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The Empress also has a Chinese language edition, whose goal is to make international students feel at home. If you would like to join, contact the Chinese Language EIC Randy Chen at 12nc1@queensu.ca.

About Us

Empress Contributors Volume 2.4 February 2015

Executive Director: Brian FuEditor-in-Chief: Lucy X. ChenMarketing Director: Alice ZhangGraphic Design and Layout: Lucy X. Chen, Brian Fu, Austin GaghadarIllustrator: Genevieve Joseph-MoffordWriters

Brian FuGenevieve Joseph-MoffordRay WenJames CaoYuki Liang

FEBRUARY 2015 VOLUME 2.4

How to cook up any Chinese dish in minutesNow, we're not talking about the fancy traditional stews, pastries, dumplings and soups that take hours to make, or the fake general Tso's chicken you get at the only good Chinese restaurant in your town. The following represent the half-assed attempts of Chinese parents at cooking, which is insanely easy to emulate:

1) Make sure your fire alarm isn't working.2) In a frying pan, heat up a shitload of cooking oil that's at least 1 centimeter deep.3) Add as much chopped ginger and garlic as you think is necessary.*4) stir in one, two or three of your favorite vegetables sliced or cubed, plus the thinly sliced/minced meat of one dead animal (optional) in no determinate proportions.5) Stir.6) Add as much salt, MSG, soy sauce and oyster sauce as you think is necessary. If you're going for the "sweet and sour" variety. Add sugar and vinegar too, but without the oyster sauce.7) Stir some more.8) When you think everything is thoroughly cooked, serve.9) Does the soy sauce make your food look ugly? Sprinkle on some chopped chive or spring onion for garnish, or coriander, if you're feeling fancy.

*A common rule of thumb would be: "Yeah, that looks like enough, since I don't like ginger or garlic anyway."

Lucy X. Chen, Editor-in-Chief

WORDS FROM THE EDITOR

2 Great Bargains from Chinese Websites Someone needed to tell you

4 Maiden of Dusk

6 Smash Bros: The Interview feat. Matt from the Queen's Smash Club

8 Print Me a Sushi! Manufacturing in the future

9 The Fall of Fansubbing Copyright or Censorship?

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2 THE EMPRESS MAGAZINE • FEB

Great Bargains From

Chinese Websites

a hands-on guideRay Wen

After living in Canada for a few years, I spotted several minor problems for folks living in the Great North. It’s always a bit colder than the States, obviously. People say sorry too often on the street. Spelling of words seems a little bit weird. But the biggest problem of all is that so few Amazon sellers are willing to send their stuff here!

It is just not fair that the Americans get bargains easily online while we can’t. So maybe it’s time to ditch the Yankees and embrace the Chinese. After all, nearly everything on Amazon is made in China. Getting goods directly from the factory should be cheaper, and well, how hard can it be?

It turns out that buying directly from China is not hard at all. In this guide, I will introduce you to several websites and tools for shopping on Chinese web-sites. They will make your life easier —whether you are a rookie or an expert in online shopping.

AliExpress www.aliexpress.com Recommended: ****Commerce people, did this name ring a bell in your head? This is a website owned by Alibaba, the company that got the largest IPO in US history last fall. AliExpress is specially designed for overseas customers, so it is safe and easy to navigate. Just sign up and log in like you do in any other shopping sites.AliExpress sells many things, ranging from exotic fragrance to cheap football/hockey jerseys. Like, REALLY cheap. I’m not sure if words like “copyright” and “trademark” got correctly translated into Mandarin, so just make sure your purchase is legal! (Well, ‘legal’ as defined by Chinese law…) Bear in mind though, most shipping from China to Canada takes more than 2 weeks. In addi-tion, the shops often respond slowly because of time-zone differences.

SHOPPING 3

Alibaba www.alibaba.com Recommended: **Now this is the original website of Alibaba. It looks similar to AliExpress, except that stores on Alibaba are for wholesale only. If you want to buy things in bulk, or start a small business in Canada, Alibaba might be a good source for you. If you are simply shopping for yourself, it’s better to use other websites, although things are RIDICULOUSLY cheap on Alibaba. For instance, an iPhone 6 case costs around $1-2 if you buy more than 50 of them.

Taobao www.taobao.com Recommended: ***If you know Chinese, this is the website for you. It is so famous in China that it’s impossible not to know it unless you live in a cave. It leads the online shopping frenzy and has kicked eBay’s ass since 2007. It looks a bit like AliExpress, but Taobao is mainly focusing on Mainland Chinese customers. For those of you who don’t know Chinese very well, go and make yourself a Chinese friend! She or he will be happy to explain to you everything about Taobao. In term of shipping, you can either ask the seller to send you an international parcel via China Post (which in most cases will be declined), or use some agent companies to help you transfer your package from their address in China to Canada.

