Blending in

Today, while walking home from teaching an English class, I was stopped on the street by a lady. She started telling me about the Red Cross, asking me if I was familiar with it, and detailing specifically what it does in Spain. I followed her explanation okay for a while, but got lost at some point and I had to ask her to slow down. Up until then, she didn't know that I was a foreigner. She just thought I was a regular Spaniard, like most of the people walking the streets in this country. That is something I really like here. With a single glance someone assumes that I am native enough to speak the language, vote, donate money to the Red Cross, or give directions.  My first few weeks in Spain, when I was mostly in touristy locations like Madrid, I was asked for directions half a dozen times. Do I just exude an aura of confidence that makes people assume I know my way around? That is something that often got on my nerves in China: I was not invisible.

On the contrary, even in a city with upwards of 15 million people (like Beijing), in China I was always hyper visible. People noticed me, and not for anything special I was doing nor for any special clothing that I wore, but merely because I was white. In the same way that people in Spain assume I am a local and I am aware of things, people in China assumed I was a foreigner and ignorant of everything. I only remember one time in which a stranger approached me to ask for directions: she came from behind me, and as soon as I turned and she saw my face she instantly apologized and asked someone else for directions, assuming that I didn't know. Ironically, I knew the location she was asking about, and I knew how to get there. She didn't listen to me, but instead listened to the Chinese guy standing next to me who didn't know where it was, and continues to wander aimlessly for a while, despite my intentions to help her. Normally, strangers in Beijing assumed that I was ignorant until it was proven otherwise. Until I opened my mouth to speak (not flawless, by any means, but I think) pretty damn good Mandarin, I was considered to speak only English. Until I displayed my excellent knowledge of Beijing's geography (at least the western and central areas) I was assumed to be lost.

There were certainly some parts of Beijing that I did know pretty well. Granted, I was a foreigner there, there were (and always will be) some things that I wasn't aware of. Nonetheless, I often ended up knowing Beijing better than Chinese people from outside of Beijing. On many occasions Chinese friends of mine weren't familiar with a particular location in Beijing, but I was able to direct us there. (There were practical reasons for this: I went outside my home to other parts of the city more often than they did)

In Spain people don't assume that I am ignorant and incapable unless I prove myself ignorant and incapable. I guess I really enjoy that.

My new favorite Spanish actor

Although I've somewhat enjoyed watching Antonio Banderas for a while, I have recently discovered Javier Bardem. Well, not so recently in fact: Biutiful was one of the in-flight movies when I flew out of Beijing in June 2011. I didn't watch more than a few minutes of the movie, but that was the first time that I remember recognizing the actor. It wan't until a few weeks ago when I saw Los Lunes al Sol that it really began to click in my head, though. After looking him up, I realized that I first saw him in Jamón, jamón, during my Spanish-and-Indian-movie-week of Spring Festival 2011. Later, when I was in Minnesota for parts of June and July of 2011, I saw him in Carne Tremula and Mar Adentro, both of which I enjoyed.


I saw some similarities between Los Lunes al Sol and Biutiful. They both focused on the hard life that people have with not much money living in Barcelona. Although I enjoyed Los Lunes al Sol, I thought that Biutiful was really a beautiful movie. I did enjoy that it had some Mandarin spoken by the Chinese immigrant workers, but the sorrow of the film, the tragedy there, and the hard life portrayed are things that I found to be very moving.


I really like movies like that: perhaps it is because I was raised on movies that always had happy endings and always had the good guys win. These films cut black and white so clearly, and films that display the world as more ambiguous seem so much more real to me. Main characters that aren't very good or heroic, obstacles that aren't from a megalomaniac evil person, and difficulties that can't be blamed or placed on any person, but merely are. Sometimes I wonder if movies that display conflict as so clear-cut and black-and-white are somewhat responsible for simplified views of the world. The movies that I saw as a child were almost all American movies, but that isn't to say that other countries don't have movies like this too. I think that this is also one of the many reasons that I like Miyazaki films so much: rather than having villains and heroes, the antagonists of his films often have clear motivations that an audience can understand and sympathize with, such as wanting to protect one's people from destructive monsters, or to be reunited with a long-lost loved one.


In Biutiful, Javier plays a man with a pretty tough life. Not enough money to treat his children as well as he would like, an ex with drug problems who keeps coming back, trying to manage a bunch of illegal street vendors while placating (bribing) the cops enough to back off, and dealing with a high pressure agreement with Chinese immigrants workers make his life difficult right from the start of the film. When he gets more bad news he makes some small efforts to live a better life, but this is no Disney fable, so the world continues to shit on him. I highly recommend it. This is one of the best Spanish movies that I have seen. Biutiful was nominated for many film awards, and it won several of them too, so if you care about film committees and their opinions that may sway you.

Video Games and Me

Fascination
When I was young, I was charmed by video games. They were something completely foreign to my existence. In the house that I lived in as a small child, we didn't have video games. Visiting relatives, however, basically introduced me to the concept of video games. Cousins often had a Super Nintendo or a Sega Mega Drive game system hooked up to a TV, and I was amazed. I recall being completely enchanted by these games, and playing Sonic and Mario games for as long as I could (until my parent's called me away for a meal or to start the long drive home) in the basements of houses belong to my aunts and uncles. Since it was something that was completely absent from my normal existence, playing video games at relatives' houses was often a major source of excitement and joy.

