Last time I visited HuaLien was about 20 years ago. It is a place you remember and think of coming back once in a couple of years or so. Thanks to a very organized friend, a group of old buddies made the tour.

I was not disappointed. It was as beautiful as I remembered, and better. The rapid water shaped and polished the rocks. The sub-tropical climate gave the delicious lush. Recent rain colored some streams black. When the ink-like water rush downstream and smashed into the rock, you get memorized with this eerie feeling of being in a different world.

HuaLien is probably best visited via train. Make sure Taroko, a bit north of HuaLien city, is your destination. The beaches are clean and fun. That was the expected bonus.

Flickr gives you a teaser here.

www.flickr.com sinyaw's HuaLien, Taiwan photoset

Less known to the world that Forbidden City is more about architecture; it is the pinnacle of Ming-era royal architectural style. Its alternative name of "the Palace Museum" will disappoint visitors looking for paintings, sculptures, or ancient artifacts. For those, the National Museum, on the east side of TianAnMen square, is a better choice. Alas, it is closed for renovation.

A hidden gem and a local favorite is the Capital Museum; it has rich exhibitions of few hundreds years of Beijing and decent artistic collection. A casual stroll through all exhibitions will take about 4 hours. It is a nice break from the heat of Beijing summer or rains that disrupt the scheduled outdoor activities.

There is a special exhibition from Louvre. I found myself dumb-founded at the beauty and realism of those sculptures. If you are in Beijing before November, don't miss it.

I attended Greater China's and Asia South's sales fiscal year kick-off and annual partners summit for 3 days. After such deep submersion, I now have a deeper appreciation on field organizations. We engineers sit in the air-conditioned rooms and click on our keyboards; the field must convince someone to part with their money for things we made. Every salesperson long for a product like iPhone that flies off the shelf. Sun's wares are complicated and our corporate strategy carefully designed. Events like this aligned the the entire chain of command with honest dialogs. Foods, lubricants to these dialogs, here are at least exotic and always delicious. One restaurant nearby prominently promotes Dragon fruit shake, congee with preserved duck eggs, and bamboo pits stuffed with shrimps for dinner. "Yummy." You said?

In addition to good foods, Thailand display the power of religion. I disbelieved Frank Herbert that it can conquer half the known universe when I read Dune. Clearly, he understood Thailand.

Bangkok's every street corners seems to harbor a Buddhist temple or shrine. All appear active: displaying fresh flowers, fruits, and burning incenses. First time, I visited a country that is religiously homogeneous — over 95% of Thai are Buddhists. The demonstrate their faith at the Royal Grand Palace. Together with coercion, religion is probably the only other method capable of mobilizing and organizing such wealth and efforts. Frank Herbert is right after all.

This city is also famous for its drag shows. With 1000 Baht (about US$35), Calypso puts out the performance of over 50 Katoey (cross-dressed or trans-sexual performer) all so beautiful and sexy to the point of disbelief. The program was repetitive to appease the assumed multi-cultured audience.

Of course, globalization has turned every major cities boring. Starbucks offers its world-standardized decor and products. Air-conditioned malls and shopping centers display the same Burbery, Versace, and Louis-Vuitton. We finally found Thailand, shopping-wise, at the Chatuchak weekend market. This huge market has everything for tourists and locals alike. It was fun to submerge into the alleys and surface up for cold drinks and air-conditioning after few hours.

Sun Microsystems' own Rampa Manoosin celebrated the promotion to country general manager during our stay. It is pretty cool opening the newspaper to see someone who has been attending the same meetings with you.

Excited with ideas, I prepared myself for another jetlag session in California. Sigh...

