Hello… Sunday, Aug 18 2013
General 11:28 am
Hello…. I am lin here. I can see some of my friends here..
Panhandling Sunday, Aug 18 2013
General and Life Like That 4:53 am
In order to encourage friends old and new to get to know each other, I am going to post a few more blogs to stir up the discussions and conversation. I posted this one the other day on my Facebook. I hope to get people here talking as well.
I invited a friend over for lunch the other day. I told him about one incident I encountered in Bucharest. We ended up with a debate after lunch. The following is the incident I mentioned to him.
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One night when I went out for a walk in Bucharest, I saw a little girl no more than 6 years old out on the street after 9 o’clock at night. She was holding a picture of Jesus and sitting alone around the street corner by the hotel begging for money.
I was very sympathetic but I knew that if I gave her money, it would just encourage her parents to continue such a terrible ordeal for the little one. On my way back to the hotel, sure enough, the little girl had moved across the street sitting on the ground and falling asleep in a male’s arms behind a car. I assumed that he was the father. Further down the road, I saw a female with two other children begging for money again. This scene of panhandling is very common in Romania.
I know the situation in Romania is dire, but we have people panhandling in all major metropolitans in North America, too. My friend insisted that he would definitely give money to those panhandlers because it is a profession that those people choose. Really?
Many panhandlers we have encountered here in Toronto are homeless drifters who chose to live that way. There is government social assistance available to some extent to help those people, but many of them have decided to opt out and panhandle on the street instead. So, for some of them, it is a life style decision by choice.
For the panhandlers in Romania, it is a complicated situation because the whole country is going through the growing pain of social and economic development ever since the fall of Communism. Some older Romanians are still romanticising with the social stability and the security that the Communist government used to bring to the old country. Right now, the social security is literally non-existent.
However, to give the littler girl money is somewhat indirectly encouraging her parents to put her on the street every night to beg for the sympathy from the passerby. I somehow struggle with the thought of “selling the kid for money”. Anyway, it was very difficult for me to walk by the kids without doing anything to help them. That was a restless night afterwards.
Is panhandling really a profession? What do you think?
My Comment to How Could I…? Sunday, Aug 18 2013
General 12:02 am
I did it with my Canadian flag! I just cropped it down to less than 120×120 for the avatar. Then it was uploaded perfectly. I had more trouble cropping than downloading. hehehe….
I have trouble leaving the comments as well. That is why I put it here as a blog article. this would be my next experiment. I wonder if I have to set it up somewhere to make it work, or it simply awaits for the moderator to come check on it.
For leaving a comment in the forum, if I click “quote” I can reply to you by quoting the passage you just posted, it worked very well for me. That is why you would see the exchange between D Korean and I had quote in quote boxes.
That is something that we have to figure out. All it takes is time. Time……………………..!
Post Note:
I just went back to check and at the bottom of your blog page has a line called Comment Fields. I clicked it and it suddenly has a + sign appeared. Does that mean we have to physically turn it on to leave a comment space? That I don’t know but it is worth exploring.
How could I?… Saturday, Aug 17 2013
General 5:13 pm
Hi everyone,
I have some problems here.
How can I upload an avatar? I succeeded uploading my avatar picture as a picture in an album, but the system denies using it as an avatar. It’s a 120X120 jpeg or jpg picture with a more or less decent content.
How could I leave a comment? I click on “Say it!” - the page relaods (or something), but nothin happenes.
Now I see how to avoid the procedure of logging in through my e-mail box, but is it necessary to use a password for the chatting box again and again?
migration from Nciku..desperately needing help!! Saturday, Aug 17 2013
General 8:58 am
I must say.. I look like an alien here or this website looks like an alien to me..????
I think I need a long time to get used to whole thing. Uploading pictures will be the major one needless to mention the rest
Only the Lonely Friday, Aug 16 2013
General 11:19 am
This site appears to be quite interesting because it seems to be so “abandoned”. The last blog published before mine was from 275 days ago. Now, I hope the admin is still visiting the site once in a while to update the site.
I remember last time when I visited a blog such as this one was at English.tw. It was a small and lonely site just like this place when it was first established. A group of good fellows got together and helped the site owner establish the reputation. Unfortunately, the site admins changed hands a few times and ended up with someone who did not quite had the same vision. Finally, one by one, the old members left and moved to Nciku.
Nicku Taiwan was shut down last year, and now Nciku China will soon face the same fate. The members on Nicku are trying to collect others’ email addresses, Facebook, and Skype accounts. However, the special feature about a social site is where everyone could easily see the others’ activities at one time in one place. This is what those social network sites have yet to achieve.
Hopefully, I will make new friends and bring some of my old pals here to re-establish the social network.
Searching for a new home Friday, Aug 16 2013
General 10:22 am
This site seems to be a fairly lonely place. I am on a quest to search for a new home for a group of bloggers. Some people think that the bonding effect through a social network is often short-lived. That might be true in most cases, but some results in long-term friendship are also evident. A social network platform is needed because one of the sites that I frequent is soon to be terminated. This site seems to be a quiet place in need of some actions. Maybe it will be able to host a group of soon-to-be homeless bloggers. 
)
julia1492
That’s cute, that’s really cute. Wednesday, Nov 14 2012
General 1:18 am
I read a pretty funny news today while having lunch in the office about the fire department got an urgent call from an old lady reporting that there’s a “dinosaur” intruding into her house and scaring all people out of sh*t. She asked the firemen to capture this prehistoric creature ASAP. When the firemen rushed to round up the so-called dinosaur, they found the dreadful intruder was a “green iguana” in 50 cm body length that seemed to be kept as a house pet but got away from its owner.
That poor little dinosaur ended up being caged and the old lady finally could ease up and sleep well. I meant who would call an iguana a dinosaur??? LMAO I couldn’t stop laughing out loud when I read the comments from reviewers suggesting this old lady to watch more Animal planet or Nat Geo Wild
channel. If a tiny lizard could be called a dinosaur, then the Komodo Dragon must be a Godzilla.
That’s cute, that’s really cute.
22July2012 Xi An trip Sunday, Jul 22 2012
General 11:14 pm
After half a year, I am going to Xi Xian tonight for a project briefing. Xi Xian is a new proposed city between Xian Yang and Xi An.
Admin booked the ticket to xi an via Beijing. It was reported that Beijing was having the worst storm yesterday with some fatal casualties. And the airport was shut down until today. I hope everything is ok as I am on the way to Beijing.
This is a 4 days trip to catch up with old friends.