Lev Lafayette's journal

The second part of my visit to Nanjing was now more formally part of the Jiangsu People-to-People Conference. Whilst other conference attendees made their way to the truly impressive Nanjing City Wall and Zhonghua Gate I went to Zhongshan Mountain Park instead, as I visited the Wall the night before on my back to the hotel from the Confucian temple and academy area of Fuzi Miao. The evening visit was helped by meeting two young mechanical engineering students from Yunnan province, extra-memorable as we almost managed to get ourselves stuck on the wall's confines as we travelled so far engaging in excellent conversation on China, Australia, and scholarship.

The practical upshot was that I had a morning spare, and the visit to the Zhongshan Mountain Park was glorious in its beauty. There are several notable attractions at the Park, all of which are deserving a visit, but I had a particular priority to pay homage and go to the Mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, "father of modern China", first president of the Republic. Sun Yat-Sen was a practical revolutionary and a highly nuanced political, economic, and national theorist whose views, drawing on liberalism, socialism, and anarchism, have certainly been extremely influential on my own. The grounds of the Mausoleum, buried according to his wishes, provides an astounding view of Nanjing.

After our hosts provided a banquet lunch (which would be followed by a banquet dinner, and then another banquet dinner the following day), I rejoined the international guests for a visit to the Grand Baoen Museum Buddhist Temple. The museum part included a good number of relics and in situ archaeological digs, along with some delightful modern artworks. The reconstructed pagoda temple is an attraction in its own right, but it is difficult to capture the original porcelain beauty that captured the imagination of so many visitors; alas, it was destroyed in the Taiping Revolution.

The following day was a more formal part of the conference. Moderated by the vice-governor of Jiangsu Province, Fang Wei, an excellent opening speech was given by the governor, Xu Kunlin, and was followed by a variety of former politicians and ambassadors from around the world, because that's the sort of people I sometimes run with. There were over 40 countries represented by some 145 attendees, with 17 international speakers, including yours truly. I spoke about the history of the Australia-China Friendship Society, our work in building cultural ties and understanding, and the formal relationship that the state of Victoria has with Jiangsu Province. It was particularly notable that some speakers made a point of China's commitment to "green technology"; despite being the world's biggest manufacturer, and producer of greenhouse gases, China already has falling GHG emissions, along with massive implementation of renewable technologies, forestration, and electric vehicles. We could certainly learn from them.

I find myself in Melbourne for a mere several days between concluding my recent holiday to China and returning to said country for a conference, and intresting enough, a new city for me to visit (Nanjing) albeit one relatively close to the several just visited (Beijing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou, and Shanghai). The purpose of this upcoming visit is an international conference for the 70th anniversary of Jiangsu (Province) Friendship Associations and I'll be there in an official capacity and, so I've been told, I'm expected to give a brief speech on behalf of the small Australian delegation. Between work demands, and a furious effort to get in some substantial progress on my Euclid University doctoral studies, I've even managed to get a hint of a social life with a couple of enjoyable dinners with friends and a couple of gaming sessions (along with moving of the substantial RPG Review Cooperative library to my premises).

I'm also going to take this opportunity to express my valedictions to the recent passing of activist and author Tracy Sorensen. We knew each other quite well in the mid to late 1980s in Western Australia when we were both involved in the youth wing of what would be the Democratic Socialist Party. Fellow-comrade at the time, Neville Spencer has written a very good summary of Tracy's life for "Green Left Weekly" and, the day before she died, a rather heartfelt account of meeting her partner was published in "The Guardian". Although Tracy and I had not really been in contact for literally decades, I do have very fond memories of her excellent humour, steadfast commitment to justice and environmentalism, and her excellent organisational ability. The universe has been a bit unjust in taking her early, yet with her whimsical sense, she even managed to write about her illness from her organ's point-of-view. So fare well, old comrade and friend. It truly was a honour to know you.

Last Saturday was my last day in Melbourne for the next two weeks, and it witnessed four significant events. The first was the Isocracy Annual General Meeting discussing the rather extraordinary results of the Federal election. Our guest speaker, John Bade, is a former Liberal Party member of some note (branch president, state council delegate etc) and spoke on how the party really has been taken over by extreme religious activists who think the rest of Australia must move to them, a major factor in that party's decline. Afterwards, I went to the Effective Altruism conference, which concluded with a public lecture by famous ethicist Peter Singer. I spent a bit of time in the company with Adam Ford, who was the official photographer for the event, and then conversed a bit with Prof Singer about his earlier publications and rats (he's a rat fancier himself and speaks highly of them as animal companions). To conclude the evening I went to final session of "Notre Dame After Dark" at the Immigration Museaum, because the opportunity to hear some fine music in such surroundings was quite enticing.

