Book review: Civilization, The west and the rest by Niall Ferguson ISBN 9781594203053

In Civilization, the author suggested that our modern society is dominated by western civilization, which he defined as "more than just one thing; it is a package. It is about political pluralism (multiple states and multiple authorities) as well as capitalism; it is about the freedom of thoughts as well as the scientific method; it is about the rule of law and property rights as well as democracy". And 6 "killer apps" comprise this package:

• Competition: a decentralization of political life, which created the launch-pad for both nation-states and capitalism
• Science
• Property rights
• Medicine
• The consumer society
• The work ethic

Throughout the book, the author explored and traced 6 "killer apps", how they came into being, how they shaped the West and led the West to world domination. And because of the network effect of these 6 apps, hence the West (which presumptuously means America and Europe) even with its dwindling economic and political influence over the world, still has more of the institutional advantages than the Rest.

Rating: 3 of 5

Book Review: The Emperor Far Away, Travels At the Edge of China by David Eimer ISBN 9781620403631

This is a book by an outsider looking inward to understand China's outmost regions and contentious borderlands.

The book is broken into 4 parts:

• Part 1: Xinjiang- The new frontier
• Part 2: Tibet - The wild west
• Part 3: Yunnan - Trouble in paradise
• Part 4: Dongbei - Pushing the boundaries

I only managed to finish part 4, and the authors went to Yanbian and Mohe to try to experience first hand Korean minority and Orequn minority life in modern China.

Should be a great travel book if you are not satisfied with stop-and-take-picture type of tourism and would rather immerse yourself in the local culture and history.

Rating: 3 of 5

Book Review: "Lives of" series by Kathleen Krull

What:Short and colorful biography for young readers age from 6 to 10. A gentle way to introduce kids to biography

Include:

• Lives of the athletes : thrills, spills (and what the neighbors thought)
• Lives of the writers : comedies, tragedies (and what the neighbors thought)
• They saw the future : oracles, psychics, scientists, great thinkers, and pretty good guessers
• Lives of the musicians : good times, bad times (and what the neighbors thought)
• Lives of extraordinary women : rulers, rebels (and what the neighbors thought)
• Lives of the presidents : fame, shame (and what the neighbors thought)
• Lives of the scientists : experiments, explosions (and what the neighbors thought)
• The book of rock stars : 24 musical icons that shine through history
• Lives of the artists : masterpieces, messes (and what the neighbors thought)

Book Review: Rouge Elephant, Harnessing the power of India's unruly democracy By Simon Denyer ISBN 9781620406083

The best book about modern India I read so far. "A penetrating portrait of what has happened to India in the past decade and where it is headed".

It covers India's pillars of democracy: Executive branch, legislative branch and media by profiling the movers and shakers of the country: Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Arnab Goswami, Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal, etc. The angles of author's viewpoint are wide and analysis of each area is deep, from India's Right for Information law to land ownership dispute, the author talked to the key people and also went to the ground level to research, and the end result is a remarkable piece of India democracy today that is both sobering and hopeful.

What kind of democracy will Arab Spring bring to middle east? Maybe India is a good place to look and study. With the democracy's success in holding up the diverse and multi-religious cultures together as a country, and rampant corruption and inefficiency in governance as side effects from the democracy.

One wanting I have for the book is a detailed map of India, for people who are not familiar with India.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Book Review: Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee- A look Inside North Korea by Jang Jin-sung ISBN9781476766553

What: An Kim Jong-il's "Admitted" poet wrote his escape from North Korea and along the way he shared his insider viewpoint on Hermit kingdom.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Best for: History buff and North Korean

Related book: Nothing to envy

Book Review: A weave of words by Robert D. San Souci ISBN 0531300536

Armenian tale of king Vachagan and Queen Anait

Book Review: Pearl Moscowitz's Last Stand by Arthur A. Levine, pictures by Robert Roth ISBN0688107532

How a grandmother preserved the last Gingko tree on Gngko Street. Funny and warm story.

Book Review: Brush of the gods by Lenore Look & Meilo So ISBN 9780375870019

The legend of Chinese artist Wu Daozi in a beautiful picture book, oriental style.

画圣吴道子的传说

Book Review: Three Strong Women A Tall Tale from Japan By Claus Stamm, Jean and Mou-sien Tseng

Great story telling with fun and beautiful illustration. Great for staring reader age 6+.

Book Review: The Nile, a journey downriver through Egypt's past & present by Toby Wilkinson ISBN 9780385351553

This is not a review as I haven't read the whole book yet, but just as a holder for future return. Egypt has been fascinating to me, and I once had a neighbor who worked as an environment engineer for a Unisco project in Cairo for extended period and his description of many healthy and strong Egyptian men wondering around Nile bank at night without ever trying to find work left me a strong impression and a big question: why Egypt today resembles none of its old glory? Why Egyptian today can settle in such idleness with so little to show? This book may not answer my question, but I hope history of Nile will reveal some clues.

A better review of the book can be found here

Book Review: To a Mountain in Tibet by Colin Thubron ISBN 9780061768262

".. account of a journey to the holiest mountain on earth, the solitary peak of Kailas in Tibet" "from our greatest living travel writer".

Maybe a good companion when you visit Tibet.

Book Review: The Diet Fix, Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work by Yoni Freedhoff ISBN 9780804137577

The book gives out a 10-day reset recipe for people to adapt their daily eating and excising habit to control weight gain in a natural and non-traumatic way. After reading the book, for people comes from Chinese food culture it feels like Mom is talking to you about all the eating on time, eating from all food groups, etc. But still a good book to go through.

Book Review: How to read a book, a classic guide to intelligent reading by Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren ISBN 067121280X

The book explains

• Why activity is essence of good reading, the more active reading is, the better is
• What is active reading: asking questions
• What questions must be asked of any book, and how those questions must be answered in different ways for different kind of books
• Four levels of reading, and how these are cumulative, earlier or lower levels being contained in later or higher ones

Great book can grow your mind, what have you read lately?

Book Review: Positioning: How to be seen and heard in the overcrowded marketplace By Al Ries and Jack Trout ISBN 0071373586

A tight and entertaining book about how to effectively using word to trigger the image you intended for __ (fill in the blank here: product, company, your city, yourself as a college applicant, etc).

Some memorable quotes from the book:

• This is the classic mistake made by the leader. The illusion that the power of the product is derived from the power of the organization. It is just the reverse. The power of the organization is derived from the power of the product, the position that the product owns in the prospect's mind.from Chapter 6
• .. words don't contain meanings. The meanings are not in the words. They are in the people using the words. from Chapter 25
• The big winners in business and in life are those people who have found open positions near the center of the spectrum. Not at the edge. from Chapter 25
• To repeat, the first rule of positioning is: To win the battle for the mind, you can't compete head-on against a company that has a strong, established position. You can go around, under or over, but never head to head. from Chapter 25, remind you of Steve Job's early days in his return to Apple, not to compete against Microsoft, and John Chen's current Blackberry days, not to compete with Apple in consumer market, but rather focusing on enterprise market.
• In our overcommunicated society, the name of the game today is positioning.

Books about Berlin to memorize 25th anniversary of fall of the Berlin wall

A lot of things happened 25 years ago, one that we closely related to occurred in Beijing, but today is for another happening: Nov.9, 1989, a wall in Berlin fell.

Three books about Berlin that I don't have time to read yet, and hope to read later are:

• Berlin Portrait of a city through the centuries by Rory MacLean
• Berlin Now The city after the wall by Peter Schneider
• The collapse The accidental opening of the Berlin wall by Mary Elise Sarotte

Book Review: Amy for short by Laura Joffe Numeroff (ISBN 0027681807)

Amy is the tallest girl in the class, and best friend of Mark, the tallest boy. After summer of 2nd grade, she grew one inch taller than Mark, and the friendship seems to strain.Would Mark come to Amy's birthday? As the backcover of the book said: "... all youngsters who are beginning to read will enjoy Amy's ingenuous story of her bumpy romance and the key to its happy resolution". Funny and touching, a great book for both young and old.

[UPDATE12/03/14]Laura Numeroff's other books are also great choices for young readers

• If You Give a Pig a Pancake
• If You Give a Moose a Muffin
• If You Give a Dog a Donut
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
• If You Take a Mouse to the Movies
• If You Give a Cat a Cupcake
• If You Give a Pig a Party
• If You Take a Mouse to School

Best books for kindergartner and 1st graders to enjoy reading.

Book Review: Age of Ambition, Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith In the New China by Evan Osnos (ISBN 9780374280741)

[UPDATE]The book wins 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction category. Well deserved.

I have lived in the States for nearly two decades and I have seen American understanding of China increasing by leaps and bounds, but still when I read books or articles written by Westerners about China, they tend to depict China in one huge brush stroke, either China is an economic miracle bent in world domination or China is a dictatorship society thrives in crushing human rights.

What a delighted surprise to read Evan Osnos wonderfully written book. In the prologue, the author mentioned he had lived in China for eight years and it shows in the book. The author does all the usual China observers do: marvels at its economic progress and questions its neglect of human rights and one-party dictatorship. But what sets the book apart is its detailed and nuanced depiction of individual Chinese: former World Bank Chief Economist Lin Yifu, dating website Jiayuan founder Gong Hainan, blogger Han Han, artist Ai Weiwei, human right activist Chen Guangcheng, Crazy English follower Zhang Ziming (Michael), Hong Kong gambler Siu Yun-ping, publisher Hu Shuli, nationalist web blogger Tang Jie, railway official Liu Zhijun, the list goes on, from big shots to small potatoes. The author told life stories of these people in the backdrop of China’s economy and China’s political system. And growing up in China under Communist rules myself, I can relate to these stories and I feel the author understands Chinese way of thinking and sometimes he speaks from a Chinese viewpoint. From the book I assume the author can speak Chinese very well. Yet he is also able to pullback from his subjects and narrates the stories from an outsider American viewpoint, and his analogy of China today to American Gilded Age really struck a chord with both Chinese people and westerners, as validated by rave review it received from Washington Post.

One of the three best non-fiction books about China I have read. The other two: The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor and Red Star over China: The Classic Account of the Birth of Chinese Communism by Edgar Snow.

For people who don't know what their passion are

If you are not sure where to go
Don't stop, keep moving along the trail
Take in the scene and be thankful
Rest assured you show up and your destiny will reveal

Prep for Tibet trip

Physical prep

Lose weight to what level? Oxydized training or non-oxydized training?

What to exercise for high altitude ?

Dry run in North America, which mountains to climb?

Financial

How much $$ for how long? $$/day?

Vacation planning

How many vacation days needed? CF allowed carry over?

What to look?

How to get there?

Partners

How many?

How many from China? How many from US?

Book Review: Joha makes a wish, story by Eric A.Kimmel, illustrated by Omar Rayyan

A great picture book with excellent story telling and wonderful pictures, best for 5 to 8 years old and definitely a treat for the whole family

How to be a best #N (N>1): Lessons from Sheryl Sandberg

1. Excel at your job, there is no way around it. Even if it is bottom of the org chart, or just one step away from the #1. Focus on your job, make it solid and outstanding
2. Develop your unique brand outside work. For Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In catapulted her to the same league as her boss. Write a book, develop a social media following, marketing your brand
3. Get a buyin from your boss. Sheryl's lean in was endorsed by Mark Zuckerberg. It lends credibility and it also tells people that you are team player even if you have a strong brand outside the team

Fee-for-service business model is dead, time for fee-for-value

Telephone service, healthcare are all fee-for-service, you pay for service.
WhatsApp, ACA are fee-for-value, you pay for value you get from service

WhatsApp and NetFlix

WhatsApp is eating worldwide telecom's lunch, by providing basic messaging service without ad/game/gimmick at a price of $1/year, while telecom providers are charging $20 per month for a service that couldn't even stop spamming.
NetFlix is eating all the cable companies lunch by providing great content without bundling and time restriction.
And these two great companies are able to do that because of software and open internet infrastructure.
So if you are great developers and internet remains open, your preys are abundant!! Long live the human creativity, long live the open society!

The longest wait

---- There is a will, there is a way. In between, there is the wait.
The longest wait in my life happened when I was 8.
After one long winter of lugging a backpack stuffed with books and lunchbox onto a packed public bus to an ethnic Korean elementary school one hour away from my home, my mom had enough and decided to transfer me to a public elementary school across the street. Besides proximity, the school was THE school for the elite in our neighborhood. Mom and dad took me there for a tour when I was ready to start the school, and I was awe struck by the well manicured schoolyard and clean desks and chairs in the classroom, and the teachers smiled a lot. I dreamed of going there, joining the elite. But there was one catch (actually there were several and the school combined them into one that seemed to be most effective in stopping many transfer students): The school only took kid who had some English language education since English was part of its curriculum. Years later I realize it is actually a ruse the school used to deny the kids from a factory where my father worked. The” factory kids” as we were called back then usually went to the elementary school funded by the factory and English was never in the curriculum. Me being an ethnic Korean and going to an ethnic Korean elementary school, I was an exception, but still the “catch” caught me since my foreign language in my Korean elementary school was Chinese.
Mom being a determined woman, and probably also from cannot stand the agony of seeing her son got home late in the night almost frozen from the bone chilling coldness in Harbin winter, she decided that we would overcome that obstacle by learning English on my own, from the radio. There was a 5:30 AM morning English radio class and mom made sure every morning I would have my family’s bulky cream colored portable radio near my pillow and I would follow the teacher in the radio to learn English. Every night on the dinner table after I finished meal I would recite to her what I learned from the radio that morning. And she assured me if I hang on with radio class until the fall I would be able to transfer to the school across street from my home.
Late Spring mom took me to the school and met the school principal, a stern looking lady about my mom’s age. She checked me out from head to toe with her icy stare and asked me how much English I had learned. Mom promised her that I would be able to follow the 2nd grade curriculum and she instructed me to recite an English lesson for the principal. Finally the principal said although she would be fine to let me transfer, she would need me to come to school later that summer for a thorough evaluation before the transfer.
The clock was on and my daily routine of early radio class and after dinner review continued with more fervent. Finally the evaluation morning came. Mom put me in a new short sleeves shirt and short and put the radio class English book in my backpack, sending me off for the evaluation.
The principal brought me to an English teachers room and told me to wait for a English teacher to give me a full evaluation. The summer session was still on and I could hear the commotions outside the room from students running into their classroom for class. Yet the room was empty, the principal said I had to wait for the test teacher to finish the class. And she left. I sat on an empty chair, waiting. The bell rang, first class was over. Some teachers streamed into the room, and were surprised to see me waiting alone there. They asked me who I was waiting for, and after hearing my story, they looked surprised and they gathered around me asking where my school was and why I wanted to transfer. Before I could finish my story, the bell rang again and all of them left for another class. I went back to my chair, waiting and looking at the well manicured school yard. The bell rang again. The teachers streamed back into the room, and this time no more questions but some hushed chats between themselves, and one of them went out and came back again, telling me to go to principal’s office. When I got to principal’s office, the principal was not in her office. I waited there for a while, then the bell rang again. Another class started. I waited in principal office for a little while, then I thought maybe I need to go back to English teachers room so that I wouldn’t miss the evaluator. So I went back to English teachers office. Two teachers were sitting in their tables. One of them, a lady with spectacles and warm smile looked up at me surprisingly, and I told her the principal was not in her office and I wouldn’t want to miss the evaluator so I was back. Back then it never occurred to me to ask for evaluator’s name from either principal or the teachers. The lady nodded her head and looked at me with a thoughtful look. Then she said, OK, tell me what you have learned on your own. I went to my backpack and brought out my radio class book, and started reading a text for her. I was nervous and made many mistakes, and the teacher was very nice and patiently corrected me. Then she said with a hesitant look on her face, maybe it would help me to spend some more time on English during that summer. I asked her if she was the evaluator, she said she was not sure and she would want to double check with principal for me. And she left for principal office. Then bell rang again. Another break and some teachers streamed back into the office. But still no principal. And that lady didn’t show up again either. Then bell rang again, teachers streamed out again for another class. I sat on the chair waiting. Years passed and what happened next was a blur. There were different versions within family. Maybe mom picked me up from school after she got off from day’s work, maybe I went back to my home alone. One thing for sure was that I waited there for the whole day and the principal never showed up again. And in the end I never got to go to the school across the street. I ended up went to a school several blocks from my neighborhood.
And since then I have had more waits in my life. Some are actually much longer. When I came to America, I had to wait for half a year for my wife to join me because of visa. When I graduated from my graduate school, I had to wait for two months without pay for my worker’s visa to start to work. And my wife and I had to wait for nearly ten years to get our green card. But that summer day’s wait feels longer, and feels like I am still waiting for the evaluator to show up, to tell me that I am good enough to go to that well manicured schoolyard across the street.