If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s the value of a picture of someone holding a poster full of carefully selected handwritten words?  I just stumbled across this amazing series of photos from British photographer Adrian Fisk, on BlindBoys.org.

Rainbow Su – 22 Yrs Student software engineering Guangdong Province ‘I am worrying something. Girls in China is becoming materialistic, without house my girlfriend would not marry me. My parents cannot help me either. So I need to get good job with high payment, that’s what I totally want’.

Here is part of Fisk’s introduction:

I have just returned from a 12500 km journey through China to find an answer to this question. I looked for young Chinese aged from 16 – 30 years, gave them a piece of paper and simply told them they could write what ever they wanted to on the piece of paper, I then photographed them holding the paper.

The results are fascinating.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from his collection.  Click here to see them all.  More of my favorites here below the jump. 

Ba Te Er – 18 Yrs Was a Mongolian herder but due to a ban on keeping lifestock in the area is now a tourist guide Inner Mongolia (Illiterate) ‘Without my horse I am nothing’.

Lim – 22 Yrs Student of party politics Beijing ‘Do not judge China from the media, because the real China is not on the papers’.

Wong Jing Yi – 30 Yrs Works in a sex shop in Hong Kong ‘I don’t want children’.

Feng Long – 21 Yrs First time migrant labourer working on new building interiors Shanghai ‘Why aren’t there any companies setting up factories in the countryside? We don’t want to work as migrant labourers’.

Song Jing Ping – 22 Yrs Runs two basic restaurants with her fiancee Hubei Province (Migrated from a village 400km away) ‘When people leave their village to live in the city, it is very hard for them to return’.

My degree is in Latin American Studies.  Even if there were a template called, “How to Use Your Latin American Studies Major,” I seriously doubt it would include moving to China.  I’d never been to Asia, never studied Chinese, and never even taken a class about China.  This rather random choice has brought me opportunities I’d never envisioned.

Here’s a short version of my China story.

A few days after my graduation from Berkeley in May 2006, I thumbed through my well-worn copy of Delaying the Real World – an inspiring and practical book that should be on every adventurous twenty-something’s desk – and looked up just about every international opportunity listed.

Read the rest at Untemplater.  Great comments too!

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.)

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

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.

The article continues with a sarcastic list of “sure-fire tips to extinguish the creative spark.” This intrigued me, because 4 out of the 5 items on the list sound like ideal procedures for an employee in a large Chinese law firm.

The list reads:

Know exactly what you’re doing before you get started.

Be careful not to offend.

Get permission.

Run it by everyone first.

Criticize yourself at every step.

The first four sound a bit like everyday expectations for an underling in China, and only the fifth sounds like a direct refutation of the strict rules that limit creativity. It would not be prudent for a manager in China to give his employees this list with a big “X” through it, in order to encourage creative thinking.

My student and I found more common ground in the next paragraph, which describes…

everyday creativity, explored in this issue and embodied by most everyone. … it is possible to make an impact without agita, if you focus not on “producing” but instead on the things you already enjoy doing.

I looked up the word “agita,” and it means abdominal or mental discomfort. This definition comforted us, and helped him bring the idea of everyday creativity into his professional life. Here’s a paraphrased version of what he said:

Creativity should be construed in a broad way, like looking at your daily work in a new way. I can look at a case from a new angle. I can motivate my young employees to approach work as advancing their own careers instead of just satisfying the boss’ demands. By looking at things in new ways we can support our clients and differentiate ourselves from the competition.

I think that editor Kaja Perina’s last line describes this turn in our conversation quite well.

A balance of passion and patience will light that bulb eventually. Unless it’s already on and you just don’t know it.

It seems to me that his creative spark has been on for years, and he’d never seen it in that light.

How do you think about creativity in your work? What do you think about Kaja Perina’s strategies for stifling creativity? How do you think creativity fits into international legal work? What do you see as the biggest difference between approaches to creativity in different countries?

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.  He signed and dedicated it for me.   It’s full of short, illustrated biographies of people like Benjamin Franklin and Lewis & Clark.  The overall message is that America is great thanks to the hard work of these courageous individuals.  Of course, there are many other stories that can be told about America.

My grandfather told some unconventional ones in his book, Lines Shaping America.  A chemical engineer, he had a quirky, nationalistic and technical approach to history.  His book focuses on the many ways that lines – fall lines, train lines, transmission lines, letters, etc. – shaped America’s development.   I helped him edit it and he was so proud to self-publish it in 2001.

Here’s an excerpt from its review in Publishers Weekly:

Chapters entitled “Rumford Falls: The Cradle of Industrial Electrochemistry” (concerning the science of electrolytic cells) or “Nitrogen Chemistry” (about the development of a cheaper method to make explosives) might not at first glance tempt readers, they present interesting, offbeat histories of the impact of practical science on history. Swanberg’s eclecticism surfaces almost haphazardly: discussions of robber barons Vanderbilt and Rockefeller; thumbnail sketches of industry scions Pierre du Pont, Herbert Dow and Henry Ford; and chapters on the architectural history of Chicago and Berkeley, Calif., Tocqueville’s visit to America, and American music are full of information.

My grandfather, who passed away in July of last year at the age of 92, had a profound impact on me: he celebrated  curiosity.

My experiences in Berkeley, Chile, and China have underscored this idea of many histories from many perspectives.  My Mexican history professor, Margaret Chowning, emphasized that she believes that Álvaro Obregón was the most important president in modern Mexico, but other historians might focus more on a different leader’s impact.  My classes in Chile shared many interpretations of the coup on September 11, 1973.  In China, I’ve heard the official assessment of Mao Zedong’s leadership – 70% good, 30% bad – and I continually learn more about other stories that have shaped China.

Going back to the quote from Adichie’s book, I think Ugwu’s wish “that this person called Mungo Park had not offended Master so much” is particularly poignant.  Recognizing the many stories in a certain situation requires that we confront painful contradictions, look at both the good and the bad.

I’ll write more when I read more of this intriguing novel.