Jing Dong en.jd.comRecommended: ***This is another pretty awesome website. It is considered as the strongest rival of Taobao in Mainland China. In the overseas competition, however, Jing Dong is not on the same level with Alibaba. Maybe that is why Jing Dong often has worldwide free shipping sales, just to spike up their sales and promote themselves. They sell loads of Chinese books and Chinese electrical appliances on their website. Chinese-made unlocked mobile phones are popular on the site as well. They are not as cheap as you’d imagine, but if you are used to the Chinese lifestyle, this site might relieve your homesickness for a little bit.

Other websites accessed from Google or TorThere are, of course, thousands of individual websites selling interesting stuff online. Google is not the only way to find them; Tor, the hidden network, is even more powerful. They are not just limited to Chinese websites. Be careful when you use those stores though, as you may get yourself into some trouble if your purchase involves illegal activities.

Have fun shopping!

Illustration: Genevieve Joseph-Mofford

4 THE EMPRESS MAGAZINE • FEB

Maiden of DuskGenevieve Joseph-Mofford

ART 5

With the yellow of a waking sun I taste the sweet chill of night’s frigid air. My feet are bare, naked to the jagged rocks beneath. They are cracked and broken yet I have long forgotten the feeling. My spine which is twisted and bent is ever still with not the gale of a wind to move it. A yawn tickles the back of my throat but my tired head no longer can mask the

energy to go through the motions.

How long have I been like this?

The question is a headache. I ache to rub it from my temples. Sadly, the vines that decorate my arms stretch them to odd angles, binding them. They are ornamented by flowers that

have woven themselves to my skin, borrowing into the flesh. My legs are speckled by moss which at some point becomes thick bush, hiding my nakedness. I have no idea what my

hair looks like. Do I still have a collection of—

AH!

A dreaded itch burns at the back of my neck. Ants blindly climb there making a small trail from the nest they’ve created between my toes. I wish they would build their nest on some

other tree,

But alas, what other tree?…

I slowly open my eyes. For a moment I am blinded by the fiery orange of a new sun. Funny that many weeks before my fellow mates had blocked those piercing rays where only a gentle stream had ever reached my face. Now it was just me and the dust of clay. Holes

are all that are left of my friends. In every direction they mark the grave of all that I have loved. The black soil is now gray and hard. The birds fly no longer, the sloths are all dead.

It is only me and the ants… and I guess the sun… for the rest of my days.

6 THE EMPRESS MAGAZINE • FEB

SMASH BROS: THE INTERVIEWFEAT. MATT KOWAL, QUEEN'S SMASH CLUB PRESIDENT

AND BRIAN FU FROM THE EMPRESS

BF: So tell me about how you got into smash in the first place?

MK: Well, it began when I was in Grade 12. There was a lounge in my high school with some video games and everyone there played Smash. I played there for a while, and there was this one kid who played competitively, and knew some of the more advanced techniques like wavedashing. I’m a competitive guy, and my goal was to get good enough to beat this guy, which I did, without learning a lot of these techniques. That’s when I got really into it, I was hooked, and I started looking up videos of tournament matches, and technique tutorials.

BF: You mention there are advanced techniques – can you elaborate on some of them?

MK: So first, let me give you a bit of context. There are three games that are considered the best competitive games to play, and these are Counter Strike 1.6, Super Smash Brothers Melee, and the original Starcraft. The thing is with Melee was that it never intended to become a competitive game like it is today, and Sakurai, the creator of this game, knew about all these little quirks in the game’s physics engine but never anticipated that people would start exploiting them in gameplay. The result is that people nowadays learn these techniques, such as wavedashing, which now form a group of techniques which

considered the fundamentals. Of course, there is some debate about whether people should be using these techniques in the first place, but honestly, it makes the game so much more technical and a majority of the people agree that this is the case. It’s honestly crazy what some people can do.

BF: And why smash? Why not any of these other competitive games?

MK: Two big things. The first thing is that Smash is sort of unique as a fighting game in that you don’t really have hit points, like in the Street Fighter series, but it’s focused on ring-outs. Instead of health, you have a damage percentage, which goes up the more damage you have.

BF: So sort of like golf – the higher you have the worse you’re doing.

MK: Sort of. The higher the damage you have the easier it is to knock you out of the platform and outside the “ring”, which is called the blast box. When you’re knocked off you lose a life. With this system, you can keep hitting your opponents until they’re at a high percent, and then hopefully hit them hard enough so that they fall off, but that’s really hard. So this is when it gets really technical because you can try and outsmart your opponent, building combos where you try to push them off at lower percentages. A side effect is that there’s a really big emphasis on how skilled you are. It’s quite rare that you see that good players

Image: Amiibos by niXerNG Lincensed CC 2.0 BY NC

CULTURE 7

lose to not as skilled ones because you can’t get by on just luck.