Immersion
Probably the most revolutionary event of my pre-high school youth was when my family bought a computer. When I was small my father and my sister and I had played Prince of Persia together, but when in late 1999 our family got a (at the time) new and powerful desktop machine, it changed everything. We bought Myst and Might and Magic VI. I wasn't old enough to understand Myst, but Might and Magic VI was a bit easier for me to grasp. I was already familiar with stories of heroes, wizards, swords, and dragons due to an introduction to Dragonlance from my sister. I loved Might and Magic VI. I loved it so much that I probably played the game through three times, and I got other games in the series (Might and Magic VII and VIII) based purely off of my love of the first game. I recall spending hours playing Starcraft and the Diablo games. When a classmate introduced me to emulators, it might have been the beginning of my long and glorious career of getting-things-for-free-online-rather-than-paying-for-them-in-stores. Armed with a Super Nintendo Emulator, various Marios, Final Fantasys were available to me. Some of the best memories I have of video games are of RPGs like the various Final Fantasy games and Tales of Phantasia. To me, these games were like novels. I usually used a set button to speed through boring random battles and walking at a high speed (another benefit of using an emulator rather than a real console) so that I could quickly get to the dialogues or the next key point in the progression of the plot. Naturally, most of my memories of these games are not of fighting of monsters, but rather are about the relationships between the characters, the experiences that they go through, and their reactions. Looking back, they really feel like interactive novels. At some point, we got a N64 and later a Playstation 2. I vaguely recall getting a Gameboy at some point too. There were certainly some games from these consoles that I spend many hours on and enjoyed (such as FFX and Zelda), but I don't have as many memories of other console games. I think that, in general, they tended to be simpler, with less of a focus on story, characters, and plot, and with more of a focus on simple repetitive action.

Rejection
Now I look back at how many hours a spent playing video games with a bit of a shudder. Calculating just for the Final Fantasy series, I have no doubt that if the same number of hours had been devoted to a language class I could have learned French, German, or Spanish up to a decent level. Of course, I didn't have the same desire for productivity back then as I do now, and it is likely that I wouldn't have had the motivation to learn a language or do something similar back at that age, but I look back on those hours and wish that I could re-use them more productively, somehow. Naturally, I do not consider all of the hours I spent playing video games to be wasted. Many, but not all. As I mentioned earlier, some of the games that focused more on character and story were more like novels to me, and I still think back, remember, and enjoy those stories. Others, however, had no real story or progression, I would quickly cut them out of my past if I could. Although I hadn't reached this level of reasoning at age 18, arriving at Kalamazoo College helped me to realize how enjoyable it was to socialize, and I basically gave up video games as soon as I arrived there. It was seriously a big change. In middle school and high school I probably spent most of my time in the evenings after school either reading (mostly fantasy novels or Dungeons and Dragons books late into the night) or playing video games. After arriving at college though (Autumn of 2006), I basically didn't touch video games until January of 2009. For more than two years video games were simply less interesting than spending time with the circus club, hanging out with new friends, exploring what it was like to flirt, getting my schoolwork done on time, and generally being a young college student with other young college students. I look back and think how young and foolish I was then, but it was certainly an improvement over who I was in high school.

Acceptance
In January of 2009, to guard against boredom and the cold winter, I spend a few weeks downloading and playing amateur RPG games on my computer. They were story- and character-focused, creative, and very enjoyable to play. Once I started my spring semester and life picked up pace again, however, I didn't touch games again until more than a year later. In spring of 2010, with my graduation a week or so away, and my schoolwork basically finished, I didn't really have any projects on my plate, so to keep myself from boredom I again spent a few days of playing games, this time more casual games from Kongregate, which my roommates had introduced me to. The following winter I spent a week or two obsessed with Spore, and I just finished a two week obsession over Divine Divinity.

I think I have a general pattern, now: I will spend a week or two each year playing a video game intensely, and then not touch video games for the rest of my year. I think that works okay for me. I know that I don't have to do something productive (such as study/learn something new) constantly, and the joy and relaxation that is brought from slaying dragons or saving the world can be pretty nice too. I still have mixed feelings, and I still have a desire to spend more of my waking hours doing productive things, but I find more and more the great difference between my desires and expectations as opposed to my reality. Looking at it logically, though, I don't really see how spending 10 hours non-productively playing a video game is any better or worse than spending 10 hours non-productively watching bad movies or crappy TV shows, watching sport games, or reading low-quality novels. Enjoyment is what counts in recreation time, right?

I Live in the Future

When I was in Munich for the EuropeanJuggling Convention this past August I met Tomas. I like the guy a lot, and I have learned a good deal from him. One of the most memorable moments I recall, though, is when he exclaimed “You do live in the future!” Tomas was amazed at some of the things that I did with my iPhone, things that I began to take for granted as soon as I discovered them and incorporated them into my own habits. For instance, as soon as I realized I could use my phone to check my email while I was outside of my home and away from my computer, I was struck with amazement on two accounts: first that I hadn't discovered this years ago, and second, that everyone didn't do this. (naturally, not everyone has the ability to check email away from their desk, but realizing the convenience of doing so I was amazed that I the transition wasn't more widespread). The same with Skype: A few years back when I first learned about Skype, I was amazed that there was still a market for international calling cards. Tomas was amazed at other things too, though. He was (along with Oli) impressed with the blue tooth (wireless) headset I used to listen to my music without needing any wires physically connecting to my iPhone. This is especially great for dancers and jugglers, and especially great for those jugglers that want to, try to, or actually do mix a lot of physical movement and/or dance into their juggling, like Liam, Oli, Tomas, and myself. If this wasn't “future” enough, throughout the entire convention I displayed an near-uncanny ability to know what workshops, performances, and other events where going on where and at what time. I didn't develop psychic abilities: I just made use of Google calender on my iPhone. Wirelessly syncing it on both my laptop and my phone made me feel pretty sweet, in addition to the obvious fact that it let me plan and act without having to physically go to an announcement board to check the workshop schedule. I first started using Google calender when I was in Beijing in 2010 to keep track of all the events and activities going on in the city. If there were five different things going on in one weekend, it was just simpler and more efficient for me to put all that info in one place than to have to repeatedly check the specific webpage for each event.