The next morning, Erica and I ventured out to the airport to take the big silver bird to China, where we are staying for the next ten days. The first day was pretty much entirely in transit, first to Shanghai, then taking a connecting flight to Beijing. There is not much to report on this, except to say that the flight was tolerable, the food fine, the staff excellent, and the in-house entertainment limited. "Sirrocco" is a surreal children's animated film of escapism of sisterly love which can appeal to adult viewers with good characterisation and plot, but the animation, whilst creative, lacked a little in technique; 4/5. "Dune 2" was well produced with a good soundtrack, but I felt no sense of appeal with the plot and characters all based around violence and machismo. I am tempted to give it another viewing as I was surprised by how bad it was; 2/5. "Solitude" started slowly, but developed into a grim and tragic tale of loneliness, generosity, and an intergenerational friendship with an ambiguous ending; 3/5.

The first day proper in Beijing started with a visit to Tian'anmen Square, which, of course, is flanked by several important national buildings (e.g., the parliament). The square itself is just a vast courtyard, and it's fascinating in its blandness, even if, with all the usual connotations of Chinese geomancy, it represents the head of the city's land dragon. After that, we went to Qianmen Avenue (the body), which has some rather charming alleyways running parallel to the main drag. In the evening, we were treated to a rather extraordinary theatrical piece, "The Golden Mask", a legendary tale. This show has, in my somewhat considerable experience, the most extraordinary set and costumes, including several performers with actual live white peacocks as part of their costumes and a literal flooding of the stage. Two more days in Beijing are planned, including an excursion to The Great Wall, an evening in the Old City, and finally a morning in the Museum Palace (aka the Forbidden City). But all that will have to wait for the next post on this adventure.

Last Saturday saw the re-election of the Albanese Labor government, decisively defeating the Dutton Liberal-National Coalition. Labour was able to offer a fairly solid social-democratic programme that wouldn't scare the horses, whilst also running on a record of carefully steering the economy and Australian sovereignty among the international chaos caused by the U.S. President. Dutton, on the other hand, was clearly wedded to the Trump agenda, as well as advocating the interests of mining corporations through an incredibly expensive nuclear plan, along with flip-flopping on major policy decisions. The scoreboard tells the story; on two-party-preferred, this is the best Federal election result for the Australian Labor Party since 1943 and the worst ever result for the LNP coalition since they were formed. It's a truly significant result (for both winners and losers) and will be the discussion theme for the Isocracy AGM in a fortnight's time.

For my own part, I spent election day volunteering at the Southbank Primary polling booth, which received a positive swing of 8% on primaries, clearly helped by the presence of the MP. Labor, Greens, and Liberal volunteers were all pretty friendly to each other, although I did receive a few words from one young Greens volunteer who argued that the population needs to move to their position, rather than the Greens being more electorally palatable. Principled to the point of permanent opposition, only the impotent are pure and all that. He also recommended that I read "Capitalist Realism" and seemed quite surprised that I downloaded and read it (it's only eighty pages) under an hour, along with having some harsh words about it. It's basically psycho-political cultural anthropology (Lacan, Zizek, Jameson), all stuff I'd encountered in my undergraduate days decades ago. The fact that it mentioned climate change in passing on two brief moments was indicative of the sort of practical implications the publication has (i.e., not much).

On a somewhat related matter, last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending a little doctoral graduation party for former Labor candidate Dr Wesa Chau; a good collection of her favourites from the international student community and some local Party activists. I will count this is as the beginning of a few China-related events that I have in the coming weeks; firstly a social dinner for the Australia-China Friendship Society on Thursday, then on the 11th a visit by the Sichuan Friendship Society at UniMelb to discuss economic and cultural ties and development, and then on the 14th a high-level delegation from Guizhou Province on cultural and education ties. After that, Erica and I are boarding the big silver bird to visit said country for a fortnight's holiday, a trip that includes visits to Beijing, Shanghai, and the Great Wall. Then I have to go back again a fortnight later! But more about that in another post.

