Centennial of Modern China 辛亥革命100周年 (part 1)

This year is the 100th anniversary of the 1911 revolution 辛亥革命, it is hard to imagine China is only 100 years from  the last imperial court.  Modern China is younger than most of the great nations of the world. The French revolution (1789) and the American Revolutionary war are both 100 years older. In Asia, Japan's Meiji Restoration (wholesale modernization) started in 1868.  The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was roughly in the same era in 1917.  Lucille Ball, the star of the I Love Lucy TV show, was born a few months before the birth of the Republic of China.

So what happened in 100 years? The number one reason for overthrowing the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) was to restore the majority Han rule.  China was twice ruled by minority invaders, the Mongols during the Yuan Dynasty and the Manchus during the Qing Dynasty. To that end, the 1911 revolution was a success, the Manchus court was toppled relatively bloodlessly and the Manchus have been co-existing peacefully with the Han people since. It is now impossible to distinguish Han and Manchu visually and our "traditional" Chinese costumes are actually Manchu horseman riding garbs.

Tight fitting clothes with exposed buttons, this young man has no respect for tradition

You're going look very silly in real traditional Han clothing these days

Today, the traditional Han clothing can be seen only on movie sets. For a least 2000 years, Han clothing or "han fu" 漢服 had always been loose fitting with no buttons. The lapel had to be on the right side even the whole thing made it really hard for a right handed rider to shoot an arrow. There were attempts for reform but tradition won out every time.
 






Incredibly, what's once considered shocking has become a Chinese traditional, it's hard to imagine many Han men died refusing such barbaric costumes in the 1600s. The Manchus forced the Han men to adopt their style of shaved head and tight fitting clothes.  The iron wrist policy said "keep your head and lose your hair; or keep your hair and lose your head", 1000s of Han men chose the second option.

Three cowboys in horseman outfits comparing empires

I'm  a great admirer of Greek antiquity, but if you visit Greece today, you'll find Greeks with mostly Christian names and their Presidential Guards wear national costumes similar to the Turks. What happened to heroic names like Ajax and Achilles? What happened to the toga?
OK, maybe the toga is a little impractical.

 

Unsafe for bicycle riding

First Hair

Betty Ford

Betty Ford died last week at the age of 93. I always admired Betty Ford's unique style except for her hair. Apparently she was styled by the same White House stylist Tracy who invented Der Stahlhelm:

The youthful looking hair stylist

 Der Stahlhelm

Tracy managed to duplicate her own hairstyle for most of the First Ladies in memory:

Although popular in the White House, the helmeted look failed to help Mike Dukakis get into the White House. I guess it is not a very flattering look for people with round faces:

Mike Dukakis

Monica

Actually, us commoners don't care for hair so neatly coiffed, messy hair is OK so long as the house is kept clean:

Good job, Jane.  I think the floor is clean now.

A clever way to clean the floor without messing up her clothes.

Airplane Boarding

Yesterday, I posted something about airplane boarding which I pulled immediately because it was just embarrassingly naive. Here's the problem statement in the form of a bad limerick:

On my way to my assigned row,

I was stuck behind a bimbo, 

In the overhead bin she's trying  to stow

A bag weighed at least 50 kilos.

That's just the beginning of my woes, 

A passenger I didn't even know,

Struggling to his seat by the window, 

Put all his weight on my poor little toe.

Wouldn't it be better if we go,

LIFO instead of FIFO?

At first glance, I thought a Last In First Out (LIFO) boarding order, i.e., back-to-front, window-to-aisle, would be the most efficient. if we board the plane in the reverse order of how we deplane (which is naturally front-to-back, aisle-to-window), significant time can be saved.

Turns out there are papers published on this very subject, all schemes work about the same and random boarding is actually the quickest in simulation and real life. Any kind of zone/group boarding creates localized congestion which cancels out the benefits. This is not too surprising because we see this in engineering all the time, for example, we haven't been able to improve on the efficiency of Ethernet which uses random timing.

Here's a link to one of the studies from University of Colorado, they have pretty cool simulation of different boarding schemes that you can play and watch.

Next time when you're caught boarding the plane before your zone is called, you can sincerely explain to the airline staff that you're just trying to improve efficiency, they found the cheaters (about 10%) do make the zone boarding process slightly faster in another study.

Fish Galore

Green Steel, you da man!