My most recent visit to O'Hare in Chicago, though, when I was both excited and calm for my return to Spain after an expensive bureaucratic detour to the United States, I found myself, one who supposedly “lives in the future,” astounded by technology. It was like something from Star Trek. A wall-sized display, that people could physically interact with. No mouse, no joystick, no keyboard, no physical interface beyond the tap of a finger. I think I saw this kind of technology in Minority Report, which is definitely a science fiction movie. I just tapped my finger on the word “weather” which was projected onto the wall, and data came up concerning where would be sunny and where would rain. That was possibly one of the least practical, efficient, and economical displays of technology that I have seen recently (considering how much power it would use and how much space it takes for one person to get a tiny amount of information), but it was pretty cool.

Rock Climbing in Albacete

The peaceful little village of Ayna

Thursday December 8th was a national holiday in Spain. The banks were closed, the schools were closed, and I had no work. Taking advantage of an extra day off, Blas invited me to go rock climbing with him. In the past when I've gone rock climbing my hands have tended to get so raw and sore after just a few minutes of climbing that it becomes significantly less enjoyable after the first ten minutes, so I was wary of my own physical frailty at first and didn't want to accept the invitation. However, about some thought I decided that I would take advantage of the opportunity to get out of Albacete, get some physical exercise outside, and chat and bond with a co-worker. And all for free, too. So in the end I told Blas that I would meet him on Thursday morning and go rock climbing with him and his friend.

Local scenery

And thus began my Thursday: hopping into a car with Blas and his friend Javier, driving south to go rock climbing. We met in the morning with our lunches packed, and Blas drove us about 50 km south of the city of Albacete to a little place called Ayna. The scenery was quite nice down there, with the steep rises and sharp drop offs reminding a bit of the karst peaks of Guangxi. Of course, we didn't drive all the way down there just to appreciate the scenery, so we put on our harnesses, pulled on our cat feet, and got to climbing. Blas is quite a good climber, so he was always the first to scale the rock, setting our rock into carabiners one by one. After Blas had set up the rope on a route, Javier and I alternated climbing while Javier and Blas alternated belaying. This means that I got to be pretty lazy: when I wasn't climbing I just sat around. I had predicted that I would have a good deal of downtime and brought my current book, The Language Instinct, as a shield against boredom while I was waiting for my turn. What I good idea that was, as I have been enjoying the book a lot so far. Although my experience with diverse languages and the research of Lera Boroditsky suggest that I should not accept 100% of his book as factually true, I am enjoying the book a lot so far in spite of what I suspect are occasional out-dated or incorrect facts. It has a great flow to it, reminding me a lot of the writing of Malcolm Gladwell in that references to pop culture abound and an explanation of a highly academic subject is made digestible for the general public. I am only a quarter or so of the way into the book, but I am looking forward to reading the rest of it. But to get back to climbing, some of the routes were really excellent challenges. Blas told me that I successfully completed a 6a/6a+, but knowing that there are a dozen different rating systems for rock climbing, I really have no idea what that signifies. I just know that I didn't fall at all, and that the routes seemed to be just the right level of difficulty for me: not to easy while providing a good challenge. After a few hours of this we paused to eat our lunches and then hiked to another area to climb up a different kind of rock formation. This one seemed to be almost flat, and I found myself repeatedly amazed at how well the climbing shoes could grip the smallest irregularities in the rock. I continually felt that I would never be able to hold me weight on a foothold, and moments later said foothold was supporting most of my body's weight.

Blas and I on the rock. His shirt says "Spider Mule"

Although I had been rock climbing before, it had been a while. I vaguely recall my first experience in high school when some students from Perpich took a little trip to an indoor climbing place in Minnesota. Then when I traveled in Guangxi during December of 2008 I went rock climbing outdoors via a local company with another traveler. Finally, during my senior year at Kalamazoo College I went to Climb Kalamazoo a few times with friends. That, being my most recent rock climbing experience, was a good two years ago. Not to mention that climbing inside and climbing on a natural rock are quite different experiences. I was rather pleasantly surprised how the natural rock didn't tear up my hands as much as I remember the indoor climbing walls doing.

Local Scenery

Despite the fact that I hadn't climbed much in the past, and that it had been a long time since I had climbed at all, I enjoyed it and I think that I did pretty well. This was the second time that Spaniards have referred to me as "que machina!", and I think that I could get used to it. Apparently, Blas and Javier were quite surprised that I was able to use my upper body strength to pull myself up in certain parts of the routes, so I guess that I still got it: despite not being terribly physically active, not juggling, not dancing, not doing martial arts, and nor doing much on anything physical recently, I guess that the physical skills I got from my martial arts-infused childhood are still serving me well.

