Commentary ← Wheat-dogg's World

Reflections at a Hanoi café

Feb

27

2018

HANOI, VIETNAM — While I was sitting in this little Old Quarter café, hunched over my Windows tablet working on my editing task, familiar music started playing on the stereo — The Beatles, The Doors, The Kinks, The Mamas and the Papas, The Searchers, Little Peggy March — all music that Americans would have listened to back in the 1960s and ’70s. Music that Americans serving in the Vietnam War might have listened to, when they weren’t being shot at or trying to shoot soldiers on the other side. I could have been one of those guys — maybe not in a combat position, given my poor eyesight — but during the early 1970s, as the War seemed never to end, and as my 18th birthday approached, there was a possibility that my number would come up and I’d be sent to Vietnam to serve in the war. Yet, here I was, 44 years later, sitting in a quiet café in the NORTH of Vietnam (formerly enemy territory in wartime), the only foreigner in the building and easily the oldest, listening to American and British music of that era. It was at once poignant and surreal. I wondered if any ...

It’s a working vacation in Vietnam

Feb

8

2018

DA NANG, VIETNAM – As usual, I have waited more than a week to write something about my latest journey. Seems to be a habit of mine. This particular trip has turned into a working vacation, which though fairly lucrative, has cut into my free time somewhat. A few days before I was going to leave Zhengzhou, a former colleague from Jishou University asked if I could proofread and edit a translation they had prepared of a book by a Chinese author. (I cannot reveal who the author is, or the title of the book.) She asked if I could finish it in five days, and I had to explain I was leaving in three for Hong Kong and then Vietnam. So, we agreed on a five-day extension. It was 198 pages long. Everything was going along swimmingly, until I caught a nasty head cold in Hanoi, which rendered me useless for two days. But I managed to process the book by the agreed deadline, and collected the other half of my fees. Then they offered me another job – 191 pages this time, but by the same author. What the hell, I figured. Nothing like earning money to defray ...

Boy Scouts of America sends disappointingly terse reply to my letter

Jul

26

2017

In my mailbox today was this disappointingly generic reply to my letter protesting Donald Trump’s politicization of the Boy Scout National Jamboree. The Boy Scouts of America is wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one political position, candidate or philosophy. The invitation for the sitting U.S. President to visit the National Jamboree is a long-standing tradition dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937. Since then, an invitation to speak has been extended to every U.S. President that has had a Scout Jamboree occur during his term. This 80-year-old custom of inviting Presidents to speak to Scouts is in no way an endorsement of any person, party or policies. Rather, the speaking invitation is based on our “Duty to Country” from the Scout Oath and out of respect for the Office of the President of the United States. As one of America’s largest youth-serving organizations, the Boy Scouts of America reflects a number of cultures and beliefs. We will continue to be respectful of the wide variety of viewpoints in this country. ———————————————————————————— Note: This E-mail is sent with reference to Incident #1935491 Kindly mention Reference Number ‘ref#24-1935491’ for further E-mail communication in this regard. The letter was not ...

TFW you see yourself quoted anonymously in a news article 1

Jul

19

2017

This morning, while reviewing news from the cryptocurrency world, one article especially caught my eye, so I read it all the way through. And found myself reading my own words. No, it wasn’t plagiarism, but the writer used a comment I had left days ago at a Steemit.com post verbatim, without using my name or Steemit handle. My feelings were a mixture of pride, surprise — and annoyance. Back in my days as a newspaper reporter, we were expected to contact people whom we would quote in a news article. Since the writer made no attempt to contact me, seeing my words in her article ruffled my feathers a bit. Otherwise, I was quoted accurately and appropriately, so my feathers are now back to normal. The subject of the article at Bitcoin.com was American investment in ICOs (initial coin offerings), which have recently become a very common method for cryptocurrency projects to raise money quickly. If you’re familiar with IPOs (initial public offerings) in corporate finance, the idea is the same: to get a boatload of money to help expand a business. As many ICOs are based abroad, Americans are sometimes blocked from investing in them, because of US taxation ...

