Dr. Mark Nan Tu

No one can.

I brought a fake Wilson K90 for $25USD in Shenzhen. The seller even throw in a Wilson bag which should worth $5 alone. I brought my first Wilson racket back in 1993 and it was a real Prostaff classical 85. (the one used by tennis legend Pete Sampras). I only hit with it a few times before I went to the US and basically retired from the sports. I started playing tennis again in Aug. 2008. I brought a Wilson K95. I know both my Prostaff and K95 are the real racket as they all cost me around 190USD.
So now, I have three rackets, a real Prostaff, a real K95 and a fake K90.

I have played with fake k90 for a while. Here is what I found:
1: It is impossible to tell the difference from the appearance. The graphics are excellent, identical as the real K90.
2: It weights only 260 gram (real K90 weights around 320gram for the Asian edition).
3: It uses graphite material but is different than the real K90.

Surprisingly, this racket is very playable. It actually feels like a classical (80s) racket. I think that the racket uses a classical graphite material, similar to those 80s racket.

I personally believe that the racket is well worth the $25 USD I paid for. I even use it in real matches.

If I can demo it, I would buy the racket for $50 even it says: Milson or whatever on it. I started with Wilson as the sellers in those sports stores kept pushing Wilson to me (perhaps with high margin for themselves).

If a real Wilson is make in China, I am very confident that the same factory can make Milson with the same quality if not better. These factories do not use their own names as they do not have the marketing budget to build a brand name as they are busy making the 5% margin to do OEM for Wilson. Everyone got to live. I guess.

However, I expect the situation to change in the next 10-15 years. In the next 10 years, I will not care if my racket is a Wilson or a Milson. It will a good thing for all the consumers as the Wilson and Milson will all sell for $50-$100.

I played some tennis in my university years (without a coach). I also played a lot of basketball and was in the university swimming team. So I had a good athletic foundation. But I stopped playing tennis after graduation which was 17 years ago. I do excise 3-4 times a week through out the years just to keep in shape. Now, I wanted to pick up tennis again.

I recently went through a 3 week training camp just to get back on my tennis game. It was 2 hours each day and 5 days a week. After the training camp, I’ve made the following video.
1: Ground stroke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02lhy7ez33E
2: Ground stroke another angle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umPXQFNYLbU
3: Serve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNR1-gjkWRg
4: Match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsWU66ihPm8

I believe that my forehand is a NTFP 3.0 and my backhand is a 2.5 and my serve is a 2.5?I only know the flat serve and have not learned the kick and spin serve). Here is my plan to reach 3.5-4.0 in about a year.

1: I found a committed tennis partner who is about 2.5-3.0 level. We plan to practice at least 3 times (2hours/each session) a week.
2: We will hire a coach and train us 2 times a week.
3: I plan to play at least 1-2 times/month against other better players in the city.

I posted the above video on tennis warehouse.com’s discussion board. Most of the comments agree that I am between 2.5 to 3.0. They also pointed out the problems for the forehand and backhand.

1: Not much shoulder turn in the forehand.
2: Arm bending in the backhand.

For the intermediate plan, (for the next 2 month or so), I will mainly focus on the forehand and backhand movement. Getting the correct form is important.

As for the serve, I did the following calculation. I counted the frame of the ball leaving the racket to the ball hitting the ground. It was between 14 and 15. VirtualDub software says that the video is 25 frames/second. So I guess that makes the serve around 80mph. I think I can have faster serve if I:
1: arch my body more
2: toss 2 feet higher

I will also need to do more matches. I have played some matches against so called 3.0,3.5 players in my age group. I have won majority of them. I noticed that I have the following advantages.
1: I moved my feet more
2: I got quicker reflex than most of my opponents.
3: I could hit the ball almost the same as my practice. It seems that most of them lost their confidence in the match and become a slow pusher. I go to the net as much as I can.

So, my plan for the next few months:
1: Work on the forehand and backhand forms.
2: Do more matches.
3: Toss the ball 2 feet higher and arch the body.

I made a reservation for the exhibition in the Capital Museum a week ago. The reserved ticket is free but it does not cover the main exhibition: The Chinese Memory. Treasures of the 5000-year Civilization. This exhibition is 30RMB. It is well worth the price as the artifacts displayed are all the national treasures brought in from provincial museums all over China. It takes about 1.5 hours to exam the treasures.

How to get there: No. 1 subway line, exit in Muxidi exit southeast. Walk 200 meters.

The Chinese Memory. Treasures of the 5000-year Civilization

National Centre for Performing Arts

I went to watch a show in this egg-shaped building which cost 2.2billion RMB. Each seat costs 500,000RMB. Wow, a very impressive building, on par or more impressive than say Sydney Opera House.

The best way to get there is by No. 1 subway at the Tiananmen west station and at exit C.

National Centre for Performing Arts

China National Film Museum is located at the north east of the city, outside the 5th ring road. It was built in 2005 and was officially opened on 10th Feb, 2007. According to their website, the admission is free. There are 1600 free tickets every day. Therefore, reservation is recommended.

When I called them today, I was told that there were plenty of free tickets left. I went there in the afternoon. The museum was built on a huge empty space. There is no bus leading to the entrance. There is hardly any taxi either. Therefore, the best way to get there is by private cars.

There were about 10 cars parked in the huge parking lot. The Museum is a huge 4 story building. There are 20 exhibition halls. In chronological order, there are diverse collections of photos and posters showing over 1500 films produced in China, Taiwan, Hongkong and Macau for the past 100 years. A quick walking tour of the whole building takes about 1.5 hours.