Movie Review: 不再让你孤单 (English Title: A Beautiful Life) (2011)

A Beautiful Life is a 2011 movie which seems to be a cooperative project between Hong Kong and mainland China. It was directed by Andrew Lau, who is responsible for the excellent Hong Kong action film, Infernal Affairs, so it was strange to me to see him directing a sappy love story. The Chinese title, 不再让你孤单, roughly means "I Won't Let You Be Lonely Again." I always wonder how they translate these titles so differently into different languages. Movies like this often make me hate Chinese movies, but A Beautiful Life seemed to have two separate and distinct parts to it, and I will have to analyze it as such. 

Fang Zhendong doesn't know who this obnoxiously drunk lady is, but he still carries her home.

The first half of the movie seemed like a standard Chinese romance film, and therefore I did not like it at all. It has some standard (cultural?) elements with I find quite of-putting. First, the main female character, Li Peiru, manipulates and uses men as though they were objects, apparently with no regard for their feelings. She throws temper tantrums when things don't go as she wishes, which I find to be quite annoying. This actually is a cultural thing: it is not unusual to see a grown Chinese woman having a fit. Whereas in the United this would be seen as a sign of great immaturity (which is still my culturally-bound judgement of it), in China it is not soon quite so negatively. Alternatively, maybe there are just many women there who can't control their outbursts, and people in China have learned to put up with it. While Li Peiru is acting like a rich and spoiled brat, the main male character, Fang Zhendong is a standard Chinese guy: he is moral and upright, takes care of his brother, tries to do the right thing, and doesn't really have much driving force. What I mean by that is that his actions rarely push the story forward, and that he is generally quite passive. In the romantic pursuing between Li Peiru and Fang Zhendong, the pursuing is all done by Li Peiru, with her continuously chasing after him. Fang Zhendong puts up with all of Li Peiru's shit without voicing a single word of complaint: her drunkenness (which seems alcoholic), her manipulation, and even her financial instability.¹ This reflects another part of Chinese cultural norms that I am not a big fan of: while the women throw tantrums or act out, the men just shut up and deal with it. This is, of course, not always the case in reality, but this is what is commonly portrayed in films (and I assume other media as well), and in the same way that I was socialized by American movies, there are millions of young Chinese people watching this type of behavior repeatedly in films and on TV. So to wrap up the first half of the review, I did not like the characters of the film, neither of whom seemed particularly lovable. The story of the affection between them also seemed fairly contrived to me: there were just too many chance encounters in which they met, too many coincidences for me to believe it. There is a quiter side-plot of Fang Zhendong's brother and the girl that he likes (they get married and live happily), which I enjoyed much more than the romance between Fang Zhendong and Li Peiru.

I enjoyed the second half a lot more. It made me miss Beijing. In the first half there were a few scenes that gave me a nostalgic feeling (Li Peiru's apartment is near the CCTV tower, while Fang Zhendong lives in the Hutongs near Drum Tower). The second half of the film, however, had a alternatly warm and sad feeling. (spoiler warning) Eventually, Li Peiru realized what a great, honest, loyal guy Fang Zhengdong is, and how he has put up with all of her shit and still wants her, so she goes to him, they get married, and they have a baby. Here is the sad part: Fang Zhengdong has a head injury which causes him to forget more and more things as time goes on. He uses sticky notes all over to remind him how to do things like how to feed the fish and how to mix the baby milk powder. He forgets to pick up Li Peiru from work, and at one point he even forgets to make the rice for dinner, and only realizes it after all the other dishes are ready and on the table. It is painful, and frightening, to watch. However, they live a happy domestic life with Fang Zhengdong's brother and his wife in a calm and cozy little home, tucked away in a maze of hutong-like alleys. That is the part that most made me yearn for a domestic life. Watching the family together in their home made me want to return to China and settle down, cooking Chinese food and living with a little family or with close friends. Maybe after a few more years of bouncing around the globe I will have to go back and find a cozy home in the periphery of Beijing. EDIT: Kind of like this, perhaps.
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1 It seems that Fang Zhengdong gave Li Peiru a long of several hundred thousand RMB, which she then failed to pay back. I am not completely sure on that, though, as there were some details that I didn't understand (I watched it in Mandarin with Chinese subtitles).

A Guest Post on Economics

Obligatory money-themed image

Being such an internationally focused fellow, I often feel that economics are one very useful way of understanding the world that I didn't learn from my undergrad education at Kalamazoo College. After all, economic interactions and economic relations are a major part of when happens between national boundaries, yet I still find myself mystified by the economic relationship between China and the United States, the international political relationship which I focus on the most. I recently read The Map Is Not the Territory: An Essay on the State of Economics, written by John Kay. Since this is about as far into economics as I normally get, I found myself intrigued by this field of which I know so little about. Although I think that I am more logic and statistic-based than many of my acquaintances, aside from an internationally focused class from John Dugas at K reading Freakanomics in 2008 (which just seemed like some clever statistical analyses applied to real-world situations) and slogging though half of Nudge in Spanish a few weeks ago, I don't think I have ever had any education in economics. Inspired by my general lack of background in economics and the curiosity ignited by the article, I inquired about the state of economics, and Eric Swanson was good enough to help me out. Eric Swanson is a former classmate of mine from Kalamazoo College who studied economics there. We studied Chinese in Beijing together at Capital Normal University as well. When Eric responded to my queries, which were basically asking his opinion of John Kay's article, I was so pleased with the information contained therein, that with Eric's permission this is going to be the first guest post of my blog!

     The biggest weaknesses of Neoclassical economics, which dominates in America, is that it is unable to look paste equilibrium economic models and discounts the impact of cultural factors on the economy. In the late 1800s a French economist named Leon Walras started analyzing economics with newly developed calculus tools and the recent theories on equilibrium systems developed by physics. To oversimplify; economists were so thrilled that he had made mathematically precise model of the economy that they have clung to it ever since. 