Which excites you more, the sight of thousand-year old Great Wall or Starbucks at the street corner of Beijing city? People travel far to seek experiences at home. Familarity of caves is key to our survival. It is genetic that I always pattern a new city to wherever I have been to before. QingDao (青岛, a city at the tip of a north-eastern China peninsula) makes it easy: it is San Francisco. They are geographically similar. Both enjoy mild climate, clean air from the sea, and vibrant lifestyles of foods, pace, and outdoor activities. Sangri-La hotel is right next to the famous May 4th Square, where people jog, roller-blade, hang-out, and eat. A few elderly rigged light-emitting devices on kites and fly them high after dark. It is a cool sight to admire.

I flew here to speak to 150 or so deans of Information Science or Technology colleges — merger of Computer Science, Network Technologies, Information Science, Computer Engineering, etc. departments as well as an incubator branch for high-tech entrepreneurship. This is the 3rd time they have met. I spoke on Sun's roles in China, particularly for academia. The thesis is obvious: our open technologies are perfect matches, our high-touch approach creates strong bonds, and our engineering presence strengthens our programs.

Germany occupied QingDao, now more than 8 million in population, for 17 years (1897—1914) and started the beer industry. You know this city from its namesake drink, spelled slightly differently as TsingDao Beer. The company established a Beer Museum next to its headquarters. The same street has been commercialized into QingDao Beer Street on which every restaurant serves freshly brewed beers of many, many varieties. This street offers good beers, fresh seafood, nice weather, brisk crowd, eager and friendly merchants. I ordered cask-conditioned and stout beers, grilled fish, stir fried veggies, some clams. Just sat back to take this all in nicely.

Chinese know this city as its adjacency to LaoShan (崂山), one of the origins of Taoism. (That sounds strange, but this religion is over 3,000 years old.) The famous fable described a Taoist demi-god who lived here. A mere mortal tried to learn from him but could not deal with the disciplines. One day, after lots of whining and begging, the master demonstrated how to walk through walls. When the mortal returned home and tried, all he got was a big bump on the forehead.

The tour guide told the fable and pointed out the very wall the mortal demonstrated his stupidity.

On this 2nd day of the 2nd month of Chinese year (March 20th, 2007), the dragon lifts his head (二月二 龙抬头).

During the Tang (唐) dynasty, WU ZeTian (武则天, 624~705) over-took the country and became the 1st ever Empress in China. The Gods were not pleased and decided to punish her with a drought. The God of Water, Dragon, received the order not to rain.

But he couldn't bear to see people suffer and gave the world just a little relief. For this crime, the Gods imprisoned him beneath a mountain until "the golden beans blossom."

People were grateful to Dragon and sought a way to relieve him. One day, they were sun drying corns and eureka, "Aren't these golden beans?" The golden beans blossomed and Dragon is free! Since then, people celebrate this day that "the Dragon lifted his head." Yes, we Chinese also invented popcorn.

You see, Dragon, also a symbol for emperor, is always male.

Here is a more down-to-earth version.

In agricultural society, the farmers pretty much start their annual vacation after the fall harvest. The leisurely hedonism crests at the New Year. The spring festival starts on New Year's day and lasts for 15 days until the full moon. Then, everyone tries to recover and get ready for another year of the farming. On this 2nd day of the 2nd month, the farming starts. In Chinese, it is called Nong Tou (农头).

Since Dragon (龙, Long) is in charge of watering affairs, such as rain, river, ocean, etc. Everyone hopes that this day will also start with a nice rain. In pictures, Dragon sprouts water raising its head (head is "tou" 头 in Chinese).

So, Nong Tou became Long Tai Tou (农头 龙抬头).

To a casual observer, Beijing is just another metropolitan with a China flair. Its 16,400 km² area and 13.8 millions people certainly make it one of the biggest. Tall buildings line the street. Cars zoom by and leave their exhaust fumes. Starbucks, McDonalds, and KFC are everywhere. The malls exhibit Prada, Dunhill, Burberry, and other world-class brands. Taxi drivers practice English with foreigners. Chinese restaurants mix peacefully with American, European, Indian, and other ethnic foods. Supermarkets shelves find American candies, Australian wines, Italian olive oil, and whatever you will expect from a world-class city supermarket.

