| 29 |
Serious Ill caused by Serious Mistake I was shocked when I first read it, but then I started to wonder how this is possible: four separate mistakes over a period of a month or so on the same person. This is a quite specialized hospital for women, and the test was not a rare kind. If what was stated were true, a huge number of similar mistakes must have occured on many people as well. Could that have happened? Otherwise, how to explain this tiny chance incident? I share the same concerns of the patient, but couldn't help wondering why this have occured. It could be because Yezi is the only one spoke out. |
| 28 |
Helping Others with Hosting Package JS, sounds great. What does it take to create a group blog, given it be hosted on bluehost, for example? Thanks. |
| 27 |
Living Cost in Shanghai - Medicine I am really impressed and flattered. I didn't mean to burden you with a task of a municipal census bureau:-) |
| 26 |
Living Cost in Shanghai (2007 Edition) Nice summary. Below is just a few that I think also belongs the category of living cost: - What about medical expenses, like insurance, hospital visit, drug prices, and even "red packets"? - What about education fees, from elementary to higher education, or short lessons, private tutors, etc.? - What about service fees, like cleaning, electricity installation, etc.? - What about driving costs, like registration, oil, parking, tolls, fines, etc.? - What about news papers, parks, museums prices? Thanks in advance! |
| 25 |
The Scar in People's Heart In economics, there is a term of "the tragedy of the commons." Public ponds or seas are typically overfished, and public meadows are devastated. It fits your description as well, I believe. The reason is what is always assumed as people's self-interest that inevitably leads people to underperform and consume more. Sometimes, a bad result is foreseen, but nobody can save the situation. That's why property rights is so important. |
| 24 |
Where are the Train Tickets? I suspect that sleep trains are intentionally left largely empty so that railway workers on board have the chance to seek profit from selling them to people in more crowded carts (e.g., those standing all the way). There is a surely high demand of beds on train for a three-day trip. The train will be fill quite soon, so there is no concern of ridership. The root cause for the corruption is, I believe, still the shear difference between demand and supply, although things should not be as bad if the system were monitored.. Wherever you complain, don't go to yahoo.com. It may hand you in, and it did happen. |
| 23 |
Standing in a Train? No... I tend to agree with "haven't changed for decades, won't change for decades!" There is such a huge population base. As for a particular person, a good way is probably to stay where you are, and enjoy whatever you have. It does not seem to be possible to communicate with a train ticket person creatively in Shanghai. The “discover – inspire” model does not fit here very well. |
| 22 |
I Got a Tax Summary! Interesting! l bet only the people who contribute a good amount get to receive a letter like this. Is it true? what 's the trigger amount then? |
| 21 |
I Got a Tax Summary! Interesting! l bet only the people who contribute a good amount get to receive a letter like this. Is it true? what 's the trigger amount then? J |
| 20 |
Friend's Dog Killed The person who abducted your friend's dog at 4am may not be the same killer as those sponsored by the government. They live in the same society. In a sense, random killers for dog meat are encouraged by the government's stand on dogs. Despite a long history of eating dogs, the new policy by the government did not go through without any negative reactions. One noticeable campaign was launched on November 11, 2006, when a group of dog lovers gathered spontaneously in the front gate of the Beijing Zoo. It lasted three hours before armed police drove people away. However, a wide acceptance of dogs, esp. in cities, still has a long way go. Killing the loved ones in front of a family is one of the dark sides of human nature. Stories in this manner are constantly being renewed. A recent one was by Steven D. Green and his fellow US soldiers on March 12, 2006, in the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and her family in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. |
| 19 |
Shanghai Looks Similar to US, But... NPR has a new report called "Evictions Reflect Dark Side of Shanghai Growth" at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6614046 |
| 18 |
Happy Thanksgivings Thank you for sharing this reading experience. The diagram is ingenius. The inner three circles are unquestionable, but quite limited in number, hence most people we encounter daily fall in the outer three circles, where leave me a lot to wonder. 1. How does one assert that a friend to be lifelong, before he/she gains sufficient life experience. This circle might rather remain empty for a long period of time, since claiming so at a young age seems a little bit vain. 2. "Close business associates" comes inner than friends who shared experience and passion. Since business associates share profit, I wonder if the author regards profit of higher value that experience and passion. Or, rather, by the adjective "close", the author includes in it those share profit as well as experience and passion. In any case, there is no doubt that the author is trying to be pragmatic in this friend matter. 3. Given the shear difference in numbers between the inner and outer 3 circles, I wonder if we can infer that spending time with people in the outer circles is more or less a waste of our lives. In other words, how realistic is the model depicted by the drawing? |
| 17 |
Short Note of 5 Days in Chaminade There are lots of theories and practices already about "just feeling, from the bottom of heart." The Australian aboriginals know it, the Budha advocates it, and artists depends on it. The so-called leadership techniques simply try to utilize this early practice to uncover the sound that has long been submerged in the noisiness of our secular lives, esp. in the business world. To what extent they can succeed depends to the person, hence the value in a leadership training is doubtful, if not from nothingness. |
| 16 |
Three Services I don't Use in China It's all about population density. |
| 15 |
Happy Birthday to Me Oh, a Libra too. Does the zodiac sign mean anything to you? Happy Birthday! |
| 14 |
I Love Koala! I heard that they think about that day only, no past, no future. According to Arthur Schopenhauer, that is the reason of their happiness. |
| 13 |
Life in Remote Places What does the Opera House attract tourist with, opera or the architecture? I am just curious how often a tourist enjoys opera in this construct. |
| 12 |
