A Nice Piece Of Music

Woah. Slow down there. You've been running around too much today. Sit down. Enjoy life. And listen to this nice piece of classical music.



Ou.yang.

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Where I've Lived In China

Hey! :)

This next short little update is to show you where I have lived in China. I've lived in three different cities in three different provinces in the last three  years. In case you are wondering that equals nine.

In my first two years my communication wasn't great and a lot of you it seemed always got confused by my whereabouts.

I would say, I'm back in Xiamen now! And you'd ask, Em, weren't you living in Chengdu? To which I'd reply, I was in Chengdu! But now I'm in Xiamen and soon going to Dongguan! This only adding to the confusion.

So, for you visual learners please feast your eyes on this map of China with previously lived spots highlighted. The lived spots are highlighted in HOT PINK!

Please Note: You may have to click on that photo to enlarge it in order to see everything clearly. 

My time spent in either spot, as much for my records as for interest to you my dear reader goes:

Year 2006

Xiamen, Fujian Province - August until December

Chengdu, Sichuan Province - December until...

Year 2007

Chengdu, Sichuan Province - ...Until March

Xiamen, Fujian Province - March and April

Dongguan, Guangdong Province - April until June

Xiamen, Fujian Province - The first 2 Weeks in June

Chengdu, Sichuan Province - The last two weeks in June until...

Year 2008 

Chengdu, Sichuan Province - All year

Year 2009

Chengdu, Sichuan Province - until August

Xiamen, Fujian Province - August until present

More later!

Comments, questions or whatever you fancy to leave below in the comments section!

Ou.yang.

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Introducing China - Chengdu

China.

Many of you know that I've been living in China for a long time now.

Having never been to China it may be hard to imagine what life is actually like here. I sure didn't know much about China before I came in 2006!

In the next few posts I will be introducing a number of videos to give you a better idea and feeling for China - and my experience here.The first one is a video done by the famous Chinese director Zhang Yi Mou,  showcasing the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province. I lived, studied and worked for two years in this city.

Many of the places shown in the video I have been.
Many of them I saw everyday in those two years.

Just hit play! Enjoy!



Chengdu certainly has a special place in my heart. :)
 
Ou.yang.

PS. Please note that the mentioned "Dujiangyan" at 1:19 of playtime is XF's hometown.

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Thai Monkey Party

What fun things I have come across today. While looking at flights to Thailand I was alerted that on the 28th of November there will the annual "Monkey Party" in the small city of Lop Buri.

Once every year a glamorous buffet is setup for the monkeys that usually roam the city. Fueled on sugar highs from Coca Cola (see footage) they wreak havoc on the mound of food. Spectators look on. 

This video is guaranteed to make you laugh! Or cringe at the waste of food. But surely you will laugh first.

You can check it out here:



Like monkeys? Thinking about starting a monkey party in your hometown? Wondering how to get started? Me too.

Comments below!

Ou.yang.

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Japanese Cat Cafes

So...

We were talking about stress management in my Chinese conversation class today and one of the younger Japanese students brought up the fact that in Japan they have Cat Cafes. Places you can go to pat as many cats as you want while you drink a cup of coffee. What a concept. You can check it out on the video below. Many thanks to the Youtuber for the video and the upload.



What are your thoughts on this? Would you go to a cat cafe? Do you know of any other interesting places that exist in Japan?


Ou.yang.

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Question Of The Week

I figured I'd add a short - but curiousity sparking question of the week highlight to this blog. So, the first question of the week is:

If the "black box" survives every plane crash, why not make the entire plane out of that stuff?

Ou.yang.

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Two Really Groovy Plants!

1. The Venus Fly Trap

Sure you know it (Super Mario), but have you ever seen it in action? You can check it out here:



2. The Shy Plant

The lesser known (?) shy plant (translation from Chinese) or Mimosa Pudica shys away (physically closes and droops) at a slight touch or breeze. To see what I mean you can have a look at this video of two over zealous shy plant hunters. 



This post was inspired by my encounter with a shy plant while in Sichuan province. I tickled it until it begged for mercy (sorry, the inner child in me).

Have you ever seen either of these plants in person before? Do you know of any other cool plants that you could introduce? Have you ever tickled a shy plant?

Ou.yang.

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The MEX - Vegetarianism Day 11

Today the Vegetarian gods showered me with me vegetarian research blessings. I found three veg restaurants, downloaded the "Vegetarian Curry Bible," bought my first surou or veg meat and just had dinner at one of the aforementioned veg restaurants. I also picked up several pamphlets (in Chinese) on vegetarianism to show curious Chinese friends.