It is boring beneath the skin of Peking Duck, Forbidden City, and Great Wall.

Before you find those charms that are the souls of these people.

大山子 (DaShanZi) used to be a light manufacturing area. Factory floors and warehouses attracted artists who need cheap space and places to weld, bake, cut, or transform things in some creative ways. DaShanZi hides itself behind the sheet of boxy buildings that face the street. When you penetrate that sheet, you time-travel back 30 years into a maze of low brick buildings and warehouses. The dark and old ambient disagrees with glitters of signs pointing to galleries and exhibitions whose density is amazing. The entire city block, probably a square mile in size and shape, is filled with workshops, galleries, and exhibitions. This is where people actively create, categorize, exhibit, and sell arts. This is the pulse of Beijing, and to some extent, China.

Since artists needs buyers (rich people, probably foreigners) and galleries attract patrons, DaShanZi also needs to have many boutique coffee shops, tasteful bars, and exquisite restaurants. Dining in DaShanZi is trendy these days. It hints the right amount of artistic snobbery eating next to an art dealer negotiating an exhibit with an animated, poorly dressed, stub-bearded future Van Gogh.

A typical alley that lined with galleries	That's the entrance to the public toilet
Art in a gallery, a bathtub	Art in a gallery, falling
Embroidered money	Patrons pay no attention to the mock logos

Every Beijing would say, "正月十五雪打灯 (On the 1st full moon of the new year, the lanterns are covered with snow)."

This is a unusually warm winter in Beijing. On March 2nd, two days before the new moon, it was 15°C. I was arguing with a long-time Beijinger, "There is no way it is going to snow." It rained the next day. On the morning of March 4th, the full moon's day, I pulled open the drapes and saw the city covered in white. "Indeed," I said to myself. "Indeed it snowed."

Chinese always have a special food for each festival. On Lantern's Festival, we have 汤圆 (TangYuan, a ball of sticky rice shell and sweet fillings, usually sesame paste). Historically, the intellectual will hang a puzzle under the lantern. Those who can solve it will take the puzzle down, announce the answer, and get a prize.

Everywhere you go, a pair of lions guards the entrance of a respectable establishment, be it a temple, restaurant, government agency, bank, or simply a residential house. The most common material is stone. Some of them are made with iron or bronze.

Lions do not exist in China naturally. Since there were no live examples, the ancient artists created the mythical lions to guard entrances. They are mostly modeled after dogs — more cute than fierce.

The lions are not symmetrical. Facing away at the door, the left-side should sit the male lion and the right-side female. The female usually cuddles a puppy with her paw. Some of the more creative ones have the puppies climbing all over her. The male one, on the other side, typically plays with a ball.

Last winter, the first snow fell on January 12th. This one, today. They say it is going to be a warn winter.

I like snow.

WANG Wei (701~761) is one of my favorite poets. On this 9th day of the 9th lunar month, long, long time ago, he wrote this famous poem. It became an instant classic and spread all over China.

王維《九月九日憶山東兄弟》
獨在異鄉為異客， 每逢佳節倍思親。
遙知兄弟登高處， 遍插茱萸少一人。

In Chinese numerology, the number 9 stands for masculinity (Yang) and 6 for femininity (Ying). The double-9 day is the 9th day of the 9th month on the lunar calendar. In a branch of Daoism that values the masculine energy. The practitioners will climb up to the very highest point of the hill by noon to absorb all those energy from the Sun, the ultimate symbol for Yang. Since most of the Daoism practitioners are respectable members of the society. Many common citizens copy this behavior. After centuries, it becomes a tradition to climb up mountains on this day. It is also the day to pay your respect to the old, since Daoists tend to age very gracefully.

While you are up there, pick a branch from this fragrant Rutaceae plant and pin it on your clothes. Its aroma is know to expel bugs and enhance your health.

