外国人很容易在以下8个方面误解中国

是不是认为自己很了解中国？其实，外国人很容易在以下8个方面误解中国。
　　1.当今中国类似于上世纪50年代的美国(或80年代的日本、90年代的墨西哥或……)。人人都喜欢跟历史比较，但中国太大、太复杂，与世界其他地方的融合太深。该国消费文化的发展与众不同。
　　2.中国的官方数据不可靠。近几年来，中国公布数据的质量有了很大提高，特别是人口统计方面。不妨关注一下中央和地方政府的发展计划。它们都清清楚楚，而且雄心勃勃。若有人想了解上海的人口密度、零售中心或交通基础设施，我推荐到上海城市规划展示馆看一看。
　 　3.中国的互联网与其他国家一样。从“谷歌事件”可看出，中国的互联网自成一体。全球网络巨头电子港湾(eBay)、亚马逊(Amazon)……当然还 有谷歌，在中国的地位不是小角色或就是不存在。想要在中国使用社交网络吗？花一天时间学会QQ，掌握它的一些在西方闻所未闻的功能。我还喜欢上“豆瓣 网”，它是全球音乐和电影的在线图书馆，但内容全部是由中国网民自己编辑的。
　 　4.中国消费者分为城市和农村两类。从技术上讲是这样。但全球大多数品牌实际上只是进入中国部分地区，特别是大城市。中国消费市场主要集中于城市，许多 都是人口百万或百万以上的大城市。但人口不是决定性因素。最重要的应该是与外部文化中心的接触。比如，某个妈妈生活在距广州两小时车程的中等城市，而另一 个妈妈生活在人口众多但相对封闭的省会城市郑州，前者肯定比后者更熟悉全球品牌。
　 　5.中国的地区差异与欧洲一样大。我听不少阅历丰富者说到这个，意指中国复杂多样。他们的初衷是好的，但夸大了。中国的地区差异肯定是有的，但只是适度 的。全中国学的是相同的历史，参加相同的考试，说相同的语言(至少在学校如此)，看的是相同的新闻节目。气候确实大不一样，而且影响了饮食、建筑甚至穿 着。
　　6.中国存在巨大代沟。不同代的人之间确实存在巨大代沟，这是经济快速增长的自然结果。文化和技术的变化造成了截然不同的成长环境。今天25岁的成年人是看着偶像剧长大的，而只比他们年轻5岁的年轻人，看的是像李宇春那样的中性偶像形象。这也难怪让他们的长辈困惑。
　 　7.中国在快速西方化。中国无疑在现代化——看看到处都是肯德基。但如果那些肯德基早餐卖的是米粥，那还能叫西化吗？没错，西方品牌和生活方式日益普 遍，但中国的历史文化影响力也在扩大。中国人开始对收藏普洱茶、学书法、吃宫廷菜感兴趣。事实上，中国变得更中国了。还有另一个经常被忽视的影响：世界第 二大经济体日本，其对中国的文化影响力至少不亚于西方。没错，中国城市中18岁的青少年穿的是美国“耐克”，但15岁的孩子爱看日本漫画、喜听韩国流行音 乐。
　　8.中国年轻人分为不同的群体。这有一 定的道理，年轻人总是“臭味相投”。但中国年轻人跟西方同龄人不同。在西方，我们可以用杂志、音乐或企业品牌来描述某个年轻人群体。这在中国不太适用，这 里的平面媒体规模相对较小，音乐也因为盗版而变得混乱。品牌偏好在大城市比较明显，而在其他地方则不然。那还剩下什么？名人崇拜、业余爱好。不过，这些都 不是固定不变的

Spring unresolved placeholder problem

Got an exception while bootstrapping a Spring-enabled web app - 

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Error registering bean with name 'securityService' defined in class path resource [securitySpring.xml]: Could not resolve placeholder 'security.sanitization.wrapper.enabled' ....


The issue happens to be a named property "${security.sanitization.wrapper.enabled}" in securitySpring.xml is not being defined in any of the external property file that are loaded onto the classpath. After putting security.sanitization.wrapper.enabled=true in one of the main property files that web app can see, the problem gets resolved.

Am I relying on Google too much?

This is what I gradually sensed and uncovered during putting myself into this Internet age - my ability of finding and utilising digital tools is probably much better than my dad, but when turning to initialising thoughts and traversing through logical steps before going to authorities for proofs, I am definitely worse than their generations.

The key is if you don't use it, you lose it over time. The reliance we have on the Internet makes us think less (my personal experience). It is no fault on Google or any other great Internet digital tools outta there, it is us and our surrounding environment that generates pressure on what we are assigned to achieve. We need to find a productive balance between thinking, actioning and productivity.

Haiti Is Owed

Philosophers are often criticized for not being pragmatic, especially when a disaster already stroke. We tend to deliberately ignore true causes for seemingly high ethical reasons. Here is Ted Rall talking about why Haiti is owed. By the way he is a popular American political cartoonist. Article can be found here –

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-13

But I think Ted overblamed the U.S. because in true history, it was the French having planting the seeds. I read a similar article by an Chinese writer couple of days ago, but thought his words despite being true proven by various history books will be rebuffed by the western media. Now nice to see someone from the opposite camp express the same view.

Why Does the U.S. Care About Haiti?

Since 12th of Jan, 2010, Haiti has been devastated by sever earthquakes. Among other countries, the U.S. has been the most active sending navy carriers and troops to the poor island nation. You wonder why besides the U.S. being a great democracy who values human rights?

Where is Cuba and where is Haiti? Maps do not lie. Stationing troops in Haiti will help America choke Cuba from two directions.

 Secondly, Haiti has been well-known for its wide plantation of coffee beans, sugar and indigo, very sought-after commodities in today's market and from a long run with BRIC increasing their appetite.

Why System.out.println("logging messages") is bad

It is university assignment standard to conduct logging, and it is bad.

- is always printed to output stream
- shows information in the console that is not relevant for the end user
- code must be deleted/commented out to disable output
- programmer must take care of formatting
- no filtering, everything is printed out
- unknown which part in the code generated the output

Man, I saw heaps of System.outs in an industry-renowned production system. So don't be surprised professional coders are still using the mechanism for logging. Sigh...

Google will leave China, Yes or No?

Either way, Google has to gain something for their decision and the true consequence can only emerge in the long run. Either decision has to be well contemplated. Claiming leaving just for the censorship seems too naive and in some aspects conspiratory. I would say they won't leave even though Chinese consumers are not giving them too much attention, only 30% of the market occupancy and that is shared with Yahoo and a few small players. It is long way behind Baidu.com.

But I have to admit I am a Google fan.