Whoooo. What a day. It was a veggie-a-thon-extra-ordinaire.

Not to mention I have also come across interesting new material on "acid/alkaline dieting." Might have to look more into that.

But all excitement aside. I felt the urge. Colonel's constant advertising, at the bus stop, in the elevator, in fat kid's hands, taped to my door... they all had something to do with it. I had just finished work. My old habit would be after a long tiring day to stop by KFC to pick up a Mexican chicken wrap ($1.50 or so) and eat the day away. The fumes wafted out of the KFC smoke stack (another advertising ploy) and into my big shnoz.

I sniffed. And then sniffed again.

And I kept sniffing as I took the road back home. A tall glass of soy milk was the consolation prize. I thought to myself as I drank down my capuccino flavoured soy "I need to find better consolation prizes or this whole thing isn't going to work!"

But, it has been 11 days. I have done a fair bit of research. I cook more at home now. My diet and eating is more on schedule. People are getting curious.

Vegetarianism eh?

Ah yes. 19 more days to go. I will either be a well informed meat eater by that time or an even more avid vegetarian. It is to be seen.

Ou.yang.

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Marathon Update

Well, it's T-minus 52 days until my first marathon. If you haven't heard - I'm doing a marathon. That's 42 kms or running and mind over legs thinking. To read more about why I decided on running the marathon you can click here.

The marathon is the annual Xiamen International Marathon, on January 2nd of next year. That means no partying for me to ring in the new year. It does mean starting the year off with a HUGE personal achievement. I'd take that over a hangover - sure.

The Xiamen marathon will run on Xiamen Island as you can see from the image above. 50,000 Participants for this year's marathon. That's a lot of people.

My feelings leading up the marathon include but are not limited to:

- Excitement! Yah! I can do this!
- Fear. Uh oh... what have I gotten myself into? Can I do this?!
- Confidence. Shut up fear! Yes you can do this!
- Rationality. Confidence, why don't you shut up... it's 42 bloody kilometres.
- Faith. Rationality, we don't need you. We believe!

A few random thoughts I've had about the whole event:

- Will the looker oners give me things to eat/drink. That'd be cool.
- Hahaha. Oh Geoffrey. Re: Geoffrey in the Fresh Prince episode where he took a taxi to the finish line. You can relive that one here. For an unrelated  Geoffrey's house party vid you can click here.
- I'm wondering if at some point when I'm staggered over people will take pictures of me and I'll end up on somebody's QQ space (The Chinese equivalent of Myspace)
- What to scream when I cross the finish line.
- How to refine my pace so I can last the entire event.
- Where to buy ice for my knees after long warmup runs.
- Why do Chinese people love (read: LOVE) to use their brights so much in suburban areas?! (I always get blinded when running in the evening)

Comments? Questions? Advice? Smiley faces? Please leave them all below!

Ou.yang.

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An Experiment In Writing & Running

And then I ran. I ran like I never ran before. Up the hill down the hill. I didnt stop. I couldn't stop. I just kept going. ON and on I went. I didn't even stop when typing this piece. Do you know that? Wow, I'm just running. I almost wept out of happiness. I didn't know what struck me. I always imagined weeping of happiness but I didn't expect it to happen so soon. Isn't that a wonderful thing. I just ran up the steps. The orange juice was calling me. I thought of it for my entire run. It was yelling. I was running. We were in perfect unison.

That ^ is an experiment in letting "me" write. I've always heard that we should not think and just write. Just let our fingers flow on the keyboard. Let our subconsciousness - our inner self if you will be free to play it's thoughts onto the blank page.

I just ran the furthest and the longest I have in my whole life. I feel ecstatic. Do you remember a time when you did something for the first time after working so hard for it? How often do you feel this ecstasy? A completely natural high.

Time to eat the world's longest Japanese noodles.

Ou.yang.

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The MEX - Vegetarianism Day 5 1/2

As it is pushing midnight I am nearing day 6 of my 30 day vegetarian trial period. This marks the longest I have gone without eating flesh, blood and bones. I'm even starting to sound like a vegetarian.

Today we trekked out to the German supermarket on the outskirts of the island to stock up on soy milk. I've started a new soy milk kick for three reasons:

1. A scary PETA video that turned me off from dairy.
2. I like the taste and feel of soy.
3. Apparently dairy isn't good for my sinuses (I suffer from sinusitis).

The Switch

I haven't had any cravings. Even the hardcore KFC advertising brainwashing scheme here didn't manage to get me to pine for the Colonel's chicken. The switch from meat was also relatively easy as my diet in recent years has been low in meat, for a few reasons.

