Air Canada: Drama in the Air

It's been a long time since posting here, due to busyness of course.  Will eventually get this blog going again with more updates.

The Christmas week was an enjoyable time visiting friends and family in Vancouver were I'm originally from. More on that in another post.

But getting back to Shanghai was quite the story.

The airline was Air Canada.  Generally they are quite good, and today was like that.  The best part is the in-flight movie entertainment.  The flight attendants are quite attentive and friendly.  They serve at least two meals on board for the 12 hour direct flight.  Today's flight was just a little more than half-full which was great, as I could catch a bit of sleep on the flight.  Moreso than usual.  What sucks, however, is the policies with check-in baggage, and of course, the all pervasive airport security.  That shouldn't come as a surprise nowadays, but it still sucks big time.

Somehow I had this feeling that the flight would not go uneventfully, and that was indeed the case.  For starters, an hour delay.  No big deal, it was relaxing to chat with friends at Starbucks beforehand and then eventually go through security.   But the package I was delivering for friends had a problem with security.  There were two large bottles of Vaseline and other lotions, not to mention boxes of baby powder.  The powder they let me carry through, but the liquids had to be either checked in or given up.

I decided to go back through the line and check them in, hoping that Air Canada would not charge $70 for the extra bag this time, as they had said at first.  The initial charge for the second bag was what made me carry the huge extra bag as carry-on luggage in addition to the laptop and other carry-on bag.  At the check-in desk, the person was friendly, but she still insisted on the $70 extra bag charge.  Apparently my ticket only entitled me to one check-in bag, not two as in previous times.

Despite the usual attempts to smile, tell a story, and add some humor, the clerk wasn’t going to relent from the $70.  So the conversation went something like this:

"I have an idea, how about mailing these two bottles of lotion to Shanghai?  Is there a post office in the airport?"

      "Yes, there is a 7-11 store that can do that here.  It will still cost a lot, perhaps half of what is the fee for checking in the bags."

       "Hmm, I see."

       "What I can do for you is this … can go ahead and put the luggage tag on this bag, then you go and find out the cost of shipping.  If you decide to mail it, then will take off the tag and you can carry the bag on.  If not, will check it through.  Either way, the gate closes in 20 minutes."

      "I see."

      "Either way, it is going to be very expensive lotion."    (laughs)

I appreciate the humor, but this wasn't exactly a laughing matter at the time.  With a half-full flight, the airline could have easily checked the bag through with no problem at all.  But no, Air Canada was a stickler for the rules.  In this day and age of air travel, and especially in the land of Canada, that should come as no surprise.

So I got on the phone and made arrangements for my friend to come back to the airport, pick up the lotion bottles, and then someone else would carry them through separately on a different trip to Shanghai.  I’d still transport the baby powder.  In hindsight, knowing about this stupid recently changed one-bag policy would have made me pack the bags differently.

Once through security for the second time, I got subjected to a random body search.  The options were either a pat down or the body scanner.  I chose the scanner.  The airports in North America are beyond ridiculous with their security now, and it only one more reason out of many to keep living overseas.  Even so, despite my views on these goddamn scanners, I had to cooperate and play by the rules.  The way I see it is this. I only go through the scanner once and am then on my way, while the chumps who operate the scanner have to face it every day.

Once on board the flight, there was a problem.  As the plane taxied out of the gate, a sick woman on board basically collapsed in the aisle.  Oh no, all I could think about was if she was OK or not.  The captain was smart to make the call to return to the gate, and the paramedics came on and took the passenger off the airplane.  More waiting after that, as the airline had to do a crew change due to labor regulations.  All told it caused a 4 hour delay.  This was extremely unpleasant, but the flight attendant told me later that the alternative would have been far worse.  That is to say, if the sick passenger collapsed while in the air over the Pacific, they would have to turn the plane around and fly back.

Thoughts on the MMT So Far

Related to the last post, the MMT is a Masters of Mathematics for Teachers, offered online to math teachers by the University of Waterloo.

Having taken 3 full courses now (81.25% cumulative GPA)  and most recently dropped the ball on one  course (doesn't affect my GPA) here are my findings on the program.

First of all, the program is going to take lots of time!  Working and doing a masters at the same time is quite brutal, and the total workload should not be underestimated.  In this context, taking a summer semester off each year really does make sense, as I'm glad I came to my senses at the last minute and decided to drop a summer masters course.

I would seriously expect 4 to 5 years to do this.  Of course there is the option to take time off work and do the program, which is worth considering.  But the overall economics work better if you work and do the masters, even over a longer time period.

Secondly, I've been impressed with some courses and disappointed with others.

The software program (Math 600) was by far the most useful.  It is an excellent place to begin the program with a professor who can't be beat.  She explains in very clear details what you need to do, and if you follow her assignments to the letter you get high marks and learn foundational software programs that will be of great use for the entire program.  I got a 95% in that course and was very satisifed with it.  The fundamental program is Latex which is used for typeset mathematics.

Mathematical proofs was a huge disappointment.  Theory has never been my strong point, but the course itself was taught by the number one professor to avoid, who is the same guy in charge of the History course (see last post).  Even so I plan to take some time this summer to review the proofs material and understand it at a more deeper level.  I scraped by with 75% in that course.