In addition, China National Film Museum has an IMAX cinema, a digital projection cinema and three 35mm cinemas. The cinemas show all the major new releases. However, the last show is around 3pm in the afternoon.

No photography is allowed in the exhibition hall. I saw no more than 30 visitors in the whole building during my 2 hours there, a very rare situation in China today.

I personally feel that the Museum should have more interactive shows that draw the visitors in. Given the huge empty space outside the Museum, perhaps a Universal Studio type of theme park is possible. It is actually not far away from the city. A ten minutes drive from the world renowned 798 Art District can reach the Museum parking lot.

China National Film Museum

China National Film Museum

China National Film Museum

After a whole day of raining, the sky finally cleared up. Being in Beijing for more than 4 years now, I can swear this is one of the clearest days in Beijing. The sky is deep blue with clouds hang in the distance. I was later told that the visibility is 35 kilo meters (instead of the usual 500 meter).

I went to the 798 art district. Because of the Olympics, the 798 had a face lift. The streets are decorated with flowers. The motorized vehicles are not allowed in the district. There are lots of visitors and many photos enthusiastic.

The pictures are taken with the color set to: vivid in the Nikon D300. I love the colors.

The entrance to the 751 D-Park

The boilers from the 60s

Nike’s showroom

This should be a Changjiang 750 (modeled from a second world war BMW)

The 798 Art District is still under contruction

Model shoots

Huge ads in the Wangfujing shopping district

People watching the opening ceremony on big screen in Wangfujing

The flowers in Tiananmen square

Visitors carry national flags in Tiananmen square

The timer goes to zero at the National Musmum

The new CCTV building

I have watched CNN report and learned that there were local people demonstrated in Tiananmen Square about the dissatisfaction of the government compensations on tearing down their old houses and move them into new ones. The CNN reports says: left them homeless” which really implies that the government forced them out of their home without any compensation (more like a robbery). Homeless, perhaps. But no compensation, unbelievable and too greedy? More than likely!

I am confident that most of the viewers who watched this news will point their fingers directly to the Chinese government. I am also confident that most of the viewers have never lived in any of the so called “old homes”. Old homes in Beijing have two meanings. 1: Those build in the Qing dynasty: the hutong style. 2: Those build in 60s, the soviet style. While the Qing dynasty hutong style houses offer some historical value, the soviet style apartment has virtually no value to preserve.

I have visited a few hutong houses. While some of my former Microsoft expatriates like the exotic feelings and the bragging rights of living in the hutong houses, I would not want to live there. These hutong houses usually have no private bath room, no heating and no insulation. The temperature of Beijing can drop to as low as -10 C in the winter. It is like living in Minnesota without out heating in winter. Why on earth would any body want to live there?

I lived in the soviet style apartment for many years as those were provided to my parents by their work unit. Most of those buildings are poorly designed and constructed. The floor layouts are not desirable. If I had a choice of living in the newly build apartment buildings (those build in the 90s or even 00s), I would abandon the old soviet style apartment and move in a heart beat.

Does the government or the real estate developers provide enough compensation for their old houses? I have no way to know for sure. But I am very confident that compensations are provided. Will the compensation satisfy everyone’s desire? That is another question.

I have recently met a bus driver who lived in Beijing for generations. He was proudly telling me of his new apartment provided by the real estate developers. He got three times the size of his old “run-down” apartment in a very desirable location. He has another “shelter” close to the newly developed CBD area. He has not lived their for many years because of its terrible condition. He told me that he would easily get 15000RMB (over 2000USD) per square meter from the developers for compensation. He will have a meeting with the other owners in the same building to determine a fair amount of compensation. “15000 RMB per square meter is fair to me but may not be enough for every one. Some people will always want more and they think that by sticking around, they can make more money. I am not that greedy” He said.

There was a light rain this afternoon. The haze that has covered the city for the past week was cleared a bit. The following picture was taken at the ChaoYang (Sun) Park this afternoon. The blue sky came out. According to the weather report, it is going to be fine by Saturday. I just hope that there will be wind by then. The wind will surely clear the haze. A sunny day with blue sky will be even better. Beijing with little or no popultion will be the best for the long run.

Taken on July 29, 2008 in Chaoyang (Sun) park, Beijing, China.

The weather is hot and humid for the past few days. There is a dense haze covers the city with visibility no more than a few hundred meters. According to the official reports, the haze is a mix with humidity and air pollutant. There is no wind and so the pollutant stays in the haze.

China Daily says that officials are considering emergency plans to reduce the pollution. The plan may include measures such as cutting off 90% of the private vehicles on the street and temporarily shutting down some factories surround Beijing. This actually means a near complete shutdown of the Beijing transportation and limit most of the local resident’s lives, a dramatic and very alarming measure. The effectiveness of such measure remains to be seen and the internet BBS is already filled with the negative concerns with such a unpresedented measure.

I took the following pictures while I was hiking up the fragrance hill today. Comparing this picture with the picture that I took about two weeks ago (on July 12), one can easily see the haze that covers the city. Beijing living in Beijing for the past 4 years, I personally feel (without stringent statistics to backup), the clear air day (defines a day with no visible haze) has increased over the years. But with the haze like this, there is a lot to be down during and after the Olympics.

July 28, 2008 taken from the Frangrance Hill (Beijing, China)

July 12, 2008 taken from the Frangrance Hill (Beijing, China). I wish the Beijing sky is always like this.