1. 关注 (pay attention) - 留意他人的处境。在公众地方大声谈手机便是没有关注其它人可能受到骚扰。
2. 肯定他人的存在价值 (acknowledging others) – 插队不单浪费了排队的人的时间，而且是否定人们的存在，否定往往引发冲突。
3. 向好处想 (think the best) – 先往人家的好处想，不单令自已的心灵保持纯真轻省，亦会影向对方更真诚与您相处。在基督教文化中，有教导说接待陌生人，无意中便接待了天使。我在美国迷路、坏车时经常踫到人们积极协助。但中国人「防人之心不可无」是根深蒂固的，我们对热情的陌生人会有所顾忌，结果是向人家浇了一盘冷水。其实往好处想不是盲目不设防，只是世上如果好人居多，就不应先假设对方是坏人，结果是大家崩紧神经做人。
4. 聆听 (listen) – 当我们打断人家的说话，抢着提出自已的论点时，不单显示我们不耐烦，而且反映我们有「自恋」倾向，要将水银灯移到自己头上。打断人家说话的一种不显眼做法，是对人家说话的内容不作响应，然后自说自话。同事告诉你刚去过云南，你却未及追问她对云南的感觉，便兴高彩烈谈你两年前在云南的游历和您对云南的观感。您的目光注视在自己的过去，而不是当下的友人。我们要学习安静，让人家有机会说话。关掉电视、手机，不要想着下一个约会的事情，让自己聆听别人的观点和感受，也让自己逃离自我中心的世界。
5. 兼容接纳 (be inclusive) – 每个人都乐于被人接纳。群体带给人安全感，甚至生活意义和方向，谁也不想被群体排斥。我们要特别小心不要孤立群体中的小数人，譬如一群人聚会时最好说普通话，不要用方言交谈而令其它人在旁边发呆; 留意找一些共同话题让人人参与，而非只有小圈子有发言权; 如果有新朋友加入聚会，应该总结一下之前的讨论，让他易于加入讨论；主持会议的人，应尽可能引导所有与会者发言，提高每个人的参与感。
6. 言调温和 (speak kindly) – 深思熟虑、言调温和是公民修养的核心。我们不要低估语言的力量，它可以建立也可以摧毁听者的自我。善良的说话令身边的人生活在喜乐之中。有时，要懂得在陈述自己的观点后，让对方有说话的机会。要控制声量，大声说话令人受惊，窒息对话。争论时要以事论事，不要攻击对方的种族、国藉、性别或其它与论题无关的私人生活。 “你们女人就是这样不讲逻辑…”、“你们北方人就是那样不设实际…”都是不能接受。即使意见分歧，亦要把对方视为有血有肉的人，而非只是一个要被彻底打倒的谬误。想一想对方为何会接受这样(你认为是错误)的理念，有助于平心静气、化解分歧。必须尊重对方，不要把人的弱点作为取笑的对象、不要扁低人家的成就。用语言践踏人家是想抬高自己，是嫉妒，是自卑感作祟。
7. 不在背后说闲话 (don’t speak ill) – 如果您经常以中性或正面的方式谈论他人，人们便放心坦诚地与您交往而不用担心您会在背后蜚短流长。您控制您的舌头，换来更多真诚的关系。
8. 接纳和给予赞赏 (accept and give praise) – 不要吝啬赞美，它令对方心情愉快，亦令自己有正面的人生观。但讃美必须出于真诚，否则变成花言巧语。要注意在工作地方不能随便赞美同事的外形，目不转睛盯着女同事亦会惹来反感。
9. 尊重他人意愿 (respect even a subtle “no”) – 无论您的提议是出自最良好的愿望，人家说 “不”，就不应强求。有时人家为了保护我们的自尊，用种种间接的方式向我们说 “不”，我们应该领情，而非因为人家未有明言，便穷追不舍。为甚么我们不愿意面对人家的拒绝? 因为我们还像小孩一样自我中心，希望世界按着我们的喜好运转。有时是因为我们自信心太低，觉得人家拒绝我的好意，便是把我全盘否定。
10. 尊重他人意见 (respect others’ opinions) – 是否真能做到这一点，便要看我们采取怎样的方式与人争论。有几个要点应该注意: i) 即使您只是有保留地接受对方的观点，亦不应全面否定他人的主要论点:「我同意一般来说您的观点是对的，但在一些情况下….」ii) 即使您不同意对方观点，亦无需认为对方是全不合理的: 「您的想法的确有其说服力，但是….」iii) 容许自己有改变看法的空间: 「我现在还未被您说服，或者我对这问题还是了解不够。」iv) 明白有些事情是见仁见智: 「您说得没错，但如果换一个角度看这事情….」。讨论问题时最重要的是把自己的意见看为一种观点，而非绝对的真理。容许有异议的空间，甚至应主动征求参与者发表意见。