     Economists who disagreed split off and turned into sociologists. Meanwhile physics and the other hard sciences studied equilibrium more and concluded that very few natural phenomena were represented well by it and started developing things like chaos theory and the aptly named complex systems. Economists like their equilibrium models because you put your data in and it will spit out the same results every time because it's an equilibrium model that always returns to a steady state. With a complex systems you throw in your set of starting factors and any number of things can happen based on any number of possible occurrences reacting off of each other. There are effectively an infinite number of possible paths the system might take to a potentially vastly different ends.

     In the last twenty years or so, some economists have finally learned about complex systems, and combined with the sufficiently powerful computers we have now, are doing some really interesting research with it. But this is not orthodox in the US, and certainly not something that would be taught in undergrad classes. Honestly, the core of undergrad economics could basically be replaced by one course and a math major. The most interesting econ course I took at Kalamazoo College, and the one I learned the most from, was Econ and Law, which was really a behavioral economics course. Right now I'm doing econ grad school research and trying to find schools that are willing to deviate from neo-classical economics.

Eric also sent me an excerpt from a paper he wrote for a class which provides a more specific critique of Neoclassical economics:

     Neoclassical economics effectively puts a wall between everything dealing with making money and everything else. Economics concerns everything on the inside, i.e. money, while everything on the outside is irrelevant. The global economy is perhaps the most massive and complex institution our species has ever created. But to say that it is unconnected to the myriad other human institutions that do not deal directly with money is preposterous. Economies are made up of numerous social practices, each specific the local culture. This is why as basic a capitalist transaction as buying a pair of socks is conducted with marked differences in China compared to the United States. In China, it is expected that the asking price will be above the normal going rate. It is the responsibility of the buyer to haggle over the price of the socks and wrestle it down to what he or she is willing to pay. In the United States, there is no haggling, and a salesperson would be confused and possibly offended if the buyer began pointing out tiny flaws in the socks to negotiate a lower price. The religious holiday of Christmas distorts the entire economic year in the United States. Entire businesses base their profitability on the sales they make during this period. To say that culture has no effect on economics is simply silly.
     It is foolish for neoclassical economics to try to limit the scope of economic science by defining it so narrowly. Including cultural forces in the analysis of how people make economic decisions enhances economics’ explanatory power, even if it does make it a less precisely mathematical science. Including all of the forces that act upon economic agents certainly increases the difficulty of modeling, but it would be shameful to deliberately leave out vital information because it made things more complicated.

Eric also recommended a wonderful book called "The Origin of Wealth" by Eric Beinhocker which he is currently reading. It details how complexity theory, evolution theory, and computing power are changing the way we can approach economics in ways that better understand the complex modern world.

Radical Thought

I often have a hard time speaking with radicals. From time to time, people have tried to convince me the the evils of modern Capitalist society and how one can get trapped within it. They told me that propaganda/advertisements always tell us that we need more stuff; society says you must be good looking, and smart, and have a good car, and have a good house, and have a good job; that education should not be forced upon children; that the things in a city (such as air pollution from cars) are bad for you and will kill you; that if people have good ideas they are killed; that capitalism as a system is inherently bad.

There are many different responses I had and still have to these, and other, statements. One of them is: “Yes, I understand what you are saying. In fact, I have understood these things for quite some time, ever since I started to read about anarchism, about Marxism, and about criticisms of the global culture which is currently dominant back when I first got interested in this stuff around the age of 16 or 17. It is not so simple as that, though.”

One issue I brought up during a debate like this on the WWOOF farm near Toledo was the option of choice. In response to the “society says you must be good looking, and smart, and have a good car, and have a good house, and have a good job” argument, I responded that yes, this is clearly true. However, a person is not a passive machine that does whatever it is told. As a human (a free agent, as a philosopher might say) I have the ability to decide which of these conditions I will accept. For instance, in my own future I plan to be smart, possibly good looking, without a good car (I certainly do not consider it to be a priority, although this may change, depending on my future lifestyle), with a good house (which by my personal definition should be quite different from that of U.S. society's definition), and possibly with a good job (defined as a job I enjoy, not a job that allows me to earn a lot of money). I consider myself to be more aware of the option of disobeying societies unwritten rules than most people, possibly due to influence of cultural/individualist anarchism that I received in my late youth. Indeed, like so many things, I suspect that a mere awareness of these 'societal demands' is a first step to anyone making a conscious decision to accept or reject them.

The in-between area isn't really recognized by some people, though, or at least it wasn't recognized when I debated this on the WWOOF farm. Perhaps the people I was talking to saw it as more of a black-or-white issue. When the evil of modern society was brought up, I mentioned that tools (or things in general) can be used for good ends or for bad ends; I can use a hammer to build a house or to kill a person. Remi told me that some things are just bad, and when I asked him for examples he didn't respond.¹

As far as capitalism goes, although I have mellowed out a lot since my most radical stage around age 19 or 20, I am still not a huge fan of it. I find it to be especially entertaining when people attempt to educate me on the evils of capitalism, primarily because (in the cases that I have experiences of this anyway, I have felt that) I know more about the subject than my prospective educators do. I didn't major in Marxist philosophy in university or anything, nor do I have a degree in the history of labor/union organization. However, I did read a good number of books about anarchism, all of which contained strong critiques of capitalism, as well as some non-anarchist books which criticized other parts of modern global culture which had a large influence on my thought and opinions, such as No Logo and Fast Food Nation. Documentary films to as Micheal Moore's breakout movie, Food Inc, and Super Size Me were influences on my too. In fact, I recall seeing The Corporation at a young and tender age of maybe 14 or so, and it was a big influence on me.