The past several days have included a few noteworthy China-related events that I have been involved in. The first was a mini-conference and trade delegation from Anhui Province (you know, just sixty million people). The second was a radio interview with 3CR in my role as state president of the Australia-China Friendship Society. The third was attending the launch of (Australia's former ambassador to China) Geoff Raby's latest book "Great Game On: The contest for Central Asia and Global Supremacy" and finally, as an upcoming event, the Annual General Meeting this Thursday of the Australia-China Friendship Society, where I am re-nominating as president.

The Anhui conference at Pullman Melbourne On The Park in East Melbourne was attended by roughly 120 people and included various business representatives from the province and Victoria, with a notable presence from various vehicle manufacturers located in Anhui and the Australia China Business Council. I ended up meeting with several representatives from their Department of Culture and Tourism and, knowing just a little about the culture of the area, suggested a dual tour of the Anhui Opera (Hui Opera predates even the Peking Opera) with the Victorian State Opera. That apparently has set tongues a-wagging among both groups (it helps to have contacts), so don't be surprised if I unexpectedly end up adding "International Opera Tour Organiser" in the next year or so.

On Saturday morning, I had a lengthy interview meeting with Jesse Boyd from 3CR, who hosts the Wednesday morning breakfast show which, unsurprisingly, will be broadcast this Wednesday. Without giving too much away, items of discussion included the ACFS, travel to China, their economic successes, especially in poverty alleviation, and the often utterly wrong portrayal and predictions of the country by our capitalist media who, unsurprisingly, don't want anyone to think that their political economy could be a better model in some cases.

Dovetailing quite nicely into this was Geoff Raby's book launch tonight and panel discussion with several academics, hosted by the University of Melbourne and Asialink. With approximately 150 people in attendance, Raby presented a case that Russia and China both had competing strategic interests and a competing history over the central Asia republics ("the 'stans", as they are sometimes called), even if they cooperated in other areas. A political realist and far more knowledgeable than most of our politicians on China matters, Raby presented a very compelling argument. The panel discussion was quite rigorous, with much debate around where Russia and China's relationship sat on the continuum of a "marriage of convenience" and a "marriage of values", a discussion spurred by UNSW Professor Mimi Zou's deft initiation and use of the metaphor.

All of this inevitably leads to some personal reflection. I know that I am in some danger of becoming a bit of a Sinologist despite what I consider a rather modest knowledge of the subject (even my knowledge of the standard Chinese language is only CEFR A2 level on a good day). Of course, there are certain enticements of being present with notable political, cultural, business and academic figures at such events, but after many years of being on the fringes of such things and with a discerning clarity of purpose, I feel rather inoculated from titles and the importance of others. My focus is based on pragmatic realism ("shí shì qiú shì", "seek truth from facts"), that this century is China's century, and no other country on the planet has the capability or interest to provide solutions to the problems of climate change and poverty eradication. Whilst certainly not as hedonistic as other lifestyles, this is living with meaning and intent.

One of the ways that affirmation occurs for those who live by the keyboard is that your essays are read and then circulated. I've had two such experiences recently. The first was my letter to members and associates of the Australia China Friendship Society (ACFS) Victoria on the 75th anniversary of its founding of the People's Republic. Apart from the hundreds of people it is distributed to normally, local members and other state branches have also asked me if they could forward and republish. The second such experience occurred just today when a member of East Timor Women Australia (ETWA) asked if they could republish my review of the Tais Exhibition and Symposium, as it includes a combination of a capsule history, personal experiences, and a review of both events.

If this wasn't enough, I have received similar feedback in recent days from multiple sources concerning three HPC workshops that I ran the week previous which started from the Linux command-line and ended with profiling and debugging MPI code, which is quite a firehose to drink from in three days if you're starting as a newbie. Over the years I have become accustomed to receiving positive feedback from doctoral and post-doctoral researchers from these workshops. After all, when you have complex problems and big datasets being introduced to supercomputing opens your eyes to computational possibilities. However, when such remarks are made by professors and lecturers with years of experience in the HPC world you can be forgiven for thinking that you've done a fairly good job. Apropos, in a few weeks I will be giving a presentation at eResesearch Australasia with the snappy title "The Spartan HPC Story: From Small Scale Experimental to Top500 and Beyond". This is story of a brave little supercomputer that started on sticky-tape and elastic bands and now is one of the most powerful systems in the world.

The third related item is that I've started work on my doctoral studies in climatology and sustainability. Being just a couple of weeks in it is an orientation period where one is introduced to the Euclid University way of doing things, which includes using their preferred tools. Coming from an open-source world it never ceases to surprise me how products like Microsoft Word (for example) are the default; a lot of this of course is because educators themselves teach how to use a tool rather than the underlying principles of learning such tools and then cycle of ignorance continues. For the shell game that is referencing systems, the University prefers Chicago-style referencing with Zotero for tracking (at least that is open-source). In the future, I may get an exemption to use my preference, IEEE style, notable for being spartan in implementation and free from unconscious biases.

