Win hearts

B: Win hearts! A quick survey: where did you hear about this word?
A: Military!
B: Bingo! And? (Expecting the situation such as the male winning heart of the female or vice versa)
A: Confucius Institutes!
B: Huh? Interesting.

All the disaster relief actions done by the military is a form of winning hearts, nationally or internationally. Though according the humanitarian principles military is against the “neutrality” and is a big debate about whether the military can be called as humanitarians, it’s cruel to take away the credit of humanitarian actions done by military. Military’s priority purpose is to win heart. I can say that the Chinese military has been doing a great job in disaster relief, and the stories such as soldiers saving lives regardless their own security, building tents day and night without considering its own family, etc become the familiar stories at the dinner table, and people do appreciate them a lot.
The humanitarian action of military can definitely win people’s heart.



Confucius institutes (CI) wins hearts? I am not surprised.
Already heard whole a lot critics about Confucius Institutes’ fast growing and winning heart is one of the strategic purpose. First of all, Confucius is a great philosopher and teacher in history, and somehow, the philosophy is rooted inside of the Chinese people, even not everyone values his words in this modernized world, the virtues are still valued. Unfortunately in reality the CI is merely about the language without any Confucius value or philosophy. It intentionally doesn't want to add its value and philosophy for modernization is the theme. When CI namely uses the ancient philosopher Confucius’ title without his philosophy, it creates a room to be criticized in the bipolar international political environment and the Heart Winning Round I is actually lost. However, all the teachers sent from CI are innocent, and highly qualified and educated; it will be a great opportunity to win the hearts. Just hope the teachers from CI do carries a great value of Confucius so that the heart winning Round II can be accomplished. At last, the scholarship offered by CI for the international world is amazingly generous and it wins hearts in a tremendous way in this Round III.
Thus, in this case, the teachers from CI are the key of winning hearts. Pray for them as you are following me. ( I believe they all are awesome teachers!)

Okay, so let’s talk about dating in terms of winning heart.
Huh?
If you think dating is a situation of winning or losing heart, the chance of winning is supernaturally low for:
One . - you are a player and it's a game for you.
Two. - you are a not a mature player for you play too serious.
-- Joke … please relax, period.

Education? Propaganda?

Education or propaganda?

These two concepts have been fighting in my mind for a long time.

From 0 to 100 as a ruler of measuring the truthfulness of information, education stands at 100, propaganda locates at 50, while at the far end 0 there sits the brainwash.


The outcome of the ideal education should be creativity, while propaganda won’t be necessarily invoking the sparkle of creation.

Though education is ideally good as we all are brainwashed to believe in education. In reality, most of the education is company with instructor’s belief as a way of propaganda. In another word, the pure 100% education is not possible, unless the learner is highly logical.

Interestingly, propaganda in English is codified with negative meaning, while in Chinese (mainland China) it carries merely positive meaning. I can associate propaganda with marketing, creative arts, and this is the first time comparing the difference between propaganda and education.

Clear mind is needed to distinguish brainwash from education. Even this blog entry, it is an education outcome for me; and it might be a form of brainwash for the readers.
:)

Folk or Classical?

What is folk dance?
Don't you ever consider folk dance as rural people's dance?
Is it done by the rural people as opposed to urban people, or the dance done by the uneducated opposed to educated, or non-literate opposed to literate, or poor opposed to rich, or lower class opposed to upper class, or primitive opposed to industrial?

What is classical dance？
Is Hula a classical dance or folk dance?
Whether it's folk or classical, it's all the labels and perspectives from people.
Hula is absolutely a royal classical dance for the Hawaiian people, but probably folk dance for lots of other peoples.

Like I have been considering the Tibetan dance as a form of folk dance for long time, but didn't even realize I actually didn't have that ownership of the Tibetan culture, nor the authority to proclaim I can do the Tibetan dance.

Dangerous labels! Whether folk or classical, we just can't stop making an order in the world and categorizing the world in a functional way, but some how we may need to think twice before labeling.

Chinese government should invest some form of the festival for Tibetan Dance competition as an empowerment and nurturing for the culture of Tibetan people.
:P

Choose the one you want ... or

In one of my classes, we were asked to write a paper of case study analysis. Dr.C read the four cases aloud briefly in the classroom:

1. A 12 yrs old child with deaf impairment from Japan living her with family in Oahu, with difficulty at home, neighbour and school.
2. A 10 yrs old Hawaiian Samoan kid with severe mental disorder living at the Big Island, with difficulty at school.
3. A young adult from Micronesian family, with the prolonged depression and extreme mood swings studying at the UH Manoa, and this young adult also fell in love with the neighbour with the same gender.
4. A middle age veteran soldier returning from the third tour of Iraq, with physical injury and traumatic brain injury.

After Dr.C reading all the cases, she asked us to choose one we wanted. Four cases, eight paper copies were distributed from Dr.C to the classroom, and we were told to choose it democratically.

I rated those cases in my head when Dr.C was reading:
- The Japanese culture is close to Chinese culture which is what I am familiar with;
Rate: 3, great chance,
- The Hawaiian Samoan child is really where I am curious about since I am living at the center of the pacific islands;
Rate: 5, probably will pick up this one.
- The young adult mental development and woman study are part of the area I am curious about;
Rate: 4, not a bad choice
- The veteran soldier with Africa-American heritage seems like the most foreign and challenging one.
Rate: 2, this is way too foreign.