However, I cannot deny the proven success of harnessing human self-interest as a means of achieving efficiency and goals. Is that a core part of capitalism? I think so. Perhaps I am thinking more about behavioral economics, but I see these as linked very tightly, as least in the type of capitalism that currently exists in the world. I am tempted to point out how millions were lifted from poverty after Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms allowed China to become a more capitalistic economy, which I immediately mentally counter by a Noam Chomsky lecture in which he declared that increased standard of living under capitalism (which has happened in many places) does not prove capitalism to be a good system any more than increased standards of living for slaves under slavery (which did happen) proves the worth of slavery as an economic practice.

Another things that has happened in the past, is that the people talking to be about these  big and important issues (how the human society in the world should work, basically) people often get very emotional, sometimes even devolving into silly arguments, like in this example of foolishness and immaturity (present on both sides in this video). I recall reading in Feminism from the Perspective ofBuddhist Practice (by Rita Gross) that “In general, regarding all beliefs, the effect of practice (of Buddhism) is that one becomes less ideological, less tied to rigidly held fixed beliefs.” I wonder if this is a part of education in general, philosophy in general, or if it is just something particular that resonates with me. I am able to debate and discuss a number of issues without becoming too emotionally heated or involved, I consciously make an effort to keep a smile on my face (both to not appear antagonistic and to keep my ownbrain away from the anger that can easily arise when confronting differing viewpoints), and I am not hasty to form strong opinions (or so I think).

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1 I will readily admit that some things are easier to use for good than for evil (now we are getting into the realm poorly defined terms!), or vice versa. For a trite example I propose automatic rifles, agent orange, and wild mobs. Any of these could hypothetically be used for a good purpose, but that would be much more challenging to the user than to use them for a bad purpose. An AK-47 isn't designed to do much more than kill people (Although I have to admit: I am not an expert on AK-47s). Still, one could use an AK-47 (or any of the things I listed above) to injure/kill a rapist about to attack a friend, or one could use it to injure/kill a crowd of random people on the street. I am not going to claim that one of those is 100% good while the other is 100% bad, but in a thought experiment I would be far more willing to kill/injure a single individual in order to prevent a rape rather than kill/injure a crowd of random people with no moral goal or purpose being achieved as a result. On the other end of the scale, although I could certainly imagine a micro-loan institution, a community center, or an organic garden being used for bad purposes, I would tentatively state that these tools are most commonly used with positive uses, although I certainly recognize the possibility that they could be used for ill as well.

Interpersonal Conflicts

Not that it happens often, but I think that one of the ways that I have most often been upset or frustrated with other people (and vice versa) is by the mood and intention being different between two people in an interaction. Specifically, I mean that one person is trying to joke and have fun while the other person is trying to be serious. I have been on both sides of this issue, and I am surprised at how narrow minded and full of assumptions that I can be, thinking that the other person should just relax and laugh, or that the other person should sober up and see how serious this is.

I recall when I spent time on a WWOOF farm near Toledo, Spain for instance, when a man named Edua would regularly say very silly or illogical things which I suspect he intended as jokes. However, it would break up the flow of the discussion. For instance, he told me that I shouldn't be reading on my computer but rather I should be out by the swimming pool practicing my breakdance like he had seen me to previously. I responded to this by saying that I can't only strengthen my body, but I must also strengthen my mind. He responded by saying “look at how crazy and wild your hair is! You already have too much information in your head!”, which is great for a laugh, but which is terribly for trying to reach a serious understanding or progress in a debate. It could also be a cultural difference, in that I am familiar with some customs of intellectually debating a subject, but Edua and his family members never attended much school, and likely were never introduced to the specific cultural practices of debating.

Running with a thought from the previous paragraph, it was as if only physical exercise was valued, and things that made use of the mind but not the body were not seen as worthwhile. Physical act X (riding a bike/swinging on a swing/climbing a tree) without thinking new thoughts was more valuable than mental act Y (reading philosophy/history/fantasy) without moving my body. It seems that on the WWOOF farm, Edua valued mental/intellectual ability so little in relation to physical skill/ability that regardless of what I was doing on my computer (I doubt it would make a difference whether I told him I was playing Tetris or I was designing a poverty reduction program for rural India) he thought that I should go hang out by the swimming pool and lay in the sun instead. I think that we do this to children sometimes, (or at least it happened to me as a child) telling them to go ride a bike rather than watch a movie or read a book or play a video game. I think it is sometimes too easy to forget that doing mainly mental acts which are mostly physically motionless help a brain to grow and a person to develop in ways that are very different from physical activity. Although I know that I have a strong body now, I am sure that it is due mostly to the martial arts throughout my life, and not to riding a bike. In fact, I remember being miserably bored mentally at times when I was told to go outside and ride my bike, where as I was (of course not always, but sometimes) deeply engaged in a story while playing video games or watching a movie inside. I wonder if I will observe the same behavior in myself in respect to how I act towards children in the future? A false dichotomy, of course, but interesting to ponder nonetheless.

Translation: The Donkey's Skill is all Used Up

Here is a translation of the little story behind 黔驴技穷¹, a chéngyǔ². Just for the record, I have never actually heard or seen this chéngyǔ used anywhere, so it may be one of the less common ones.

