from the new article on Time:
The rise of China's Me generation has implications for the foreign policies of other nations. Sinologists in the West have long predicted that economic growth would eventually bring democracy to China. As James Mann points out in his new book, The China Fantasy, the idea that China will evolve into a democracy as its middle class grows continues to underlie the U.S.'s China policy, providing the central rationale for maintaining close ties with what is, after all, an unapologetically authoritarian regime. But China's Me generation could shatter such long-held assumptions. As the chief beneficiaries of China's economic success, young professionals have more and more tied up in preserving the status quo. The last thing they want is a populist politician winning over the country's hundreds of millions of have-nots on a rural-reform, stick-it-to-the-cities agenda.
read more on china's Me gen
Monday, July 30, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
today AH sent me an article on how to choose good phd advisors from sciencemag. i think we know more or less the things it's talking about, but it is nicely organized and systematic. makes a good read.
To Choose an Adviser, Be an "Armchair Anthropologist"
To Choose an Adviser, Be an "Armchair Anthropologist"
Monday, July 23, 2007
impressions: guilin
i'm just back from the tour to guilin with my mom... a few take home points:
1. tour groups are terrible terrible things. they rush the tourists through places of interests like cattle.
2. traveling with mom is a bad bad idea. somehow the trip can get too depressing at times.
3. guilin is an extremely pretty place, but something needs to be done to this place to improve its economy. there's only this much it can earn by conning tourists, and the money is not going to its people.
4. zhang yimou is a fucking genius. we need more people like him to transform concepts and ideas, and create values.
more to come.
1. tour groups are terrible terrible things. they rush the tourists through places of interests like cattle.
2. traveling with mom is a bad bad idea. somehow the trip can get too depressing at times.
3. guilin is an extremely pretty place, but something needs to be done to this place to improve its economy. there's only this much it can earn by conning tourists, and the money is not going to its people.
4. zhang yimou is a fucking genius. we need more people like him to transform concepts and ideas, and create values.
more to come.
Monday, July 09, 2007
chinese tv stations are just getting worse and worse. i couldn't seem to find anything worth watching all day long. so today i was flipping channels forever as usual, until i stop at this weird taiwanese tv series called the eighth pawn shop.
it is about an imaginary pawn shop to which customers could pawn any possession including tangible things such as a leg and intangible things such as talent, soul, love. for an example, in the show, a mother pawned her love for the child for the success in fashion. the grown up child, agonizing over the lack of maternal care, in turn pawned her talent in fashion design for her mother's love. then, the guilty mother pawned her eyes to take back the child's talent. things like that. you get the point.
it is a very strange concept. almost shocking at first. can we really rank the things in our lives and decide which we could lose indefinitely in order to gain the other? can we really say, i don't want the love, i just want my career, and here, you can have my love, please give me a high flying career? how could we make any of these choices when we don't really know what is to come, and from which we are to gain more? it's tempting to think, if i were to go to such a pawn shop, what would i pawn for what? and i shudder as if it was such a terrible thing.
but a little more thought reveals that it is nothing new. we are defining priorities all the time. we are disgarding some things over others every time we make a choice. ordinary choices such as spending the night at the laboratory or a nightclub and whether or not to take our eyes off the computer monitor to pay more attention to our naggy moms. the pawn shop owner just lets his customers do it a more calculative, explicit and irreversible way. we in reality, might not even weigh things as carefully. we just go ahead and decide. on what basis are we making these decisions?
what would you pawn, and for what, my friend, if the 8th pawn shop really existed?
it is about an imaginary pawn shop to which customers could pawn any possession including tangible things such as a leg and intangible things such as talent, soul, love. for an example, in the show, a mother pawned her love for the child for the success in fashion. the grown up child, agonizing over the lack of maternal care, in turn pawned her talent in fashion design for her mother's love. then, the guilty mother pawned her eyes to take back the child's talent. things like that. you get the point.
it is a very strange concept. almost shocking at first. can we really rank the things in our lives and decide which we could lose indefinitely in order to gain the other? can we really say, i don't want the love, i just want my career, and here, you can have my love, please give me a high flying career? how could we make any of these choices when we don't really know what is to come, and from which we are to gain more? it's tempting to think, if i were to go to such a pawn shop, what would i pawn for what? and i shudder as if it was such a terrible thing.