In this foreign land I am a lone stranger
Holidays make me miss the family most
Far away my brothers must be reaching for the height
Rutaceae branches on lapels, one extra

After the October holiday (really the mid-Autumn festival), China enters the crab season. If you are in the country, the hairy crab (大闸蟹) is a must have. (Do you visit San Francisco without going to the Fisherman's Wharf?) Not just any hairy crab, the ones from Yang Cheng Lake (阳澄湖). They are so prized, each one now carries a seal of authenticity. Allegedly, the seals are temper-proof and installed when the crabs are harvested. Do remember, this is the country that you can buy anthentic DVDs for US$2 each.

Now, at least, you need to pretend to enjoy it like a pro.

Order them steamed, or "naked," so that all flavors of the crab are fully presented without any enhancements. Order the Chinese rice wine, warm. It is common to add the preserved plum into the cup, but I drink them straight. All half-decent restaurants will serve the crabs with vinegar that are dark like soy-sauce.

The crab should be served whole. If you find yourself staring at it like having Artichoke the first time, don't despair. First, pick it up with your hand and examine the underside. If the "bottom" is round, it is a female crab, a pointy bottom means male. In the fall, insist on female ones. Obviously, you need to check all the limbs and the hair. The crab should look normal and healthy, with a good yellow-red color.

Ask the server to open the crab and clean it up for you. Others may do it themselves, but you should not bother with this trivial procedure. The crab should return to you with the back shell flipped and some creamy paste like stuff in juicy. That is the best part. Don't you get grossed out. Drip some vinegar, spoon them out, and taste the creamy, salty, and best of the seafood flavors. Yes, it is high in cholesterol, but who cares. (And it is your only legal way to get out of eating this part.) The rice wine goes very well with this stuff. It is so heavenly that Chinese wrote thousands of poems on this feast. Having crabs, under the full moon, drinking wines, appreciating the chrysanthemum blossoms, writing poems with friends. Lives do not get better than this.

Oh, the rest of the crab? Use the small dental instrument to get the morsels out. If the restaurant did not provide them, the pointy chopstick works too. Using hands are perfectly OK. Vinegar is optional and wine is a must. (Chinese believe that crabs are "cold" in their nature and wine will compensate and balance the coldness.)

If you are not in the country, I guess you will just have to settle for the Dungeness or lobsters.

The 8th full moon is the Autumn festival in China — October 6th this year. A celebration after the harvesting season is common in many cultures. China, a pioneer in agriculture, has developed rich and complicated traditions for this festival. It begins with few folk lores. The one I adapted for my kids is a tragic love story.

Long long time ago, there were 10 suns in the sky. It was so scorching hot that crops could not grow and people languished. A young man, HouYi (后羿), took his bow and arrows, climbed up to a high mountain, and demanded improvements. When the sun laughed and refused, HouYi shot them down to the sea one by one. At the end, he gave the last sun strict orders to rise and set regularly. Days and nights became regular and everyone was happy. People were so grateful, they made HouYi their king. Soon, HouYi married this beautiful woman ChangEr (嫦娥). They lived happily in the palace.

Years went by and HouYi became a tyrant and a bad king. People suffered from his bad governance as much as they did from the 10 suns. ChangEr tried to influence HouYi to no avail. Most horribly, HouYi learned the existence of elixir of life. He sent the rabbit. It ran westward for long, long time and found it.

YouYi had a grand party to celebrate his imminent immortality. ChangEr stayed behind and understood she is the people's only hope. After HouYi fell asleep drunk. She stole and drank the elixir. Immediately, she floated to the sky and ended up on the moon. The rabbit sipped from the bottle and followed her.

ChangEr becomes the loneliest being ever. She lives forever with only rabbit as her company.

To this date, if you watch closely, you can see the beautiful ChangEr in the moon. Particularly on this 8th full moon of the year, the anniversary of her ascension.