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The Guizhou Donkey's Exhausted Skills

A long time ago, there were no donkeys in central Guizhou, but one day a meddelsome person brought a donkey into Guizhou by boat. After bringing it in, he realized what a useless creature the donkey was, so he decided to set it free at the foot of a mountain. A nearby tiger caught sight of the donkey, and saw that this was an enormous creature, so the tiger thought that the donkey must be the spirit of the mountain, and hid itself in the forest to watch the donkey.
The tiger slowly approached the donkey, being ever so careful, not knowing exactly what the donkey was. One day, the donkey called out like a bird, and the tiger was extremely frightened. The tiger fled far away, thinking that the donkey was going to bite him. It was very frightening. Still, the tiger came and went, watching the donkey from a distance, and it seemed to him that the donkey had no special or unique skills. The tiger slowly got used to the strange call of the donkey, and he again approached the donkey. But the whole time the tiger dared not start a fight with the donkey. Slowly, the tiger approached the donkey again, this time with a more relaxed attitude. He bumped into it gently, then brushed up against it, finally colliding into the donkey to provoke it. The donkey was very upset, and he kicked out at the tiger with his legs. This made the tiger very happy, and thinking to himself, he figured "the donkey's skill is nothing more than this!" So he jumped up, roared loudly, and ripped out the donkey's throat with his powerful bite. The tiger didn't leave until he has eaten all the meat on the donkey.
Later, everyone took this story of the tiger eating the donkey in Guizhou as the chengyu "the Guizhou donkey's skill is all used up." The meaning of this chengyu is that the little skill that people have is already used up and finished. So people say "the Guizhou donkey's skill is all used up."

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1 Although the term 贵州 (guì zhōu) is not mentioned at all in the original Chinese text from which I translated this story, the term 黔 (qián) is used, which means Guizhou province. Most provinces of China have a shorter name, similar to how states in the United States have abbreviations in addition to their full names (NY, CA, etc.), and are just as common, being used on cars' license plates, for instance. However, one difference is that the abbreviations of the States in the U.S. are often logical and easy to guess, but there is nothing in the nature of the shorter names for Chinese provinces that would allow a clever observer to guess the meaning without having some specialized background information, or without knowing the short name already. During my time of studying Chinese, I found some of these short names (not just for provinces, but for institutions and holidays as well) to be very confusing. Sometimes characters with no other meaning are used as the short names of provinces, but sometimes historical kingdoms located in the same area lend their names for this cause. An example of this is the nickname for Shangong Province, 鲁 (lǔ), which was the name of a vassal state in the Zhou dynasty which existed from 1066-221 BC.

2 Chéngyǔ (成语), often translated as a set expression, proverb, or an idiom, is a phrase which consists of four characters, or of two sets of two characters. Chéngyǔ normally make reference to some story or legend, which serves to explain the meaning of the Chéngyǔ. Chéngyǔ serve a more important role in Chinese than equivalent set expressions do in English or in many other languages, and they are often used in normal communication in Chinese. An interesting side effect of the abundance and importance of chéngyǔ in Chinese is the assumption that such idioms are equally important in other languages, resulting in a large market for idiom dictionaries, collections of English idioms, and other reference material that claim to help language learners understand important English idioms. Similarly, chéngyǔ dictionaries, which list many chéngyǔ and their associated stories, are widely available to the student of Chinese. One of the most common idioms among English learners of Chinese is the phrase 马马虎虎 (mǎ ma hū hū) which literally means “horse horse tiger tiger,” but is used to mean not so bad or so-so. Many Chinese people, when asked how their English is will say that it is “Just so-so.”

China and Spain Comparison: Sweet things

Something interesting I learned about the people on the WWOOF farm near Toledo: to them, if something is sweet it is pretty much always a desert. This is very different from China in which many popular main dishes are sweet. In fact, many of my favorite dishes are quite sweet. 糖醋里脊 (sweet and sour pork) remains one of my favorite dishes (of which I have many fond memories and which I hope to see again at some point in the future). But other gastronomic delights abound in Chinese cuisine as well: there is also a sweet corn dish, sweet pumpkin slices, and 鱼香肉丝 (yú xiāng ròu sī), all of which I think are fairly sweet and regularly serve as main dished rather than as dessert.


In fact, I don't really recall much of a concept of dessert in China. Is that something that I missed or have my other friends had similar impressions? However, when asking me about dessert in other cultures the WWOOFers here didn't care about dessert in China, but only in the United States. This was troubling to be, first on a level of their disinterest in a major world culture, but also because I am not sure about the status of sweet dishes in the United States. As I realized while spending some time with Nadia in Germany, I know more about China than I do about the United States, so I find it quite challenging when people ask me about certain things concerning the U.S.. I hope this doesn't turn out to be too much of a challenge in the future when I expect to be increasingly called upon to relate information about the United States, in a school environment and potentially in other environments as well. I am, after all, working in a Spanish school as kind of a 'cultural expert' on the United States.

Translation: If the Person I Loved Suddenly Turned into a Steamed Bun

This is a fairly strange, surreal post. It is someone hypothesizing what it would be like if his lover/girlfriend/wife turned into a mantou (a particular kind of steamed bun¹). I think it is fairly strange, and I am not sure why it resonated with people, but it was shared on Renren² four-four thousand times when I first saw it on October 25^th, and it had been shared fifty-eight thousand times as of mid-day (Spain, time) on Thursday November 17, when I was preparing to post the translation to my own blog. It has also been posted on Baidu Forums, where it seems to have received much less attention, with only 12 responses as of Thursday November 17.