There are many different ways to play, strategy wise. Some players think of all the different configurations you can be in, and then memorize all the different options and combos like a flow chart. Some players just go by their gut and have different combos every time. You can actually tell who’s playing just by watching their gameplay without knowing their names because everyone has their own unique style. There are so many different ways to play the game that even now, 14 years after the game was originally released, they’re still discovering new techniques.

The other thing is that you have to play in person with other people on the console, versus other games, where it’s usually online. With smash, the quality of the game is worse because you have to deal with things like internet connection and whether or not your computer display lags…so as a result most games happen in person. And that’s better. You end up meeting all these cool people, and in the end you start building a smash community. It’s pretty nice.

BF: When was the last tournament you played at?

MK: I was at “The Come Up” in Toronto, which is the biggest Canadian tournament. Lots of famous people came. Mew2King was there, I ended up crashing at the same place as him, and slept beside the #1 Canadian player too, haha. Lots of fun.

BF: What advice would you give to someone who wants to start playing smash?

MK: Well, I’d say you should start reaching out, so on smashboards.com, you should look for your local region and make posts on your group asking people to play. Play as much as you can, and ask the better players to help you out.

BF: What about in Kingston?

MK: You can find the Queen’s Smash Bros group on facebook, so you should come check us out. What sort of sucks is that Kingston the smash scene isn’t as big as I’d like, since we’re pretty far from Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal…which means you can’t play against some of the better players. I really encourage you to come out to the tournaments, even if you’re just starting out – everyone gets crushed, haha. But a player like me considered advanced here would get crushed in a bigger tournament in say, Toronto. There are usually TVs open to play friendlies, which is good too. We have them once a month, a day long, from 12 to 6 pm, and the exact details are usually on the facebook group.

Matt is the best at smash, and is super chill. Come meet him at a tournament!

8 THE EMPRESS MAGAZINE • FEB

“Print Me a Sushi!”The Future of Cloud Manufacturing:

Revolutionary or Creepy?

By this point, I’m sure we’ve all heard about it. The trend predicted to define the future, to further satiate our egotistical pursuit for the “personalized” and “customized”--a gi-ant, resounding slap in the face of the cur-rent one-size-fits-all mass production mod-el. I’m talking about cloud manufacturing.

This concept has been around for a while. In fact it produced quite a buzz, now that everyone can have the power to create and produce what is “best” for them, food included, thanks to the advent of 3D print-ing technology. Just imagine your brand-new 3D printer sitting snugly next to your toaster on a Sunday morning in year 2045. Even though by this point I’m not even sure why you’ll need a toaster.

And what would you like to make to-day? A Sushi? With salmon, jellyfish, carrots and rice? Well, let the damn thing print it for you. I don’t know how it will taste, as it’s probably the first time jellyfish gets in-volved in a sushi, but definitely no one can stop you anymore. From scaling it to the ex-act size you want it to be, to the compiling of different materials, to even downloading designs from people who actually know how to make a sushi (unlike you), all of such things can be taken care of by an intelligent machine.

There is something very eerie in all of this. Do I want a printer to make my sushi? Will it come out hot or cold? Is my printer refill going to consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus, and how

do I store said chemicals safely? And if the printer can print jellyfish, it won’t be long before it can print a corgi as well. The ethi-cal debates over printable gun-control seem pretty tame in comparison.

However, I am not here to instigate a pseudo-concern over a non-problem. I don’t think we need to worry about that for a while. Let’s look on the bright side. Apart from corgis, what cloud manufacturing can also provide us is the exchange of ideas, the platform for generating values. It enables anyone to become a producer of goods, and get involved in society’s value chain--that is, anyone who knows how to design things.

So what does it leads to? A completely new form of production that will overthrow monopoly capitalism? A portable factory that will enable us to actualize our ideas through a few keystrokes, rather than wan-dering around looking for particular solu-tions of our problems? The ultimate mani-festation of individual empowerment?

I’m more than a little dubious about these grand and glorious promises, but nor am I a doomsday prophet. I believe that if Facebook can figure out what to do with your account after you die, so will people figure out what to do with printable corgis once they have them. The thing is not to delude ourselves into thinking technology will always be our salvation. Besides, I enjoy making my own sushi.

By James Cao, edited by Lucy X. Chen

CENSORSHIP 9

Late November of 2014, two of the biggest Fansub sites, Shooter and YYeTs, closed down due to copyright infringement o f overseas v ideos which inc luded American and British TV drama series. This raised plenty of concern and speculation from Internet users about the reasons and forces behind their closure.

Currently, the front page of shooter.cn remains a short letter from the founder, Cheng Shen: “Shooter has been with me for over fifteen years. I hope the significance of Shooter is allowing more people to cross country barriers and get to know more about different cultures in the world. If this site has helped anyone in that way, I am pleased. Nevertheless, the age that needs Shooter is gone.” Similarly, YYeTs, which was started by Chinese students studying in Canada more than ten years ago, released a brief statement thanking those supporting the group and reaffirming their values of learning through sharing.

