Defining Modern China: A Little Book with a Multifaceted Perspective.

My colleague Drew gave me this book as a birthday gift.  It’s a mini-handbag-sized, 140-page overview of modern China.  I particularly like this quote:

China is a continent, not just a country.  It is a series of identities, some shared, some differentiated, and some contradictory: modern, Confucian, authoritarian, democratic, free, and restrained.  Above all, China is a plural noun. (11)

I found a great video of professor Rana Mitter introducing his book.  (That’s a screenshot below.  Click here to watch the video.  It includes an anecdote about how Chairman Mao pioneered an exercise program involving thrusts for optimal fitness.)

Leap + Lady Gaga Meets the Queen: 2 images I love

Inspiration from Seth Godin’s eBook “What Matters Now” from my favorite author of the moment:

And the best photo I’ve seen in a while: Lady Gaga meets Queen Elizabeth II.

image credit:  Leon Neal/WPA Pool via Getty Images from this fun slideshow from New York Times online

P.S. If you’re looking for something more analytical, I’ve been writing up a storm at our new company blog: Beijing Corporate Training.   I invite you to check it out

Creativity in the Context of Chinese Legal Work

I’ve cross-posted this article from Beijing Corporate Training, the blog I just started for my company.  I’m featuring it here because I think it definitely relates to the idea of China’s many stories, and I’m curious to hear comments from a different crowd.  Enjoy!

I just had a fascinating conversation with one of my students, an attorney at a leading intellectual property law firm. We read “Fright Bulb: How to Crush Your Last Shard of Creativity,” the editor’s letter from the December 2009 issue of Psychology Today. [The article doesn't appear to be online. I teach him and his colleagues advanced, industry-specific, one-on-one English lessons.]

This note from editor Kaja Perina (yes, that’s her picture, from Psychology Today) begins:

For some people, there is no greater buzzkill than the chirpy imperative, “Be creative!” These words are especially irksome when accompanied by the clicking of a stopwatch or the knowledge that the speaker himself cannot solve the problem in question. The idea of creativity on demand can intimidate — or at least irritate — an otherwise innovative brain.

My student found this paragraph tricky for several reasons. He first noticed the unfamiliar colloquiallisms in the first few lines: “buzzkill,” “chirpy,” “irksome.” Once we tackled this vocabulary, the underlying sentiment surprised him more.

He kept saying, “I’m not creative.” In his work, it is rare for anyone to make “Be creative” a chirpy imperative. Legal work depends on both established procedures and clients’ expectations, and it would be quite odd for a manager to insist on explicitly creative output.

Also, he mentioned that a Chinese manager would lose face if he admitted that he “himself cannot solve the problem in question.” In the rare circumstance that he would communicate such a thing, he would do so in a roundabout way that would both maintain his dignity and imply the desire for assistance.
more »

From Nigeria to Nitrogen Chemistry: A Many-Storied Tribute

China is frustrating me today (visa drama… don’t ask… all I can say is that I’m writing this from Hong Kong) so I’ve taken this opportunity to reflect a bit on stories far from China, connecting the book in my hands with my childhood in California and my education from all over.

I just started reading Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the novelist who inspired this blog’s title.  I’d like to share a passage from early in the story.  Odenigbo (Master), a professor at a university in Nigeria, has just hired thirteen-year-old Ugwu to be his houseboy.  Odenigbo announces that he will send Ugwu to school:

“There are two answers to the things they will teach you about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in school to pass.  You must read books and learn both answers.  I will give you books, excellent books.”  Master stopped to sip his tea.  “They will teach you that a white man called Mungo Park discovered River Niger.  That is rubbish.  Our people fished in the Niger long before Mungo Park’s grandfather was both.  But in the exam, write that it was Mungo Park.”

“Yes, sah.” Ugwu wished that this person called Mungo Park had not offended Master so much.  (14)

This reminds me of the way I learned history as a child.  When I was at home over New Year’s, I found a book called One-Minute Stories of Great Americans, a gift from my history buff grandfather when I was six or seven.  more »

China Cleantech: How Competition, Innovation and Central Support Coexist

On the plane back to China, I read pieces by Tyler Cowen in the New York Times and Evan Osnos in the New Yorker that clarified my ideas about China, cleantech, and collaboration. Specifically, Innovation in China can benefit America!

Professor and blogger Tyler Cowen writes in the New York Times:

China, for instance, is moving toward the research frontier in areas such as solar power, scientific instruments, engineering and nanoscience, all of which can benefit the United States. …

It might be pleasant to boast that America is — or should be — a world leader in every area, but the practical reality is that if some other country solves the problem of green energy, so much the better for us. [more]

Evan Osnos’ New Yorker article Green Giant describes China’s efforts to support green innovation. Here are my personal take-aways from this long and nuanced article:

(1) The Chinese government provides generous support for cleantech innovation, but the competition is also intense.  Osnos spoke with coal engineer Xu Shisen, who explained:

“It’s very intense–like a presidential election, he joked, and he sketched out the system: more »