Red snapper galore

                                                                    Bait fish galore

Beer galore

Pussy Galore (played by Honor Blackman) 

My Favorite Bicycle - Jamis Sputnik fixie

I have a lot of bicycles. Above all, I like American bikes, I have a Fat City Yo! Eddy, a Schwinn Paramount, a classic Trek tourer, and an Ibis mountain bike. The problem with having many bikes is keeping the tires all pumped up, if there's a bike in the herd that's always ready to go, it's my Jamis Sputnik fixie. Fittingly, "Спутник" mean travel companion in Russian.

Sputnik posing suggestively in Boston

Jamis doesn't have any pedigree to speak of, the name is supposed to be French, most people just say "jay-mis" instead of the proper French pronunciation which is de rigueur  for real European brands. Jamis bikes are often middle of the road, made in China, "high value" models, yet the Sputnik is such a simple, purposeful looking bike that I couldn't resist when I first saw it in Simple Living Cycles in Framingham. Phil, the proprietor, runs a messy bike shop, he hates Shimano for its virtual monopoly and their unnecessary innovations such that much of his small shop is devoted to single speed and fixed gear bikes. It was also a good price, I paid less than $500 for a bike retailed for more than $700 in 2007.

A fixed gear bike, or a fixie, is just a track bike ridden on the street. Like real track bikes, the Sputnik doesn't come with  brakes (you stop a track bike with your legs), the bottom bracket is higher than normal (so you can keep pedalling through a corner) and is made of Reynolds 631 steel (good stuff). I put front brakes on mine for safety reason, not to mention my bike handling is just not good enough to ride brakeless in traffic like some bike messengers (rear brakes are not essential on a fixie, actually, rear brakes don't do much on any bike because most of the stopping power comes from the front).

It takes a few rides to get used to not freewheeling, whenever you try to coast, the pedals would keep turning forcefully and you feel like you're getting pushed off the bike violently. But surprisingly, I hardly miss the gears, the bike is currently geared at 42x16 (lowish) and I can take New England rolling hills without stressing my knees too much. I spin out at just around 30 miles per hour, so going downhill is hard work twiddling wildly at 140 RPM and I use the front brakes to slow down when my legs can't keep up..

I estimate I have 5,000, mostly commuting miles on the bike. Here's some of my thoughts:
-  Great frame, I have a Trek with Reynolds 531 steel frame which feels harsh in comparison. This 54 cm Reynolds 631 frame, TIG welded in in Taiwan, is one of the most comfortable bicycles I have ridden,  The wide 44cm handlebar helps also.
-  It's quite reliable because there's little to break to begin with. I rode through winters and it was virtually maintenance free (=neglect) for the first 3,000 miles. When I finally decided to clean the bike after the 2nd winter, I discovered it was missing 2 chainring teeth and one cog tooth, the entire drive train basically went south after 4,000 miles.
- So far I have replaced:
  Bottom bracket twice (once with the crankset)
  Crank arms (caused by loose pedals, my fault)
  Chainring
  Cog
  Chain
  Headset
  On 3rd set of tires.
  The fancy Brooks Swift saddle upgrade (at around mile 2,000) works OK, I like it but it's not a day and night difference compared to the original saddle.
  1990ish small Shimano Ultegra SPD road pedals are OK. I know it's silly to have clipless pedal on a fixie   but I like road shoes that I can walk in. The pedals are holding up well but look horrible, both the pedals and the cleats need some lube once in a while to disengage cleanly.
- Clip on fenders are great, you must have fenders for commuting, and there's no eyelets on the frame.
- Original wheels are still true, no maintenance required.
- Track bike riders are obsessed with chain line, I stopped paying attention to it after the 1st component change.
- Winter riding in Boston is no problem up to an hour, beyond one hour, nothing works. Less than 10 days a year is not ride-able.
- Messenger bags are not waterproof, I can only rely on my Ortlieb backpack to keep my laptop and cell phone dry.
- Bicycling is roughly as costly as driving. Assume my total investment was $1,000 over 5,000 miles, it comes to 20 cents a mile not counting the extra food consumption.

Fixies are popular among hipsters. I knew about the Beatniks and Hipsters of the 40s but had to wiki for the new meaning of "hipster". Regardless, I am at a point trendiness doesn't bother me one way or another, how funny how one has to conform to the non-conformist culture to be one.  I was interested in fixed gear bikes because of the late Sheldon Brown (bicycle guru) and the bike messengers. In Hong Kong, fixed gear bikes are called 梗牙. a most charming Cantonese term meaning jammed/stuck teeth.