11. 身体护理 (mind your body) – 好好打理自己的身体是对自己和他人的尊重。干净而没有异味的身体和头发、指甲不藏污纳垢、干净的牙齿和清新的口气，令您在公共生活中，无论在公交车、地铁、或者与人讨论时更有自信，亦令人更愿意与您交往。我们亦要注意身体发出的声音: 打喷嚏、打呵欠、倒胃气、放屁都会令人感到不适，应该用手帕遮掩或者躲入洗手间处理。
12. 迁就他人 (be agreeable)
13. 表达自己 (assert yourself) – 过度迁就他人而失却自我对精神健康有害，适当时候要表达自己的意愿和意见，拒绝过度的要求。
14. 保持安静 (keep it down and rediscover silence) – 燥音带来精神紧张、高血压、失聪，我们有责任留意自己制造的声浪 (如谈话、音乐)是否骚扰他人。
15. 尊重他人的时间 (respect other people’s time) – 守时是对他人时间的尊重，迟到便应设法通知对方，到达后必须向各人道歉。
16. 尊重他人的空间 (respect other people’s space) – 不要挤拥他人、让人们先离开一个空间 (升降机、车厢)才进去。
17. 真诚道歉 (apologize earnestly)
18. 避开私人问题 (avoid personal questions) – 除非彼此已进入朋友关系，在公共生活中避免询问人家的年龄、婚姻状况、有否异性好友、为何不生孩子、为何看医生、做了甚么手术、收入和消费情况等。对某些国家的人来说，详细询问他人的政治取向(如投票记录)，或者宗教信仰(如是否经常上教堂和祈祷)，可能视为侵私隐。
19. 好好接侍访客 (care your guests)
20. 做一个为他人设想的访客 (be a considerate guest)
21. 不要随便要人行方便 (think twice before asking for favors) – 特别是当那件事会为第三者带来不便或者违反纪律，我们便陷他人于不义。
22. 不要只懂批评 (refrain from idle complaints) – 与其咀咒黑暗，不如点亮蜡烛。人生悲喜交集，每天有得有失，在乎我们选择以何种态度观之。不断投诉叫自己亦叫身边的人疲累。
23. 接纳和提出建设性的批评 (accept and give constructive criticism) – 批评是严肃的事情，批评之前应确定自己是想解决问题而非藉此侮辱、操控、或报复对方。弄清楚问题所在、能否自控情绪、是否适当的时空作出批评等。忠言逆耳，批评令我们直面一些自己无法或不愿意面对的问题。但如果批评是无理取闹，便要学习如何断然否认，却又不会流于互相谩骂。
24. 爱护环境和仁慈对待动物 (respect the environment and be gentle to animals)
25. 不要推御责任，怪罪他人 (don’t shift responsibility and blame)
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Suicide bomb attack at mosque in Pakistan
CNN -- At least 48 dead, dozens more wounded, in suicide bomb attack at mosque in Pakistan's tribal region, official tells CNN.
Why there is so much hatred in this world? Why can't people think of others in a good way? Or am I too naive? since a peaceful world is just a dream.
Why there is so much hatred in this world? Why can't people think of others in a good way? Or am I too naive? since a peaceful world is just a dream.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
nice graphs from Calculated Risk
Personal saving rate (why 82-83 saving rate goes down?)
