Mobile Payment in China In China, there are three mobile payments now, Alipay, WeChat pay and Quickpass. Recently, Quickpass has Launched a promotional campaign on buses to draw more new users. Just swipe the code on the machine to take bus and it costs only 0.01 Yuan every time. Yeah one penny! Every bus has three devices to receive payments, one for cash, one for Alipay, one for transportation card, Quickpass and We Chat pay. Yeah, it looks quite busy. When it comes to subway, as far as I know, it is different in each city. Some first tier cities could take Alipay. You just need to swipe the codes in the entrance and the exit by mobile phone. No need to buy a ticket anymore. All in all, technology makes life more and more convenient! I don’t take cash with me for a few years.

I Hate Sexism I hate sexism. Every time I see the rape news in India, or the honor killing news in Pakistan, or "period poverty" in Africa, I feel angry! When I thought why this anger was about, I thought it through. As I was a little kid, around six years old, one day, my mother told me, “Your grandmother doesn’t like you and she favours your brother because of you are a girl.” Since then a seed of grudge against sexism has been grown in me. what my mom told me was true. I can remember one typical thing! At one Spring Festival, my "lovely" grandmother gave my brother 100 RMB as Yasuiqian meanwhile she gave me only 5 RMB. They did that behind my back and I overheard that out of the door. How ridiculous! When I was 21 years old, my father took a loan from bank and bought a new apartment, on the advance sales of commercial housing contract he signed his name and my younger brother’s name. I saw it! Not even my mother’s name! Let alone me! Even at that point my parents actually liked me more than my brother, because I had a good grade at school and my brother was not. I got so upset and argued with my father a few times. Half of the money belonged to my mother who works even harder then her husband! Why my brother’s name on it! I cannot even remember what his answers were. This event has caused the emotional distance between me and the old man since then! After this I was keen to have my own apartment and I made it years later. I bought my own apartment just on my own! I am so proud of myself! In my opinion, those who rely on their parents to get money to buy a flat and a car surely will let their parents control their lives somehow! I have been so independent. It is a culture thing. Even now son preference is still deeply rooted in China. The saddest thing is that some women have that idea too. How pathetic!

I go back to gym this summer! From June, I have gone back to gym after two years absence. I have tried many new courses, like zumber, trampline and high impact which are a lot of fun! I feel like I am the best one in the studio, haha. Surely the coach is not including. I go for belly dance too and I could actually dance well. It is so funny that I found out I could dance very well after I was 35 years old !

Reading notes - About Nobel Literature Prize books A couple of years ago, I followed the trends of the Nobel Prize in Literature to buy books, twice. The authors are Alice Monroe and Kazuo Ishiguro. I bought four or five books by Alice Monroe at once and it appeared that it was a wrong decision. I didn't like them at all and it even took me a few years to finish them, funny. Then I thought maybe the translation is not so good and that made me not like her books. Later, when the year Kazuo Ishiguro won the prize I went for his short stories called Serenade. Unfortunately it happened again! I could not enjoy the book! It is just so lame to me and I don't know why. Furthermore, I have read “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. But that time I was not following the Nobel Prize. Firstly I watched the movie of Love in the time of Cholera which impressed me a lot. Then I went for the book which I borrowed from a young friend. Actually he got the book as a gift from his ex-girlfriend. I do love “Love in the time of Cholera”, both the book and the movie! To be honest, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is a bit difficult to me. Personally, I can not like the political things and the wars. It is like that I like magic style but not magic realism style. Also the lack of knowledge of Latin American history led to the result that I couldn't understand the reality characterization under the guise of magic and imagination. Anyway, In the end I realized that I should follow my heart to read rather than the prize. 

Reading notes - Rashomon Since I started reading last year, so far I have read four books by different Japanese writers. And Rashomon by Akutagawa Ryunosuke is my favorite. The story is so cool and the translator did a very good job. I like its concise language style that is kind of classical Chinese. Rashomon has been made into a film . The other three books are “I am a cat” by Natsume Soseki, “Clown flowers” by Dazai Osamu and Shunkinsho by Tanizaki Junichiro. “I am a cat” is just average. “Clown flowers” made me sleepy and I hate the sickly style. Shunkinsho is quite good and it has been adapted for the big screen too. It tells a beautiful also a bit sick love story in which their love is extremely forever. Actually two of these four books are collections of short stories, Shunkinsho and Rashomon. Rashomon has stories about various morbid lust and each story is entertaining.

Readnig notes -Three Body Because the popular film "Wandering earth" on Chinese New year, I went for the non-fiction book "Three body" and finished all of them last month. It is fantastic that the books are full of creative imaginations and physical and astronomical knowledge. I have to say the story is quite dark that it successfully reveals the dark sides of human nature, selfishness, cruelness, weakness and ignorance. To be honest, I don't like its main female leading roles because they have been described as weak as possible. It seems like the writer only saw softness in women but not other characters, like strong and brave that women could also own. In book 1, I especially like the parts in what The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as the story background. It is so good to see there is someone bravely telling the truth, how wrong and sick and catastrophic the thing was and how hurtfully it has done to people.

A funny trip I had a trip to Thailand with a Belgian guy on March and it sucked.Then I have learned it again that NEVER TRAVEL WITH SOMEONE U DO NOT LIKE. It was a disaster. In the first place, I just got tired of traveling with my mother and I did not want to travel alone either. Also I did not want to plan all the trip again, like the past a few years, booking the hostels and making the traveling line, I wanted to do less work for one time. So I thought it won't be bad to have a company on the way. Unluckily, it ended up with a reasonable result, people with different interets would not get along well.

Too Funny to get the text A guy who I dated before texted me after two years. Funny! WHY AND HOW! Why on earth he thinks I want to keep in contact with him?! He said he wants to chat as friend on wechat. Hehehe, chat? Then meet again? Then more? I just told him to FUCK OFF. Ridiculous.

The plague Recently, I have read Camus's book, The plague. And there is no resonance for me with what it describes as the pain of forced separation from one's family in the plague. Because I live with myeslf and usually I meet up with my mother and my brother each person three times in a year. I don't know it means good that I am very independant or on the contrary it means I am cold. Anyway, I like the book.