A. From my knowledge there are no "grades" of beef or meat in China.
B. The majority of Chinese restaurants have no hygiene standards.
C. I was tired of chomping away at horomone filled, dirty, fly ridden meat.
D. Meat is expensive.
E. Meat is bloody and messy and ever since studying foodborne illness under microscope I get queesy at the idea of all the bacteria swarming on it.
F. Meat is jam packed full of hormones.

Said, I would often enjoy meat if it was placed in front of me fully prepared (and not staring back) and from time to time I would cook with meat. But I have never been by any means a full fledged, rare, blood soaked steak eater - or meat eater. 

China is also a place that helps with the switch as there is such an array of veggies and tofu. The only complaint I have is that "faux meat" or "fake meat" or whatever the stuff is called I cannot find! I have a mission to track down the Buddhist monks from the nearby temple and inquire. 

Thoughts...

With trying out vegetarianism comes a shift in perspective. I now am starting to consider why people would not eat meat. It is starting to make more sense - the reasons behind all of it. I'm also beginning to become conscious of the decisions we have for our own consumerism.

If I don't want to support a particular company, service, product or industry - I don't have to. 

Common sense right? But do most people actually act on it? I know I haven't. Until now?

Memories...

I remember as a kid the big, scary, hairy neighbours would be spraying ants with aerosol cans and I would run out and tell them off. They'd laugh and keep spraying. I felt terrible for the ants.

I was also taught at a young age that I could save worms on rainy days by taking them off of the roads and placing them back onto the soil. Every time I did that (and I did it a lot - maybe 5000 saved worms to date) I felt great.

I remember last Saturday walking in the supermarket and seeing the fish, half of them dead - the other half soon to be. Crabs scurrying about as people poked and prodded them laughing. Seeing bloody bits and bobs of animals on ice. 

More thoughts...

It has never felt right when I've thought about eating meat - but then I never thought about it twice.

And certainly not thrice.

It wasn't until I actually took the plunge into the unknown world of vegetarianism that I felt I had some power over the situation. And it feels good to have power, doesn't it?

Some of what we've been eating...

Questions? Comments? Recipes? Drop a comment below!

Ou.yang.

Leia Mais…

Bi-weekly Book Review - "Accelerated Learning"

One of my biggest qualms with school was that I was never taught how to learn. I went through 15+ years of formal education literally having no idea how to learn what was being put in front of me. I would be given heaps of information, facts, dates, names, foreign words, equations, recipes, etc. and would be expected to replicate it onto a test the following week or month. The next month I would have forgotten nearly everything - retaining perhaps 5% of what I had learned in the class.

I would routinely do poor on tests after studying long long hours for tests by myself. I would ace other tests with just an hour of study with a friend - asking questions back and forth. Other times I wouldn't even study and do great on the test while others who had studied for a long time would do miserably. Study became like a kind of blind gambling where I put in my cards and hoped for the best.

Nobody had told me how to study. Or about multisensory learning. Or why I was studying what I was studying. And I sure didn't go looking for those answers - what puberty stricken teen/confused young adult voluntarily sets off to find them?

So it was just recently, through a series of major life changes that I realized what I should be learning the most - how to learn. After discovering the beauty of torrenting audio and e-books for free I came across a book in the lot called: "Accelerated Learning."

"Accelerated Learning" by Brian Tracy was exactly what I was looking for. I have the book in audio format with a 96 page work book - all for free (see the link on torrenting above). If you have the funds and wish to support the author you could also consider buying it on Amazon.

The book is well "spoken," concise and extremely motivating. Some of the major points the author touches upon are:

• Success and what determines it.
• How your self-image determines your performance and the seven kinds of intelligences.
• The "Six Stages of Accelerated Learning," the first one being how to create a relaxed state of mind before study.
• Understanding and learning how to use multi-sensory learning techniques rather than relying on mostly visual learning (as most people unconsciously do)
• A great section on memorization. From memorizing people's names to ideas to numbers. 
• The development of concentration. 
• Power reading and writing. 
• How to be a better communicator. And I'm sure some of you can use this. I know I can!

The book has a lot of great ideas. Ideas that will make you look forward to your next study session. Ideas that can show you how to understand yourself and your learning styles better.

It turns out conscious learning is both effective and satisfying.

My one complaint with the book is that because of the older copyright (1994) it doesn't touch on a lot of different technology that is available today.

