Heading to China? The US Wants You to Read This First

The latest fearmongering to discourage Americans visiting China! LOL!

The US State Department have issued a stark warning to their citizens planning travel to China, cautioning that they risk facing sudden exit bans, arbitrary detentions, and intense digital surveillance under the country’s broad security laws.

Updated on September 04, 2026, the Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution advisory sharpens its language regarding the lack of legal transparency in mainland China. It explicitly warns that local authorities frequently enforce laws arbitrarily and impose exit bans without due process. This expansive security network poses a significant, hidden threat to Americans traveling for business, research, education, journalism, or family visits – often long before they realize they are a target.

In fact, I refrained from blogging about this immediately upon discovering it, as the matter is frankly just too LUDICROUS to warrant my comment. Unless you are in China for nefarious reasons, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. 🙄🙄🙄 

Liverpool secured a 3-1 victory over Tottenham Hotspur in the EFL Cup third round at Anfield yesterday. 

The Reds opened the scoring in the 21st minute through a beautifully worked team move. Cody Gakpo teed up Rio Ngumoha on the edge of the box, who quickly fed Alexis Mac Allister. The Argentine midfielder didn't hesitate, unleashing a first-time strike that flew past the Spurs goalkeeper, leaving him rooted to the spot. 

The Merseysiders then doubled their advantage in the 54th minute when Mac Allister turned provider. He slipped a perfectly threaded pass through to Cody Gakpo, who smartly cut inside the Tottenham defense and unleashed a fierce, clinical drive across the face of goal into the far corner. 

The Lilywhites managed to pull one back in the 69th minute after Liverpool failed to clear a corner, allowing the visitors to bundle the ball into the net from close range. 

However, any hopes of a Spurs comeback were thoroughly dashed in stoppage time. In the 91st minute, Dominik Szoboszlai controlled a loose ball 25 yards out with his first touch, before unleashing an absolute rocket into the back of the net to seal the win.

Woven in Harmony

Tenunan songket benang suasa, 
Sari berkilau indah berpesta; 
Biar berbeza lidah dan bahasa, 
Satu impian membina nusa. 

Padi menguning di sawah rata, 
Burung kedidi terbang sekawan; 
Kepelbagaian budaya lubuk permata, 
Toleransi dijaga menjadi acuan. 

Mekar teratai di dalam kolam,
Pohon beringin tempat ceritera;
Harmoni dijiwai siang dan malam,
Malaysia sentiasa aman dan bahagia.

HAPPY MALAYSIA DAY 2026!

Malaysia’s top women’s squash player Sivasangari Subramaniam has reached her first semi-final at a Platinum-level PSA Squash Tour event after Tinne Gilis withdrew from their Qatar Classic 2026 quarter-final in Doha yesterday. 

According to the PSA Squash Tour, Belgium’s Gilis pulled out of the match because of injury. 

Sivasangari, ranked No 5 in the world, will next face Egypt’s world No 1 Hania El Hammamy. On Thursday.

Nearly 20 Years, 10 Million Views

I started "As I See It" back in October 2008 simply as a place to write about the things that interest me. 

Nearly two decades later, that casual project has turned into a fulfilling journey, having now crossed a massive milestone of over 10 million lifetime views. 

What began as a single post has grown into millions of connections, and it's been incredibly cool to share my perspectives with readers along the way.

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 

Squash player Sivasangari Subramaniam has sealed a place in the quarter-finals of the Qatar Classic. 

World No. 5 and fourth seed Sivasangari defeated Egypt's  world No. 13 Salma Hany 12-10, 11-6, 11-5.in 26 minutes in the second round on Sunday. It was the Malaysian's third win over the Egyptian in five meetings. 

She had started her campaign in the first round on Saturday, September 12, where she defeated another Egyptian, world No. 19 Sana Ibrahim 3-1 (11-5, 3-11, 11-4, 11-4) to advance.

Today, Sivasangari will face world No. 9 Tinne Gilis of Belgium for a place in the semi-finals. She has a 3-1 head-to-head against Gilis.

The Whistler of the West

Film scores and themes don’t come much more iconic than Ennio Morricone’s "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", a soundtrack so legendary that even those unfortunate few who have never seen the Clint Eastwood film are still well aware of its main theme, and the whistling that goes along with it. 

