Cave Mystery
“If you ask me, the light’s winning.” — Rust Cohle, True Detective
Bund Boba
Shanghai’s boba 🧋 is simply better than the boba in all of the U.S. I didn’t believe it when E came to Canal Street, but it’s completely true!
Anyway, I was thinking about this math/physics boba problem that goes as follows:
Given some constant drinking rate and cup, straw, boba dimensions and variable boba-to-milk-tea ratio, how far apart will the boba be spaced in the straw if it’s at the bottom of the cup?
Y was making fun of me because we were at hotpot 🫕 and I was drinking boba with no straw because the waiters forgot to bring one. Then, Y saw this and got me and his girlfriend straws when we were halfway done.
So, he said, “You’ve messed up the boba-to-milk-tea ratio!” Which is what led to this idea in the first place.
I didn’t finish the boba 🧋.
Empirical
After personally conducting a lot of difficult research, I realized that sometimes what happens is that the boba will pile up away from your straw because they are actually quite stable in that configuration.
Boba hehe 😊
This may affect the straw sampling differently and changes the assumptions.
Smoking
I’ve only recently started noticing the unusual number of smokers 🚬 in Shanghai. Perhaps I didn’t notice because I didn’t really go to places with a lot of adults when I was in middle school.
Also, no one smoke in middle school.
Umbrella
It is extremely hot and humid in July due to typhoons 🌪️.
There are lots of mosquitoes 🦟 but less than before.
In August, it doesn’t rain much but it will instead be 38°C or 100°F for a week in a row. That’s probably the worst part of living in Shanghai.
Identification
Everything requires facial recognition and a Chinese ID and it’s just incredibly annoying to do things.
For example, in order to ride a bike, you need to use your ID and match the face.
As a result, when I tried to borrow a bike with my friends, I couldn’t because it logged me out for some reason after setting it up a few days prior.
So, I was kind of screwed because we were in the middle of a rather isolated part of Shanghai. However, Y saved me by logging into another account using his girlfriend’s ID, which was so smart.
Fast and Furious
Drivers will not let you walk across the street if they are in a rush, which is all the time. You might also get run over by a delivery motorcycle because they are always fighting the clock ⏰.
So, look both ways before crossing 🚦! And make sure to look both ways before moving at all because the motorcycles 🛵 like to be on the wrong side of the street a lot of the time.
But look left first, because cars 🚗 come from that direction in China, unlike in Japan. Took me a while to readjust.
I almost got ran over twice already so I’m just not gonna cross unless it’s a certain success rate.
Makes Sense
Things in the world are the way they are for a good reason. Answers are often hidden in plain sight.
Hint: the answer to the following question is contained in the previous section.
In my apartment elevator, someone wrote a 2 and a 1 on either side of the door. Why is that?
Why would they write that?
Pizza Time
Delivery drivers 🛵 are always in a rush so they need to be as efficient as possible. In most apartments, there are two addresses on the same floor. Usually in the format of N01 or N02 where N is the floor.
So, if you are trying to deliver as fast as possible, you don’t want to be guessing which side is 1 and which side is 2. As a result, some people wrote a 1 on the right and a 2 on the left of the elevator to show the workers which side to go to.
Imitation Game
A lot of the western food is just incredibly poorly made. I realized that after the pandemic, a lot of the western style restaurants that survived got localized.
They serve a lot of western foods that are just off to my tongue. For example, at this restaurant called “New Bere” that I used to go to, they started putting weird stuff on the pizzas 🍕 and the crust is not puffy or crispy like it used to be.
It’s kind of like eating Panda Express in America. I think I might try this Ukrainian place at the Mercedes-Benz Arena called “Hello Kiev” when I have time.
TV Boy
True Detective is a really awesome show that was released in 2014 when I was too young to be watching it, but the acting and writing is just really good.
However, according to a YouTube video, 2014 was the golden age of TV shows like The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, so I decided to give this one a shot.
I don’t usually watch shows but I do not regret watching True Detective at all.
Not a good guy
Both of the main characters, Rust and Marty, played by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, are not exactly good people.
However, they both work toward the noble goal of tracking down missing people and solving murder cases.
They both have pretty bad personalities and habits but you can see them change in a natural way throughout the show.
Sloth
I watched an analysis of Breaking Bad which said that Walter White was actually always a bad person deep down, and that he was not good because of his actions, but rather his inaction.
That’s reversed in some way in True Detective because by the middle of the season, you kind of realize the base material of these characters is not going to change.
New person, same old mistakes
The main problem with Harrelson’s character is that he is really bad at staying loyal to his family and paying attention to them. He’s always focusing on the wrong things and is given so many chances that he throws away.
Mistakes and words are repeated, but they are trying hard to break out of that cycle, and I think that’s what makes them engaging characters.
Something you can make but not keep
When someone makes a promise, they bank on being able to accomplish something uncertain in the future. If they can’t fulfill that promise, they become less credible.
Small Places
I went back to see my grandma in a smaller city in Zhejiang province. I haven’t seen her in 5 years and she’s almost 90, so it was very nice to see that she had not changed very much.
Mining
The city is known for its numerous ancient grottoes1 which were carved at least 2000 years ago by unknown people.
These were discovered in 1992 by some farmers that wanted to find fish at the bottom of an endlessly deep pond. They drained the pond for days and found these massive caves instead.
Funny story, my dad actually used to walk to this place on the weekends to hang out with his friends and they simply knew it as a place with really deep ponds ♒.
They are more of a tourist location now because they have added new carvings of dragons and people to the walls which are cooler but definitely disrespectful to the history of this place.
Interior of grottoes with dragon carving on pillar.
Some theorize they were made to hide treasure 💎 or train troops ⚔️ underground, but none of these theories are waterproof because there is literally nothing except a few tiny cave paintings and a primitive stone statue with no head.
There is also no evidence (ash) of the caves being lit with fire, which definitely makes you wonder how they saw anything in these caves. There were probably no soldiers trained for a rebellion because first you would need to use manpower to dig ⛏️ so many caves which doesn’t make much sense.
Crafting
I didn’t know this, but a lot of the wooden furniture at my grandma’s house was actually built by my grandpa back in the day.
I was really impressed because there was a stool 🪑 that had a door in the side so you could store things in it.
Stool made by my grandpa
There was also a rather large cabinet with lots of different parts that I also found to be really impressive.
I don’t really know what my grandpa did except for electrical engineering, but I guess he was pretty handy.
Public Karaoke
After dinner near the site of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, I took a stroll by the river with my dad and we heard some singing come from a crowd of a few hundred people.
I have always wanted to sing in public but never had the courage to go up and ask, but my dad knew about this situation and went up to ask one of them while they were on a smoke break2.
It’s basically 50 RMB per song which is quite a lot for singing, but it’s only $7 USD, so I went up and did a song.
I was so nervous that I was only looking at the lyrics and didn’t even look at the crowd, which is kind of funny because I’ve sang in front of larger crowds at Caltech.
The week after that, I went back again and one of the performers actually recognized me, which was pretty funny.
Satisfied?
Maybe because I haven’t sang in so long, I noticed I was off-pitch a lot of the time. It’s also partially because it’s hard to hear what your pitch is when the speaker is louder than the voice you hear in your head.
Anyway, I wasn’t really happy with those performances, but as my dad said, it’s all for fun anyway and I need to loosen up.
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