By just listening to the cases, I was already overwhelmed by the tough situations and hoped it's not real case. Subconsciously, I decided for the Hawaiian Samoan case since somehow I could learn and seek the local community nearby.

Meanwhile, the class entered into a discussion about the possibility of the forth case. Some of my classmates commented that "no way for an African-American veteran back from Iraq without a job" and "it did not make sense."

By the time I almost picked up the Hawaiian Samoan case, one of my classmates, A, said that she didn't have any preference and would love to let those who felt strong about the case they wanted to choose first.
"Me neither, would love to be the last to choose." I answered, and put down the case I almost picked up.
Dr.C commented that we were socialist.
Big laugh.

Thanks for A's reminding to be humble, courteous, and to be the last.
Yet, it's always lucky to have a chance to choose,
but is that really important to choose,
or it is just happier to see other people chose the right one he/she really wanted?
Somehow, it's just so easy to be running in front of everyone, without the second thought of other people's choices.

At least, there is a great peace, when I got the case I rated the least.

Straw Tower - team play

Have you ever played the straw tower game? It's a remarkable team team game, and it sparkles me to think about the team work.

We were separated into five teams to play the Straw Tower.
Game rule:
Given two bags of straws, two tapes, each team with 4 - 5 people was signed to build a tower as TALL as possible in 10 MINUTES.

By the time the rule was explained, we started.

I gave a structure of two straws taped together, for it's bendable straw and the tape can make the straw stronger and more stable, while S. gave another structure of one straw inserted into another. Without second thought, I gave up my idea and followed with S's structure, for the goal is the height in a limited amount of time. So both S. and I started inserting one straw into another and producing the straw strings. In the mean while, team member A gave an idea of making a basement of the tower so that the tower will stand without falling. We were all supportive to the basement. I didn't know who took the strings I made or where the strings were put on that tower. At the end, we won (otherwise, I wouldn't write this entry).

The tower was not good looking at all, but it stood on the ground with a significant height among the teams.

Do we have a team leader?

There wasn't enough time to elect a team leader. Actually, the whole team seemed like working as a "chaos". S and I started two structures at the same time, the basement work seemed like taping trashes together and it's accomplished at the last second. The leader might be the conception of "making the tower as tall as possible", and the team work really was like a programming team fighting for the project deadline.

After the game, we were actually not that bad, and honestly quite successful. There was a creative tower made in an artistic way but can not stand on the ground; there was an extremely stable tower with the fantastic triangle structure but short for its height; there was also another chaos tower similar to ours but lost at the height.

What makes a good team?

1. Team leader? Yes, if it's for long term, the leadership is very important. Though different field has different perspectives signed to a leader, in general, a leader has to be respected among the team members.

2. Contributors - They are doing the mechanical work, but they are the foundation of the team.

3. Communicator? It's very important. In this case, as a contributor, honestly I had no idea how long should one string be like, while A, as the communicator, helped me to determine the vision of the string length. If it's not her, I might just keep making the string longer than enough, while forgetting the goal is to make the tower, not the long string.

4. Collaborator? They were the ones taping the strings together AND stable them with straws.

So many to say about this game.

The team work is about playing the role whole-heartedly, be creative as it's allowed, and be compromising when it's needed.

Money and Toy

The other day, I was babysitting for the Family Bible study. Basically, it’s a Bible study where parents gather and study the Holy Bible, while all the bachelors who are free on Saturday experience the real family life. My job is to make sure all of babies and children are happily enjoying the time without parents. Here comes the story:

One of the babies (let’s say, Baby A) wanted a toy far away from him and he wanted it so much that he had to cry to address his demand. With his eyes and pointing finger, I got the toy for him. Immediately, he stopped crying. Then there came another older child (let’s say, Baby B), took away the toy and ran to the other room. As expected, the Baby A started crying again and I went to get the toy back, but by the time I got the toy, the mom already shown up and the baby was back with a big smiley face.

Toy is actually not the issue, and Mom’s love is the key of turning the situation.


Toy to a baby is like the money/possession to a grownup. We might be easily depressed by the budget cut, the bear markets, the jobless, or the financial crisis, and the faith in policy and/or faith in God can reinforce the grownups remain calm and peaceful.


How much faith do we have? How much do we trust our governments? How well the stimulus package will be reinforced in this crisis?

Though the grown-ups are way more complicated than babies at brain activity level – we are way harder to be pleased comparing with the babies - the faith reinforcement from the trustworthy level of Paddling and Love is definitely helpful during the time when the toy or possession is taken away.


Some verses to read if you believe in the Bible.
Hebrews 13:3
Hebrews 13:5
Proverbs 16:33
Proverbs 19:21
Psalms 33:10
Isaiah 46:10
2 Corinthians 1:1-11
2 Corinthians 1:8-9
1 Thessalonians 5:18
The whole book of Job

Trouble shooting : Laptop

Symptom:
My laptop works fine without AC adapter. It acts retarded with AC Adapter connected.
It works fine after putting a book on the one side of the AC adapter, so with some weights on the AC adapter, the laptop works fine.

Diagnosis:
Motherboard problem (common problem in the same series)
or
AC adapter problem (potential cause for the motherboard problem).

Test 1:
to see whether it's the problem from ac adapter.
-> Change a new AC Adapter.

If Test 1 works, hallelujah.

If test 1 fails,
Test 2:
to see whether it's the motherboard's problem or the combination.
-> Ship the laptop to the factory.
It will cost another 2 weeks to say hallelujah.

Pray for the motherboard of my laptop.
:)