but a little more thought reveals that it is nothing new. we are defining priorities all the time. we are disgarding some things over others every time we make a choice. ordinary choices such as spending the night at the laboratory or a nightclub and whether or not to take our eyes off the computer monitor to pay more attention to our naggy moms. the pawn shop owner just lets his customers do it a more calculative, explicit and irreversible way. we in reality, might not even weigh things as carefully. we just go ahead and decide. on what basis are we making these decisions?
what would you pawn, and for what, my friend, if the 8th pawn shop really existed?
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
back to square one
home, parents, reality check. i have probably mentioned this a thousand times but here it is again: moving always feels unreal. areoplanes make time space change happen too quickly, i can't adjust to it. one moment i was in a carpeted apartment in la jolla, the other i'm at home, taking care not to scratch the newly polished wooden floor(mainly so that mom doesn't scream at me). i was abruptly disconnected from the previous life, but am nowhere near being connected to the next. i feel like i'm still living in the void, just like when i was in the dark aeroplane cabin traveling in between countries but not really in any, my mind phasing in and out of state of wakefulness and sleep but dreaming of nothing.
but things need to be ended and things need to begin. for a start, i should probably stop drinking. alcohol merely leaves me with dulled and mistaken sensory system, uncoordinated motor sysem and utterly chaotic central nervous system. on the other hand, like marco said, i should probably start looking at groups now. and i need to get reading for the project with ingham started. and gre is around the corner. seems like a lot of things to do.
but things need to be ended and things need to begin. for a start, i should probably stop drinking. alcohol merely leaves me with dulled and mistaken sensory system, uncoordinated motor sysem and utterly chaotic central nervous system. on the other hand, like marco said, i should probably start looking at groups now. and i need to get reading for the project with ingham started. and gre is around the corner. seems like a lot of things to do.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
packing always leads to surprises. found a message zhu wrote me on a purple piece of paper when we left singapore in 04. the flip side has ai yazawa's manga drawings. zhu put a quote in the message:
all existing things are born without a reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies out of chance.
-jean-paul sartre
and zhu said, we are prlonging ourselves out of weakness right now aren't we. i probably didn't give much thought to the quote at the time i received it. i was as ambitious as any student preparing to start a scientific career at a university. my life was full of purpose then, and i had nothing but confidence in me. 3 years later, i'm sure that confidence has withered a little. while i still don't think we are prolonging ourselves out of weakness, a sense of losing control of my own life did sort of creep in. maybe that's what happens when you grow old, when more and more things start to set and fewer and fewer possibilities are left for you to contemplate. maybe when i am at the age when sartre wrote the quote, i would think exactly the same things.
all existing things are born without a reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies out of chance.
-jean-paul sartre
and zhu said, we are prlonging ourselves out of weakness right now aren't we. i probably didn't give much thought to the quote at the time i received it. i was as ambitious as any student preparing to start a scientific career at a university. my life was full of purpose then, and i had nothing but confidence in me. 3 years later, i'm sure that confidence has withered a little. while i still don't think we are prolonging ourselves out of weakness, a sense of losing control of my own life did sort of creep in. maybe that's what happens when you grow old, when more and more things start to set and fewer and fewer possibilities are left for you to contemplate. maybe when i am at the age when sartre wrote the quote, i would think exactly the same things.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
a couple of things i have been thinking about these days because i loaded my shuffle with all the music tagged "contemporary" from my library:
1. kieslowski should make movies out of kudera's books, and get arvo part to write the soundtrack.
2. the last 2 minutes of giger's tropus is haunting. the little violin voices layered at the back of the chorus sound like dead white winged creatures weeping. i want to say layered on top, but it really does sound like it occurs somewhere at the back of my mind. and the visual images i can't rid of are surprisingly the vampire maids from van helsin. that wasn't even that good a movie.
3. steve reich's after the war is brilliantly written. go listen for yourself. and his marimba pieces are just adorable.
4. i still think the poem i hide myself within my flower is very nice... (which eric whitacre set to music)
Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.
