wanderer

Spring comes. Girls look prettier in spring.

The trees still await to sprout green, yet the branches are dangling the youth out of the breeze. The sky becomes higher and azure, the air smells so good because there is nothing but freshnes. The water tastes so nice because it gives a sensation of bliss sweetness, though it is just coloerless transparent water; Then there is the noiseless darkness during the bedtime, another form of purity, soothing every restless soul. This is the early spring, the flowers have yet to blossom.

It's a bless to see smiling faces in the sunshine, very contagious. Sweet, shy, shiny, seducing, sincere, self-conscious, smugging, sireny, shiverring, singingly, you name it, just there is no smile of shady. It's atrocious not going out for a while in the spring sunshine.

Gu Cheng* might have had the best  words in describing the spring in his poetic eyes (to the best of rendition), the verse needs no effort to memorize it, it comes out as natural as the bud grows up in the morning chillness:

In the spring/you wave the handkerchief in hand/is it to let me go afar/or come back to you soon//No, nothing like it, no reason for that, either/It's like the floating flower in the water/or the dew drop on the petal//Only the shadow knows it/only the wind feels for it/Only the rainbow stired by the sighing is/wavering on in heart.
 

*Gu Cheng was the best poet in contemporary China. In a tragic twist, though, he hacked death his wife and killed himself, in one beautufil spring in always shiny New Zealand.

Washington Red Skins sent a squad of cheerleaders to India to help their cricket league teams have a touch of American sportsmanship, or Yankee sport spirit, so to speak. An article in NYT describes this phenomenon with the following beginning,

"In the blink of an eye, India has gone from faith, prudence and chastity to .... Brittany, Courtney and Tiffani..."

I just loved this guy's writing, unbiased, with a great sense of humor, beautifully written and carefully choosing of words and nicely drawing a conclusion. Not surprisingly, the author, Tunku Varadarajan, is a NYU biz professor. To me, this is the joy of reading. You feel you are meeting a person with character through his/her words. The words exhibit the author's wit, style and poise. It's a virtual party with the fun people, you just don't go through all the courtesy, fake or earnest. It's really fun reading lovely words.

Obviously Prof Varadarajan is not the only one, he is cited only as an example. I should take notes on nice writing everytime I feel the nuance, the nudge and the tinge.  

There is a fine, but clear-cut, line between patriotism and nationalism. Everyone is rooted in a country, no matter how complete one claims to be a globetrotter, patriostism should be infused in a person's blood; nationalism is the narrow-minded version of patriotism, a combo of xenophobia and lack of confidence, nationalism wins no ally and isolates oneself into a moronic bully.

Pro-Tibet demonstrators seized the monumental opportunity of world-wide Olympic torch  relay and made a sound noise, attracted significant number of sympathizers, with a mind or without a clue. The series of events divided Chinese people into three different groups, large portion of patriotists, large portion of nantionalists and a small contingent of politically apathy. In the meantime, Chinese goverment brass, up to the top leader, still holding the same stiff poise, speaking with the same annoying dull craps, left the world the same old irrconcilable image that China is not ready for the world party yet. China is vying hard for entertaining the guests, yet China hasn't removed the negativity completely. To the least, Chinese Communist Party is horrible at public relations.

Tibet issue, if there is, is a separate one from sports. Pro-Tibet groups connected  them together,  CCP should make effort to isolate them, distract the focus of attention.

If Tibet issue has to be addressed, then some clarification needs to be told. Tibet has been a part of China hundreds of years before American continent was ever found. Sometimes it was at the far reach of emperor's control, but almost always  tied. There is no such a thing as a nation Tibet. Noticeably, between 1904-1945, during the central China's deep civil war, Tibet declared independence. No country acknowdged that. On paper, there is never a pact that China and Tibet agree to split,  Hu said Tibet is an internal problem, it sounded crass, but true. 'Free Tibet' is total of bull.

Then some improvement has to be done. If one person crys for lack of human rights, lack of religious freedom, the goverment could stand tall and rebuff. But there are thousands of complaints, then it is not an issue of defense, but to scrutinize the statutes to make it better. It is true 'stability tops everything' for a country of billion people, now the religious outcry is shaking the control, it always is a void with possibility evolving large, shouldn't it be the time to damp the threat by giving what wanted, and completely fill the hole?

Conceivably, political wisdom is far from science, policy-making is not completely out of reasoning. Yet the goverment is run by a group of officals, elected or not. It's funny to see a nation could have a temper, maitain a face, be irrational, like a 3-year-old kid. That's all human errors.  They really should have a system to correct errors before it is too late, like parents or teachers guide a kid growing up. Now who's a nation's guardian? The concensus of opinion.

Tibet is a place with mystic beauty, the people, the culture and the landscape are rare asset to the world. China oughta make the best out of it.  

April 4th, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen set up a company called Micro-soft and tried to sign a contract to write a code for IBM's certain type of machine. First Paul moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, soon Bill would join him. The next thing you know is that Gates and Allen are among the richest people on the planet, and Microsoft is the company people love to hate. Something the public may not notice is that Allen was 22 while Gates 19, both from weathy family in suburb of Seattle. Gates was in his second year in Harvard, a would-be brilliant Ivy League graduate with well-nigh bright future for whatever he wanted to be, and he was to quit! what guts would it take him to drop out and move to a remote city like Albuquerque for a startup company? 

It is now the individualism time. People are eager to label themseves different, the culture seems to encourage young kids to 'be yourself'. Check those pop songs and fashion trends. Unfortunately it is actually really hard to stand out, to be a real different one. Genetically, human being is 99% the same as monkey, how sad. Walking in the crowd, easily one  blends in without a trace. Now try to be real rebellious, be avant-garde in every possible way, not suprisingly, there is a company, of sorts, out there awaiting to meet. The truth is, being different takes lots of guts and lots of genius.

Gates is different because he is the godfather of all geeks and nerds for the later generations. He created software industry single-handedly.

Take another angle.  Ever heard of a quote, 'We're not arrogant. We just believe we're the best band in the world."  Who said this? Noel Gallagpher of Oasis. All I know is Oasis is good, but the songs I still remembered from them are 'wonderwall' and 'Hello'. Funny, huh. There are many more similar delusions of grandeur. Looks like we really don't need to waste much time on pop stars.

So the moral of Bill Gates' story is, seriously, don't take yourself seriously, or monkey will laugh at you.