Haiti some days ago is now a hot event. CNN, FOX, ABC and CBS are all focusing much on this event. Taking CNN for example, the most frequent channel that I am watching these days, they are broadcasting the news on this earthquake in 24*7 mode with frequent remote connection with the journalists in Haiti, delivering the latest news to the audio in front of the TV set. For the details and developing of this event, please visit related sites on CNN directly. In fact, the earthquake has been raised to the first rank for the hottest topics. The two following graphs on worldwide and China visits respectively provides additional evidence on this event.

This earthquake reminds me of the days when the earthquake happened years ago in Wenchuan, Sichuan of China. It was such a great disaster that the whole China was suddenly dropped into the sadness. As is told by a friend who was just a student in Sichuan that time, the earthquake would be deeply impressed in her heart that can never be forgotten. So now, I fully understand who would the Haiti be at present. Such feeling is enhanced when I saw the terrible videos through the CNN. The reports from CNN bring me a new understanding on the styles on the news delivery in US.

Undoubtedly, a comparison on the news reports and the governmental announcements can bring us better understanding to the differences between the culture in China and that of the West. The rescue of this earthquake is to be an opportunity for the US to exhibit both its respect on human rights as well as the high technology that is adapted in this rescue. Admittedly, the rapid response of the US for this earthquake lays on two reasons: one is its short geographic location, the other is the care about the US citizens in Haiti.

A first difference that I find on the news reports is its focus. In CNN reports, they are caring on two key points. One is the medical condition. We can see frequently from the remote connections to the Haiti where the journalists are concerning about the poor medical condition. There is no information on the doctors who are working for the rescue, even no interview, but only about the patients. Still remember what we saw in China? We were watching the efforts from the doctors who are working for the treatments, but no information on the patients and treatments themselves. Can the equipment and medical conditions satisfactory at that time? I don’t think so. The only explanation for this is that we are caring more about the individuals but the westerners are not.

The other difference observed on the news reports is about the children. The both the CCTV and CNN are caring about the situations of the children, they are still under some different. Similar to the attitude towards the medical conditions and doctors, one or two boys (girls) are presented as the symbol. But in a CNN report, we are informed that there are so many orphans now in Haiti, and they want help. A good example is the large photo on the front-page of CNN.

I don’t know whether it is from the difference on the cultural basis that renders all these differences. It is hard to tell which is better. But admittedly, the way that CNN delivers its news can bring its watchers better understanding on the whole development of an event. I am not an expert on media, and I don’t know if the medias in China should learn from CNN for a more transparent and effective way of delivering the news. But, I do prefer the CNN style.

The CNN reports bring me an associate product, the understanding of the unofficial organization in US. Still remember President Bush and Clinton? They have just founded a fund organization aiming at allocating donations and offering help for the sufferers in Haiti. A website named ‘Clinton Bush Haiti Fund’ has been settled. I don’t want to deny the political incentive of this fund, but they do good things.

With there would be more survivors in Haiti, God bless you all!

Google in China: To Be or Not To Be

It would be amazed to see that a young man who works at the computer for eight hours and more that is ignored about Google. For us, the coming out of search engine has changed our lives. Their service make the seeking of specified information from the pool of Internet become easy. Among the numerous search engine, Google is undoubtedly the most famous one due to its advantage on technology and service. And in less than a decade, the Google has developed from a small workshop, settled in a garage, to a global company that integrated various services, like online photo album, Email service, Books, etc. However, it is this large firm that announced his willing of exiting China this morning.

The respect of freedom is a virtue of the Internet, and it is proposed to be a bottom line for Internet as well. In a virtual environment of Internet, people from everyone corner can share their understanding on public affairs, political events, and technical issues. It is the application of the Internet that boost the development of international trading and academic exchange among the institutions around the world. No matter if you are an expert, professor or just an ordinary citizen from a small town, the Internet is served as a public dictionary, from where you can look up historical events, statistical data, or even the pricing vegetables in a town that you are living in. Any attempt on preventing the users of Internet from obtaining certain contents can thus be regarded as a volatility to its virtue, except for some cases like threatens to the national security.

But in a mystery China, everything can happen, including the governmental control of the usage for this network. For decades, the information from the Internet is carefully filtered, which is generally introduced in a previous post. Such filtering also exists on the controlling of paper based materials. Materials and publications that are against the communism are fully controlled, especially when such materials are written in simplified and traditional Chinese, which is comprehensive for most readers hereby. That’s why for decades, the custom between Hong Kong and Mainland is caring much more on the publications within the traveler’s luggage, comparing to the custom in Shanghai, who are welcoming most travelers from US and Europe.