心經（初中版） Heart Sutra

First off, a quote from Albert Einstein:

"It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and the world of thought. He [the experiencer] looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single, significant whole"

Mr. Einstein at one with the universe

The Heart Sutra has become quite prevalent in popular culture these days, I have a vaque idea of what it is and I heard part of it from our paternal grandmother, I am somewhat surprised most people including Pa don't know the literal meaning of this very short and delightful poem. Pa asked me again about the mantra part today, the following is my feeble attempt to explain this important Buddhist classic.


The common Chinese translation is the Xuanzang 玄奘 version from Tang Dynasty. Let's add modern Chinese punctuation, highlight the names, and put brackets around [Sanskrit] words which are only transliterated.  


It's already more readable. Apparently, this is a lesson to 舍利子 , a prized student of 釋迦牟尼 Siddhattha , about 涅槃（nirvana）as experienced by another student 觀自在 , who is known to us as 觀音。


1  觀自在菩薩。行深［般若波羅蜜多］時。照見五蘊皆空。度一切苦厄。
2  舍利子，色不異空。空不異色。色即是空。空即是色。受、想、行、識，亦復如是。
3  舍利子，是諸［法］空相。不生，不滅。不垢，不淨，不增，不減。
4  是故空中。無色。無受、想、行、識。無眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、意。無色、聲、香、味、觸、法。
5  無眼界。乃至無意識界。
6  無無明。亦無無明盡。乃至無老死。亦無老死盡。無苦、集、滅、道。無智，亦無得。以無所得故。［菩提薩埵］。
7  依［般若波羅蜜多］故。心無罣礙。無罣礙故。無有恐怖。遠離顛倒夢想。究竟涅槃。 三世諸佛。依［般若波羅蜜多］故。得［阿耨多羅三藐三菩提］。
8 故知［般若波羅蜜多］。是大神咒。是大明咒是無上咒。是無等等咒。能除一切苦。真實不虛故。說［般若波羅蜜多］咒即說咒曰：
9 ”［揭帝］，［揭帝］，［般羅揭帝］，［般羅僧揭帝］，［菩提僧莎訶］。“


［般若波羅蜜多］means a special kind of wisdom, since that's no good or bad, wise or unwise in enlightenment, this term defies translation. It is called Perfection of Wisdom to distinguish it from earthly wisdom
［法］Dharma, here it is loosely translated into Chinese 法, or way
［菩提薩埵] = 菩薩, an enlightened persion
［阿耨多羅三藐三菩提］- supreme wisdom




On top of the Sanskrit word, the Chinese wording is also a little strange (or maybe Sanskrit like), using double negative 無無明  (no no knowledge) for no ignorance, and using triple negative to say the opposite 無無明盡, (no end of no knowledge) . Other than that, it is quite trivial to translate the core meaning to modern Chinese sans the poetic quality (all Sanskrit scriptures and epic poems are meant to be sung, so it is also somewhat repetitive):


1 觀音  在完美智慧的時候，他超然於世界的痛苦
2 舍利子 呀，你眼見的不過是幻象， 你的感受也是一樣
3 舍利子 呀，知識也是空的，宇宙是沒有開始和結束的， 沒有好壞， 也沒有增減
4 涅感裡， 沒有個人的思想和一切眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、的感覺
5 但是你的眼界和意識是無盡的
6 因為原來是沒有， 所以沒有得失，沒有愚蠢和聰明，老死和永生的分別，更無世間的條框。覺誤成菩薩。
7 依靠［般若波羅蜜多］智慧，因為涅盤裡心無障碍，所以沒有害怕和不合理的夢想。古往今來的佛，都依靠［般若波羅蜜多］而得到了至高無上的智慧
8 有一個能除一切苦的咒，這咒語是：
9 “去吧，去吧，到彼方去吧，都到彼方去吧，覺誤吧，就這樣了”


line 9 is a mantra typically left untranslated, it is recognizable in any language as "Gate Gate, Para Gate，...", our grandma would say it in Ningbo dialect: "腳底，腳底, 菠蘿腳底, 腳底菠蘿，....". When I listen to the Sanskrit version on youtube, it is quite soothing. In simple language, it is: "Go, go, all go to the other realm, godspeed!".


It is quite obvious this is the "Cosmic Consciousness" of Richard Bucke. Here 釋迦牟尼 Siddhattha is not talking philosophy, he is not preaching renouncement of the world, instead, it is a description of how an enlightened person "sees" the void. Read the text carefully, it's a narrative of what actually happened, not at all a philosophical ideal, nor is it a guide to enlightenment  (other than the mantra).