New home sales
Housing
Four bad bear markets
Four bad bear markets
Unemployment rate by state
Unemployment rate
Real GDP
Vehicle sales
Vehicle miles (why the slumped oil price even doesn't work?)
Vehicle miles (why the slumped oil price even doesn't work?)
Real investment VS real gas price
US Trade, Import VS export
US Trade Deficit
Import VS export, LA port
Real retail sales
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Daikokuya
I bribed my labmate Chengjie with Daikokuya to teach me driving today. -_-b
My driving is still awful, but the food is awesome.. (when can I get onto highway again?.. >.<)
Daikokuya is located in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. There is always a long waiting line there, make sure you get ready (bring your paper, pen, book, even laptop) before going there. We went there early today around 11:45am and waited for around 15 mins since it opens at 12:00pm on Sunday.
We had tea, salad, gyoza (fried dumpling), teriyaki eel bowl and Daikoku ramen. The tea looks cute and taste yummy. The dumplings are all right. The rest 3 are still my favorate. They got some special sauce for salad with fish roe in it. And I don't know how they made the soup in the ramen but it tastes really great. The last but not the least, I'm still so addicted to teriyaki eel...
My driving is still awful, but the food is awesome.. (when can I get onto highway again?.. >.<)
Daikokuya is located in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. There is always a long waiting line there, make sure you get ready (bring your paper, pen, book, even laptop) before going there. We went there early today around 11:45am and waited for around 15 mins since it opens at 12:00pm on Sunday.
We had tea, salad, gyoza (fried dumpling), teriyaki eel bowl and Daikoku ramen. The tea looks cute and taste yummy. The dumplings are all right. The rest 3 are still my favorate. They got some special sauce for salad with fish roe in it. And I don't know how they made the soup in the ramen but it tastes really great. The last but not the least, I'm still so addicted to teriyaki eel...
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Huanglong, Sichuan, China
It's still my favourite place. It's a mountain but with a lot of lakes on it! Can you believe that? blue, green, different colors and different shapes. It's so much fun even just watching them. Nature is so magical and mystical *.*I went there with my two older (cousin) sisters, I miss them and I want to go there again when I get back to China.
California List
http://www.visitcalifornia.com
Balboa Island, Newport beach
Huntington Beach
Riverside Mission Inn
Temecula, southern CA
Morro Bay, CA, north of SB
Pismo Beach, north of SB
Big Sur, CA, south of SF
Bodega Bay, CA, near SF
Palm Springs
Sequoia National Park
Redwood State Park
Balboa Island, Newport beach
Huntington Beach
Riverside Mission Inn
Temecula, southern CA
Morro Bay, CA, north of SB
Pismo Beach, north of SB
Big Sur, CA, south of SF
Bodega Bay, CA, near SF
Palm Springs
Sequoia National Park
Redwood State Park
Thursday, March 12, 2009
草泥马@NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/asia/12beast.html?_r=5&hp
A Dirty Pun Tweaks China’s Online Censors
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: March 11, 2009
BEIJING — Since its first unheralded appearance in January on a Chinese Web page, the grass-mud horse has become nothing less than a phenomenon.
A YouTube children’s song about the beast has drawn nearly 1.4 million viewers. A grass-mud horse cartoon has logged a quarter million more views. A nature documentary on its habits attracted 180,000 more. Stores are selling grass-mud horse dolls. Chinese intellectuals are writing treatises on the grass-mud horse’s social importance. The story of the grass-mud horse’s struggle against the evil river crab has spread far and wide across the Chinese online community.
Not bad for a mythical creature whose name, in Chinese, sounds very much like an especially vile obscenity. Which is precisely the point.
The grass-mud horse is an example of something that, in China’s authoritarian system, passes as subversive behavior. Conceived as an impish protest against censorship, the foul-named little horse has not merely made government censors look ridiculous, although it has surely done that.
It has also raised real questions about China’s ability to stanch the flow of information over the Internet — a project on which the Chinese government already has expended untold riches, and written countless software algorithms to weed deviant thought from the world’s largest cyber-community.