Google’s respect to the virtue of China is apparently conflicting with willing of the Chinese government. For Google, they are willing to present every result that they can obtain from the Internet based on their automatic indexing service, which is regarded as both the virtue of Internet and their customers. In contrary, for Chinese government, such service may not be that pleasant. Since the result presented by Google can offer news reports and analysis from other news agencies that are inconsistent to the Xinhua News Agency, which is regarded as an authority of news in China. To prevent the readers in China of reaching such ‘invalid information’, the links to the ‘invalid information’ that is regarded by the government would be reset by a firewall, known as GFW. The service of Google would down for minutes when such volatility is detected.

The reset by the GFW greatly reduce the user experience of Google. To reconcile for this action, Google.cn, a special edition of Google in China is coming out. His result is artificially intervened and all the ‘invalid information’ would be excluded. By using Google.cn instead, the user experience is much better, but, the accuracy for the result is totally lost. Frankly, the result presented by the Google.cn is biased, which is criticized by numerous mediums overseas.

i don’t know if it is the criticism or some other reasons promote Google for an announcement on his official blog this morning. According to the announcement, from today, the Google.cn would stop his artificial intervene and provide unbiased result consistent to the Google.com, his global site. And the Google.cn would be abandoned if the government refuse to accept this decision. It is obviously a good news for most users of Google. However, it means much more than only a piece of good news and the freedom for Internet in China.

Abandoning the Google.cn can directly be regarded as its abandon of markets in China. For Chinese users, Google.com would be their only choice, as what we did prior to the release of Google.cn. But don’t forget that the domain of Google.com can be locked by a firewall, just like what they have done for YouTube, Flicker, Face book, etc. Problems can be more serious if the IP of Google.com is located in the black list for Email service providers in China. Such action can prevent most Gmail users to the friends in China if they are using the mailbox provided by an national ISP. It is of some probability to happen due to the official announcement from Google, which shows evidence on the concerns of Email accounts from some persons from the Chinese government.

Besides Email, numerous services would also be unavailable once Google is locked in China. For webmasters of certain websites, including myself, the Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Google Webmasters would out of use. For academic and graduate students, they would never expect the Google Scholar for certain academic references. The life would be totally changed, and we are forced to seek for numerous alternatives for these services. The transition cost can be expected to be large.

I don’t know who would this even further go, but I do appreciate the excellent services that Google has bring us. It is hard to imagine how the life would be once Google is prohibited. Let’s just wait for the governmental response for this announcement.

Accounting Theory: Positive or Narrative?

Since the development of contemporary research of accounting in 1992, when numerous HK scholars started to conduct the empirical researches under the Chinese stock market, a discussion between the traditional (We call Narrative Accounting Theory) and the contemporary (We call it as Positive Accounting Theory, PAT) theory has been started for decades until recent years. Now the empirical research has been a popular trend in China, which can be easily observed from the conference proceedings, working papers and published papers, especially those from young scholars.

But apparently the research nowadays in China is losing its way. Grounded on the accounting research framework that is introduced by the William R. Scott (2006) and Watts and Zimmerman (1986), two popular textbooks for contemporary accounting research, the directions has been lost. You can easily find the similarity of the papers from the scholar of accounting and those from other fields like banking, finance and economics. Taking the recent hot topics like political connection, lend contracts for example, which are both based on the corporate finance, has little connection to the fundamental understandings of the field of accounting, for both the accounting professors and accountants who are working as role of practitioners. For a brief introduction on books of accounting theory, refer to a post published previously.

The reason for this bias may come from the development process itself. For most researchers, they are in fact quite familiar with the traditional theories and thus can write good papers with such stuff. But the transition of methodology changed their way. A preliminary assumption for empirical research is its good competence on computer programming and sufficient understanding on econometrics and statistics. Frankly, it is a disaster for most scholars who seldom receive strict training on quantitative analysis when they were graduate students. Such problem even exists for the new generation students like us. The lack of training on fundamental instruments can cause great problems on research design, that can partially explain why so many errors on modeling of accounting papers. And, besides the fundamental theory, some new theories in finance and economics are introduced, like asset pricing, market efficiency, etc.

