This weekend I have taken a break from my exhausting research into the the sex of Chinese conservatives, to update old parts of the site and finish implementing some new features I had been trying lately.

The changes in version 2.0 are not related to design, so they may not be immediately apparent to the eye. But they are rich in content and they will have important implications in the way I blog from now on. See the following points for what’s new:

Switch to Real Identity

Ever since I started blogging, and especially since I started using the Google sharing tools with my real ID, I have suffered from split personality on the net. Those who have been following from the beginning might remember the big fuss about this last year, as I was never completely comfortable with my internet persona.

I quite liked Uln in a way, it was amusing the way it naturally took a surname as Mr.Dice, and it was even cooler to see how some journalists used it freely to create their own heroins. I am not going to kill it completely, I will continue to use the avatar on the internet, but I will sign the posts as Julen. I guess the main reason for this decision is that I put a lot of work in my posts, I care about what I write, and I was growing jealous of that Uln guy who was taking all the credit.

I started using Uln in the first place to avoid problems with the Chinese authorities. Not that they were going to throw me in jail for this, but my life is in China, and if I can’t renew my visa for some part of me it will be like a death sentence. I have learnt a lot since I started this blog, I have spoken to many other bloggers, had my own site blocked and unblocked, and finally come to a point where I feel comfortable with the Chinese internet. I don’t think the risk is zero, but  today it makes sense for me to assume it so that I can be myself.

Following this change of philosophy, I have updated my Introduction and the Instructions Page. They were the first pages I created two years ago, and they were seriously in need of a rewrite. I hope now they give a more fair picture of who I am and why I write.

More New Features

Today I am also presenting a series of new features that I have been playing with lately and are now ready to be released. More detailed descriptions can be found in Instructions. Here is the list:

The MiniYouren: This is the weird midget that lives on the top part of my sidebar, a sort of mini-me. It is a mini-blogging platform that I use to write quick posts and connect it with Google Reader and Google Buzz.

The Roadmap: This is a sort of to-do list with the plans for new posts to come that can be also used for off-topic comments or for proposing new subjects you would like to see me write about, or write them yourself.

Links to the Future: This is a revolutionary new technology that I have invented in this blog. It is an internet time machine that allows me to link to a post that exists only in my mind. These links are green and they all point to the Roadmap page described above.

Gitmo and Laogai: These are my two latest children and let me tell you I am proud of them. I see them as a breakthrough in China blogging, where not only you can enjoy and communicate with other people, but also improve and reform yourself. I am almost tempted to call this Web 2.5. I just hope I don’t have to send many readers there this year.

The Top Tab bar: Embarrassingly enough, this feature is broken, and I haven’t been unable to fix it in time for the presentation. I will see to it as soon as possible. The idea is to add dropdown menus on the Top Tab so that all permanent information can be accessed directly without scrolling.

Hi, welcome to Surf with Uln, aka The Mini-Youren. This is an experimental part of my blog, a homemade mini-blogging service connected with my Google Shared items. I open this section so I can comment the news without opening posts all the time. Here’s the instructions:

• You can click on the title of the news item to go directly to that article.
• You can click on the Follow button to see my profile and subscribe.
• You can Reply to any of my notes right here in this page.

There is one annoying thing with GReader sharing system: you still can’t reply directly to a note. That is why I have opened this page. Just copy the note you are replying to in your comment below, or continue an existing thread. If it gets interesting enough I will open a separate post and put it in the front page.

Any other suggestion about this new service is more than welcome!
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There are some beliefs that, although not originally from China, were embraced so thoroughly by the Chinese that they became part of the local culture. One example is Buddhism, imported from India in ancient times. Another one, I have found out, is the teaching of the modern management gurus, imported from the USA.