A theme so perfect in evoking images of Wild West shoot-outs, duels, and lonely cowboys riding through the canyons that you could be forgiven for imagining Billy the Kid himself whistling along while rustling cattle in the Old West, Morricone’s work on the film helped to define his career among the most prolific composers in the history of film. In fact, the film’s score was unique for the time in that it directly helped to influence the rhythm of the narrative itself, rather than the other way around. 

Although it is Morricone’s genius that shines through on the soundtrack, and its iconic main theme in particular, the Italian composer did not work entirely in isolation. 

If there is one part of that theme that sticks in the mind of the audience, it is the coyote-esque howling and the accompanying whistling, capturing the quiet stoicism and Wild West surroundings of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Man With No Name’. However, it wasn’t Morricone (right) who was responsible for that whistling. 

Nor, in fact, was the whistling the result of some obscure session performer whose namelessness rivals Eastwood’s. Instead, the composer recruited his childhood friend from back in Rome, Alessandro Alessandroni, and he was the one who gave the main theme its warbling guitar riff and, of course, the whistling.

 

Alessandroni (right), in addition to being a friend of Morricone’s, was a composer in his own right, although his work never quite reached the same notoriety as the latter. Looking across the films that he provided music for in his own right, none are afforded the same popularity nor the longevity of Morricone’s finest, with most being obscure Italian films like "Lady Frankenstein", "Seven Hours of Violence", and the 1978 nunsploitation film "Killer Nun". 

It is fair to say, then, that the bulk of Alessandroni’s works was far more obscure than his work with Morricone in 1966, at least outside of Italy and the presumably niche appreciators of nunsploitation films. As such, his name is often omitted from the conversation when it comes to cinema’s most important composers, which is rather unjust. 

Not only did he aid in the creation of Morricone’s score, not just for "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", but on the entirety of the Dollars trilogy, too. Even if the extent of his life’s work was just whistling on the main theme from that Clint Eastwood classic, though, the importance of that score should have been enough to cement his name in the history of film. 

It is true, of course, that Morricone could quite easily have hired somebody else to provide whistling and guitar-playing for the theme, but there is also the possibility that, without the influence of his childhood comrade, the theme might be devoid of those elements altogether, and the entire world of film scores would be much worse off as a result. 

A SAL Error 404: Emotion Not Found Speech

"Error 404: Emotion Not Found". That was the title of my latest CSL2(2) "Lead with Clear Structure" speech, which I delivered this past Thursday during our regular SAL meeting at Sunway Mentari.

The lineup was packed with 12 speeches, highlighting five project presentations alongside seven quick elevator pitches. With my plate already full from delivering the two speeches, I also took on the roles of speech evaluator and language observer.

Before I summarize my speech, a quick disclaimer: this recap is a highly edited, best-case scenario of what I just said, mostly because I didn't write a script and my brain was actively malfunctioning. 

To recap the core message, my face has exactly one IBL – Instant Blank Look – setting, and if my head were a webpage, the banner across it would permanently read: "Error 404: Emotion Not Found". 

Therefore, it's not true that I don't give a damn about anything; it's just that my facial muscles completely missed the latest Windows driver update. I swear, beneath this utterly frozen exterior, there is actual human activity happening. My face is simply operating on a tragic 14-second delay, so if I look entirely expressionless, just give me a minute to reboot. 

The ultimate takeaway here is simple: never judge a book by its cover – even if that cover looks like a glitched computer monitor. At the end of the day, whether your system runs on high-energy, real-time animation or functions like a quiet, living corpse, the underlying software is exactly the same. We all possess the same core human feelings and emotions; some of us just happen to have a much slower rendering speed.

The one-minute speech topic is "light". I decided to turn it on its head and talked about L.I.G.H.T as in Let's Incite Good-Hearted Trolling. And it's not about being mean, malicious, or leaving moronic comments online. It is about using harmless, clever humor to disrupt the mundane and bring people together through shared laughter. 

Looking back at my speech during the self-reflection session, I have to admit it wasn't up to my usual standards. It was a good performance, but there is definitely room for improvement, and I know exactly what needs to change.😅

A good meeting overall.  Photos:

The China Tech Pilgrimage

Humanoid robots working on factory floors, AI models challenging global rivals and electric-vehicle plants churning out cars at breathtaking scale are drawing a new wave of foreign visitors to China. 