The transition on both supporting theory and instruments cost too much time and energy for both scholars and researchers in this field. Given the publication as a key standard of promotion, an easy way for publication but without deep thinking on its fundamentals are needed. Admittedly, this is a necessary step that can hardly be avoided. In fact, I did such foolish things in the past two years. Comparing to the papers discussing accounting policy and methods, such as recognition on loss and revenue, the topics on corporate finance can be much easier to understand for both researchers and readers. That’s why we can see many corporate finance papers in the journal of accounting these years, but few papers on financial accounting can be found. What’s more, quite a lot of scholars are not from the major of accounting as their undergraduate major, and they may have missed essential courses to help them understand the core accounting questions.

In fact, by doing accounting research on accounting itself, rather than the corporate finance, though it may be more attractive to most scholars, a scholar may face the coherence on the PAT and narrative accounting theory. The narrative accounting theory help us understand how an optimized accounting plan would be, and the PAT showed us the incentives from multi-parties that can affect this optimization. In fact, William R. Scott is just trying his best to build up this link, providing us the understanding of the fundamental theory that is not presented in a published paper, whose work is of significance to the graduate students like us.

Many discussion on the conflicts between these two types of theory, presented on both blogs and academic journals, even in quite a lot of books, are quite superficial. Only when linking both these theories can the high quality research be produced. Though, I am also still thinking about how to. Just like a previous post that I wrote in this blog, we need to think real questions and do real research. The link on these theories, in fact, provides its preliminary step.

NOTE; THIS ARTICLE ONLY REPRESENTS MY OWN OPINION AND CAN BEAR NUMEROUS FAULTS. FOR ANY DISAGREEMENT OR FURTHER DISCUSSION, YOU ARE WELCOMED!

Repairing My Laptop: A Visit To Shanghai

It is of great difficulty sometimes to anticipate what would happen, even in quite a near future as one or two days. I am just suffering from this unexpected experience with my laptop. This story was started in a cliff morning of a Thursday when I suddenly found my laptop did not work. After an in-depth explore of the whole morning, I gave up all the attempts. Because what I have done is of no significance to the resolution but only the damage of some components, like the switch for the battery, and a plug-in on board. Fortunately, they are of little importance to my usage of computer.

A call was made this morning to the headquarter of Dell in Xiamen for negotiation on my repairing. But the answer seems to be disappointing. The custom center for Dell is only available in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. For the customers like me in Suzhou, the only solution is to contact with Dell via an email identifying the problems, and the paid service would be arranged based on my agreement to the price they suggest, which would be offered as a reply to my mail in a working day. Considering the day today is Friday, and a reply would be available no earlier than Monday, I decided to travel to Shanghai with my laptop.

After a call to the center in Shanghai, the staff there told me free service would be available if there is no serious problem. Considering my familiarity of the streets and locations in Shanghai and an electronic card for subways and public traffics, there should be no great problem for my travel. What’s more, I can talk with locals with fluent dialect of Shanghai.

The travel gets quite smoothly except for the ticket. There are too many scalpers that control nearly all the tickets and a 5-yuan premium is added for each ticket to Shanghai. Thanks to the express train that 46 minutes is sent for this trip to Shanghai ( The speed is reduced due to some accidents some months ago), which is nearly identical for my travel from the railway station to the custom center. The sight along the road from the subway station to the center is quite beautiful and classic. You can see many old buildings on both sides, which used to be the gardens of the riches before the liberation. Now, they are mostly served as the restaurants and cafes. Both English and Chinese are written on the board, which presents the feature of an international metropolis.

The repairing of this laptop seems to be quite a simple process. The engineer just helped me re-install the memory sticks and take some adjustments on the plug-in. Some tiny problems are detected on my motherboard but they were of little influence. Obviously, i would not spend 1000 yuan for a motherboard on a laptop that is nearly 4 years old. It is really convenient for the customers of Dell in Shanghai, since I saw most services they offer are quite fundamental, reinstalling the system, adjusts on the components etc. What’s more, most service they offer are FREE, no matter whether your laptop are under warranty. Of course, high price may be encountered if your computer is suffering from severe problems, and what’s more, you are out of warranty.

More or less, the computer is fixed, though I don’t know when it would die. Wish it can work fine for next few years, before I would afford to a new module.

PS: The time without computer is also quite luxury, watching TV or reading a book is also a good style of life, but unfortunately, it has be overlooked by me for years. Thanks for this accident, it gave me the chance to remind me of the life when I was a student without a laptop.