Government computers scan Chinese cyberspace constantly, hunting for words and phrases that censors have dubbed inflammatory or seditious. When they find one, the offending blog or chat can be blocked within minutes.
Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, who oversees a project that monitors Chinese Web sites, said in an e-mail message that the grass-mud horse “has become an icon of resistance to censorship.”
“The expression and cartoon videos may seem like a juvenile response to an unreasonable rule,” he wrote. “But the fact that the vast online population has joined the chorus, from serious scholars to usually politically apathetic urban white-collar workers, shows how strongly this expression resonates.”
Wang Xiaofeng, a journalist and blogger based in Beijing, said in an interview that the little animal neatly illustrates the futility of censorship. “When people have emotions or feelings they want to express, they need a space or channel,” he said. “It is like a water flow — if you block one direction, it flows to other directions, or overflows. There’s got to be an outlet.”
China’s online population has always endured censorship, but the oversight increased markedly in December, after a pro-democracy movement led by highly regarded intellectuals, Charter 08, released an online petition calling for an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.
Shortly afterward, government censors began a campaign, ostensibly against Internet pornography and other forms of deviance. By mid-February, the government effort had shut down more than 1,900 Web sites and 250 blogs — not only overtly pornographic sites, but also online discussion forums, instant-message groups and even cellphone text messages in which political and other sensitive issues were broached.
Among the most prominent Web sites that were closed down was bullog.com, a widely read forum whose liberal-minded bloggers had written in detail about Charter 08. China Digital Times, Mr. Xiao’s monitoring project at the University of California, called it “the most vicious crackdown in years.”
It was against this background that the grass-mud horse and several mythical companions appeared in early January on the Chinese Internet portal Baidu. The creatures’ names, as written in Chinese, were innocent enough. But much as “bear” and “bare” have different meanings in English, their spoken names were double entendres with inarguably dirty second meanings.
So while “grass-mud horse” sounds like a nasty curse in Chinese, its written Chinese characters are completely different, and its meaning —taken literally — is benign. Thus the beast not only has dodged censors’ computers, but has also eluded the government’s own ban on so-called offensive behavior.
As depicted online, the grass-mud horse seems innocent enough at the start.
An alpaca-like animal — in fact, the videos show alpacas — it lives in a desert whose name resembles yet another foul word. The horses are “courageous, tenacious and overcome the difficult environment,” a YouTube song about them says.
But they face a problem: invading “river crabs” that are devouring their grassland. In spoken Chinese, “river crab” sounds very much like “harmony,” which in China’s cyberspace has become a synonym for censorship. Censored bloggers often say their posts have been “harmonized” — a term directly derived from President Hu Jintao’s regular exhortations for Chinese citizens to create a harmonious society.
In the end, one song says, the horses are victorious: “They defeated the river crabs in order to protect their grassland; river crabs forever disappeared from the Ma Le Ge Bi,” the desert.
The online videos’ scenes of alpacas happily romping to the Disney-style sounds of a children’s chorus quickly turn shocking — then, to many Chinese, hilarious — as it becomes clear that the songs fairly burst with disgusting language.
To Chinese intellectuals, the songs’ message is clearly subversive, a lesson that citizens can flout authority even as they appear to follow the rules. “Its underlying tone is: I know you do not allow me to say certain things. See, I am completely cooperative, right?” the Beijing Film Academy professor and social critic Cui Weiping wrote in her own blog. “I am singing a cute children’s song — I am a grass-mud horse! Even though it is heard by the entire world, you can’t say I’ve broken the law.”
In an essay titled “I am a grass-mud horse,” Ms. Cui compared the anti-smut campaign to China’s 1983 “anti-spiritual pollution campaign,” another crusade against pornography whose broader aim was to crush Western-influenced critics of the ruling party.
Another noted blogger, the Tsinghua University sociologist Guo Yuhua, called the grass-mud horse allusions “weapons of the weak” — the title of a book by the Yale political scientist James Scott describing how powerless peasants resisted dictatorial regimes.