Investors and entrepreneurs are paying thousands of dollars for rare access to Chinese factories, ​seeking a front-row seat to what many believe could be the next technological revolution. The influx reflects mounting fears of a "China shock 2.0", with Western boardrooms and capitals confronting the possibility that Chinese companies are seizing ‌the lead in advanced manufacturing and cutting-edge technologies. 

"Right now, people are looking at China as an object of study and learning – a trend that barely existed just a few years ago", says Robert Wu, CEO of Shanghai-based data research firm Baiguan. He noted that visitors often arrive with misconceptions – for instance, assuming China's robotaxi sector leads the US, when domestic policy caution around potential job losses actually keeps it a step behind. 

According to Reuters, Wu has organised two tours for more than two dozen investors, entrepreneurs and executives so far, charging up to $15,000 for a five-day programme. Around half the participants came from Southeast Asia. 

He is part of a growing cottage industry catering to foreign demand for first-hand access to China's innovation ecosystem. 

Many attendees avoid publicising their visits. Among those known to have made the trip are US investment firms Dimension, Capital Group and Thrive Capital, as well as US tech podcaster Lex Fridman. 

While data on tech tours is scarce, broader industrial tourism is booming. China's industrial tourism sector ⁠pulled in $17.8 billion last year, according to state media, and is projected to blow past 300 billion yuan ($44.6 billion) by 2029. 

Shanghai-based tech tour agency Glopen says inquiries jumped 50% in 2026 from mostly European and Singaporean clients, and it now runs over 100 single-day company tours every month. 

"You cannot grasp the true scale, speed, and physicality of Chinese innovation without standing on the factory floor", says Bertrand Chen, CEO of the Global Shipping Business Network, who joined an April three-city robotics and emerging tech tour organised by Chinese American investor Rui Ma. 

Ma, founder of Tech Buzz China and organizer of eleven such tours since 2019, frames it as essential due diligence: "Even if you're not actively investing in China, you're increasingly likely to encounter Chinese companies as competitors, partners, suppliers, or investments in markets around the world". 

The circuit spans Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hefei, the industrial powerhouses at the heart of China's electric-vehicle, battery, AI and robotics boom. 

World leaders too have also flocked to Xiaomi's Beijing auto factory, while Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz was famously filmed watching Unitree's dancing humanoid robots in Hangzhou, a high-profile showcase of the country's technological ascent. 

None of this is happening by accident. 

Beijing has explicitly pledged to "vigorously promote" industrial tourism, designating over 140 official demonstration sites. A growing number of factories are offering public tours at around $60 a pop. 

Xiaomi's EV factory has welcomed more than 250,000 visitors since March 2024. Demand is so intense that lottery-awarded entry slots are scalped online for up to 2,000 yuan ($300). 

Xiaomi told Reuters in a statement that eligibility for visits is determined through an online lottery and tickets cannot ‌be transferred. 

For European ⁠executives wrestling with sluggish productivity growth and fears of falling behind in AI and robotics, China has become a particularly important destination.

Alex Shengyun Lu, a Shanghai-based AI consultant at Praxis Advisory, has led seven delegations of up to 50 corporate visitors since late 2025 and describes an uneasy mood. 

"The smartest people in Europe are acutely aware of the situation. The insecurity is palpable", he says. 

Executives typically arrive seeking answers to two questions, Lu said: what they can learn from Chinese companies and from China's state-backed approach to technology investment. 

"They are coming here with a genuine mindset of humility and learning". 

Lu, who declined to name the companies due to confidentiality agreements, says many European executives want to understand how China coordinates AI deployment across provinces at scale and what ​lessons can be applied back home. 

Still, some industry observers caution against overstating China's advantage. 

"Non-Chinese (tech) companies still have most of ⁠the global market share, the most advanced IP, and the biggest profits", Tech Buzz founder Ma insists. 

Even so, the flow of tech pilgrims remains strong, including American visitors despite escalating US-China technology tensions. 

"The people who are actually on the ground trying to build physical products don't care about the politics at all", says Joshua Woodard, a US manufacturing consultant based in Shenzhen. 

"US robotics companies still heavily source components and hardware from China. We pretend we can do it all ourselves in America, but it is incredibly hard to completely decouple".

Bundibugyo Ebola Spreads West

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the world’s fastest-growing outbreak of the disease on record, has now spread to a seventh province, in the country. 