The book is short in length and it only took me a week or so to get through - listening to while on the bus, cooking, walking to class and so on. If you are more of a visual learner than I am perhaps pick up the paper copy. If you have trouble finding the torrent online drop me a comment with your email and I'll be happy to forward along the direct link to you.

Do you have any other comments on learning styles? What works for you? Have you spent some time specifically to understand and hone your own learning styles? Leave a comment below!

Ou.yang.

*This (short) book review is included in a series of reviews that I shall do on a bi-weekly basis.*

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The MEX - Vegetarianism

Thirty (30) days of vegetarianism is the MEX or the Monthly Experiment X. No meat of any kind. Animal products such as dairy products, eggs, oils and whatnot I'll still consume and I'll still wear my leather shoes. I also intend to still slap mosquitoes that wish to feed on me and spray for cockroaches as they give me the heebee jeebees.

For those of you at that missed the last post I am doing a monthly experiment or MEX (a cool acronym that I created).


What I Am Not Doing

I'm not leaping into vegetarianism fervently claiming to want to stand up for animal rights, to save the planet or to become more healthy. Honestly I know little about any of those in areas in relation to vegetarianism.

What I Am Doing

I'm doing it to try it out. My 30 days will also include 30 days of research and reading, discussion with vegetarians, posting on forums and watching the occasional scary PETA video. By the end of the 30 days I will look at my findings, see how I feel and make a decision whether to continue or not.

So Why Vegetarianism?  

I've always been interested in what it meant to be vegetarian and what went along with that title. It seems more like a way of life than a change in diet. Also:

• I have a love for animals and life. 
• I don't like seeing things killed and/or tortured.
• I wanted to see why so many great people I knew were becoming vegetarians.
• It seemed like a change that would be challenging on many different levels.
  

Fears

Some of my fears of vegetarianism include:

• Becoming a PETA protester. They're pretty full on now aren't they?
• Losing bacon. I really do like bacon. 
• Getting bored with food choices.
• Losing weight and/or becoming malnourished.
• Being in awkward social situations. ie: Being in the middle of a group of blood thirsty meat eating cattle farmers and them asking me why I don't eat meat with snarly looks on their faces.
• I'm afraid I'll like the change so much and never eat meat again.  
• Being the blunt of vegetarian jokes, ie:

Vegetarianism in China

"Great to jian fei" say most of my female students. "Jian fei" meaning to lose weight. Very few Chinese are vegetarian and usually the associations with vegetarianism include Buddhist monks, losing weight and or some kind of mental abnormality. China however does host what appears to be a veggie friendly platter of options. There is tofu galore and enough variety of veggies to keep me occupied for at least, emm... 3 or 4 days? (Please see my fear or boredom with food choices)

Surely there must be some kind of vegetarian underground society here - I just haven't found them yet. 

Numbers


According to Google Answers there are 250 000 "proper" Canadian vegetarians and 100 000 "proper" Canadian vegans. When I say "proper" they shaved off a million or so other vegetarian groups who partake in other varieties of vegetarianism. The country with the most vegetarians is India, with roughly 30 to 40 percent of the population being vegetarian.

Final Jibber Jabber

So next month you could very well hear me going on about my vegetarian lifestyle or going on about how I love the smell of bacon in the morning. It's to be seen.

Do you have any experience in vegetarianism? Any interest in trying out a vegetarian diet? Are you a die hard meat eater? 

As always, any comments or questions please leave a comment below. 

Ou.yang. 

Leia Mais…

The Monthly Experiment

I am planning to try something new and challenging for 30 days every 30 days. I will post progress, photos and notes on here.  

Every month there will be an experiment. Lets refer to it as Monthly Experiment X or MEX for short (jingle yet to come).

• MEX will challenge, educate and inspire. 
• MEX may leave people shaking their heads saying "Now why would he do THAT?" 
• MEX does not bite but may shed.

Last month's MEX was to get up at 6AM and go for a run every morning. After a hugely successful completion of that project it was time to push the bill further.

So I thought to myself.

And then I got up and grabbed a coffee.

And I thought again.

What was something else that I was afraid of, something that I had never consciously thought about and something I knew little about? The answer, not slowly but rather surely came.

Vegetarianism. 

The single word that strikes fear into the heart of meat eaters and grade three spelling bee contestants.

Please stay posted for the next post on my Vegetarian MEX. It will answer such itchy questions as:

• Why vegetarianism?
  
• But what about bacon?
• Is China a vegetarian friendly place to live?
• What have the reactions been like to this new MEX?
• But I want to hear about the wedding?!

For now I leave with you with a quote, a sampler of sorts. In the wise words of George Bernard Shaw:

Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.

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