Of course, the government could decide to delete all Internet references to the phrase “grass-mud horse,” an easy task for its censorship software. But while China’s cybercitizens may be weak, they are also ingenious.
The Shanghai blogger Uln already has an idea. Blogging tongue in cheek — or perhaps not — he recently suggested that online democracy advocates stop referring to Charter 08 by its name, and instead choose a different moniker. “Wang,” perhaps. Wang is a ubiquitous surname, and weeding out the subversive Wangs from the harmless ones might melt circuits in even the censors’ most powerful computer.
Zhang Jing contributed research.
A Dirty Pun Tweaks China’s Online Censors
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: March 11, 2009
BEIJING — Since its first unheralded appearance in January on a Chinese Web page, the grass-mud horse has become nothing less than a phenomenon.
A YouTube children’s song about the beast has drawn nearly 1.4 million viewers. A grass-mud horse cartoon has logged a quarter million more views. A nature documentary on its habits attracted 180,000 more. Stores are selling grass-mud horse dolls. Chinese intellectuals are writing treatises on the grass-mud horse’s social importance. The story of the grass-mud horse’s struggle against the evil river crab has spread far and wide across the Chinese online community.
Not bad for a mythical creature whose name, in Chinese, sounds very much like an especially vile obscenity. Which is precisely the point.
The grass-mud horse is an example of something that, in China’s authoritarian system, passes as subversive behavior. Conceived as an impish protest against censorship, the foul-named little horse has not merely made government censors look ridiculous, although it has surely done that.
It has also raised real questions about China’s ability to stanch the flow of information over the Internet — a project on which the Chinese government already has expended untold riches, and written countless software algorithms to weed deviant thought from the world’s largest cyber-community.
Government computers scan Chinese cyberspace constantly, hunting for words and phrases that censors have dubbed inflammatory or seditious. When they find one, the offending blog or chat can be blocked within minutes.
Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, who oversees a project that monitors Chinese Web sites, said in an e-mail message that the grass-mud horse “has become an icon of resistance to censorship.”
“The expression and cartoon videos may seem like a juvenile response to an unreasonable rule,” he wrote. “But the fact that the vast online population has joined the chorus, from serious scholars to usually politically apathetic urban white-collar workers, shows how strongly this expression resonates.”
Wang Xiaofeng, a journalist and blogger based in Beijing, said in an interview that the little animal neatly illustrates the futility of censorship. “When people have emotions or feelings they want to express, they need a space or channel,” he said. “It is like a water flow — if you block one direction, it flows to other directions, or overflows. There’s got to be an outlet.”
China’s online population has always endured censorship, but the oversight increased markedly in December, after a pro-democracy movement led by highly regarded intellectuals, Charter 08, released an online petition calling for an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.
Shortly afterward, government censors began a campaign, ostensibly against Internet pornography and other forms of deviance. By mid-February, the government effort had shut down more than 1,900 Web sites and 250 blogs — not only overtly pornographic sites, but also online discussion forums, instant-message groups and even cellphone text messages in which political and other sensitive issues were broached.
Among the most prominent Web sites that were closed down was bullog.com, a widely read forum whose liberal-minded bloggers had written in detail about Charter 08. China Digital Times, Mr. Xiao’s monitoring project at the University of California, called it “the most vicious crackdown in years.”
It was against this background that the grass-mud horse and several mythical companions appeared in early January on the Chinese Internet portal Baidu. The creatures’ names, as written in Chinese, were innocent enough. But much as “bear” and “bare” have different meanings in English, their spoken names were double entendres with inarguably dirty second meanings.
So while “grass-mud horse” sounds like a nasty curse in Chinese, its written Chinese characters are completely different, and its meaning —taken literally — is benign. Thus the beast not only has dodged censors’ computers, but has also eluded the government’s own ban on so-called offensive behavior.
As depicted online, the grass-mud horse seems innocent enough at the start.
An alpaca-like animal — in fact, the videos show alpacas — it lives in a desert whose name resembles yet another foul word. The horses are “courageous, tenacious and overcome the difficult environment,” a YouTube song about them says.