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Post Title: If the person I loved suddenly turned into a steamed bun.

(Such a painful topic...)

Suppose that one day, in the early morning as you awaken, I discover that the person laying next to me is a steamed bun.

Then the first thing I would want to do is to make sure if I would treat that person like a steamed bun, or if I would go on treating her like a person?

Due to my love from the past, I would continue to treat her like an individual who possesses independence, but whom just doesn't express anything like other people.

I would stand her up in an appropriate place; I absolutely can't put her in the kitchen, on the dinner table, or any place like that, lest someone mistakes her for food. At the same time I would want to notify all of my family that aside from her (my steamed bun girl) it would be forbidden to have any steamed buns in my house to prevent any chance of her being confused with other steamed buns. This is a sacrifice that must be made in order to protect her life.

Similarly important is this issue: if you leave a steamed bun out for a day or two it is no problem, but what about leaving it out for a long time? Because of this, I would want to buy her a fridge that had a good freezer compartment. Steamed buns can't be chilled, they can only be deep-frozen, otherwise they turn hard as rocks. So I would just have to freeze her and wait for special celebrations, vacations, and holidays to take her out for a while, warm her up with my hands until she is fresh and just like new. Naturally, from the moment we get it we can't put any other foodstuffs into this refrigerator, because we want to prevent her from polluting other food's flavor.

She loves being clean, so even if she turned into a steamed bun she would definitely want to be clean and sanitary. I would have to give her a little bath each day, use my best towel to slowly wash her, being careful not to damage her skin. Steamed buns are very fragile; the outside is very thin and a little layer of skin is her only barrier. Therefore I definitly want to protect her well. I would have to get rid of bugs and pests daily in my house in order to prevent her from getting bitten by bugs when I am not around.

As for her XiaoNei³ and TuDou⁴ accounts, I would continue to help her manage them, informing her friends that she went on vacation, and furthermore that she might not be able to come back for a while. I wouldn't let other people know that she had turned into a steamed bun, and every now and then I would post new vacation pictures online. I guess that she definitely wouldn't want her friends to know that she had turned into a steamed bun.

If she turned into a steamed bun, the I would of course be worried that she might get sad, but during times for vacation we would've already saved a lot of money. For example, the money that we could save on hotels: I would only need to rent a single bed in a youth hostel and place her with the utmost care in a soft spot in a little bag next to my pillow. She could still travel all over as she did before, and at scenic spots I could just ask a passerby to take a photo for us.

Perhaps other people would have fear of turning into a madman. Regardless of where one goes, one would have to bring a steamed bun along. Even friends wouldn't want to pose for a photo with us during our travels -- and it might not even be allowed. Online would I make a name for myself at the "steamed bun man?" because of my having lots of vacation pictures with her? Nowadays she is a steamed bun in my pictures; I would hold her in my hand, or hug her close, and show my affection, treat her well even though she had already turned into a steamed bun. Other people would certainly think that I had gone mad from grieving for my wife, but in my heart I would know that the one I most loved was just this steamed bun. I could accept this as a normal thing.

But I wouldn't admit that she had changed from a person I loved into an object I loved. What I love most isn't a steamed bun, it is her. But she has now changed into a steamed bun, then I would just be in love with the steamed bun that she had turned into. And I wouldn't mind bearing the frustration of parents, since I have my own speech and thoughts, regardless of if she is a steamed bun or anything else, I would still be the same as her.

In this way, slowly, I would nurture the habit of caring for the steamed bun everyday, and of no longer eating any steamed buns. I hope that being the steamed bun by my side every day can show the concern and care that we never had before. Smelling the scent of steamed bun, I would give a big kiss. And whenever I felt her against my skin I would open my mouth for a little kiss. This way my broken-heartedness would slowly fade away and I would adapt to loving a steamed bun and a calm and traquil lifestyle.

I hope that I will be able to go out to take pictures with her and put them up all over our wall, although some will be with normal people and some will be with a steamed bun and scenery. This way I will feel calm and relieved, and it will make me feel that she will never go far, to help me to believe that she is always be happy. I want to use photographs to document her from every angle, to use a video camera to make precious memories of our moments together, and to use my computer to write down journal entries every day about caring of my steamed bun.

I will always believe that one day when I awaken I will find my wife sleeping beside me instead of a steamed bun beside me. I wouldn't be suprised in the least, but instead I would quietly pull the blanket up over her, walk quietly on tiptoe to get the camera, then return to bed to take a picture of her. I believe that eventually she will return.

At that time I will be able to tell her,

"All of the depression and the gloominess were fake,

I've only come to love you more."

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1The Chinese term 馒头(man tou) describes a fairly sepcific kind of bread, and although I feel that the term 'steamed bun' does not do it justice, I haven't been able to find a better translation. I would encourage any readers to do a quick image search on Google or Baidu to discover what a 馒头(man tou) is and looks like. For the ease of readers, I will use the term 'steamed bun' throughout this piece. Steamed buns are about as common in China as toast is in the United States, and it is not at all uncommon for people to eat a steamed bun everyday, or for poor college students to supplement their diet with this thick and filling bread, because it is so cheap.

2RenRen.com (人人网) is a popular social networking site in China. It is very similar in layout and appearance to Facebook, although there are some signifigant differences in how it is used by people and the place it has in Chinese society. English-language information cab be easily found by searching the internet for “What is Renren.”

3Xiaonei.com (校内网) was a previous version of Renren.com. The name changed to Renren in August of 2009.

4TuDou.com (土豆网), literally potatoe, is one of the largest video sharing websites in China.