A Visit to Tongli: An Ancient County of Suzhou

江南小镇总是以其小桥流水的特色而闻名于世。正是基于此，苏州亦被称为“东方威尼斯”。而随着现代工业文明的发展和城市化的加剧。苏州市区的小桥流水似乎已经销声匿迹，而只有在平江路，山塘街等几处“自然保护区”。但是，由于周围环境的差异，以及过度商业化的运作。我们已经很难感受到烟雨江南的特色。作为一个土生土长的水乡小子，如此的进程不得不让我很是惋惜。现代化的都市感觉的确给了我生活的便利和现代感，却同时失去了水乡的感觉。那种传统的苏州，似乎只能存在于我娇小的残缺不全的童年回忆中了。

今日受好友之托，要寻一地来感受水乡特色。更重要的，必须要坐一叶小舟，穿梭于水乡的水道之中，感受一下水乡的特色和东方威尼斯的魅力。而这本不该成为问题的问题却成了我的一件头疼事情。苏州市区的地方就不用再考虑了。而周边地区能去的主要有三个地方：周庄，同里和浙江的乌镇。考虑再三，我们选择了同里。原因是其相对低廉的费用（我们当时不知道同里也要门票了），以及该地方的商业气息远没有周庄那么严重（这点估计还算准确）。

俗话说，好事多磨。我们刚到同里就被摆了一道。不知道是不是同里政府因为财政危机，还是羡慕周庄蒸蒸日上的旅游业，他们居然也开始收门票。依托江南四大园林之一的退思园，他们也来了个捆绑销售。要80块。这点让我们很是郁闷。说实话，除了退思园，我实在想不出同里有什么值得买票的地方。好在后来我们发现，只有大门查票是最严的，其他地方的入口根本没人管。想想也对，本来游客的进入就可以拉动当地GDP，干嘛非要严格去查门票呢？要知道，在市场经济条件下，得罪游客往往是不会有什么好处的。

走进大门，迎面看到的就是一排排店面。不得不说，同里的商业化进程还是很快的。它已经不是我父辈们所说的一条街的小镇了。他已经逐步成为了一个专业化的旅游经典。当然，毕竟旅游可以给当地带来丰厚的收益，从福利经济学角度上来说，如此发展旅游业的确是一件值得鼓励的事情。

周边的店铺有经营各种食品，土特产，丝绸制品等等，业主大多为当地人。因为从他们富有乡土气息的方言中就可以听出来。但是我同时也注意到，这里的差异化经营做的还很不够，周边店铺经营的产品大多具有很强的同质性。我不清楚他们内部是否有商会或者价格协定协调机制。我希望有这种制度。否则这种同质性经营很可能会面临着相互拆台的价格竞争。而这，往往是最要不得的。事实上，这种同质化竞争在小镇中心的饭店里更容易看到。这个我到后面再说。

让我大感诧异的是，在小镇的一个广场上，我看到了一位酷似张三丰的老者。他鹤发童颜，在那里悠然自得的拉着二胡。尽管他的衣服明确告诉我们他是景区的工作人员。但是老人的敬业精神还是让我心中为之一振。毕竟如此的天气在外面拉二胡还是非常冷的。老者拉二胡的水平本人在此就不评论了。一者此处是同里景区，并非国家大剧院等专业场所；二者，本人对音乐也实在是个二把刀。我不知道为什么景区的管理方要把老人安排在这里。靠老人来创收恐怕不现实，毕竟老人赚不了多少钱。如果说是为了突出景区的特色，那似乎也不对，毕竟拉二胡的老者和同里古镇之间我实在是无法领悟其中奥秘。如果说是一种文化的象征，那也不至于请一个老者啊？此望知情人给予解答。

走入小镇的中心，我们看到一条小河弯弯曲曲的从小镇中穿过，的确很有点威尼斯的感觉。与威尼斯不同的是，贡多拉换成了水乡的小船，两边的欧洲古罗马时期的建筑换成了水乡的风墙黛瓦。在水中我们看到了大量的小船待租。35块钱一条船，25分钟的确是不太贵。记得我们6月份时候跟一群年轻的博士去上海朱家角划船是10块钱/人30分钟。而且相比较朱家角的船夫，同里的船娘显然热情好客了很多，还告诉了我们很多有关典故，并给我们建议说哪里可以比较好的取景。

我们雇了一条小船，缓缓的向小镇的深处开去。在船上看风景的感觉的确是不同。沿岸有很多的饭店和茶馆。但是看了几家菜谱就发现，他们的饭店具有非常大的相似性。船娘也说，其实各家饭店的菜品和价格都差不多，唯一的差别就是做菜的质量。但是作为游客，这显然“不足为外人道也”。