But they face a problem: invading “river crabs” that are devouring their grassland. In spoken Chinese, “river crab” sounds very much like “harmony,” which in China’s cyberspace has become a synonym for censorship. Censored bloggers often say their posts have been “harmonized” — a term directly derived from President Hu Jintao’s regular exhortations for Chinese citizens to create a harmonious society.
In the end, one song says, the horses are victorious: “They defeated the river crabs in order to protect their grassland; river crabs forever disappeared from the Ma Le Ge Bi,” the desert.
The online videos’ scenes of alpacas happily romping to the Disney-style sounds of a children’s chorus quickly turn shocking — then, to many Chinese, hilarious — as it becomes clear that the songs fairly burst with disgusting language.
To Chinese intellectuals, the songs’ message is clearly subversive, a lesson that citizens can flout authority even as they appear to follow the rules. “Its underlying tone is: I know you do not allow me to say certain things. See, I am completely cooperative, right?” the Beijing Film Academy professor and social critic Cui Weiping wrote in her own blog. “I am singing a cute children’s song — I am a grass-mud horse! Even though it is heard by the entire world, you can’t say I’ve broken the law.”
In an essay titled “I am a grass-mud horse,” Ms. Cui compared the anti-smut campaign to China’s 1983 “anti-spiritual pollution campaign,” another crusade against pornography whose broader aim was to crush Western-influenced critics of the ruling party.
Another noted blogger, the Tsinghua University sociologist Guo Yuhua, called the grass-mud horse allusions “weapons of the weak” — the title of a book by the Yale political scientist James Scott describing how powerless peasants resisted dictatorial regimes.
Of course, the government could decide to delete all Internet references to the phrase “grass-mud horse,” an easy task for its censorship software. But while China’s cybercitizens may be weak, they are also ingenious.
The Shanghai blogger Uln already has an idea. Blogging tongue in cheek — or perhaps not — he recently suggested that online democracy advocates stop referring to Charter 08 by its name, and instead choose a different moniker. “Wang,” perhaps. Wang is a ubiquitous surname, and weeding out the subversive Wangs from the harmless ones might melt circuits in even the censors’ most powerful computer.
Zhang Jing contributed research.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
囧
http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/ohiojoshua/what-major-is-right-for-you/
You Scored as History/Anthropology/LiberalArts
You Scored as History/Anthropology/LiberalArts
You should strongly consider majoring (or minoring) in History, Anthropology, or related majors (e.g., African and African-American Studies, Chinese, Classics, Cultural Studies, Economics, English, French, Geography, German, Greek, Hebrew, International Studies, Philosophy, Sociology, Women's Studies, or other Liberal Arts majors).
It is possible that the best major for you is your 2nd, 3rd, or even 5th listed category, so be sure to consider ALL majors in your OTHER high scoring categories (below). You may score high in a category you didnt think you would--it is possible that a great major for you is something you once dismissed as not for you. The right major for you will be something 1) you love and enjoy and 2) are really great at it.
Consider adding a minor or double majoring to make yourself standout and to combine your interests. Please post your results in your myspace/blog/journal.
| History/Anthropology/LiberalArts | | 88% |
| PoliticalScience/Philosophy | | 69% |
| Visual&PerformingArts | | 63% |
| HR/BusinessManagement | | 63% |
| Accounting/Finance/Marketing | | 63% |
| Education/Counseling | | 63% |
| Psychology/Sociology | | 63% |
| French/Spanish/OtherLanguage | | 63% |
| Biology/Chemistry/Geology | | 63% |
| Religion/Theology | | 56% |
| Physics/Engineering/Computer | | 50% |
| Mathematics/Statistics | | 50% |
| English/Journalism/Comm | | 44% |
| Nursing/AthleticTraining/Health | | 31% |
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Arrest President
CNN -- International Criminal Court issues arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over genocide in Darfur.
I don't know that Sudan's president is conducting genocide even now, cannot believe that..
I don't know that Sudan's president is conducting genocide even now, cannot believe that..
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