YYeTs, as well as several smaller Fansubbing communities, have been under

investigation for copyright infringement since 2009 for providing online resources for video download, according to a new source from PHTV, a Taiwanese broadcasting company. Afterwards, these groups were forced to limit their service only to translated subtitle files. However, now even translation is a copyright infringement.

A c c o r d i n g t o C h i n e s e l a w s o n intellectual property, the right to translation (as it is with the right to broadcast) belongs to the party with copyright; translators should ask for permission to translate and the authors are to be compensated. Moreover, since China has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), it must adhere to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) to respect and reinforce the copyright laws of other countries when it comes to international works. Individual fansubbing usually lacks official permission and fails to compensate the authors under copyright protection, which makes fansubbing a form of piracy.

The Fall of Fansubbing: Copyright Protection or

Censorship?By: Yuki Liang

(Self) Censored by Carolyn Tlry Lincensed CC 2.0 BY NC

Copyright Symbols by Mike Seyfang Lincensed CC 2.0 BY NC

10 THE EMPRESS MAGAZINE • FEB

Although translation for educational, personal or non-commercial purposes does not count as copyright infringement, it is difficult to say that fansubbing groups qualifies for this exception when their sites had a wide audience and produced high download counts.

Audience or producer, most people in the fansubbing community have been aware of the potential illegality of their activities. Many claimed that if the foreign programs were available through regular channels, they would not support piracy — but, in the early days of fansubbing, the lack of cultural import made this unlikely to happen. Nonetheless, the situation changed in recent years: more and more Japanese animation and American TV shows became available through major online media tycoons such as Letv, Youku, and Sohu. Presumably, these large-sized companies are able to purchase rights of broadcasting and translation from the authors, and offer the programs to Chinese audience for free (though with embedded advertisement). In addition, some of these broadcasters often collaborate with or hire fansubbing groups for quality translation of their imported programs. Microblogger and lawyer Dai says that, ideally speaking, such a change is beneficial to everyone — the fansubbing groups, the audience, the companies, and the authors.

However, Dai continues, the reality of broadcasting foreign TV programs

is much more complicated. Instead of more programs being shown with official permission, there are fewer programs available online. For example, the Big Bang Theory, which remained hugely popular since its introduction, is nowhere to be found on the major video sites. Its maker, Chuck Lorre Productions, says in its show that “The government of China has decided that ‘The Big Bang Theory’ is not appropriate for viewing. [The Productions] like to think they took notes that were later used to formulate an official document that detailed the corrosive cultural effects caused by the shenanigans of [the characters]” (Vanity Card #456). Dai speculates that even if all the shows can be legally broadcasted in China, they are still subject to censorship. After examination, explicit content — such as sexual jokes and scenes — can be cut, or even the full show can be judged unfit for viewing. Furthermore, the lawyer and microblogger complains that the standards of censorship are not transparent, and unreasonable editorial changes significantly hinder viewer experience.

While some call for establishing a motion picture rating system in China, others are more concerned about potential political motives behind the unexplained disappearance of foreign programs whose official releases are legally possible. Many worry that, once piracy is rooted out, viewers will become ever more restricted by

Computer by tawatchaifr_com Lincensed CC 2.0 BY NC

CENSORSHIP 11

the censorship of foreign programs and lose access to other cultural perspectives. Since China’s blocking of Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Google, content on foreign sites mostly comes from reposting and translating original articles and videos. On Zhihu, a Q&A website, numerous Internet users appear to recognize that piracy facilitated a form of cultural importation that would otherwise be impossible in the current political environment of China. One writes, “In China, there is no choice but to do wrong. Everyone knows that it is wrong to damage another’s property. But what if we damage what another uses to encage us?” Another writes, “Piracy is gaining something for cheap. Sometimes the point is the cheapness, sometimes the point is the gain.”

It is notable that the struggle between free access to information and copyright protection is not unique to Chinese society.

Zhihu user Magasa points out that some developed countries are questioning the monopolization and commercialism of copyright. The Swedish Pirate Party, a registered political party in Sweden, advocates for world-wide piracy and calls for reformation of intellectual property and copyright laws, in order to create more communication through cultural exchange and less oppression through censorship.

China’s pressing investigation of online copyright infringement continues to make life difficult for fansubbing communities beyond those of Shooter and YYeTs. Major sharing services, such as Baidu Cloud, are now obligated to remove or freeze user files for explicit and pirated content. Such regulations makes it a challenge to make video and subtitle files available for a wide audience.

Facebook logo by Marco Pakoeningrat, youtube logo by redsoul300, google logo by Prachatai Lincensed CC 2.0 BY NC

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