Poet SU Shi (苏轼) wrote a famous poem on this story. I will not do justice translating it.

水調歌頭,   蘇軾（ 1036-1101 ）
丙辰中秋，歡飲達旦，大醉，作此篇兼懷子由	On this Autumn's Festival, I partied all night. So drunk. Wrote this piece also thinking of my brother
明月幾時有，把酒問青天。 不知天上宮闕，今夕是何年。 我欲乘風歸去，又恐瓊樓玉宇，高處不勝寒。 起舞弄清影，何似在人間。 轉朱閣，低綺戶，照無眠。 不應有恨，何事長向別時圓。 人有悲歡離合，月有陰晴圓缺，此事古難全。 但願人長久，千里共嬋娟。	When does bright moon come? Sky please tell this half-drunk. Up there in the heavenly palace, I wonder what year is tonight. Maybe I would fly up with the breeze, but up there would be too chilly, in those decorated towers and jade rooms. Dancing with my shadow, this surreality. Moonlight rounded the balcony, went beneath the window, shone on this sleepless Is regret that clipped the moon when we are parted? Sadness, happiness, departures, and unions in lives. Dark, bright, full, or clipped for moon. This is just how it is. Hope we will both have longevity, so that we can share this moon Even separated by thousands of miles.

Xi'An (西安) is the most ancient capital in China. Way back in 250BC, Emperor Qin (秦) united China and made this city its capital. He had a great plan. He will be the 1st and the beginning of generations of emperors who are his descendants. The 1st part was historically factual. The 2nd part did not quite work out. Qin dynasty lasted only 42 years and ended with his son. Two rivals, Liu and Xiang, toppled Qin dynasty and fought for the throne. Their uprising and battle was widely written and worked into numerous stories and dramas to this date. Mr. Liu eventually won and started Han (汉) dynasty. Han and future dynasties mostly had their capital in Xi'An. This tradition changed in the Yuan dynasty (1209~1370AD) that moved the capital to Beijing. Xi'An, in terms of history, is way richer than Beijinig. It all started with this 1st emperor.

Standing above the Terra Cotta Warriors excavation, I felt awed, proud, and disbelief. How many of these they made? What resources, logistics, planning, management, and determination were dispensed making them. It took roughly 35 years to build his tomb and we have excavated only a small fraction — the outer perimeter that was the soldiers' quarters.

My trip to Xi'An copied Mike's itinerary. It started with an overnight train-ride. My cabin of four was clean and comfortable. Each ticket costs slightly more than 400rmb. The train pulled in XiAn station around 8am. We checked into the hotel around 9am and were in Terra Cotta site around 10:30. After the lunch, we went to HuaQingChi (华清池).

Tang (唐) dynasty people built elaborate bath houses here, with natural hot spring, for their emperors. Poet BAI JuYi (白居易) wrote a tragic romantic long poem set in this palace. It described the love story between Emperor LI LongJi (唐玄宗 李隆基) and his concubine YANG YuHuan (杨玉环), known to be one of the 4 most beautiful women in Chinese history. She died during a coup attempt and he spent the rest of his life missing her. The verses went through my head as I tour her bath house and the balcony they spent winter days watch the snow flakes falling into the hot spring pond.

The day ended with a magnificent dumpling feast and a world-class dance and music show. The next day, we visited the Big Goose Tower and the Forest of Stelae (stone tablets).

Those stelae were the official versions of various books used for tests and the calligraphic practices. Some of them are maps or even tombstones. Stelae were collected from around the country to ease the effort of making rubbing, an exact duplicate of what was engraved.

Here I found an unique art for the region, the horse hitch. In this region, it became fashionable to have fancy stone horse hitches. The wealthy commissioned thousands until the fad faded away. The stelae museum collect more than a hundred and line them up. We walked among them and get surprised at how lively and adorable they are.