在拐过几座桥洞以后，我们来到了一处非常漂亮的河道。两侧的树郁郁葱葱，非常漂亮。而值得一提的是，其中有一家饭店曾被CCTV等报道过（船娘所言，未查实）。但老板的苏州方言的确是很标准，到底是唱评弹出身。

而另一个拐弯处的这家大红灯笼高高挂的店铺应该也吸引了足够的眼光。

而岸边也有人在作画，引得路人围观

在水中我们其实可以饱览小镇的风光，以至于我们上岸后几乎不用再逛。只是在桥上，我们看到了水下有人用鹭鹚在捕鱼。当然，如果你要观看捕鱼过程，你得出20元人民币啊。但是大家都会看到。所谓见者有份嘛。也算是为人民服务了。我不知道那位付钱的哥们会有什么特别的好处。

应船娘的指点，我们上岸后去了“穿心巷”。据说这里拍摄了很多的电视剧。悠长的巷子总是给人以无限的遐想。

而其中江南小庭院四角的天空却让我想起了鲁迅先生笔下的百草园。

出了巷子，就到了同里老街，那里是我们旅行的最后一站。老街人不多，应该是当地居民的生活区。但是往前走我们就会看到有茶楼和特色店铺。只是相比较小镇中心，人气要低了很多。

这条古街上有很多特色店铺，其中有一家是卖字画的。老板正在伏案创作，而另一家则是竹制品。尽管粗糙，却具有鲜明的乡土气息。

这就是同里，江南小镇，有着鲜明的水乡特色。有兴趣的朋友不妨到此一游。您将会不虚此行。

Internet Constraints: Sounds Kidding but Real!

It is quite amaze to hear that there are some country that are trying to constrain the usage of the internet from their citizens, with the reason of preventing them from the ‘bad things’. But it is really happening now, and increasingly famous software are obeying this governmental willing. The failure of some largest firms, like Wal Mart and Bol-China, both tell us the importance of running a business with political connections in China.

When checking the hotmail box, I got a strange mail from TwitOnMSN, a robot that I use for twitter. Since the forbidden on twitter, this has been the only way to use my twitter, though I doubt its protection on my accounting information. Do read the suggestions in this mail, you will find something strange.

Hi,

As you may noticed, people who added TwitOnMSN to their contact list, occasionally fail to login Windows Live Messenger Chinese Version since 3rd of Dec.

If you are suffering a landing problem on WLM with a good network, you could try the following measures to resolve it:

* If you can, please reinstall your WLM in English version or other non-Chinese version. They should work just fine.

* If not, you need to login your account with other client, like meebo , and remove TwitOnMSN from your contact list. Then you might can login again in a couple of hours or a day.

We do not know the specific reason why this happens. We are terribly sorry for the problem and hope it would go away soon.

FYI. We are making a survey about TwitOnMSN. Please come in to help us to improve it:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFlmSkVYdUVaVVVBUUlBUFlYa3lnOXc6MA

Thank you so much for your time!

Best regards,

TwitOnMSN Team

For people with elementary knowledge on programming, it is clearly to see the language adapted on the user interface can hardly affect the usage of the program itself. Such difference can render only when there are differences on raw code. A reasonable interpretation in this way is that TwitOnMSN has been forbidden in a MSN Messenger of Simplified Chinese.

I don’t know how to comment on this event, but the fact is that many bloggers has changed their domain names to the international ones with registrars without China, like Godaddy and Name.com.

I am sorry to write this in English, but I don’t want my blog be forbidden in China due to its content in Chinese that are officially unwelcomed!

Plain but Colorful: A Summary of 2009

No one can deny the process of time processing, for which, the individuals like us, can only obey this regulation. Time pass smoothly no matter whether you are successful or not, no matter whether you are taking adequate care on it, and no matter whether you are young or old, boy or girl. Following my traditions, I would like to take a summary of my past year at last day. Taking a scan on the summary of mine in 2008 and 2007, I find, my 2009 is quite plain,there is nothing impressive to note, and honor to share with, except for something unpleasant.