Local lawmaker and former health minister Jean-Jacques Mbungani reported on X on Thursday a positive case was recorded in Gwaka, a town in Sud-Ubangi province. He said the patient was a 23-year-old man and has died. 

The development makes Sud-Ubangi the latest province affected by the outbreak – and the first in western Congo – a worrisome spread outward from what was previously concentrated in the country’s east. 

As of Wednesday, 6,942 cases and 3,349 deaths have been reported, according to the latest government figures. 

Sud-Ubangi, which borders the Central African Republic, does not border any of the six provinces in eastern Congo where confirmed Ebola cases had previously been reported. They include Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Tshopo and Bas-Uele. 

WHO said last month there is a risk the outbreak could spread from DRC to the Central African Republic and South Sudan, which border the affected provinces. 

Neighboring Uganda, which had reported 20 cases since May, declared itself free of Ebola in July. 

Clinical trials are underway to find a licensed vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus.

Another total collapse from Celtic. The Scottish League Cup quarterfinal match between them and Rangers kicked off today – and the latter sealed a dominant 3-0 victory in the season's first Old Firm derby.

The Ibrox club were the first to breach the Scottish champions' defence. Cameron Carter-Vickers failed to deal with a long ball and the Gers cracked in a lovely shot from the edge of the penalty area in the 23rd minute. 

And Keeper Sam Johnstone failed to deal with a low cross and the Gers slotted in a composed finish from inside the six-yard box in the 59th minute.

Then, the Celtic backline failed to deal with a rapid counter-attack and the Gers swept in a clinical strike from the center of the box in the 76th minute. 

What a bummer!

Saving Face at the Scanner

A Facebook post on September 03 by Cultural Perspective illustrates a practical example of Edward T Hall's high-context communication through the lens of Chinese state bureaucracy. 

By examining how immigration officers handle a traveler's defective passport chip, the interaction provides a textbook application of the cultural practice of saving face (保住面子, bǎozhú miànzi).

By framing the issue around the airport's technology rather than a personal fault, the Chinese officers applied distinct high-context behaviors:

• Preserving Social Harmony (和谐, hexie): Directly telling a traveler that their personal document is broken or defective can cause immediate stress, defensiveness, or public embarrassment. Guided by Confucian values of harmony, shifting the blame to an inanimate scanner neutralizes interpersonal tension and de-escalates a stressful border environment.
• Mutual Face Protection (面子, mianzi): In Chinese culture, protecting a stranger's dignity is a shared social responsibility. By claiming "our scanner is acting up," the officers proactively protect the traveler's face from public scrutiny. In return, the traveler cooperates smoothly, preserving the authority and face of the immigration department.
• Indirect Signaling and Polite Fiction: In a high-context culture, the true meaning is understood without being explicitly stated. Both parties participate in a "polite fiction" – they likely understand the actual issue, but keeping it unspoken maintains a polite, humanized, and cooperative atmosphere (人情, renqing).
• Shared Accountability via External Attribution: Blaming the machine removes psychological pressure from the individual. It transforms a potential confrontation (the law vs. the individual) into a shared problem (the humans vs. the faulty machine), allowing the traveler to be processed smoothly without feeling singled out or scrutinized by bystanders.

Ultimately, the officers demonstrated that in high-context cultures, maintaining the relational climate is just as important as enforcing the law. By blaming the machine, they transformed a bureaucratic hurdle into a masterclass in cultural diplomacy – proving that sometimes, a polite fiction is the most efficient path to cooperation. 

The said clip:

Liverpool and Fulham played to a disappointing 0-0 draw on Saturday.

The hosts fielded an attack costing just short of £400m as Alexander Isak, Bradley Barcola, and Florian Wirtz all started together in the Premier League for the first time. Yet Liverpool were limited to just two shots on target during a frustrating afternoon at Anfield. 

The tired-looking Reds struggled for rhythm, prompting even many of their supporters to admit that the clinical visitors deserved all three points. While Liverpool controlled 56% of the possession, it was Fulham who looked far sharper on the counter-attack, testing the keeper four times and forcing a crucial goal-line clearance. 

The result earned the Cottagers their first point of the Premier League season, while leaving a sluggish Liverpool with three draws in four matches.

