Translation Cards

Last summer, my in-laws visited us. It
was their first trip to USA. There was a problem. They don’t speak
English at all, but they have communicate with air hostess to get
their Muslim meal. They also have to check in their luggages in
Chicago airport for their connect flight. What can we do? We got an
idea. We prepared translation cards for them. Each card has Uyghur
and English translation of the basic needs like “Water please”,
or “ Where is the restroom” kind of stuff. At first place, I did
not think the cards do much help. But it turned out that they used
those cards very well. During the 14-hour flight from Beijing to
Chicago, they showed a card to the air hostess: “My son has ordered
Muslim meal for us. If you do not have Muslim meal, Please serve
vegetarian meal for us, Please”. My father-in-law said the girl
smiled and went to the back of plane. But she came back and asked
something, which I would never know. Then my father-in-law showed the
girl a card says: “Sorry. We don’t speak English”. That was fun.
The girl shrugged and laughed really hard. Few minutes later, she
brought them the Muslim meal I have ordered. Using those magic
translation cards, they bought waters in Chicago airport, changed
coins to call us using public phones and even had a conversation with
airport staff.

Next month, my parents are coming to
visit us. I pulled up those cards again. Hope those cards work for
the purpose this time too. I have read a story. It says a German with
German-English Dictionary had very good conversation with a Russian,
who has a Russian-English Dictionary, just showing the dictionary to
each other. When I read it, I had a doubt about the conversation. But
now, I really believe it. I have never imagined a communication is
that easy even without speaking the language.

Zilale’s Princess

Zilale draws pictures everyday. Most of the are princesses. Some of them are just scribbles. But some of them are very delicate. She always has stories behind the drawing. In this one, she said, a princess is dancing. The princess likes flowers. Therefore she has flower dress. The clouds are on the sky. The princess has a beautiful crown. There is a swimming pool on her right and people swim there. The grass is green (yes, grass is green and flowers are red. But I just scanned black and white) and she is dancing on the grass. She is a pretty princess. Princes stories are Zilale’s favorite. She knows all the Disney princess stories. She even met some of them when we went to DisneyLand. She says she is a princess and I am her King. That gives me pressure because I don’t think I can be a president. May I can, who knows?

Drivers License

I had never driven a car before I came to US. My mother lost her brother in a car accident. Since then, she did not want any of us drive. In a big city like Urumqi, not driving is not a problem at all. Public transportation is good. Taxies are everywhere. I had never felt not driving as a problem. yes, it was true until I started my grad school in US. Everybody drives. No car, no life. I need a car to go to the grocery store, to the movie theatres, and everywhere. I have to learn how to drive the most important thing car. How? I have to buy a car. Then I went to the dealership. After the careful credit history check, we made appointment to see the cars. I was thinking a buying a used car about 5000$. Then the catch 22 dilemma came. The dealers called me saying:”they can’t sell me a car because I don’t have drivers license. it is against law”. If I have no drivers license, I can’t buy a car. If I don’t have a car, I can’t get a drivers license. I was stuck there. Going to the wal-mart by bus was my worst memory. After few months, I bought a car from a friend, who graduated. My first car: Toyota Tercel. The car is in nice condition. One good thing about the car is that is runs with the smell of gas. Maybe it has very small engine. I don’t know. But it really has very good gas mileage. Other good thing is that it is manual. Back home, everybody drives manual. But here, cars are automatic, except the fancy sports ones. For a beginner like me, manual transmission was a headache. Even insurance people gave some hard time, saying I should have a drivers license prior to buy the insurance. My friends helped me. I practiced about 10 days. My friends encouraged me to take the road test. It was a Friday. i went to the DMV. The road test was smooth. But I failed. The officer said I turned left on a yellow light. I was pretty much sure it is green. Maybe, it turned yellow in that moment and I did not notice. I went to DMV again on Monday. This time, everything was good. Except few minor things, I did everything well. I got my license. Yes, I did. It was 2 years ago from today. That makes today is my 2 years anniversary of driver license. In Vancouver, you have to carry a big N sign, denotes you are a new driver, for the first 2 years. Even in their standard, I am a full driver today. I don’t know how many miles I made during the 2 years. I went Washington Dc and New York. That round trip was at least 3000 miles. California, Las Vegas trip is another few thousand miles. yeah, I became a good driver now. Hope I will drive safe, always!

I am gonna celebrate my 2 years anniversary of driving tonight. How? Buy a new car? No. Not in this economy!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I saw the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" yesterday. I have read the book "Twilight", but too busy to see its movie. Yesterday afternoon, I finally could not resist the seduction of the too-good review of the "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". It has 13 oscar nominations too. Actually I just want to compare it with the "slumdog millionaire". I like most of the Brad Pitt movies. "A river runs through it", "Legend of Fall", "Meet Joe Black", "Babel" or "Fight Club". "Benjamin Button" is a good movie.  Benjamin Button is born old. He physically gets younger as he gets older. So he dies as an infant. A weird story. How could that be possible? If it is possible, can that person have normal life as in the movie? Where is the curious media coverage? Where are the curious medical researchers? Anyway, the story is breathtaking. When Benjamin came back as a young boy, and met his daughter, I almost burst into tears. Reading diary to the dying person, Julia Ormond reminded of Juliette Binoche in "The English Patient".  I always confuse them with each other.