My first month on Steemit.com: my account is worth more than $260!

Jun

18

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — Last month, I wrote that I had signed up for an account on Steemit.com, a new blogging/discussion platform that rewards writers and commenters with tokens called Steem Power and Steem Dollars (SBD). These in turn can be exchanged for regular money (US dollars, for example) or for other kinds of cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin. Well, after a month, my Steemit wallet is now worth about $263. Not super impressive, but still more than I have earned from this blog during its decade-long existence. I really need to talk to HR about my pay. Steemit users earn whenever readers upvote (aka “like”) their content. Some prolific authors, such as Chinese travel writer sweetsssj, earn hundreds of dollars for each post. My biggest reward so far has been much more modest: just shy of $35. But Steemit users also are paid “curation rewards” — for reposting others’ content. The amount of the reward depends on the original post’s value and on the reposter’s Steem Power. Essentially, Steem Power is a measure of a user’s influence on the platform. More Steem Power means more curation rewards. So, you can earn money by posting, commenting and reposting (re-steeming). Here’s my tally ...

Big news: some bad, some good 1

Jun

16

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — I’ve been quiet here for the last two weeks, because I have been very, very busy, and not just for the usual end-of-the-term onslaught of activities. I learned on June 2 that I had “aged out” of my job here in Hunan, and would need to leave China no later than June 30. That’s the bad news — a forced separation from this place and the people I’ve grown to love. While I can still visit, I can no longer teach in Jishou on a work visa, because in April Hunan province enacted a new rule — 60 is the maximum age for a work visa. I’m now 61. Now for the good news. Within a few days of posting my resume on Dave’s ESL Café I was offered a job at the Henan University of Technology in Zhengzhou. There, the maximum age is 64 (I asked several times to be sure), so conceivably I can work there another three years if I like — or as long as the province or the city doesn’t abruptly change the rules to screw over the foreigners again. In fact, several English language schools in China sent me offers, but ...

Got my first Steemit.com payments today!

May

24

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — Last week, I announced I had signed up with the new social media platform, Steemit. Today, seven days later, I got my first payments for the posts I made: about $30. This is really quite remarkable, because after several years of maintaining this blog, I have barely made $50 from Google AdSense and affiliate marketing. I have deliberately avoiding loading the blog with ads, because I find ad-heavy websites really annoying, especially as some advertisers use some very aggressive tricks to hijack readers’ attention away from your content. Steemit has given “liking” a post — “upvoting” in Steemit terms — a monetary reward. The minimum reward is 1 cent, but upvotes from longtime users of the platform have more weight, and pay higher rewards. Rewards are paid out every seven days. Here are my very first payments. The Steemit economy is a bit arcane. There are two kinds of rewards: Steem Power and Steem Dollars. The first gives your upvotes and reposts (resteems) weight; more Steem Power translates into more influence and into payment for curating others’ posts. The second is a kind of cryptocurrency, which can be saved in your wallet or traded for other currencies ...

I am now on Steemit!

May

17

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — In my ever continuing pursuit to leave no blogstone unturned on the Intertubes, I have just signed up with Steemit.com, the hot new blogging platform. Steemit is unique in that it rides on top of a blockchain and allows bloggers to earn money (Steem Power and Steem Dollars) based on that blockchain. Steem tokens can be exchanged for US dollars, Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, or left to accumulate on Steemit to earn interest or to loan out. A blockchain is a distributed ledger — pioneered by Bitcoin — upon which developers can build a variety of online services. As I am still learning the ropes there, I’m going to let this video below do the explaining of how it all works. My username at Steemit.com is @wheatdogg (naturally). For now, I will probably cross-post my WordPress blogs there, but some content I write for each venue will be specific to that venue. In other words, you’ll have to follow me at both places. The video:

