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Watch the Scissor Fingers! They may reveal your fingerprints! from the SCMP China’s scissor-hand selfie-takers warned of cybersecurity threatPowerful zoom functions can reveal fingerprint details which may be copied by criminals A cybersecurity awareness campaign in China has prompted a warning about criminals harvesting fingerprint information from a popular pose in pictures uploaded to the internet. Photo: Shutterstock

Teaching my wife to drive is one of my more harrowing experiences. It was like my wife had never seen a car before. She has a Chinese license and had a car in Shanghai driving for ten years. Despite the traffic, it is pretty easy to drive in Shanghai. No one trusts the other driver, so they all look out for each other, and the traffic moves slowly. All-way stops befuddled my wife. More than once, she assumed an all-way stop and pulled out in front of drivers causing them to come to a screeching halt. She wouldn't listen to me, so I sent her to a driving school run by off-duty officers. After the first day, the instructor was visibly shaken and just shook his head. After the second day, with another officer, he shook his head and told me, "You just have to take her out and practice, practice, practice." Even today, she will drive on the wrong side of the road for no particular reason. She ran a red light not because she didn't see it but because other people do it and she wanted to see what it was like. I take the view that you drive safely, even when no one is looking. The hardest thing was to convince no to try to push pedestrians in the crosswalk out of the way with the car. She's a horrible driver and is only marginally better than when she arrived here. If you are in the crosswalk and you see her coming, don't walk; Run! My wife is motivated when she is pissed off. I am tolerant of mistakes but not stupidity. I yelled at her one day and told her she could never pass a driving test. She wanted to go immediately. So, I took her. She passed the first time. The officer knew a little Mandarin and told her she passed in Mandarin. I think that is why he passed her because it was the only words he knew and wanted to impress her. She told the officer that I said she would never pass. He went out of his way to tell me that she was "Perfect". He doesn't know the monster he created. Her friends were shocked and didn't believe it. They had to see the actual license. She has a friend who took 13 times to pass. At work, we used to have Chinese visitors. Many of them would get their license in China but use the opportunity to learn to drive in the US where it is easier to drive. I didn't know it when I rode with one woman. She could figure out how to back out of a parking space in an empty lot. She must have hit something pretty hard along the line because a hubcap was missing. Some factories started forbidding them from renting a car when visiting the factory. She never should have been driving. Save yourself a heart-attack and send them to driving school and keept them there until they pass.

I want to bring up a topic that has come and gone here over the many years I have been here. While researching some of those threads, I came across one posted by a member who I admire greatly, especially after reading a post I missed somehow. https://candleforlove.com/forums/topic/27875-i-got-caught-up-with-my-emotions/?hl=abuse The topic is one we all hate to talk about but it is there, guys. It is life, good and bad. Sunday morning, as we prepared to pack my wife's things for a trip to see family in China, she got a call from one of her friends. (I like to call her friends by a name Amy Tan gave to a circle of women who gab all day while they play MaJong -- The TieTie Circle.) In just the first minutes, I knew something was wrong. My wife had been recently attacked by a man who wanted to rape her (she is an LMT -- one of the good ones) and she got cut in the process. She did get the owner next door to respond to her knocks on the wall, and the guy ran off taking her cell phone and iPad. (They will never find his body... ) The trip to China was a way for her to get some support from family. It was a near death experience and she is recovering nicely from PTSD. (I have it too. Parajumper, AF - CSAR, all over SEA.) Her face turned ghost white and tears started to form but never emerged from her eyes. She gave me the phone and I said, Hello. The woman's voice was familiar. She speaks excellent English and is a loyal member of the TaiTai Circle. She asked me to help one of the other members who had been injured. (I thought, well, finally time they recognized my medical background instead of all this TCM -- which I am not totally against.) The woman I know had been crying and her voice was shaking. Somehow, I knew what had happened. I said, just tell me where and I will go. But please call the police. She hesitated, but I said, I won't go unless you call the police. I will meet them there. I was surprised the police had not arrived yet when I got to their house. My wife went with me. As I entered, there were 3 Chinese women, the one I recognized and talked to on the phone, another I did not know, and one woman lying on the floor like a broken bag of bones. I went to her right away. The first woman helped translate. A man, short hair, thin, wiry, wearing a black tee shirt that said, Bust Me, in white letters was sitting on the couch, rocking his ankle on his other knee. I asked the woman on the floor if I could touch her. She nodded. She said she knew of me. Her name was Ting, the same as my daughter. She had a broken collar bone, a possible broken elbow, bleeding from the mouth, and I was sure had a concussion. Her eyes could not track my fingers or my face. They were a little crossed. Blood came from her right ear. I told the translator to call an ambulance right now. When she did, she handed the phone to me and I described the injuries. I looked at the man sitting on the sofa, and avoided the visions I had of where I was going to hit him just 3 times, and kill him, dead. No words of anger. Nothing. Just dead. He knew it too. I saw fear on his face and I was glad to see that fear. He knew he had done something really wrong. But he just nodded his head, as if to say, she deserved it. No woman, Deserves it. I know how especially a Chinese woman can be very hurtful, partly because of cultural ignorance of language and customs we have, but as anyone would feel herself, hurt and anger. (Charles, another salute to you. Keep your patience and understanding.) But they don't deserve to be hit or killed. My mind raced back to a very early post here about a Chinese woman in New Mexico who was hospitalized by a country boy who owned a lot of guns, and was free somewhere in the area. The police were apparently friends of his and were relaxed about finding him and putting him where the guy I was looking at right now, deserved to be -- in jail. The woman he beat up was in the hospital I recall for about a week, the CFL poster was a male nurse taking care of her, and protecting her from this beast. Others in CFL who lived nearby were helping. I was really proud to be in this forum. I still am. All the posters then, as they were in Dennis' post, were very supportive and wanted to help. I am only about 6 hours away and could be there. And here I am, now, looking at a guy who just could not hold his temper, who thinks Asian woman are weak and deserve punishment. And probably think they will get away with it. This guy did not. I watched every move he made until the cops got here. When they did, they caught me looking at him, and one told me, We feel the same way. I can't say enough about what I saw. But again, we are talking about the ugly side of what we are do -- marry Chinese women. There are men who feel they have a right to beat a woman senseless. I cannot abide that "right." The IMBRA Act caused us to have to go through legal hoops to get a K-1. Two women were murdered and Congress acted to try and stop it, although the incidents with Asian women is less than the normal population. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Marriage_Broker_Regulation_Act). Pass the word, guys. Watch your temper. Seek counseling if you cannot restrain your anger. Yes, they are pretty hard to get along with at times. Take a walk. Breath. But don't beat up a woman who cannot defend herself. Post here, and we can help. All I can say......end of rant. Erik