The enlightened feeling seems to be identical to what Einstein described, and similar to an LSD induced "good" trip. Bucke presented evidence that various Christian religious figures and philosophers had also gone through similar life pivoting awakenings. (BTW, it's obvious Einstein qualifies as a bodhisattva 菩提薩埵. i.e., 菩薩). 


Recent scientific discoveries have further isolated the parietal lobe of the brain to be responsible for this spiritual experience. Accomplished Tibetan monks in meditation, Franciscan nuns in deep prayer can surpress parietal lobe activities and enter this realm with no sense of time and space. Incredibly, there's a Dr. Persinger who had devised a God Helmet that stimulates the right temporal and the parietal lobes to reproduce the God experience at the flick of the switch. This is a link to God Helmet . (highly recommended)

What is the alternative to enlightenment?  Universal human suffering and dispair. If we consider how insignificant we are in the universe of billions of galaxies, and each of which with billions of stars, everyone of us merely exists. This is the theme of Existentialism (you may remember Jean Paul Sartre & Albert Camus novels from college) , the only way our free will can assert itself is by stop existing, that is, by committing suicide! 大吉！
  
Having not experienced nirvana (nor dropped acid) myself, I am choosing humanity over enlightenment for now. However, I must admit I am extremely curious, I'd strap on Dr. Persinger's God Helmet in a heartbeat.  (Unfortuntely, the God Helmet seems to work better with spiritual people, it did not work for Richard Dawkins.)

Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, depicting another of out-of-body experience, some people consider the climatic Teresa pornographic

Positively Negative

If I were to write a cheesy romance novel, I'd begin by saying the heroine is tired of loneliness instead of simply looking for love. Few people have experienced everlasting love, but everyone knows loneliness, and negative feelings just resonate more with us. Negativity was behind every conflict in human history, it was the humiliation of the 1918 Armistice that drove Hitler to conquer and accepted the surrender of France at the exact same spot, in the same railway car in which the 1918 Armistice was signed to avenge the defeat of World War I. I don't think there are many examples of wars waged with the same sort of fervor out of love, most likely, we are motivated by Pearl Harbor and September 11.

Even before the tiger mom brouhaha hit the Internet, I knew we were all raised by tiger parents, it was much later that I realized I had also inherited the same critical attitude towards others, especially to my own children. Bert, in our culture, we accept that parents are blameless as long as we believe the motive is benevolent,  it was in that mindset that we got so emotional on your birthday. In my own mind, my negativity is justified by my fear for you not getting a fair shake in life. If I had introspected, I would've realized one has to find his own way to harness the negative energy, I would've reacted in a similar manner myself.

This little blog has been difficult for me to write, I abandoned it more than once and loped off all the defensive paragraphs, I belabored the wording and only managed to make it worse. Bert, look at the picture, other people may see a nice garden, but the gardener can see nothing but weeds and bugs, thanks for reminding me to enjoy the garden for a change.

Elementary School Tang Poetry

Li Bai (701-762)

For most Chinese, poetry is almost synonymous with Tang poetry. It was 李白 Li Bai's poem 夜思 we first learned in elementary school, ambitious parents train their kids to recite many of the 300 Tang poems from 唐詩三百首, the saying is once the poems are memorized, even if you can't write, you'd do well by just plagiarizing. This is even more true today, every Chinese New Year celebration TV program from China invariably has some foreigners reciting Tang poems in fluent Mandarin, we are fascinated by how our beloved Tang poetry is appreciated by clever foreign devils.

Unfortunately, we had not received much training in poetry ourselves, worse, to memorize the poems for homework, I usually just machine gun the words as if they might leak out of my brain if I don't use them before expiration.  Tang poems are extremely rigid in form 格律, the rhyme of the entire poem must follow the official rhyme table and the tone of each word must follow certain accepted patterns. These poems are meant to be sung or 吟, an art lost generations ago. By the time I was a kid, only old "rancid bookworms" 酸秀才 would recite poems with any musicality, it sounded ancient and self absorbing that I found it unattractive. Today, I don't have homework and I can afford to, at least, slow down a little bit, I pause slightly as we were taught in elementary school, for example, the very first 5 word poem we learned，夜思 :

床 前 - 明 月 光  　
疑 是 - 地 上 霜
舉 頭 - 望 明 月  　
低 頭 - 思 故 鄉

instead of 2 words, pause, and 3 words, it is 2,2,3 for 7 word poems:

誓 掃 - 匈 奴 - 不 顧 身  　
五 千 - 貂 錦 - 喪 胡 塵
可 憐 - 無 定 - 河 邊 骨  　
猶 是 - 春 閨 - 夢 裡 人

and the words just go together and it works for all Tang poems.