Until last tem minutes, I was sure "Slumdog" is better. The last ten minutes part of the movie was heart-braking. I then rated it as good the "Slumdog". This morning, I thought about both movies, and I still prefer the "Slumdog". Hope it will be the "Best Picture" for academy awards. I also hope Brad will get an oscar this time.

Uyghur or English?

I remember I had hard times when I was studying English. Four-hour-a-week college English classes were rigid and boring. English classes were taught in Chinese, so that we had to study Chinese well before we study English. I remember the arduous journey to the graduate school here with research assistantship. Toefl was ok, but GRE really took me a lot of time. Even today, I have hard times with my writing. My advisor encourages me and helps me a lot. But it is hard to explain a brand new idea to some stubborn people and convince them. Sometimes!

My four years old daughter has been in preschool for almost two years, where everybody speaks English. Except for the first month, she did not have any problem with the English thing. It took her only two months to study what I have studied in years. Now I have problem with her Uyghur. She speaks Uyghur very well now. But recently it made me very concerned that she sometimes can’t even name some simple things in Uyghur. If I don’t remind her, she will answer my questions in English. I ignore her English questions, so that she has to ask me in Uyghur. Everyday I spend like 30 minutes to read Uyghur books, teach Uyghur Alphabet, or listen to something on bilqut.com. It helps but not much. The main problem is that we have no Uyghur children around here. The only time my daughter speaks Uyghur is when she is with us, but that is much less than enough.

Few days ago, I taught her to write our names in Uyghur. The picture shows what she wrote on the whiteboard in my office. Hope she can learn it fast!

Slumdog millionaire

After watching the 66th golden globe, yesterday I saw the big winner "Slumdog Millionaire". From the "Awara" to "Sholay", from Raj Kapoor to Amitabh Bachchan, I have always loved Indian movies and stars. I have loved the songs too. My Ipod still has some of the "I am a disco dancer" songs. "Slumdog" is the second Indian movie I have seen in the last few years. First one is "The namesake", which made me very sad and I will be sad whenever I think of the movie. Maybe it reminds me of my very own situation. "Slumdog" is better with the happy ending. The story is really fascinating. I am gonna read the book as soon as I finish the "Twilight". I like the questions in the show. I still remember some of them:"Who is the star of the (Amitabh Bachchan) movie? Who is on the 100$ bill? Who invented the revolver?  Who is the third musketeer? the cricket question, the poet etc. Maybe because we have similar shows here too, the "millionaire" show seems very real to me. I just don’t like the hostile host. Is the real host Shahrukh Khan bad too? Behind the scenes, maybe there are more stories. Usually I am very critical. But "Slumdog" is a real nice movie. I can say it is best movie of the year, better than "Dark knight". Other movies I have seen this year can’t even come close. "Indiana Jones, Burn after reading, Pineapple express, wanted" are ok. I hate "Iron Man, Hancock, get smart(except the dancing part), Zohan, Tropic thunder" and other forgettable movies. Slumdog is good. Enjoy it!  

Twilight

I have been reading the "Twilight" for the last few days. I’ll see the movie as soon as I finish the book. So far, I am totally engrossed in it. The characters are so real. I even want to visit Forks someday. I just did not like the "too many" good words for Edward. He is "unhumanly beautiful", a good vampire, the one I have never heard of. It is cool to be that kind of vampire. Let’s see what happens in later chapters.

Tabletop

I was working with my laptop my lap. My 4 years old daughter asked:"What are you doing with your small computer?". I said:" It is not  a small computer. It is called a laptop". Pointing the desktop in my room, she said:" Is that a tabletop then?".  Then I had hard times to explain why it is called desktop, instead of tabletop.

Somebody is fired!

Few days ago, we went to the children’s museum. My daughter was playing with a fire truck. I asked:" What are you doing?". She said:" Somebody is very fired. I go help.". Yeah, somebody is fired. We should help.

Latex matrix array with labels

For a homework question, I have to display a matrix with labels. This is what did.
$P=\begin{array}{@{}r@{}c@{}c@{}c@{}c@{}l@{}}
    & ss & sc & cs & cc  \\
    \left.\begin{array}
    {c} ss \\sc \\cs \\cc \end{array}\right(
                    & \begin{array}{c} 0.95 \\ 0 \\ 0.7\ \end{array}
                    & \begin{array}{c} 0.05 \\ 0 \\ 0.3 \ \end{array}
                         & \begin{array}{c} 0 \\ 0.4 \\ 0 \.2 \end{array}
                         & \begin{array}{c} 0 \\ 0.6 \\ 0 \\ 0.8 \end{array}
                          & \left)\begin{array}{c} \\ \\ \\  \\\end{array}\right.
  \end{array}$

It did display a matrix (array) with labels. This is ugly, but it worked! See the matrix: