Interestingness Rediscovered

Read What Matters Now

I used to buy books that promised to give me loads of instant (yet permanent) wisdom. Remember the scenes in The Matrix where they mastered Jujutsu or flying a helicopter in a matter of seconds? I wanted that. As a result, my bookshelf was filled with these:

• Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (Now I know exactly what to do with women)
• China Shakes the World (Now I can open a venture in China)
• The Game (Now I know exactly how to score on a first date)
• Getting Things Done (Now I am a super-performer)
• The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (Now I am totally enlightened)

They worked. In the following ways:

• I forgot what was written in the book the moment I finished it. (It’s not that bad; I could also wipe the fact that I wept a couple of times while reading the Ferrari Monk book off my memory. Wait, not yet.)
• I memorized lessons, and then forget to follow through them in real life.
• I found out that when you read books that you don’t need at the moment, they become incredibly boring.
• I hated myself for doing all the above for two decades.

Recently, out of frustration, I switched my motto from “read what I should” from “read what I want.” No more books for the sake of acquiring instant wisdom or filling my bookshelf with impressive titles.  (If I want that, I can always go to a flea market and find a set of second-hand Encyclopedia Britannica. Is that why these books always look gracefully aged when we see them? By getting tan in the field?)

I started reading what mattered to me most at the moment, regardless of the topic. I welcomed satires, bitching from a bitch, confessions of an alcoholic writer, weird statistics, and comics. Impressiveness out, interestingness in.

And they started to stay in my head. I carry them (in my Kindle) all the time, I read whenever I have time to read, I take notes. I live through books, not just read them.

Somewhere in Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman says the brain forms itself by strengthening the synaptic path well traveled. It doesn’t “add” information as we add layers on a cake. It gives wider and faster neuron highways to the most traveled information. Even when we add a Ferrari or Mercedes version of precious information to the highway, if 99% of existing information is, say, Toyota, then Toyota gets the way.

There is no room for superficial wisdom. In order to truly make some new information, new wisdom, or new technique part of who we are, we must DO them and grab a larger share of the neural passages in our brain. And the easiest way to do so is to read about topics that are on our mind at the moment - the “hot” topic.

Today’s (the decade’s) lesson: read what matters. And if it means following Lady Gaga (I don’t, fortunately), get used to it - or change what matters to you. Then the brain will digest the information.

The Retirement Home for Japanese Salaried Workers: Their Workplace

Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata, does something few CEOs do: He conducts informal, in-depth interviews with key employees and shares the results on the company website. Titled “Iwata Asks” (Japanese / English), the interview series has been going on for several years, revealing surprisingly detailed anecdotes behind the game development scene from the usually secretive company.

The latest edition of Iwata Asks (in Japanese only, as of Apr 25th 2010) traces the history of the great-great-granddad of handheld game consoles, Game & Watch, which was created almost three decades ago. The lessons we can learn this time? How they transformed the mundane pocket calculator into a pioneering gaming console (yes, yes...), and—this entry’s topic—what happens to Japanese salaried workers after they pass their prime.

The interviewees, ex-Game & Watch designers, from left to right:

• Masao Yamamoto, New Business Promotion Department
• Makoto Kano, President’s Office
• Takehiro Izushi, New Business Promotion Department

(The rightmost person is Satoru Iwata, the interviewer)

What’s curious to a non-Japanese are the following:

• They are still working in Nintendo (the lifetime employment is still working, apparently).
• Their current positions seem out of sync with their expertise.

The latter is the key issue here. How can a semi-retired ex-game designer promote new business? And what does a senior guy do among 20-something secretaries in the president’s office?

Well, as a Japanese who was once employed in a traditional Japanese company, I can attest: they are demoted workers spending their semi-retirement life doing easy jobs in positions or departments specifically created for them.

In a traditional Japanese company (with more than a hundred years of history, surely Nintendo belongs to that category), typically all freshmen start with equal conditions and climb up the promotional ladder one step at a time. The tipping point arrives when they reach their mid-30s. A handful of elite workers will be given important roles, and the rest will be transferred to non-critical positions, making room for the upcoming younger generations.

If this story ends here, we are not seeing anything Japanese (= peculiar). What separates Japanese companies and their overseas counterparts is that in Japan, a new position will be created for those non-elites if an existing one is not available. The company provides them non-critical jobs such as administrative tasks or organizing motivational seminars.

Thus, in the aforementioned Nintendo’s case, we are seeing new divisions with few substantial jobs (New Business Development) and harmless positions in existing divisions (President’s Office). When I was working in a Japanese company, I saw divisions called “Future Creations Department” and “Idea Generation Group” packed by middle-aged guys.

Have you ever wondered how the infamous lifetime employment system worked? This way.

What It Takes to Work in a Japanese Company: Assimilation, not Adaptation

“Can you adapt to our way?”

I was having an interview with an overseas branch of a Japanese company. The interviewers were comprised of “multinational” workers (from Japan, China, and India) but when that question came out, I thought I just turned the clock ten years back in time. A warning sign started to flash in my head: Gosh, most of them might be non-Japanese but don’t get fooled—this company is still so Japanese.

If it were a company from any other country, the question should have been “Can you adapt to a new environment?” or simply “Can you adapt?” I would have happily replied “yes” and walked the talk. The ability to adapt to a new workplace is indeed an important skill that every professional, especially an expatriate, should possess.

Except that adaptation was not the real issue. Although they used the word adapt, the Japanese company was, in fact, asking me to assimilate.  By combining one word, our, with a standard interview question, Can you adapt?, the interviewer created a detoxed version of the original raw demand: Are you willing to become us?

To be fair, the Japanese company had no malicious intent. The interviewers were simply describing how they had been running the business for decades: use known methodologies with known people. They might have welcomed foreign market, capital, and presence, but they were not willing to accept foreign ideas. Their dualism, or contradiction, was crystallized in a single question, probably unwittingly.

The (traditional) Japanese way can be very flexible in terms of depth. Thanks to a tight-knit group of workers who know each other inside out (professionally and personally), dozens of product models can be churned out each year, minutely differentiated according to local needs and market demands. Go to any Toyota dealer in any place in the world and you’ll get the idea.

But that way can be very rigid in terms of width. Uncertainty is one thing that these companies avoid at all costs, therefore non-tangible “foreignness,” including philosophy, culture, communication, and ideas, need to be “Japanified.”

Which means that the above-described Japanese way works in the short run but ultimately kills both the employer and the employees by becoming too rigid. If a worker adapts too much to a particular way of conducting business, he can no longer move to a different company or change his career direction easily.

Optimization is the ally of perfection, but the enemy of change. As a result, many talents in Japan cling to their old employer even when they are treated in a less-than glamorous way. And slowly but steadily, companies start to operate in order to protect themselves, not to grow further— which would mean change.

I had already witnessed the massacre of talent when I was working for a Japanese manufacturer. The best circuit designer in the company was “promoted” to the Quality Assurance division because he was deemed unfit for managing positions and also his expertise, analog circuitry, was no longer in large demand. And, after a flagship product failed to penetrate the market as expected, the director of R&D division was relegated to a head position of a manufacturing facility in a place where 20% of the population shared the same surname. Neither of them quit. I, a non-performing employee, did, after observing their behaviors.

P.S. No, I did not join the aforementioned Japanese company but I appreciated the whole interview experience and the insight I gained. I wasn’t willing to switch to a new job to narrow my career options.

Number Equality Does Not Lead to Power Equality

In this entry I try to connect the dots regarding the glass ceiling for women, from an outsider’s (male’s) point of view.

I am reading the book Microtrends, a wonderful collection of small trends that flow under the traditional trend-radar but nevertheless are shaping the future of the U.S. and the world. The “Wordy Women” section tells us that “women are on the verge of taking over word-based professions, like journalism, law, marketing, and communications.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2005, 57 percent of news analysts, reporters, and correspondents were women. Even 57 percent of TV news anchors—that authoritative role once reserved for the likes of Walter Cronkite—are women.

This observation matches what I have witnessed in Taiwan. Almost half of my co-workers in word-oriented positions, including marketing, sales, and writing, have been female. (Let’s not talk about the situation in Japan, the third-world country of gender equality.)

And yet what I remember most vividly about what it means to be a female journalist/writer today is an article from James Chartrand. Before she (yes, it’s she) became James Chartrand, the über-writer at Copyblogger, she was a single mother with two daughters, struggling to make ends meet.

One day, I tossed out a pen name, because I didn’t want to be associated with my current business, the one that was still struggling to grow. I picked a name that sounded to me like it might convey a good business image. Like it might command respect.

Instantly, jobs became easier to get.
There was no haggling. There were compliments, there was respect. Clients hired me quickly, and when they received their work, they liked it just as quickly. There were fewer requests for revisions — often none at all.
...
I was applying in the same places. I was using the same methods. Even the work was the same.
In fact, everything was the same.
Except for the name.

Something feels odd. If the number of women in the word-oriented industries is equal to or outnumbering men, why did she have more success after picking a pen-name of the opposite sex? Mark J. Penn, the author of Microtrends, also admits this contradiction and offers a statistic that shows that the majority of decision-making positions in the wordy professions are still filled by men:

To be sure, that women flood the wordy professions doesn’t mean that they always dominate decision-making. In journalism and in law, particularly, women drop off somewhere between the professional schools (where they are the majority) and the corridors of power. Women are only 17 percent of law partners. They are only one-third of full-time journalists working for the mainstream media.

And sadly, my own observations agree with this statistic too. In the past five years I have seen female managers in word-oriented positions (in total, 5 or 6), maybe more than their male counterparts (4 or 5). But when it comes to executives, I have seen only one female. Mark J. Penn does not offer a reason why, and instead throws in a slightly evasive statement: “But this trend is new, so it may take a long time for it to percolate through to the top.”

Aside from the tired (but persuasive-sounding) theory of “women are biologically not programmed to be interested in power,” the only reasonable explanation so far that I have heard comes from Penelope Trunk, who says:

Forget the glass ceiling because it's about to become irrelevant. Not because women are finally going to get to the top of Fortune 500 companies in forces of more than two companies at a time. That may happen, but no one's holding their breath. The glass ceiling is going to become irrelevant because the women who are coming into the workforce now see what's above that glass and they are uninterested.

So here is my guesstimation on what is going on, deduced from my own observations and these stories. Because younger generations are less interested in climbing the ladder, the old folks (men) who should have been pushed to retirement some time ago can still afford to cling to their positions, and are filtering out the non-traditional workforce, including females, probably subconsciously. Any other explanations?

Why Google Failed to Create Twitter: Because Google is Too Good at Being Google

Shel Israel says Twitter has gone through a wormhole (a much better phrase than breakthrough which ought to be included in every buzzword bingo). Twitter now owns a proprietary tweeting platform, holds developer conferences, and claims its archive should be part of the U.S. Library of Congress. The last item means that when U.S. scholars and policy makers need reference materials on the cultural impact of the strategic alliance between North America and Asia, they can look upon my tweets such as: A Taiwanese singer is covering Bette Midler’s From a Distance. He picked a bad song (good choice) and made it worse (even better).

But the biggest, least surprising yet most ironic part of Twitter’s selling out breakthrough wormthrough is that Google is going to add zillions of tweets to their ever-expanding search base.

The world's largest search company has announced it will make the Twitter archives searchable online and apparently has exclusive rights for now. There will be a six-month time lag before you can do this so searches will be historic rather than for finding out who became mayor of your local pizza joint yesterday.

It is big news, no doubt—considering how rare it is to hear positive news when Google singles out an organization. And it’s no news too, no doubt—considering making everything searchable is Google’s mission.

But why does it sound so ironic? Because Twitter established itself as the king of social media, a position Google failed to achieve not once but twice, with Wave and Buzz. I know, both Wave and Buzz are alive, but nobody believes that Twitter or the other king of social media, FaceBook, will be ousted by them. What Google really wanted was to NOT announce anything about making social media searchable, because everybody—in Google’s wet dream—knows that Wave and Buzz store all records.

The reason Wave and Buzz failed to attract users is obvious. Nobody, even Google employees, couldn’t describe their usage in the context of existing communication tools. What problem do these services fix? What desire do they fill? We still don’t know. (On a totally different subject which might become a separate blog entry, I think Apple’s iPad might fall into the same pitfall.)

Twitter, on the other hand, did fill our desire—one we didn’t know existed: Talk.

It’s not talk with, something that requires a partner. It’s not talk to, something that requires an audience. Just talk. Talk about interesting stuff, our private life, anything.

Unlike blog platforms which force us to “rationalize” our thinking through writing, Twitter allows us to just speak our raw thoughts. Most of our little speeches fade away in 3 seconds among the streams of tweets with hardly any attention paid to them, just like a single character in the green stream of letters in The Matrix. That’s fine. In fact, fading away is exactly what makes tweets special. Tweeting is essentially intellectual excretion. Get these thoughts out...there, I feel much better.

Google does not get that point. For Google, every piece of information must be (1) searchable and (2) a means to an end. In Google’s eyes, we do everything with a purpose, and even non-purpose is a type of purpose, therefore it must also be organized and referenced. Google never gets rid of ideas; it always stores them. Eternal storing might work for computers, but not for humans.

I admire Google because it serves the role nobody wants to take: the ultimate librarian. And the problem is that Google has become too good at doing its job. We rely on our librarians to learn about communication, but do we rely on them as communicators?

My Online Technical Communication Program Experience

This post is a quick shout-out for the graduate school program I have been enrolled, MSPTC (Master of Professional and Technical Communication) from  the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). If you are interested in taking a higher education in technical communication (= a fancier version of the phrase technical writing, not unlike executive administrator vs. secretary).

Two years after stumbling into technical writing, I decided to turn it into my lifetime career. I  had fallen in love with the surprisingly rich and rewarding work of organizing and mapping technical information. One thing bothered me, though: the lack of formal education.

I had acquired all my technical writing skills on the job, from collaboration with engineers to document formatting to graphic layout. I had enough skills to execute the tasks at hand, but would I be able to rely entirely on my own initiative to keep acquiring and expanding the expertise required in the ever-changing world of technology? I doubted I could, and moreover, I wanted to explore my skills beyond my hands-on experience.

It was time to take formal educational training. I searched for a night school in my neighborhood—Taipei, Taiwan—and found nothing, not even a course offered in Chinese. Then a quick Google search yielded a surprisingly rich selection of U.S.-based programs, including a MSPTC (Master of Professional and Technical Communication) from  the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).

MSPTC at NJIT stood out from other distance learning programs in two aspects. First, it offered the best mixture of writing and technology. Some universities modified their existing English writing degrees into a Technical Communication program, relying on proven English writing materials and not adding enough curricula on the technology aspect of technical communication.

Second, NJIT offers a two-tier system: a graduate certificate and a master’s degree. Students can enroll in the Technical Communication Essentials graduate certificate program, which includes four essential technical communication courses, and then if they want to explore more, they can step up to the master’s degree, carrying the credits they have already earned.

I started as a graduate certificate student and this year I have taken the leap and joined the master’s degree. So far, mostly, I have been taking one course per semester. It is a slow pace, but has three benefits. First, it works well with my daytime work; there is only so much I can do after my office hours. Second, I have less financial burden thanks to NJIT’s per-semester paying scheme. Third and most importantly, I have been spending ample time on each course and applying what I have learned to my work, and vice versa. 

What about the distance between me and the university? So far, I have encountered no problems. Although Taiwan and the US have almost twelve hours of time difference, most of the course works are done asynchronously. Synchronous events such as online chats usually take place in the evening (in the US), early morning in Taiwan (which provides me with a good incentive to get out of bed earlier).

I am more than satisfied with the learning and networking experience I have acquired so far. At this pace, I might graduate from the course at 2012, a full five years after enrolling in the program. The long time is worth it; the purpose of this learning is not to quickly tuck an “M.S.” into my resume but to slowly absorb knowledge and grow as a professional.

P.S. Sounds too pretty? Yes, I haven't talked about the negative aspects of that program. If you do want to know because you are seriously considering NJIT, please send me a message at isaokato (at) gmail.com. I will describe the untold stories, although my conclusion stays the same: go for it.

Why I Chose Kindle over iPad: Because Less is Better

I have been pondering  buying a good e-book reader but couldn’t decide until now, because I heard the iPad, the Terminator for everything between mobile phones and laptops, is much better than Amazon’s Kindle.

• iPad allows access to as many books as Kindle (the Kindle app is available in iPad)
• iPad is as readable as Kindle.
• iPad is colored.
• iPad plays movies.
• iPad syncs with iTunes.

Okay, iPad is so much more than Kindle. Therefore, I realized that Kindle might be the right device for me, because it does less.

Kindle weighs less

Fred Wilson says the iPad is a bit heavy for long reading. That’s a big red flag.

I showed the Gotham Gal several books she has just read on the Kindle displayed on the iPad. She grabbed the iPad and immediately said "This thing is way too heavy." I guess I will be reading on the iPad and she'll be reading on the Kindle. I agree that the iPad is heavy. I've been holding it for about five minutes so far while typing this and can feel the strain in my left forearm. The Kindle never feels that way even after hours of reading with it.

I used to carry a digital camera everywhere I went, occasionally taking snapshots of events and objects that interested me. Frustrated by its bulkiness and frequent need for a battery charge, I decided to buy a smartphone to solve all my mobile needs with one device. Its camera function looked reasonable, aside from lack of zoom and longer snapshot time; just three seconds more, three meters farther.

After a month, I took twelve photos with that smartphone. In my digital camera days, I was taking more than fifty in the same period. What changed? With the smartphone, I was discouraging myself with each photo I took. I discarded more than half of snapshot opportunities because I was too far away or my smartphone was too slow to respond. With my digital camera, I discarded only 30% of the opportunities, which motivated me to take more. What looked initially like a small difference turned into a huge dividing factor, after all.

I expect the same thing to happen with an e-book reader. That extra 300g or so might not feel like a big deal in the beginning. I can cheat my brain into dismissing my muscle ache; but my body won’t forget. I could imagine myself buying dozens of books in a surge of excitement, only to leave them unopened. Worse, I might blame my weak determination for the decreased reading time despite the increased cost.

Kindle does less

Evelyn Rusli at TechCrunch says the iPad provides a kitchen experience while the Kindle stays in the microwave position.

But even if Kindle drops the price to, say, $100 from the $259 baseline, I think many will look at the purchase decision as microwave vs. kitchen. Why spend $100 for the microwave, if you could get a whole kitchen for $499— the economics favor the kitchen (that is if you plan to use all the appliances, like e-mail, internet, multimedia and the app store).

I think a better analogy would be the living room in your house. iPad has everything, from the television (movie player), stereo set (music player), game console (game apps), NetFlix (iTunes), to the bookshelf, the only function for Kindle. And here is the question: Do you read more books when you are surrounded by those luxury items? Me, no. I read best when I have nothing but reading to do.

Or let’s use the analogy of a long flight—one of the best occasions for reading. Having an iPad is like sitting in a business class seat in Singapore Airlines, complete with exotic food, superior service, a warm blanket, and the latest movies. I might never reach out to my books in that environment. Having a Kindle, on the other hand, is like sitting in a center seat in United Airlines’ economy class, sandwiched by two overweight gentlemen. I wouldn’t be surprised if I could open that book’s reading club by the end of the flight.

In order to read deeply, I need to be in my study area, close the door, and face nothing but the books, notes, and my pen. I want to gently force me to immerse myself in the world that only a book can offer: a world told by the writer, but owned by the reader.

I ordered a Kindle.

P.S. There is one more thing that matters. Kindle is V2.0 and iPad is V1.0. You cannot expect a virgin to be good in bed (-time reading).

Guest post @ MultilingualMania

I guest-posted an entry on being an alien yet part of the local picture in Taiwan in MultilingualMania, a cool website dedicated to multilingualism in the new millennium. Check other stuff from that site especially if you are interested in being bilingual.

Why we still look back on the 80s: lost innocence

Hot Tub Time Machine has come out. This is how it (should have) started.

• Writer: Hot tub time machine.
• Friend A: What?
• Writer: Nothing. It just popped into my head.
• Friend A: Sounds lame but funny. What are you going to do with it?
• Writer: I don’t know. Maybe I can pitch it around.
• --------- 4 weeks later ----------
• Writer: I got feedback. We can make it into a movie about four losers in a Jacuzzi tub going back in time to the 80s.
• Producer A: Are you out of your fxxking mind? Who is saying that?
• Writer: John Cusack. He also wants to be in it.
• Producer A: That’s a brilliant concept! Secure the rights and deliver the final script in two weeks. We’re gonna shoot it in six months.

When a movie goes out of the safe-bet zone, probably there is someone in the background with power and lunacy (this time, in a logical way). The logical lunacy here is not why the time machine has to be a Jacuzzi tub, or why the protagonists have to be middle-aged losers, or why the movie has to be “Hot Tub Time Machine” at all. It’s the 80s. Why not the 70s or 90s?

The answer: to be nostalgic about our lost innocence. As a Gen-X who has witnessed four decades starting from the 70s, I remember the 80s as the only decade in which we indulged in materialistic pleasure without seriously worrying whether our future or world was going to turn upside down. After going through the social upheavals and experiments in the 60s and the 70s, we started to hallucinate (again), as if we had forgotten all the lessons learned. We had done our homework,  why not indulge for a moment decade?

Enjoy the moment; it is going to last forever. That was our unspoken motto, until the crash of the Berlin Wall brought us a new era of political freedom—and also an alarm clock. Time to wake up, boys; the party is over.

What follows a decade-long party? Answer: withdrawal that lasts for two decades. By singing “Hello, hello, how low?” Kurt Cobain wasn’t trying to be provocative, as many critics said then; he was merely describing the world as it was. Kids adored him and adults frowned upon him for the same reason: Nirvana opened a Pandora’s box by making the audience realize they were socially sick. And at the turn of the 21st century, our frustration and sickness turned into collective anger: I don’t need to restate what happened there. Our memory is still fresh (and raw).

No wonder we want to remember the last glory days of our lives, even knowing that they were partially built on delusion. I overheard a friend of mine saying, “Somehow the 80s never die.” They do not, because what the decade represents—lost innocence—is a timeless theme that gets reinforced as we grow older. We can never “undo” knowledge. In this sense, ignorance is truly bliss.

Hot Tub Time Machine is not doing well in the box office, which is a good sign. No matter how fun it might be, nostalgia is nostalgia and we don’t need it more than once—especially when it involves watching grown-up men taking a Jacuzzi together. John Cusack, himself an 80s icon, seems to get this point and that’s why we still love him:

I think being self-referential is really narcissistic. Who’s to say anybody’s even thinking of you that much? But some of these movies that I’ve done, people still recite lines to me, even 20 years later. And “Say Anything” seemed to become a big touchstone film for people. I was in one of the first John Hughes movies, and then I made “Better Off Dead” which people still remember so fondly, so I thought there was something delicious about a grown man having to get trapped in that. And then the joke’s on me.

We have just started the new decade (no, we won’t die in a few years). So we should go watch this film, say good-bye to our innocent days, and prepare to shape the next ten years. 

P.S. I typed “innocence” as “innocense” seven times and the spell checker punished me with red ink each time. Somehow my brain cannot compute the logic behind having three ns, two cs, and two ces in a single word; two many. I am so sorry.

Is China becoming more like Japan?

Following the well-documented debacle between Google and China, the San Jose Mercury News says people are realizing that doing business in China is getting tougher for U.S. companies.

"It was inevitable after a certain time they would no longer roll out the red carpet for foreign companies and give them special treatment," said Susan Shirk, a former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration responsible for U.S. relations with China. "But now we don't have a level playing field. We have nontariff barriers (in China) designed to protect local companies."

Shunning foreign companies is a logical decision from the Chinese government’s point of view. Remaining in the manufacturer’s position will never give China the worldwide power and recognition it wants (or deserves, according to people there). China needs to acquire technological expertise and worldwide access, which is most easily achieved by inviting global players and learning (copying) from them. Now that it is almost done, who needs those “laowai?”

I am having a déjà vu sensation reading the dramas of those companies ejected by China. They resemble what has been going on in a country I am very familiar with: Japan.

We know how “open” Japan is toward the outside, despite having established itself as a major player in the free-trade world. People don’t speak English. Setting up a company is notoriously difficult for everyone, even natives. Mobile phones armored with the world’s top technology are sold only in the domestic market, to work on a proprietary Japanese wireless network.

And today, Japan is paying a huge price. Foreign companies are fleeing Japan due to high costs, a shrinking market, and the complexity of “local habits.” Younger generations are disillusioned by the rigid social customs and lack of career prospects (traditional office jobs are saturated with middle-aged men and part-time jobs are grasped by nothing-to-lose retired grandpas). And what do we call that proprietary smartphones? Galapagos mobile. “This country has everything. Except hope.” That was the opening line of a fictional young character in a best-selling novel published in 2000.

Why Japan has become so inward-looking? Because it could afford to do so. A population of 100 million people means that as a Japanese you can make a good living, or even become a millionaire, doing something entirely in the domestic market—including writing poems in your native tongue. Why risk yourself and adjust your behavior according to external requirements?

Let’s go back to China. Its economy has been growing for more than thirty years. It has a potential market ten times larger than that of Japan. And probably most importantly, its citizens do not have the “frontier spirit,” a driving force behind the onslaught of many US/European pioneers/companies. Historical evidence suggests that during the Middle Ages, Chinese vessels frequently explored the world but never did much more than that. From Jim Rogers’s A Bull in China:

Chinese explorer Cheng Ho set sail on ships twice the size of Columbus’s ships in the fifteenth century and explored much of the world. Yet he never once annexed territory....Their ships and navigational skills were better than those of the great European explorers, yet they never attempted to seize territory or set up colonies.

China is already the center of the world. Why go out? (中國 literally means Middle Earth, or Kingdom). So in the short term, I believe China will become domestic, or domesticated, and prosper as the world’s largest economic entity. In the long term, the same malaise that caught Japan will catch up with China.

The signs arealready there. Lenovo, the company that purchased IBM’s ThinkPad brand several years ago, dumped its ex-Dell CEO William Amelio after several years of disappointing worldwide sales, returning to Chinese leadership and a focus on their home turf. I bet many more companies will follow through in the coming years.

What exactly is “Green Consumerism?”

The Rubber Manufacturers Association says it takes about seven gallons of gas to make a single tire, but new technology is being developed to make “green” tires using renewable raw materials. The Business Ethics Blog, always thought-provoking, asks us what we think:.

So, let's take this new technology and ask a hypothetical question. If "green" tires were to hit the market, and if they a) really were substantially more environmentally friendly but b) were only "nearly" as safe (say, 98% as safe) as old-fashioned rubber tires, would you buy them? Should you?

I couldn’t help thinking that the real ethical question lies elsewhere. Isn’t the whole concept of “green consumerism” bogus?

By definition, going green is to consume less, not more. Does buying green tires make us more eco-friendly? Isn’t getting rid of the life with tires the real solution? (I know that practicing a car-less life in Taiwan, where I live, is far more easier than doing it in, say, North America. Here in Taipei, owning a car is illogical, even suicidal at times.)

Probably the real problem is the word usage, specifically the combination of two contradictory terms for the sake of making up marketing jargon.

• Q: How can we make our ecology-minded customers purchase our products?
• A: Make them believe that they consume less by buying more.

Certainly, nobody’s motivated to buy by listening to more honest phrases such as “tires made from tired materials.”

We use terms similar to green consumerism all the time; some examples are listed below. Their main purpose is to convince ourselves, the speakers, rather than the listeners.

• Risk hedge
• Virtual reality
• Safe sex

Today’s lesson: Be ethical about our language before focusing on companies’ behaviors.

P.S. My answer to the question in the quote would be “Yes, as long as I do not have small kids riding along with me.” In other words, no. I know, it does not make logical sense at all. What is the actual effect that tires 2% less safe than standard ones have on safety? Talking while driving is far more dangerous—which is what we always do when driving with kids.

Tackling articles: five articles traps ESL learners fall into

In a perfect world of language, everything would work according to simple rules. Dictionaries would have fewer pages and grammar boot camps would be shut down. Well, reality does not work that way and here we are, struggling with mundane grammar rules such as...the usage of articles. Here I will present the five exceptions for using articles that are difficult to master for ESL writers (read: me). I hope this list will be useful for any non-native English writer attempting to write well in English.

Nouns that can be both countable and uncountable

Some nouns can be both countable and uncountable (or abstract concepts vs. specific instances), with a small twist in their meaning.

• Correct usage: He has much experience.
  Here, “experience” is an uncountable noun and refers to abstract knowledge or skills. Therefore, we do not need an article.

• Correct usage: It was an experience.
  Here, “experience” is a countable noun and refers to a particular instance of event. Therefore, we need an article.

• Correct usage: I don’t drink coffee.
  Here, “coffee” is used to generalize a type of drink called coffee, which is an uncountable noun. Therefore, there is no need for an article.

• Correct usage: Would you like a coffee?
  Here, “coffee” is actually an abbreviated version of “a cup of coffee,” and we add the “a” to emphasize the hidden word “cup.”

Nouns that do not change in their plural forms

Some nouns can take plural forms but do not change from their singular forms. Let’s take the word “advice” for instance.

• Correct usage, singular form: Here is my advice.
  The “advice” in this sentence means a piece of advice.

• Correct usage, plural form: I will give you more advice.
  The “advice” in this sentence means multiple pieces of advice. The trap ESL learners fall into is to use indefinite articles a/an in front of a noun whenever it can point to multiple instances.

• Incorrect usage, singular form: I will give you an advice.
  The word “advice” is an uncountable noun, therefore we cannot use “an” in front of it.

• Incorrect usage, plural form: I will give you more advices.
  The word “advice” does not change in its plural form.

Proper nouns that require or do not require the definite article “the”

Proper nouns do not require an article, right? For example: My name is Isao Kato. / Let’s go to New York. Not so fast, the reality is messy. Even the grammar books admit that there are no formal rules and they recommend the time-tested method of memorization to tackle this issue. Here I will list some of the correct but illogical usages of “the” in front of proper nouns. Let’s go back to our fifth grade and restart word games.

• Lake Michigan BUT the Nile (They are both about geographical locations.)
• State Street BUT the Empire State Building (They are both about landmarks.)
• Great Britain BUT the Soviet Union (They are both about countries.)
• New Jersey Institute of Technology BUT the University of Virginia (They are both about educational institutes.)
• Activate Microsoft Windows BUT Turn the MacBook on (They are both about computer systems.)

Countable nouns used in generalization

When generalizing, countable nouns can take a definite article or change into plural forms.

• Correct usage: Helicopters are the new choice of transportation for the rich.
  Here, by using the plural form “helicopters” we know that the author is referring to helicopters in general, not a specific model.

• Correct usage: The helicopter is the new choice of transportation for the rich.
  Here, the context makes it clear that “the helicopter” is referring to helicopters in general.

• Incorrect usage: A helicopter is the new choice of transportation for the rich.
  This sentence reads like “using only one helicopter is the new choice...” which might be cool in the real world but is not the intended usage here.

• Incorrect usage: Helicopter is the new choice of transportation for the rich.
  Never use a countable noun without pluralizing it or adding an article, unless you are writing a child’s dialogue: “Daddy, it is car!”

Nouns with articles understood by the context

We use the definite article “the” as a writer when we assume the readers know what we are referring to. This issue is easy if we are writing sentences such as “My boss gave me a mission to buy a tall half-skinny half-1 percent extra hot split quad shot (two shots decaf, two shots regular) latte with whip at the Starbucks on Center Street.” In a fictional world, there is only one Starbucks on a street, therefore we can use the “the.” But what if we are referring to an everyday object? Here are some examples of nouns taking “the” because we all imagine one object according to the context.

• Correct usage: Close the door.
  There is usually one door in a room, the one both the writer and reader can imagine.
  Notes from my editor:
  There is often implied special knowledge. Imagine a married couple, he often leaves the front door in the living room open, it is a bone of contention between them. He walks into the bathroom, where she is brushing her air, and she asks “Did you close the door?” He knows which door she is referring to. (Or to be precisely correct, “He knows to which door she is referring).

• Correct usage: I am going to the library today.
  There is usually only one library in the neighborhood, so everybody can imagine that exact library at the corner of the city hall. But...this usage is also a victim of “it depends”:

• Correct usage (in American English): I am going to the hospital.

• Correct usage (in British English): I am going to hospital.

Conclusion: keep learning

As the last example in the previous paragraph shows, there is no end in sight when it comes to grammatical exceptions in English. Keeping the types of exceptions in our mind helps, but that is only the beginning. As a wise man once said, in the end, persistence triumphs talent (or unconsciousness in our case).
Here are even more learning materials for you grammar masochists.

• Martin Hewings: Advanced Grammar in Use
• Gerald J. Alred, Charles T. Brusaw, and Walter E. Oliu: Handbook of Technical Writing
• The Chicago Manual of Style Online 
• The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• World Wide Words.org

Tackling articles: never an easy road for ESL learners

To use or not to use articles, that is the question

What are articles?

Grammar-wise, articles are types of adjectives which specify the noun they designate. There are two types of articles: One is the indefinite article (“a” and “an”) that denotes an unspecified item, as in “a simple man” and “an education.” We know there is one gentleman and one educational experience, but we don’t know which one we are talking about (or let’s pretend so). The other is the definite article “the,” that denotes specified items, as in “the other guy.” We all know who this person is, except for husbands.

That’s it. Case closed, except it is not, at least for English as a Second Language (ESL) writers.

Articles: a tall order for ESL writers

To us ESL writers, few grammar rules are more difficult to master than the usage of articles. I have been using English for almost thirty years on and off, and for the past several years I have been writing extensively in English as a professional technical writer and a blogger, churning out more than one thousand words per day. And yet I still cannot use articles correctly, a fact my editor and playwright loves to point out, “literally,” in every piece of writing I submit to her. (And I appreciate it dearly :)

My question, or conclusion on rainy cold days, is: Is it only me? I cannot even write down my feelings because I am not sure if I should say “the usage of articles” or “usage of articles” and then I turn into my eternal ally: TV.

Fortunately, it is not just me; the usage of articles is a universal problem for ESL writers. Julia Miller at Flinders University Student Learning Center points out the complexity of articles for ESL writers in an issue of the International Education Journal as follows:

In almost any piece of writing submitted by a non-native speaker of English, three things will often indicate that the writer is working in a second language: the choice of tense and aspect, the subject and verb agreements, and the use of articles (the, a, an). While verb problems can largely be overcome and the mistakes in agreements eliminated by careful proofreading, the problems with articles frequently remain....Hewson has called the English article system a “psychomechanism”, through which native speakers use articles correctly but unconsciously.

Change the unknowns into knowns

The last word in the previous paragraph, “unconsciously,” is the key to understanding why native speakers “get it.” Unfortunately, that key word is also a synonym for “talent,” or even “gift,” for us ESL writers. It is an uphill battle, but there is hope: conquer the exceptions. Here, “exceptions” actually mean rules that are not obvious at first sight.

In the next entry, I will list the five of those hidden rules that continuously give me headaches; it is an attempt to both help me become a better writer and to share the lessons with those who are struggling with the usage of articles.

Three dating spots for Taiwanese teenagers

My friend, a Spanish teacher, stopped asking his Taiwanese students “What did you do when you were a kid?” (¿Qué hiciste cuando eras un niño?) as a conversation starter in his class because he kept hearing only one word: Estudie (I studied). That’s it? He asks, and the students add more information: studied at home, school, or cram school.
(Another teacher is also losing his battle by using “How was your week?” and constantly getting retorted by “Worked a lot” (Trabajado mucho).)

That’s fine, everybody has a different lifestyle (a useful phrase for making a peace agreement). But if one’s teenage life is circling around a single purpose—to get into a better university for a better career—where can he spend that extra energy and have fun?

Well, Taiwanese teenagers do seem to have learned a way to enjoy social life without compromising their career or family relationships: make out in public. Here are the three most popular dating spots for teenagers (by that I mean kids wearing school uniforms) in Taipei, according to my observation.

1. Subway

Crowded subway carriages offer an ideal chance to get close together. It’s the Taiwanese version of the backyard bench experience - you know, the one that is barely big enough for two people so you can’t sit together without touching each other’s thighs.
Popular posture: girls burying their heads into boys’ chests, being forced to do so by obtrusive adults (such as yours truly).
Simulating: foreplay.

2. Starbucks

Starbucks keeps providing havens for everybody. They offer coffee that is not exactly top-notch, they reinvented the idea of self-service out of no-service, and they aren’t doing well sales-wise in the US. But we will keep loving you, Starbucks, at least here in Taipei. Most tables are barely large enough for two people - again, gently forcing the couples to get closer.
Popular posture: boys taking a nap while girls watch. Then they take turns.
Simulating: sleeping with each other. Asynchronously.

3. Bookstores

Taiwan’s largest bookstore chain, Eslite, provides a safe dating environment for teenagers, if sitting on the floor and reading books to each other can be called dating practices.
Popular posture: boys pillowing their heads on girls’ lap.
Simulating: afterplay.

Those three locations have one thing in common: they blend well with academic life and external expectations. Commute on the subway, write some report in a Starbucks, and read more in the bookstore—isn’t that what parents want their kids to do?

After all, Taiwanese teenagers might be enjoying their lives no less than their overseas counterparts.

P.S. A movie came out this month, conveniently shot in and backed by Eslite, the aforementioned bookstore.
Story: A bookstore-dwelling nerd falls in love with a cute clerk.
Key message: being a bookworm is good for your sex life.

Let’s expect even more extravagant activities. Maybe they will build some “study rooms” inside the store.

I am in love with books and I want to touch them, see them and know they are there

This is a guest post from Sherry Lamoreaux, who edits my blog, in response to this paragraph in my previous entry:

In other words, when it comes to reading, what matters is being able to carry the book around and have “an experience” when I feel like it. We do not care that much about the package. Come to think of it, it was never about the package no matter how we associate our love for books with their appearances.

Her input was not only insightful but also beautifully woven, laced with personal memories. I felt that the story should be shared with many others. So I asked her to be my guest (blogger) and got my wish. Please take five minutes to read it—you’ll find yourself much comforted getting off to work (or going to bed).

Sherry Lamoreaux is a playwright, editor and publicist.  In addition to Vitriol & Violets, she’s the author of Letters of a Portuguese Nun, a screenplay which took second place in the Kay Snow literary contest, and the short play Little Sister Laments, which was produced in 2007.  She is currently working on a screenplay.

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Recently I was hired to research the book “Pull” and find the components of it that supported (or not) a particular business plan under construction.  I had a tight deadline, so I saved time by downloading the book.  I saved more time by searching through it (I have the Adobe Reader, but I assume other eBook readers offer search as well) to find the relevant passages.  I was irritated that I couldn’t figure out how to transfer ownership of it to my client…I couldn’t sell it to him or loan it to him…and I couldn’t print it or copy and paste anything.  I was able to make screen shots, but still had to type out passages.  But overall, it was a fine way to quickly grasp data.

I appreciate the point about portability; that’s important.  For me, there’s more to it…

I have on my shelves an old copy of Salome by Oscar Wilde.  It’s from a limited run.  The pages are uncut and there is hand-applied gold leaf on the illustrations.  The whole thing slides into a paper case that lets the spine show.  It’s a work of art.

I have hardbacks made with gorgeous paper and carefully crafted typography.  I have ancient paperbacks that smell of old glue, that turn yellow and whisper of the readings they’ve had.  I finger a page when I turn it, sometimes too soon…it is a sensual experience, this feel of paper and texture.  It’s porous, and probably retains some of my molecules.  If you read a book that was last read by a murderer, would your fingers sense this?  And books from the library feel different than books you buy and take home.

I have books that I inherited from my father.  There they are, lined up in a bookcase in the living room, a wisp of his presence still there.  This room in which I write is lined with books…E through Z of the fiction (A through D is in the living room, with the anthologies), plus nonfiction books on writing, theatre, and such.  I am surrounded by friends and helpers, who remind me of who I am and what I value.  In the dining room, books on food and health and gardening.  In the basement, business books and well-read mysteries.  In the living room, Paul’s books…cars and trucks and motorcycles and trains, fiction, biographies, all manner of things British (he is English) and more…this is partly how we tell ourselves who we are.  I do mean “we” as specifically he and I, not “we” as in all humanity.

I think, to wrap up this ramble, that I am in love with books and I want to touch them, see them and know they are there, I mirror myself in them.  They are a significant part of my physical reality…so I need the leather-and-tree versions.  That said, when it’s just information I’m after, I am happy to read online.  Although I have a lot of cookbooks (and cookbooks are often beautiful, and I love the ones you inherit that have pages stained and smeared from cooking, or the ones in which you see your own history in the splatters) more and more often I turn to the Net.  (Let’s see, I have two lemons and some chicken breasts…what can I make out of that?)

Someone told me that studies have been done that showed that the brain reading a meat-world book and the brain reading a book on screen lit up in different areas…that the brain processed the info differently depending on how it received the info.  I don’t know if that’s true, but might it explain why the birthday card you get in the mail means more than the one you get on-screen?