Since Tang Dynasty, China was ruled by foreign invaders twice and the spoken language had changed a lot in 1,000 years. The 1st poem doesn't rhyme in modern spoken Mandarin, but it is correct by the official rhyme rule. (For Tang poems, the even lines must rhyme, line 1 is optional, all other odd lines must not rhyme.)

1/3 Epiphany

I had a painful bout of gout (I love saying that) about 3 years ago after a Cancun vacation. I blame it on the drinking and rich foods and hope it's a one time thing. Last week, my left foot hurt like it was twisted but I couldn't remember how, it is just too frightening to even think about that... Yesterday, after a full week without exercise, I finally felt very little pain walking and decided to bike to the beach. Cycling has become the new golf and Ocean Blvd is full of slightly over weighed cyclists on $5,000 bikes, good time to sandbag on my 30 pound touring bike wearing my Levi's cutoffs, except this time I couldn't keep up with the fat cyclists.

In the afternoon, I thought I would test my foot running instead.  Aided by runner's high, the epiphany I attained during the run was: "long term is good, short term is evil". It began with the thought that the pain could be stopped by a pill but that's not a good solution. Likewise, eating a pint of ice cream is good in the short term but bad in the long term. Money matters? Same sort of reasoning applies, to us Chinese anyways. It also extends to religions, suffer in this life for eternal life or reincarnation. We are making the same trade-offs and mechanically labeling short term gratifications "bad" and long term gains "good". Too easy, fuck Nietzsche, good and evil is this simple!

Soon the pain returned and I had to stop after 4.4 miles and everything about life became clear as mud again. 3 hours of exercising was 12% of yesterday, I doubt the eventual long term payoff would be anywhere near 10%, the effort is most likely a net loss.  In the famous Chinese Zen story 當頭棒喝 , the monk in question was hit hard in the head 3 times before his epiphany came, each blow was accompanied by loud shouting. I consider my painful exercise day as my 1st installment.

Erich Hartmann

It's funny how my brain works, like a html document with many hyperlinks, it just flys off to faraway places at the slightest provocation, you may say more than half of my classroom hours were wasted that way.  As I was posting the Boxer Rebellion picture on my previous post, I just couldn't wipe the image of this Boxer kid off my mind, I'm hyperlinked to many years ago when I was a teen in Vancouver, BC.

I stumbled on the biography of Erich Hartmann in the library, it was probably the first book in English I read from cover to cover for entertainment. I went to a Chinese language school in Hong Kong and my English has always been poor, so at that time reading an entire book in one sitting was unthinkable.  Erich Hartmann was a Nazi fighter pilot with the most victories, 352 confirmed kills. In aerial combat, 5 kills would make you an "ace" and Hartmann was the ace of aces (e.g. Chuck Yeager had 11.5 kills). I was hooked when I saw how he stalked the enemy, how he got within 20 meters, so close that the windshield of his Bf-109 was completely blocked by the victim's aircraft. I knew then I'd be happy to trade my own life for the next few seconds of puling the trigger and flying through the debris.

I don't reveal my secret feelings to others much less on a blog, I suspected some other boys might have the same secret violent nature until video games came along, apparently, every male shares the same fantasy! Look at the young Boxer, he might be canon fodder, but at the moment he's happy, intoxicated by the adventure, the joyful thought of killing and being killed.

I remember Erich Hartmann not only because he was aces' ace, he was also a men's man. I re-read his biography a little bit online and my memory was quite good, the part about surrendering to the Russians by choice to stay with his men is still moving. He witnessed the relentless raping of German women and was accused of war crimes, after he was released from Russian Gulag 10 years later, he said this about the Russians:
"One thing I've learned is this: Never allow yourself to hate a people because of the actions of a few. Hatred and bigotry destroyed my nation, and millions died. I would hope that most people did not hate Germans because of the Nazis, or Americans because of slaves. Never hate, it only eats you alive. Keep an open mind and always look for the good in people. You may be surprised at what you find.”

In real life, I am a nerd and I believe all wars are immoral, however, the word warrior has a positive connotation in every culture I know.


I have to include some pictures:
Hartmann was born in 1922, first 6 years of Hartmann's life was spent in Changsha 長沙, his father was a German doctor in China. Erich is next to the Chinese boy.

How do you go from this 

to this?

