The Grand Canal of China（大運河; pinyin: Dà Yùnhé）, also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal（京杭大運河; pinyin: Jīng Háng Dà Yùnhé）is the longest ancient canal or artificial river in the world. (Wikipedia)

The Grand Canal also runs through Tianjin, the city where I live. This afternoon I took some pictures along the river bank.

Yesterday I customized some widgets in the two sidebars and changed its header image to ‘my own’ – a piece of famous ink brush painting work dating back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). What you see in the blog header is just a tiny part of the whole picture. How big is the original work? Some statistics:

According to some books, there are altogether 1,643 people and 208 animals illustrated in the picture.

It recorded people’s lives in the then Capital of Song – Bian Jing (now Kaifeng of Henan Province) around Qing Ming festival (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival). The whole work covers the scenes of the prosperous city center and part of the countryside along the Bian River（汴河）. The following picture is a glimpse of the city and Bian River of today.

Another development of this weekend is my right eye has been hurtful since yesterday afternoon and today it’s literally cherry-red! Guess I need to take a little rest after this post and REALLY stay away from my PC for one day. {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/BYCimuB2Cg_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”WordPress Theme Changed, Eye Red As Cherry ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/hTrAv2MGnA”}}}

最新指示
The Latest Directive

要使全体干部和全体人民经常想到我国是一个社会主义的大国，但又是一个经济落后的穷国，这是一个很大的矛盾。要使我国富强起来，需要几十年艰苦奋斗的时间，其中包括执行厉行节约、反对浪费这样一个勤俭建国的方针。

All cadres and the whole people must be reminded frequently that our nation is at the same time a big socialist country and a poor country with a backward economy, which is a big contradiction. In order for our country to become prosperous and strong, we need to endure hardship and struggle for a few decades, which includes practicing the policy of constructing the nation adhering strictly to thriftiness and opposing wastefulness.

Ah, cultural revolution was still going on at the time.

Another interesting thing is the document was typeset in both Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters, indicating the work to simplify the writing system was still underway.

The last line of the Birth Certificate indicates the document was necessary when applying for the newborn baby’s Hukou（户口 – household registration record）and benefits.

It was reported that Netease removed the article soon but sohu still has it in Chinese, whose title clearly indicates the information was neither independent nor confirmed（传土豆网… Source says Tudou…）.

Later this information was translated into English and appeared on some influential blogs. China Herald said its source came from a Twitter update! Danwei.org quoted China Herald, while China Herald quoted Danwei.org.

Then the rumor was everywhere, even long after the overnight denial of the shut down from Tudou on March 7 (news report appeared on March 6). China Herald’s article was published exactly on March 7 but clearly it never followed up on that denial even with two updates!

Furthermore, it says, “Tudou.com is the world’s largest video hosting firm, claiming three times the traffic volume of number two, YouTube.”, which can not be independently verified but rather doubtful. Here are the statistics I got for Tudou and YouTube on Alexa, Compete and Quancast:

So where and how did this Tudou to Shut Down Rumor get started?

The ‘media source’ mentioned by Sohu article on March 6 was probably just the deleted Netease report. But after the March 7 report from Beijing Business Today that Tudou denied such a report, the whole thing would have died down if without the ‘help’ from some of the outdated/slanted reports from some bloggers.

And who benefits most from this rumor? Definitely Tudou. I’d never visited Tudou before the rumor appeared, but have been there a dozen times since then. That’s probably why our ancestor said: 塞翁失马，安知非福 (Misfortune might be a blessing in disguise.)

The lesson learned from Tudou to shut down rumor: NEVER trust online journalism.

¹ Tudou means potato（土豆）in colloquial Chinese.

At around thirty, I stood firm in my religion and career as a translator. Now I’m pushing forty and a couple of weeks ago I summarized from my past experience a new motto for myself：“向最好处努力，往最坏处打算。”(Making best efforts while expecting the worst) – I guess it’s the best gift I got for my no-doubts age.

From childhood to adulthood, there have been so many things that we did, trying our best, but got unexpected bad results. My experience is, each time I expect some good result to turn up, it won’t come. We often feel bad about that. But the fault is with ourselves. Our job as human beings is to make our best efforts. As to what result will come, it is out of our control.

As a translator, we provide best possible service. As a consultant, best advice, etc. But that is no guarantee our client would appreciate the hard work. Probably nobody would ever know that you spent one hour on a sentence and stayed up late for a paragraph. Probably your advice is never highly regarded, although you did thorough research and are damn sure it is important. What you believe is art may not be so in other people’s eyes. They pay for your work, not necessarily for your art. C’est la vie.

If you can’t accept this, you are destined to torture yourself again and again in your life. Thus, let’s focus on our own job and do our best. Then expect the worst to come so we won’t get disappointed each time it really strikes.

Enjoy work! Enjoy life!

¹ Translation by James Legge (1815-1897)