I Want to Go to India It is a puzzle to me why the Indian people have not given up the caste system. As the official base of affirmative action, its impact has nowadays a tendancy of extending beyond the originally intended college entrance program, which, as I heard, could be abused in real life. While there is little disagreement in giving balanced benefits to the bottom class, it is the middle class people who are taking big advantages of the system. Then, why do the Indian people not give up the caste system, I wonder? Not religion, but a central word I heard was "the blood line", something that people care the most, and that is closely related to the still prevailing "arranged marriage" in social life. I am not totally sure that I understand this, though it seems to be the only valid reason. |
| 11 |
I Want to Go to India India is really an interesting topic. If I did not have 1/3 of colleagues and 1/2 of my neighbors being Indians, I would not have developed a personal interest in this remote country. It is usually an enlightening chat when an Indian colleague comes back from home for weddings or family reunion. Social hierarchy and arranged marriage are two important traditions in the Indian cultures. Social hierarchy is represented by a very sophisticated "caste system" in which social classes defined. In modern India, the government officially documents castes and subcastes, primarily to determine those deserving reservation (positive discrimination in education by quotas) . (I did heard this from one of my colleagues who came out of this system.) Although India is a political democracy, in daily life, people typically know about others' ranks and behaviors are formed based on this knowledge. Arranged marriage is another noticeable tradition that can be logically understood with social hierarchy. It remains the norm of marriage also for another important reason, religion, which discourages divorces, although the so-called "love marriage" does occur. The rational behind arranged marriage is as simple as marriages have always been among all cultures: since the stake is high, how an young person is able to make such an important decision. I learn about India based on publicly available knowledge as well as personal contacts with Indian people arround me. I am open to new knowledge, and believe in the positive impact of communications. An interest to a culture is rarely regarded as serious if it covers only food and water. To me, it is almost insulting to think of other people's food as intorelable, and water as undrinkable. Aren't the people living their happy lives? |
| 10 |
I Want to Go to India India is still a society of strict social hierarchy. Correct me if I were wrong, but as I heard, people's ID cards have symbols on them clearly stating their social classes. Arranged marriage is popular, as in China some years ago. |
| 9 |
I Don't Know about China Visa An issue with RMB coins is their worth versus their face value. Unlike their counterparts in may other countries, I heard that they were typically cheaper. Is it still true? |
| 8 |
The World is Not Created by Genius Interesting game. I am not sure if this one of the classical games from game theory. It seems people rarely get further than two rounds of iterations. I guess the smarter a group is, the smaller the number one should guess. What if everyone guesses zero, who will be the winner? |
| 7 |
Too Many Entries in a Blog Maybe just convince people to give up such an ambition in an era of information explosion. Search whenever there is a need. |
| 6 |
Stanford Dream Lovely Jian Shuo. In terms of business schools, the top ones are usually from Harvard, Duke, Northwestern as well. At same time, let's remind ourselves what Schopenhauer said, as "Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world." (ref. "On Vision" from July 6) |
| 5 |
The World of Different Rules It is true that colliding rules reflect diversity, as Jian Shuo and Canadian Badass have both advocated, but isn't there something we call "right" and "wrong"? Immanuel Kant named "the moral law within" as one of the two things he admired. Modern science is revealing the biological basis in the human brain for reasonableness, from which principles have been developed. Why did Google set up a corporate motto "Don't be evil"? Is it the same to set up a motto "Be evil"? I doubt that anyone wants to claim it, even as a simple practice of diversity. By the way, in international business, rules have a much wider scope than just bribery. |
| 4 |
The World of Different Rules Here is an interesting story recorded in 1854 by an Qing Dynasty official Duan(段光清) in his chronicles 《镜湖自撰年谱》: "Ningbo was a major port south to Shanghai, but the fishermen and merchants were bothered by vicious pirates. The Qing Navy was paid to fight the pirates, but they were lazy. The fishermen and merchants decided to pay the Navy with extra money every year, in addition to their taxes. This worked, but only for the first few years. With no other choices, the merchants decided to spend money on foreign war ships near the sea, and even applied documents for them from Official Duan. Duan recorded that later the foreign war ships won a major battle against the pirates." The mason worked on Wang Jian Shuo's kitchen project was not bad at all. He did not even complain a second time! In generalizing "the mason's rule" to the rules in international business, it seems useful to at least make a distinction between two kinds of partners: that in monopoly, and the rest. For the former, there is typically little margin in bargaining, as for the Ningbo merchants in 1854. When rules collide, smart people like businessmen think of compromise. But there is also a word called "principle." |
| 3 |
Slight Changes in "China" Thanks to aLIenJ for his/her truthful words. (I mean it.) No, they are not radical. Here, I would like to make a few comments. 1. Patriotism must be guarded by righteousness and rational thoughts. Ordinary Germans in the Nazi era used to have plenty of patriotism. 2. A single doctor's statement does not mean anything at all, neither on the positive or negative side. One does not wait every doctor turning evil to admit a problem. 3. This statement, "China is not better than you think. ... And it is also not worse than you think.", is almost a compliment to "Hello World". Logically, this is to admit that the other's view is an exact reflection of facts. 4. Corruption (e.g., taking bribe) is by no means limited to Asian nations, and hence, in my opinion, is more related to human nature rather than cultural factors. Asian nations seem more vulnerable to corruption since they inherit a type of traditional social system, in which, in simple words, things tend to be kept secret. |
| 2 |
On Vision It's interesting that an extra word "nearly" is put ahead of what Schopenhauer said, as "Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world." Well, maybe leaders are simply every person. |
| 1 |
Slight Changes in "China" That's great! However, there is a tendancy for people to see trends more than reality. Positive trends are even more attractive. Whether it is a habit is to be determined. I am just curious about Florida pure orange and Australia milk. What percentage of Chinese people can afford to consume them? This can only be a fact instead of opinion. |