The last leg of this year's trip to China started with a long drive to Shigatse, Tibet's second-largest city, a visit to the Tashilhunpo Monastery and staying at the Shiga Yangcha Grand Hotel. The Monastery grounds reminded me of the old parts of some European cities, whereas the hotel had a Victorian-colonial style (flocked wallpaper, dark wood features, lush curtains) all of which I quite enjoy. The following day we had a day of travel from Shigatse to Lhasa, to Chongqing, and eventually to Guangzhou which elder folk will know as Canton. The word "eventually" is due to the delay in the flight to Chongqing for a few hours. Despite the extended delay, I could only touch upon wandering among the enormous shopping centre of name-brands, which is not really my thing, but impressive in its scale.

Eventually, we reached Guangzhou and were whisked to the Chaoman Hotel located in the old town, next to the famous Pedestrian Street and near the arts and crafts district. Our post-midnight taxi driver was notable for being gruff, their "efficient" driving, and having the sort of physique that you would want him as a friend in a dark alley. I'll take this opportunity to mention that the Hotel had perhaps the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in (and I have some experience in a variety of sleeping locations). The following day we made our way around our surroundings, spending time at the Art Museum of Cantonese Opera, which included a live performance among the gardens. Cantonese opera, of which my knowledge is woefully insufficient, is really quite an extraordinary art form. Nearby was Blan Bunny, a rabbit-themed tea vendor which proved to be too cute to resist, and Bruce Lee Ancestor's residence, now turned into a museum. Rather famous for his martial arts films, Lee combined these skills with some rather insightful comments on personal development inspired by Taoist philosophy. The evening was topped off with a pleasant canal cruise.

For this final day, we started off at the Cheng Family Academy and Folk Arts Museum, an extraordinary building dating back from the days of the Imperial exams and now dedicated to historical and continuing arts and craft. From there we went to Sun Yat Sen's Memorial and Gardens. Revered as the founder of modern China for organising the revolution against the Qing dynasty and establishing the Chinese Republic, Sun Yat Sen has certainly been extremely influential in developing my own social and political theory, especially with his contributions to balancing nationalism and cosmopolitanism, the importance of resource rents as a foundation of social welfare, the importance of planned infrastructure on the large scale, and the modernisation of political systems. The gardens and memorial were fitting to the greatness of the man, with the central hall, in particular, being especially grand. Speaking of which, I now find myself at Guangzhou International Airport, an item of exceptional modernism and grandness. As I am about to board and return to Melbourne, I rather suspect that Sun Yat Sen would mostly approve of how China is developing.

Arriving at Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, we checked in to the Kyichi Hotel (aka Jiqu Fandian) and made a rendezvous with another fellow-traveller, Alison. Located near the Lhasa old town the hotel features comfort, an excellent style, and very pleasant dining courtyard. Lhasa, following a massive increase in Tibetan annual economic growth over the past thirty years (around fifty times, yes you read that right - although I haven't calculated real and per capita values), is a surprisingly modern bustling city with the central government pouring money for years into infrastructure and education with resulting commercial benefits; in 2020, the per capita disposable income was double the figure from 2010. The permanent population of the region of 3.5 million is at least 80% ethnic Tibetan (by language), although it does receive some forty million domestic tourists per annum, whilst foreign visitors is a mere 500,000.

The area does have some truly impressive cultural centres; on our second day we visited the Drepung Monastery and then the Sera Monastery, both home to monks of the Geluk ("yellow hat") sect, dominant in the region. The former monastery is the largest of its sort, whilst the latter is renowned for the theatrical "debating monks", which is more for show rather than an expression of serious differences. The following day was a visit to the massive Potala Palace, the historical seat of the Tibetan government and the local Jokhang Temple and finally, today, the Ganden Monastery and the "caves" (really nooks with small buildings attached) Drak Yerpa. Visiting these locations requires a degree of fitness; eschewing the modern conveniences of lifts etc, visitors will often have to climb several thousand steps and the temples themselves are located on mountain-sides.