Part Three: Love
VII
I HIDE myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest.
I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.
fantacy of a pale sickly child. so lonely, yearning, with almost an erotic touch. and so clever. and reminds me of another one she wrote, from the same series.
XLVII
HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me, 5
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!
1. kieslowski should make movies out of kudera's books, and get arvo part to write the soundtrack.
2. the last 2 minutes of giger's tropus is haunting. the little violin voices layered at the back of the chorus sound like dead white winged creatures weeping. i want to say layered on top, but it really does sound like it occurs somewhere at the back of my mind. and the visual images i can't rid of are surprisingly the vampire maids from van helsin. that wasn't even that good a movie.
3. steve reich's after the war is brilliantly written. go listen for yourself. and his marimba pieces are just adorable.
4. i still think the poem i hide myself within my flower is very nice... (which eric whitacre set to music)
Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.
Part Three: Love
VII
I HIDE myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest.
I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.
fantacy of a pale sickly child. so lonely, yearning, with almost an erotic touch. and so clever. and reminds me of another one she wrote, from the same series.
XLVII
HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me, 5
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
first born smarter?
sciencemag seems to like this type of things, such as the index finger: ring finger ratio indicating maths ability and stuff that they posted some time back.
sciencemag seems to like this type of things, such as the index finger: ring finger ratio indicating maths ability and stuff that they posted some time back.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
from the urban dictionary
Internet
A vast tundra of knowledge, now corrupted and slowly imploding on itself. Those caught on the outskirts enter a void of stupidity and insecurity. Eventually, it will completely cave in on itself, and then explode with such force, we will all be sent to an information oblivion. Random bits of intelligence will float amongst vast oceans of idiocy, and all of man kind will commit suicide in a futile effort to repent for creating such a weapon of mass destruction. God will not accept their sacrifice, and everyone will go to hell, where Satan will get pissed off at the extreme overpopulation of his facilities, and send everyone to someplace copletely unihabitable, like Utah.
digital immigrant
Someone who grew up before the digital age and is fairly new to the internet. Basically anyone over the age of 28.
YouTube is foreign to the digital immigrant.
BCG
Birth Control Glasses. Generally a military term which refers to the large, blocky glasses issued to military personnel who require the use of corrective lenses.
Man, these BCGs make me look like a complete idiot.
programmer's tan
The pasty white tan of a person who works over eighty hours a week and never gets any sun.
Bill's been doing a lot of hours lately -- he's really working on his programmer's tan.
Computer
a machine for downloading porn
"oh no, the computer broke, i ejaculated all over the keyboard"
generation y
children of boomers born from about generation from about 1977 to age old enough to remember 9/11.
gen y began with corporate watered down versions of gen x music (hip-hop and heavy metal,) after the shit load of that swedish music and boy band phase of the early gen y kids. For this many gen y kids have turned to their parents old albums from the 60's and 70's.
pampered by our boomer parents to do good and go far in life sociologists predict a backlash.
gen y has been said to be a clone of gen x, but there are notable differences.
gen y rewrites the rules and works around authority rather than go against it like gen x. This will lead us to get higher in corporations and better paying jobs that gen x was forced to do. Also gen y knows the impact of money.
early failures are that of SUV's fuck those gas guzzlers that kill the air. Hummers and are for ass holes.
blah blah blah we grow up and die
then fertilize the world
we were raised by grand theft auto!
Internet
A vast tundra of knowledge, now corrupted and slowly imploding on itself. Those caught on the outskirts enter a void of stupidity and insecurity. Eventually, it will completely cave in on itself, and then explode with such force, we will all be sent to an information oblivion. Random bits of intelligence will float amongst vast oceans of idiocy, and all of man kind will commit suicide in a futile effort to repent for creating such a weapon of mass destruction. God will not accept their sacrifice, and everyone will go to hell, where Satan will get pissed off at the extreme overpopulation of his facilities, and send everyone to someplace copletely unihabitable, like Utah.
digital immigrant
Someone who grew up before the digital age and is fairly new to the internet. Basically anyone over the age of 28.
YouTube is foreign to the digital immigrant.