An alarmingly disjointed start to the 2026/27 campaign has left Andoni Iraola’s new-look Liverpool suffocating under unexpected stalemates, an uncharacteristically blunt attack, and immediate tactical pressure.

I expect their current form to persist. They are toothless, tame, and turgid – and being hard to beat means nothing if you refuse to actually win the game. 😤🔴

Shark Nannies: The Ultimate Baby-Sitters

Just off Kri Island in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, meter-long dotted sharks glide underwater – a sight conservationists say was vanishingly rare until recently. 

The Indo-Pacific leopard shark – also known as the zebra shark – has historically inhabited reefs along Indo-West Pacific Ocean, the Red Sea, East Africa, Japan, and Australia. But years of habitat destruction and overfishing have reduced the population by 50-79% over the past three generations (around 57 to 72 years), and they are classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). While their historic decline was driven by the shark fin trade, overfishing pressures persist through accidental bycatch and trade in its exotic leather. 

In Raja Ampat, less than a decade ago they had all but disappeared. The IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group estimated that left alone, the archipelago’s population could take between 100 and 200 years to recover naturally. 

Now, a global group called ReShark say they are attempting to “restore balance to the ocean” with what they describe as the world’s first shark rewilding program. The initiative, known as the Stegostoma tigrinum Augmentation and Recovery (StAR) project, after the shark’s scientific name, sees leopard sharks bred in aquariums around the world, before the offspring are released into protected waters in Indonesia and Thailand. 

“Back in 2019, in Raja Ampat, we estimated that there were about 20 individual adult sharks remaining”, says Mark Erdmann (left), executive director of ReShark. 

“Most conservation activities for sharks usually revolve around either setting up marine protected areas or doing fisheries management. In our case, our niche is we’re doing active recovery”. 

The idea first emerged during a visit Erdmann made to Singapore’s SEA Aquarium in 2015. The staff showed him tanks crowded with baby leopard sharks they had successfully bred in captivity. 

“They said, ‘we actually have a problem, we’re producing too many pups, and we don’t know what to do with them’”, Erdmann recalls. 

That encounter sparked an eight-year effort involving governments, aquariums, nonprofits, academics, local communities and conservation scientists who worked together to release captive pups into Indonesian waters. 

Like many sharks, the Indo-Pacific leopard sharks are harmless to humans. But unlike most sharks, they reproduce by laying eggs. In fact, they’re the largest of the egg-laying sharks, a trait that makes them well suited for this rewilding effort. 

“About 43% of sharks are egg layers”, says David Ebert (right), program director at the Pacific Shark Research Center, San Jose State University, who is not connected with ReShark. “With live bearing, you have a whole different set of issues to deal with. So, this is probably a good species to potentially start with”. 

His global efforts to spot elusive sharks have seen Ebert become known online as the “Lost Shark Guy”. In his opinion, the leopard shark has another advantage, “the cute factor”, which can help the public get on board with conservation initiatives. 

ReShark, supported by Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative, have partnered with nearly 60 aquariums worldwide. Of those, about a dozen across the United States, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore are actively breeding sharks for the program, according to Erdmann. 

Viable eggs from global aquariums are transported to ReShark’s two nurseries in Raja Ampat and Phuket, Thailand. There, specially trained aquarium managers – nicknamed “shark nannies” – monitor the eggs, care for the pups and prepare them for life in the wild. Once the sharks grow to a meter long and can forage food for themselves, they are tagged and released into protected waters. 

The nickname may sound playful, but the work is highly technical. Shark nannies undergo months of training in animal husbandry, often supported by large public aquariums. An internship program hires residents rather than international volunteers, to involve local communities. 

“It’s super important that the people in Raja Ampat and the people in Phuket are supportive of this program, and that we don’t fall back to the way it was 10 or 15 years ago when these sharks were being caught and killed”, says Erdmann. 

Some shark experts remain cautious about the program’s long-term effectiveness. 

Ebert, who has spent more than four decades studying sharks and rays around the world, describes the program as innovative but still largely experimental. 

“It’s kind of a neat science project,” he says. “But how’s it going to impact the (shark) population? That’s the big question”. 

Among his concerns is whether the released sharks will survive long enough to reproduce in the wild. Since leopard sharks are believed to take between five to 12 years to reach maturity, the earliest ReShark will find out if its first released pups are breeding is 2028.