As a strange aside, apparently locals and visitors alike think I'm an Australian yeti; I'm big, wild shoulder length hair, grey beard, etc, all of which makes me quite a novelty here. The yeti theory is the only logical conclusion that the travel group has come to on the number of people (men, women, monks, youngsters) who have asked me for photo opportunities. Whilst people are friendly and say "hello" to our group, but apparently I'm the exotic circus geek or something. I'm not too sure what to make of the woman who immediately rang her husband and tell him about the "super cute Australian" she had just met, or the marriage proposal from the security guard. This all said, tomorrow morning our party heads out into the countryside for my version of a temple - nature - and eventually to Mount Everest (aka Qomolangma to the locals).

I probably should leave out the "young" part at the very least, but Jesus Jones isn't young either. It seems that I am boarding a plane to China for a couple of weeks through the Australia-China Friendship Society, again without any work requirements (but some might come up) but for an actual holiday. Mind you, two ACFS committee meetings (National and Victorian) this week are probably enough! In addition to other international news, I've put in an application to do my doctorate at EUCLID University in Climate Science and Sustainability. The fact that this is a doctorate in climatology, and in a developing world context, and it's a United Nations treaty university, all ticks the boxes for me. The degree is all online means that I don't have to travel to Africa, but it does provide a good reason to visit if the opportunity arises. It's all a good fit: "Let's shock the world with what we know".

My pending departure has led to a rather full weekend. On Friday evening I had a classic wine and cheese night with Nitul, Anton, Andrew, and Erica in attendance. Erica and Mel joined the following day for an expedition out in the suburbs to buy various homewares that suit our style as elder goths. Julie, unable to join us on Friday night, turned up for dinner on Saturday evening and ended up at "Sopranos" which fits the bill of Italian "cheap and cheerful". On Monday I had a visit from Erica again for dinner which primarily consisted of the small mountain of leftovers from Friday night. Today I had a very pleasant visit from Ruby, where I was finally able to ply her with oysters, French champagne and French gin (Citadelle is pretty damn good), whilst discussing some of the finer points of fine art and creative writing. Of course, the week has many other events; there were two days of high performance computing workshops that went well. There was also a long and reflective literary and personal essay, "Lev The Idiot", which really deserves a follow-up from the Tolstoy perspective. But all that will have to wait at least a couple of weeks. The top of the world awaits!

It is more than several days since I've added a journal entry, but not for want of activity. Quite the contrary, there has been a great deal of finger-to-keyboard activity, not the least being a reiteration of the "zero state solution" in a recent article on the Isocracy Network, "Universal Rights from the River to the Sea". Plus my summary of the Environmental conference in China made it its way to the ACFS Newsletter at the end of last month, with a copy made publically available by yours truly. Further, there was the matter of Spartan finally making it in the Top500 world supercomputers after being eligible for many years but for actually conducting the necessary test, meaning that it was deserving of a summary write-up of its story. I have also been writing a great deal on Python performance issues, but these are yet to be released to the public, so that will have to wait for the next entry.

There have been many events in the past several days concerning interstate and international visitors. Liana F., had a birthday gathering last Friday which continued on today for all intents and purposes, with the consumption of a setting-appropriate kirstorte. The Friday gathering ended up at the Creature Bar and consisted of a gathering of four - Liana, myself, Simon S., and Julie A. We are all friends from more than 30 years ago in Perth, so it was an interesting migrant gathering, which was followed up with a visit from James N., and yesterday with a catch-up with Nathan B., visiting from Sydney at Naked for Satan, which provides the best views of any pub in Fitzroy. On Friday and Sunday, I spent time with Mel S., and Victoria S., both from Christchurch which is the other side of my migrant history (I am one of the few in Melbourne who can say that they are both a migrant from New Zealand and Western Australia, but such are circumstances), which included a visit to the Hellenic Museum. Last week also caught up with some of Alison B's friends at Hopscotch bar who were also part of a rather notorious UniMelb club that I had a tangential association with - the Friends Of Unnatural Llamas (FOUL).

On Thursday, Nitul D., took me to an Italian jazz event at the most politically powerful building in the state - government house. It took a while to find an open entrance, and we accidentally gatecrashed a wedding at Garden House for a while, but we finally made it to what is a truly impressive building. The following evening I helped Carla move into her new home (and put up some large but extremely well-designed shelving units), and the following day I joined the youthful Ru's Crew group the following day for another session of the boardgame, "Root" where my mighty river otters succeeded through position and assistance. Another moving session is planned for this Saturday. In summary, it has been a busy past several days - and I really must make use of some of those planned holidays (New Caledonia et al, alas, is delayed to January).