Loose change found in a sticky note on a wall

May

5

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — Last month I reported I had found “loose change” in a hard drive backup, but regretted losing the password to free some of it from captivity. I found the password today, and in the nick of time, too. What I had found in a backup were the wallet files for two cryptocurrencies I had bought in 2014, then eventually forgot about. One of the files held about $2.50 of Namecoin, while the other (at the time) held about $8 of PeerCoin. Trouble was, the PeerCoin wallet was encrypted with a passphrase I had long since forgotten. After wracking my brain for a few days and trying different possible passphrases, I gave up on the project, assuming those $8 would be forever out of my reach. Then today I learned PeerCoin’s value had shot up from 80 cents to $2, making my tiny holding worth $20. Once again, I attempted to guess the long lost passphrase, to no avail. Just before I had classes this afternoon, I went over to my desk to fetch something and noticed one of the sticky notes on the wall behind my computer screen had curled up enough to hide the note written ...

Epilogue to my Bitcoin dilemma: I got my money back

Apr

8

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — So, after three telephone calls and four chat sessions on Huobi’s customer service chat window, I finally got my 500 yuan ($73) deposit back two weeks after I sent it. All is well now. I won’t bother you with all the details, but bank-to-bank transfers in China are persnickety affairs. The sender has to specify the exact bank branch at which the recipient opened his or her account. And my branch at the university is a sub-branch of another branch, so the system was not allowing the transfer to go through. Or something. Anyway, I got my money back. I am still unable to bind my bank card at Huobi without a national ID number, so obtaining Bitcoin using Huobi or BTCChina, despite my previous relationships with them, is impossible for the foreseeable future. In education news, I am spending this weekend recreating my lesson plans and syllabi for courses I taught in 2014-15 to submit to the college. Why, you ask? Well, the college needs to get accreditation (if that’s what it’s called here) from the provincial education bureau. To get it, each instructor has to provide detailed lesson plans and syllabi for courses taught in ...

Update to the update to the Bitcoin saga

Mar

30

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — So, I got a reply from BTCChina today to my inquiry about continued use of their services. You can guess what it was. But here it is from the horse’s mouth. Good day! Our sincere apologies for this matter. BTCChina will no longer allow foreigners to use our services. You cannot use BTCChina from now on. Should you have further concerns, please do not hesitate to let us know anytime. Thank you very much and have a nice day! Best Regards, Customer Service 1011 This reply has two explanations. Given that both Huobi and BTCChina had no problem before with my using their exchanges with a foreign passport as ID, this new policy confirms that the government is trying to restrict the flow of Chinese yuan out of the country, other than by official channels, and that government regulators want the Chinese Bitcoin exchanges to only deal with Chinese citizens, who would be easier to control legally (or extra-legally) than foreign residents. While I have not heard back from Huobi about my bank card + passport issue, I can now assume that they will tell me the same thing as BTCChina — that Huobi can no longer ...

Living your dream sometimes has unforeseen consequences

Mar

27

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — Here’s a bittersweet anecdote from the world of teaching. Last week, I was looking for a TED talk about careers to show my students and found one by a dynamic guy named Scott Dinsmore, who founded an organization called Live Your Legend. Since TED speakers talk a mile a minute, courtesy of the 18-minute time limit, I included the English subtitles to help with their comprehension. The freshmen liked it, so this morning I shared it with the sophomores. During the break, I decided to visit Dinsmore’s website to check it out. Since China blocks YouTube and Vimeo, we couldn’t see the video on the main page in class. When I watched it after coming back to my flat, I got an unpleasant surprise. Scott Dinsmore was killed in a rockslide on Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in 2015. Everyone else in the climbing party, including his wife, survived. He was 33. Now, if TED had bothered to note Dinsmore had died, I might have chosen a different video. As it is, I should tell my students that living your dream sometimes has unfortunate consequences, but that they should never hesitate to take risks. His message, which is ...