It is interesting how analysts of China continue to explain all the  social phenomena with the Confucian tradition, when it seems to me that the Johnsonian and Golemanian thought must be at least as influential nowadays. Walk into any Chinese bookshop or check out the local pirate’s tricycle to see that self-improvement and cheese management titles rule supreme. The glossiest and most liquid books on the front table are the likes of: “Train yourself to start the next Google”, “How I changed myself from a complete idiot to a Fortune 500 CEO”, or “How I built a company that acquired the  company of the idiot in the previous book”.

Now, I have to warn you at this point: the titles mentioned may not be 100% exact, I am illiterate in the field of self-improvement. As a conceited, self-styled free-thinker I cannot help an almost classist repulsion towards those works, and I frown even on the  tricycle that sells them. During my years in the old Europe I happily managed to stay away from the rites of personal productiveness.  But ever since I moved to China, the new philosophy is lurking at every turn of phrase, and all resistance is in vain.

One of the concepts that appears most often in conversation is that of EQ, or emotional intelligence, coined by D.Goleman in his 1995 best-seller. After dozens of Chinese  spin-offs over the years, it has become an everyday expression here. It is not surprising that an idea like EQ should be so popular in the highly competitive Chinese system, where it provides some much needed comfort: don’t worry if you didn’t make it into a top Uni – the books say – because it’s not IQ but EQ that will determine your future. The pair IQ/EQ is also known in Chinese as 智商/情商，(zhishang/qingshang), although I find that the English abbreviation is more commonly used.

Whenever EQ comes up in conversation I like to point out that the concept is unscientific, especially in the loose form in which it is used here. But my wikipedic erudition always fails to impress the locals, and I have seen my EQ summarily analyzed in multiple occasions. The first time this happened to me was during a lunch with my colleague Jia, an otherwise bright engineer, in the first year of my stay in China. I can remember it almost vividly:

- Uln, your Chinese is getting pretty good.
- Thanks -  I ignored it. The comment is standard icebreaker in mandarin.
- You have a very good IQ –  he continued.
- Hm, thanks, you are also not bad.
- Yes, but.
- But? –

He looked me intently in the eye. It must have been the expression called “frank positive emphatic” in page 362 of the emotional book. When the look had been established, he proceeded:

- IQ is not good enough.
- No?
- No, you should watch your EQ.
- You mean, Ah Q, by Luxun?
- No, I mean E-Q.
- So who wrote that one?
- Nobody did.
- It’s  not a book?
- It is many books.
- Is it any good?
- Listen here. EQ is what explains why some people with lower IQ get further in life than others with higher IQ!
- You mean, like guanxi.
- No, like emotional intelligence.
- Ah, I thought…
- Guanxi is just a part of it. EQ is  about your skills to get on in life!
- I see.

But I didn’t see. That human relations and non-technical skills are essential in one’s career was one obvious thing, that I should check my parameters like a cranky old motor was quite a different one.

- Your IQ is Okay - he insisted –  but you should watch your EQ.
- Like what?
- Like there are open positions in HQ, that would be a good move for your career.
- What?
- A corporate level position is the way to leverage your expat experience .
- But I don’t want to live in Paris!
- You see, that is EQ.

I was beginning to feel a bit annoyed by the philosophy. I weathered another “empathic positive penetrative” while I plotted my counterattack.

- So, why don’t you apply to go to Paris yourself? – I said finally.
- What, me?
- Yes, of course, you have much more experience!
- But I am not an expat!
- So what, it’s not required.
- You know, Uln – he paused slightly – I have my children to take care of.
- There are family packages.
- She would never let me, my in-laws would kill me!
- Hah! –I said victorious – You should watch your EQ!
- But I already do!!

And this time he quickly looked away, forgetting the EQ looks, as if to hide some shameful thought. But too late, I had caught him already. It was my turn to pull the thread.