Calculus foundations was interesting but a bit misleading because it was really a course in mathematical analysis, not calculus.  And so this analysis involved another type of theory and proofs.  I got a decent mark in that, 85%, although I still need to review the material in summer as well.

In looking at the course offerings for the upcoming semesters, there is a whole lot more theory on the buffet table, but not as much practical stuff as I would hope to see.  There is finance and modeling, which I want to get my hands on.   I wish there would be a course in cryptography, but I have yet to find it. 

Dropped a Masters Course

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For the sake of my own sanity, I had to do it.  As mentioned in previous posts, I'm currently taking a MMT program, which is Masters of Math for Teachers, offered by the University of Waterloo.  The masters degree is online, which means of course that it is designed for people, i.e. teachers, who work and do the course simultaneously.

At this point I must clear up two common misconceptions that everyone I have talked to who isn't taking this program seems to think about this program.  First, this masters degree is not an education masters, I repeat it is NOT about education, or anything to do with a MEd or MA.  This program focuses on hardcore math content knowledge.  The term 'for teachers' doesn't mean that the program is designed to help people become better math teachers.  Rather 'for teachers' simply means those are the people taking the program.

Secondly, this is not one of those online masters degrees you can do in two years, as most people I know seem to have been able to accomplish with various other types of masters degrees.  If it takes you three years to do this program, then you're pushing yourself, either by taking summer courses or multiple courses per semester -- in which case you would likely not be working a full-time job at the same time.

Realistically it will take you 4 years, even 5 years to do this while you're working and taking the program at a reasonable pace.  This was what I wrote in previous blogs, but the ongoing temptation was for me to jump the gun and try to accelerate the pace to 3 years, thus aiming to get it done by June 2014.

Well it turns out that I was under the impression that a certain course 'History of Mathematics' was easier and could be done during summer semester (May through July) because it simply involved reading and essay writing.  Unfortunately I didn't do enough research and signed up for the course from what colleagues said.  I was expecting an easy breezy reading course, after a hardcore run of math content over the past two semesters. 

Nothing could have been further from the truth.  This course was the most brutal one yet, based on many factors.  Workload, types of assignments, and tons of new math content to learn.  Basically we would have to learn a whole new set of math content each week for each mathematician we were learning the history of, in additional to reading and essay writing.  Then a final project worth 60% of the mark where 20 pages was the minimum -- all using a new software program that I'm still getting the hang of.

The worst part of all was that none of this information about expectations was found in the course description, and one could easily believe this was a reading course, strictly going from that.

As a case in point, the first week was all about cryptography, based on the mathematician William Tutte.  He was essentially responsible for cracking the codes that the Nazis used in the war and spying on the enemy communications.  Tutte was able to confirm through his code cracking that the enemy believed the Allied Troops were going to land their ships at a certain bluff spot, when in fact the troops would land at Normandy for the surprise that ultimately won the war. 

Tutte did amazing work in cracking the enemy codes from what they used as a 'Fish Machine' and Tutte essentially built the first computer from scratch in order to do this.

If we only needed to read about this amazing man and write essays on his work, that would be great.  However, the first week of this course also required that we delve deep into cryptography and solve ciphers ourselves, specifically the Vigenere Cipher.  A brutal first written assignment was only worth 8% of the course mark yet I spent nearly 20 hours learning cryptography for the first time and applying it to solve the problems we were required to do.  The directions for the assignment were very vague and so I invented methods of my own that were totally different from the methods that the prof insisted we use.

Based on my learning thus far, I find cryptography to be fascinating, however, this topic would easily be enough to justify a whole math masters course in itself, not just one mere week. 

The sad fact is that after this week, we move on to a new topic with a new mathematician, and have to learn a whole new set of math content related to whoever the guy happens to be.  For example, next week we learn about Euclid, and of course there is new math to learn for that, specifically Euclidean solutions to quadratic equations.  The week after that we get into Islamic mathematicians, and learn a whole new set of math related to their contributions  Of course we need to learn about Islam background too.

All in all, a good course, but let's be honest:  each week is a bloody module in itself!  The workload alone for this course would kill me.  Combined with the fact that May and June are the busiest times of the school year, it was a matter of necessity that I had to drop this course.

There is no penalty, I get my full money back and the drop doesn't show on the transcript, as long as this takes place before May 21.

AP Exam Looming

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Grade 12 students are set to write their AP Calculus exam this Wednesday.  They have a very good chance of doing well, based on the results from their practice test I arranged in class last week.  Finally our school got approved for a code, and all the previous mess involved in this process has been sorted out.

Flight Delays: A Serious Problem

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I recently came back from a very successful shopping trip to Hong Kong over the May Holiday extended weekend.  However, it was also extremely crowded.  Read all about it here

www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/10285

Our flight was delayed almost 3 hours on the way down.  Not surprisingly, very little information was given to the passengers as to the reason(s) why the flight was delayed, or when it would take off.  They simply told us things like "please wait" and "we will tell you more information later"

Any frequent flyer in China would experience this kind of thing, and it is in fact a normal experience.  The horror stories related to delayed flights would no doubt be dramatic, and I could certainly tell a few of them.