It was said that a goose sacrificed itself to testify the truth spoken by a Buddha. As such, many Buddhist towers were named such. This one was where XuanZang (玄奘) spent 19 years translating the Buddhism scriptures. He walked 4 years, from Xi'An to India and studied Buddhism there for 17 years. His trip inspired the fiction 西游记 (Journey to the West) that became one of the most popular fictions in China. I stayed up many nights reading that book when I was a teenager. In fact, I read it about 3 times in different parts of my life. It is a bit like visiting universal studio and remembering Jaws, only XuanZang really lived here.

It was a well packed two day trip, but also possible in one. If you have a spare weekend, Xi'An is not a bad escape from Beijing.

The full moon of the 7th month is the Chinese holiday for the dead. This year, it is on August 8th. In Daoism, hell opens on the 1st day of this month (July 25th). All those lost spirits and ghosts roam out of hell to finish whatever they have to. This is also the month for them to feed, if they died hungry. Mortals everywhere offer fruits, meats, incenses, or whatever to appeace them. On the last day of this month (August 23rd), all of them go back to hell and the gates close.

The 7th month "leaps" this year. The 2nd 7th month starts on August 24th (new moon) until September 21st. I don't know whether the hell gets to stay open one extra month or not. Probably not.

During this month, it is not lucky to marry or made major purchases. Ghosts get jealous when mortals enjoy themselves too much and may ruin it with whatever ghosty tricks.

I found this tradition not much observed in mainland China. I am quite curious on why.

The 7th day of the 7th lunar month is Chinese Valentine's day. That's today (July 31st) this year. There is a touching story behind it.

It started with a mortal (Muggle in Harry Potter speech) orphan boy who grew up with his brother and sister-in-law. She was mean and sent him to shepherd water buffalo everyday. He is then called 牛郎 (NiuLang: the Buffalo Boy ).One day, he encountered an old water buffalo with a broken leg. He cared for it for months and nurture it back to health.

Few months later, he went back home and found a wonderful meal prepared and the whole hut cleaned up completely. His curiosity overcame himself after few more days of the same. So instead of shepherding as usual, he hid away to spy on his own place.

Gosh, a beautiful girl came. Cleaned his house and cooked. NiuLang jumped out and inquired. The girl, calling herself 织女 (ZhiNv: Weaving Maid), said she liked him. They married, had two kids, and were happy.

One day, thunders and lightening, ZhiNv disappeared. It turned out she is a fairy weaving for the Heaven Empress who is not pleased that she missed years of work, and more furious on she marrying a mere mortal. ZhiNv was summoned back. Gone and devastated NiuLang.

Suddenly, the old buffalo spoke. He is enchanted afterall. When he made a minor mistake up in the Heaven. They punished him by sending him down to earth. He broke his leg on his way down and was gratituded to NiuLang for saving him. That's why he introduced ZhiNv to NiuLang, without his knowledge, obviously. "Kill me and made a pair of shoes with my hind," he said. "With them, you can go up Heaven and find ZhiNv."

NiuLang did and found ZhiNv. Alas, Empress refutably wouldn't let them unite and sent ZhiNv away with a wave of her wand. But NiuLang ran toward her with all his might (sweat, tears, reaching out, determined, Rocky's training, Chariott of Fire, My Way, etc. all 9 yards). He was gaining and about to catch up.

Empress couldn't allow that. With another wave of her wand, a milky river appeared and separated the couple. NiuLang and ZhiNv were so, so sad.

Their love moved a flock of sparrows who gathered all the sparrows in the world and made a bridge with themselves. NiuLang and ZhiNv walked over the bridge and were finally together. Empress softened and made a concession. They are allowed to see each other once a year on that day, 7th day of the 7th month, over that sparrow bridge.

That's how Milky Way came from. That's why there is no sparrow on this day. That why it usually rain tonight (they cry in happiness seeing each others).