BCG
Birth Control Glasses. Generally a military term which refers to the large, blocky glasses issued to military personnel who require the use of corrective lenses.
Man, these BCGs make me look like a complete idiot.
programmer's tan
The pasty white tan of a person who works over eighty hours a week and never gets any sun.
Bill's been doing a lot of hours lately -- he's really working on his programmer's tan.
Computer
a machine for downloading porn
"oh no, the computer broke, i ejaculated all over the keyboard"
generation y
children of boomers born from about generation from about 1977 to age old enough to remember 9/11.
gen y began with corporate watered down versions of gen x music (hip-hop and heavy metal,) after the shit load of that swedish music and boy band phase of the early gen y kids. For this many gen y kids have turned to their parents old albums from the 60's and 70's.
pampered by our boomer parents to do good and go far in life sociologists predict a backlash.
gen y has been said to be a clone of gen x, but there are notable differences.
gen y rewrites the rules and works around authority rather than go against it like gen x. This will lead us to get higher in corporations and better paying jobs that gen x was forced to do. Also gen y knows the impact of money.
early failures are that of SUV's fuck those gas guzzlers that kill the air. Hummers and are for ass holes.
blah blah blah we grow up and die
then fertilize the world
we were raised by grand theft auto!
Friday, June 15, 2007
i was hungry after setting up a couple of reactions this morning, so i went to the price center for a cup of cheap cocoa and a piece of marble cake. the cocoa was a little too hot for the season, so i dont think i will get it any more this year. therefore i was sitting in the open, sipping my cocoa on a sunny and breezy la jolla morning for the last time, listening to arvo part's lamentate. i'm sure part didn't intend his music this way, but whenever i am not feeling much or don't know what to feel, the music feels emotionless. the sparse piano sounds just fills the blank spaces between my equally sparse thoughts. but it's quiet, like a whisper. and i like that. so for a moment, everything was perfect, the breeze, the sun, the sweet cocoa, lubimov's fingers on the keys, the ambient noises making its way through the earphones, and those that were coming from my roaming brain. everything coming through different channels, nothing is blocking anything else. and all was harmonious.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Gisele Bundchen
i was flipping through the latest vs catalogue (not sent to me) and i saw this woman:
she is HOT! there's something about her looks, which makes everyone else look like either bithes or country pumpkins. or little girls. goodness. i would rather quit my job if i had to compete with this woman..
(ok. i just googled. she is the highest-paid model alive. oh well... looks like my taste is quite mainstream :) )
she is HOT! there's something about her looks, which makes everyone else look like either bithes or country pumpkins. or little girls. goodness. i would rather quit my job if i had to compete with this woman..
(ok. i just googled. she is the highest-paid model alive. oh well... looks like my taste is quite mainstream :) )
boredom III
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: Boston You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don't. Of course, that doesn't mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine. | |
| The West | |
| The Midland | |
| North Central | |
| The Northeast | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The Inland North | |
| The South | |
| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
boredom II
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
You are Spider-Man
| You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
final week boredom
| Your dating personality profile: Funny - You laugh often. People never accuse you of lacking a sense of humor. You don't take yourself too seriously. Liberal - Politics matters to you, and you aren't afraid to share your left-leaning views. You would never be caught voting for a conservative candidate. Wealthy/Ambitious - You know what your goals are and you pursue them vigourously. Achieving success is important to you. | Your date match profile: Funny - You consider a good sense of humor a major necessity in a date. If his jokes make you laugh, he has won your heart. Adventurous - You are looking for someone who is willing to try new things and experience life to its fullest. You need a companion who encourages you to take risks and do exciting things. Conservative - Forget liberals, you need a conservative match. Political discussions interest you, and a conservative will offer the viewpoint you need. |
Your Top Ten Traits 1. Funny 2. Liberal 3. Wealthy/Ambitious 4. Big-Hearted 5. Adventurous 6. Intellectual 7. Outgoing 8. Practical 9. Romantic 10. Sensual | Your Top Ten Match Traits 1. Funny 2. Adventurous 3. Conservative 4. Big-Hearted 5. Wealthy/Ambitious 6. Outgoing 7. Practical 8. Sensual 9. Intellectual 10. Romantic |
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