- Jia?
- Yes?
- You are pretty serious about this EQ, right?
- Er, I … do what I can.
- Building  good connections in the company is a good strategy, right?
- Er..  you might say that.
- Like having a friend in the HQ,  for example, right?
- Huh? No, no, of course I didn’t say that..I wouldn’t…
- Jia?
- Well?
- You have an excellent EQ, Jia, you know that?
- Oh, haha, no, no, thanks, you have an excellent IQ…

I know, I should be studying right now, and not writing posts. But I was just breathing slightly between two sessions of 模拟考试, and I reflected on the fascinating process of learning a new language, and on how, when you have been through it a few times, you end up developing your own secret methods to climb up the long steep ladder.

My approach to learning Chinese this year is based on the one I used with my previous languages: The reading method. It can only be used starting from intermediate level. In the case of mandarin, I would say this is not before 2 years of studying at a normal rate.

The method consists of acquiring first a minimum level of vocabulary to understand most simple texts, and from that point on dedicate your study time to the pleasant hobby of reading novels as captivating as possible. If you are a bookworm like me this works very well, because you end up putting in far more hours of study (reading) than you would if it were normal exercises. I know there are also many resources to read Chinese on the internet with cursor translator included, but computers tend to distract your attention very fast, whereas reading a good book gets your eyes glued to the characters for hours on end.

The result of this method is that you end up with a vast passive vocabulary and excellent character recognition abilities. Then it is up to you in your socializing time to go out and try to use all these words in normal conversation, at the risk of Chinese people saying you sound pompous. Sometimes you can even lift full phrases from a novel, and it is fun when you manage to use them in real life. For example, when I was reading Lu Xun’s “AhQ” I placed neatly my favourite line:

Little Yi:我讨厌我的老板，怎么办?

Uln: 你先估量对手，口讷的你便骂，气力小的你便打。

Little Yi:天哪！

Uln: 怎么啦？

Little Yi:你又在练习！

Uln: 我？没有啊。。。

Admittedly, my use of the method is a bit radical sometimes. But the social phase is an essential part of it, because once you have used a word a couple of times successfully, it quickly moves into your active vocabulary, and after that it rarely leaves you again. Note that this is only practicable if you actually live in a Chinese environment, it never worked when I was back in Europe.

Reading speed

The key tipping point in the reading method is that moment when you realize that you can read a story fast enough to actually enjoy it. This is a function not only of your knowledge of characters/words, but also of the interest of the book and of your own personal nerdiness. When I read my first novel “Brothers” last year, I was so excited to taste the Chinese popular literary style that I gladly spent two months ploughing through the 700 pages of chengyu-ridden Yu Hua.

Since then, I have much increased my reading speed, to a point where I can sustainably read non-fiction without falling asleep. The preparation for the high-speed requirements of the HSK has helped me a lot for this, and I must say that, in spite of all my ranting in the previous post, it does make sense to force students a bit. Because the ability to read characters at normal native speeds is one of the most difficult to acquire, in my opinion.

Note that, when I say speed, I am not referring to the speed that comes from knowing all the words in the text. It is obvious that by using less the dictionary it is possible to read faster. My point is that, even for simple texts where all the words are familiar, I still read almost 3 times slower than a native Chinese, even after 1 year of reading books. This is an issue that has appeared only when studying Chinese, and not in any of my previous languages that used latin script, so I have strong reasons to think that it is tied to the use of characters.

I think it probably has to do with the way the brain processes the characters, and the way people schooled in Chinese from an early age have developed differently in this field. The post about reverse pinyin last week pointed me in this direction, and a few experiments I have done with my Chinese neighbours as well. I hope I have the time to write a bit more about this next week.

In the meantime, if there is a non-native advanced reader out there, I would like to hear your experience. Does it eventually get better, and do you manage to read at the same speed as the Chinese? Or do you have the same problem I note here? Let me know.

OK, off-line I go again. I already missed all Tuesday and Wednesday in an absurd meeting in Changsha so I need to catch up. I’ll be back after the HSK, if I haven’t showed up by Monday call the fire brigade.