From time to time, passengers have been known to take extreme measures to get compensation, such as refusing to leave the plane on arrival.  My concern is that as flight delays and the whole Chinese air travel experience gets worse and worse every year, the actions that passengers take to get compensated are more and more extreme.

Read about two recent cases in which passengers got out and stormed the tarmac in protest, which is a severe violation of aviation law.

www.szdaily.com/content/2012-04/18/content_6663535.htm

Something has to be done to address this issue of air travel in China as the problem is reaching a crisis point.  Airports in the Pearl River Delta region are the worst of all.  This includes Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.

http://www.businesstraveller.asia/asia-pacific/news/mainland-china-flight-delays-reaching-serious-levels

Until then, my advice is to always expect delays when flying domestic, build it into your schedule, and be prepared to wait long hours.  Ironically, air travel is the best way I can think of to work on your patience and build your character.

Despite the lack of infomation, airlines and airports undersand how emotional this can be to people, so they at least try their best to help in anyway they can.  This is a gesture that should be appreciated.  They do things like provide food early if the plane is sitting on the tarmac to soothe the passengers' neves.  If you happen to be stuck in an airport in Dalian, then the airport will provide cheerleaders to ease the pain.

http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/life/china-airport-brings-cheerleaders-soothe-stranded-passengers-578937?hpt=hp_mid

That is a very creative idea.  Next I want to see is massage services at airports.  I bet they would do a booming business.

HSBC Shanghai, It's Been Nice Knowing You

But it's time to say goodbye.  After wiring all the money that needed to be wired, then withdrawing all the remaining cash, the next logical thing to do was close down the account.  Predictably they asked why.  I simply told them I had gone to Hong Kong and opened a SmartVantage account with HSBC over there, thus I didn't need the existing Advantage account in Shanghai anymore.  I could have told them their customer service was crap, and it took 3 painfully slow weeks to send and receive overseas money transfers.  But what would be the point of telling them that?  It's not their fault, it's the mainland banking rules.

As mentioned in previous posts, the HSBC SmartVantage account is not offered on the mainland.  It is, however, offered in Hong Kong and it only requires a minimum balance of HKD 10,000.  If you don't have that, there is a 'below balance fee' of HKD 60 every month.  The SmartVantage account is multi-currency, with over 15 major world currencies available.  Plus you have access to many other services.

Compare this with the Advance and Premier multi-currency accounts.  These are also available in Hong Kong with minimum balances of HKD 200,000 and HKD 1 million respectively.  Or else you pay a below balance fee of HKD 200 or HKD 500 respectively.

On mainland China, the only multi-currency accounts offered are with the Advance and Premier.  But that requires RMB 100,000 or RMB 500,000 respectively.  Or else a below balance fe of RMD 150 a month or RMB 500 a month.

The HKD and RMB used to be on par, but now 1 RMB = 1.25 HKD

To make a long story short, the Shanghai bank account served its purpose, which was to wire money to Thailand in my name, as it would have been unrealistic to go down to Bangkok for a day or two and carry cash

I was, however, able to carry cash and physically go down to Hong Kong during business hours.  Then I opened an account there last month.  Will be going again during the May holiday to help a colleague do likewise.  Going down in person is essentially the only way to open a HK-based account, which is certainly possible for non-HK residents .  There are rumors that you can open one by staying on the mainland, but this is only a rumor.  If it were possible, it would be an incredible amount of trouble.  That's just China.  But you go to the other China, that is HK, and it is easy breezy.  Welcome to one country, two systems.

HSBC advertises itself as the world's local bank.  They also are known as Hong Kong and Shanghai Banknig Corporation.  But you can obviously see that the HK and SH branches are two totally separate local entities thus the 'world's local bank' is most certainly true.  To test the waters I wired a small amount of US cash from my SH account to the HK account and got charged an extortionate rate.  The mainland banking rules are mainly to blame for this, as other HSBC branches in the world don't charge as much for comparable wire transfers.

To get money into the HK acount you'd somehow have to avoid the mainland banks entirely.  In which case you'd want to wire it in directly from overseas, or take cash and carry it across the border into HK.

Lots of Upgrades

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Amazing

As the title suggests, there are many upgrades coming up.  The main thing is the scooter will be replaced with a high-powered motorcycle, and the folding bike replaced with a professional mountain folding bike.  Then I'm getting a GPS unit and a notebook computer.  One has to wonder how I'm not broke, or soon to be broke after all this.

Going to Hong Kong over the May holiday break will be primarily how all this is accomplished.  Also going to help a colleague open a HSBC SmartVantage bank account, drawing on the success I had with that last trip, we're both heading on down.

Meanwhile, 69 more days until summer vacation starts.  You can read all about that on my biking website.  Lots of recent success on there about getting to Chongming Island and Jiangsu province from the cty.

www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/10285

But I'm primarily concentrating now on preparing students for AP Calculus exam this coming May 9.  That day will happen sooner than you think.