The GRE, both the preparation and the two attempts,forms up the the mainstream of my life this year. Admittedly, GRE is the most difficult exams for the students in China because of two reasons. The first reason is that you are required to memorize and understand over 20k words. My first failure in this step is that I failed to make an in-depth understanding of the words, but only try to memorize them. But the problem is that without good understanding on the real meaning, you can hardly find the potential relationship between the words and hence you fail. Anyway, my writing skills is greatly improved during this preparing process. I can start to write my own formal English. Admittedly, without sufficient training on GRE training, I won’t finish my first English manuscript and the research proposal.

For academia, there is nothing important as well except for the training program in Shanghai, conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Due to the funding from my professor and the arrangements on my research, I didn’t go to any highly ranked academic conference, totally different from what I did in 2008. However, I have to say, not to flatter the faculties of CUHK, their lectures broaden my horizon on my research greatly. From their delivery, I learned the importance of fundamental papers, always those enlightening works that also own great amount of reference. Without sufficient understand on the previous literature, not only for my topic, but also the common backgrounds, I won’t be a qualified scholar and a qualified reader of the papers in top journals.

Though I get the scholarship, and the prize of honored paper from an internal conference, I am not satisfied. For the scholarship, I have experienced too much, much more than it deserved. Though the prize of the honored paper partially convinced myself of the potentials of research, that’s far from enough. I would not repeat all these trivialities. For those readers who are interested in further information, please refer to relevant posts.

The perspective of my 2010 is quite simple, just two English words-Go Smoothly!

At the end of my summary, I shall acknowledge the thanks to numerous people that have helped me in various realms. Some of these friends are Kuan Song, Prof. Wang Xiongyuan, Prof. Xu JIalin, Prof. Shirley J. Daniel, Zhang Peng, You Tingting, Guan Kaolei, Tang Jianxia, Zhuang Chunfang, Chen Wenna. Fundamentally,I shall express my thanks heartedly to my mama, papa, and the gone grandma. I wish and would keep appreciating your kindness in the coming 2010.

Do Real Work, Think Over Real Questions

The application to the PhD Program may be regarded as the greatest failure on my individual plan for my future in the past years. While frankly, such efforts, though bring me no benefit on its proposed directions, show my a good lesson. That is, do what you can do, but never make attempts on those you are not familiar with. Doing something particular in a unsuitable environment, where you can hardly find reference, would directly bring you to the failure. Positioning is too essential for a reasonable decision-maker, without reasonable positioning, things can go terrible.

I was supposing the prize from the conference held at my birthday can bring me more courage, recovering myself back to the old days when I am fully prepared and encouraged to both the challenges and academic research. However, I found it didn’t work, I still remained what I was, no significant change at all. My confidence on previous research, the pursuing of a PhD program overseas has been totally abandoned. Well, I am so lucky that I registered for the PhD admission exams of Sun Yat-sen University, where can bring me acceptable reward, if I am successfully admitted.

A first reason may be from the research itself, as I hereby conclude, after a deep consideration. Comparing to the majority of postgraduate students in China, I am a lucky dog. I have a good supervisor, helping me building up solid foundation on my research. However, for the empirical research, a contemporary research methodology adapted in China since 1992, we are both rookies. We select our topics from existing literature. That is right and reasonable, why? We are professor and student respectively, neither owns sufficient practical experience. To tell it frankly, we don’t have the first touch of the real world. What’s the consequence then? We don’t have our own story. How will it be then? We get topics from papers, not from the real world. My emotion on research may thus be greatly mitigated when such problem is aware of, but without any good solution.

The other reason may directly come from the selection of graduate school. Undoubtedly, it is a hard decision. Given a high certainty on going overseas, I shall not have to fight for the top schools in China. It is a time-consuming and tiring job, without any pleasure at all. However, considering the limited reputation of our school outside China, and the limit on number of candidates going overseas for PhD, there is no reference. That is, I can hardly evaluate my own probability of admission to international graduate school. Under such situation, giving up top schools in China can be too risky. That’s why I finally made such decision. While,such decision can hardly mean peace, it reflects much more the selection itself.

I am writing this post for two aims, one is to express my depression, which has been done in previous paragraph. The other one is to identify my understanding on ethics of research. Do real work and think them over should be a key determinant to the future research. The interest of research can only come when you are doing a real question. In fact, I was firstly supposed to write a proposal on privatization of state-owned firms in China. After an attempt for 15 days, I gave that up. This abandon directly wastes my time of 15 days, but I get this lesson. And I am now starting to aware of why many scholars overseas are so interested in research. They are doing real research grounded on real world!

This is an article sharing my own feeling and understand on research. Your comments are welcome.