This past afternoon, my roommate Will, his friend John, our friend Dan, and I decided to go for a true only in China moment…the shooting range. Yes, gun ranges aren’t anything new and even I’ve been to a couple over the years to fire a few rounds with various handguns, plus a few shots with an Uzi.

But what range in the good ‘ole US of A lets you fire RPGs, bazookas, and AA guns? BAM! We’re there!

OK–I’m talking myself up a little bit–though this was the case in the past, even some things get deemed “too dangerous” in China.

However, what this place did not have a shortage of, were fully automatic assault rifles.

When we arrived, some 40 miles outside of Beijing, we were led into a room with guns mounted and lining the walls. You might have thought that this was some military museum, but think again, a woman in high heels (everyone working here is a woman) shows up and hands us each a checklist of weapons and asks what we wanted to shoot. You pay by the bullet here and the price is (relatively) high.

After we finished selecting from our menu, we were whisked away in a minivan into the nearby mountains, arriving at a proper rifle range. Proper to an extent–you fired while sitting in a chair and the gun was bolted to a table to prevent recoil. A little less fun, a little less dangerous, but definitely prudent.

We started by softening things up with a Chinese QBU-88 sniper rifle. Yeah. Pretty lackluster. Moved up to a Chinese QBZ-95 short-range assault rifle. Little bit better. Then we moved into the European made Steyr Stg. 77 AUG Assault Rifle. John, who doesn’t understand any Chinese, went first. But I followed him and my Chinese was able to puzzle out what the guy overseeing with me was trying to tell me: liánfā means fully automatic fire! And he was telling me that a soft squeeze would fire one round, but a firm pull was gonna let this baby rip. Helllll yeah. I pulled the trigger and filled the hall with sound, with shocked sounds of awe from my friends.

It was on. And closing our set, the weapon of choice around the world, the AK-47.

Unfortunately, the problem with being the photographer is that you’ve never in your own shots, and John was an excellent photographer today. Thank you! John had the impressive new Nikon D90 DSLR, which on top of a fantastic image sensor, also does 720p HD video.

I gotta say, today was a good day.

From Fully Automatic Guns, China. Bring it.

My absentee ballot has arrived here in Beijing! After filling out the forms provided on VoteFromAbroad.org, I mailed in my registration just before the cutoff date. As a result, my ballot was sent directly to my office in Beijing!

My vote will count in the state of Washington. I know it doesn’t matter that much really, it’s pretty much guaranteed to go to my candidate already, but I feel pretty strongly that I be counted this year!

Go Obama! (and go Sound Transit Prop 1!)

straight up: This might be a surprise to you, but Internet banking is more secure in China than it is in the US. Though the system has room for it’s share of improvement and my bank doesn’t offer a version for non-Chinese readers, once things work, they work well.

While signing up for Internet banking here, you’re usually told that it’s either highly recommended or mandatory to use two authentication methods. For example–one method might be username/password and another might be a hardware device that you have to plug into your computer. This is known as two factor authentication (username/password + hardware). Some places even require a separate PIN number, which might even count as a third factor.

The hardware device varies by bank. Here’s what I’ve come across.

USB Key

This is the most common option I’ve seen, used by at least ICBC and China Merchant’s Bank. However, for this to work properly means that you have to install software on your computer. Considering the vast majority of computers here in China, that means it’s only tested and designed to work with Windows XP and IE6. Considering I use Vista, Windows Server 2008, or a Mac, it’s pretty much a fail.

Code Card

ICBC has this alternative and brilliantly low-tech solution. They issued me this code card, which is a grid of squares with a scratch-off thing. When you want to make a transaction on the website, you will be prompted to enter, say, c2. You scratch c2 off on the card and type in the letters or numbers you get.

RSA SecurID

However, the one I like best is only offered by the Bank of China (to my knowledge). BoC actually issues out RSA SecurID tokens to all their Internet banking customers. RSA SecurIDs are like the code card above, but the number is changing every 30 seconds on this device and last for five years. It’s a cool long term solution–this method doesn’t have to worry about being compatible with any given version of Windows or Mac.

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It’s good stuff. I’m really curious to know how Internet banking got this way here.