Ladies And Children Not Admitted (April Fools)

Readership has waned to a pathetic level, I apologize for using the Royal Nonesuch trick from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The setting is after a few unsuccessful attempts to put up a "Shakespearean" show, two con artists known as the duke and the king added the "ladies and children not admitted" line to sucker Arkansans to Royal Nonesuch, insinuating x-rated content.

“There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I don’t know Arkansaw!”


In my previous posts, I confessed sometime we don't see the elephant in the room, other times we see the imaginary clothes of the Emperor. These childish stories are poignant because they ring true, adults simply don't have the courage to tell the truth all the time.

Turned out the entire show was just the king prancing around totally naked. Even it was true that the show wasn't suitable for ladies and children, the audience felt cheated, 50 cents was rather steep for a few laughs. Not wanting to be the laughingstock of the town people, the patrons agreed to praise the show instead so everyone would be in the same boat. Like the internet stock market bubble, Royal Nonesuch played to a full house for three days until they ran out of fools, the duke and the king were then chased out of town by the angry mob, not to mention class action lawsuits...

Headless Boxers (and Japanese)

The Boxers

I like Mark Twain, I think his books are often too long but his intellect always comes through. One thing Mark Twain said will always stay with me, he said "I am a Boxer" when the Boxer Rebellion 義和團 was considered barbaric and shameful by all educated Chinese. I'm thankful Mark Twain recognized the fighting spirit of the Chinese, the same way I think Americans woud fight tooth and nail if we were invaded.

Of course we can do away with the ignorance of the Boxer Rebellion. The Japanese did most for the fighting for the Eight Nation Alliance 八國聯軍 as you can see in the second picture. I don't know what's the deal with the US and NATO in Libya, 110 years after the "rebellion", I hope we're not as much a fool on this April fools' day.


Update:
I found Mark Twain's I am a Boxer passage, as I said, how can you not admire his intellect?


Why should not China be free from the foreigners, who are only making trouble on her soil? If they would only all go home, what a pleasant place China would be for the Chinese! We do not allow Chinamen to come here, and I say in all seriousness that it would be a graceful thing to let China decide who shall go there.
China never wanted foreigners any more than foreigners wanted Chinamen, and on this question I am with the Boxers every time. The Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success. The Boxer believes in driving us out of his country. I am a Boxer too, for I believe in driving him out of our country.

Minimalist Running Shoes, 1 Year and 1,000 Miles Later

I get pissed off when I go buy running shoes. A typical pitch goes like: "Choosing the correct running shoes is a serious business... you should invest at least $100 for a pair of good shoes...  these models will correct your over-pronation problem... "  If the salesperson looks like a runner, sometimes he'll add: "Running is a dangerous sport, I've had a lot of injuries myself until..."  Why the hell should I listen to someone who hurts himself running all the time?  I'm skeptical that such a complex problem could be solved by cleverly placing fancy cushioning material in the shoes in the first place.  If it was that simple, why didn't they fix all the running shoes? I'm sure the difference in material cost is negligible.

Long story short, I started to explore barefoot and minimalist running made popular by Chris McDougall's Born to Run, Gordon Pirie's Running Fast and Injury Free, and Harvard's Lieberman.  Pirie was a world record setting British runner who only lived to his 60s yet his name is on Guinness Book of Records for the highest lifetime mileage of over 200,000 miles or, about 100 miles a week for 40 years! I find it uplifting that evolution might have solved our running problems, we are all designed to be endurance athletes.

Asics #3 and #4, Brooks MACH XI

It was a about a years ago when I started my own experiment, I estimate I have run about 1,000 miles in minimalist shoes, basically racing shoes with very little padding. I rotate 4 pairs of Asics Piranha SPs and a pair of Brooks cross country in training. The current Asics are $100 retail and I got 4 pairs of older SP1s on eBay for $150, they are sort of cheap looking (the stripes are just painted on) but extremely light, the Brooks MACH XIs are just cross country racing flats. (I remember a serious runner I knew used to buy unpadded cheap shoes, the kind you find in discount store bins stapled together.  Pirie ran in Plimsolls.)

Plimsoll

To summarize my minimalist experience:
(1) I have not hurt myself in training or running NY marathon wearing racing flats.
(2) I'm not sure about my mid/forefoot running form, looking at the soles of the shoes, the heel portion is worn more than the forefoot.
(3) It takes a lot of practice to hold my form, when I get tired, I can hear myself running louder.
(4) To me, mid/forefoot landing running seems to require more energy, but the shorter, higher stride style is inherently faster. When I slow done, I notice my form gets sloppy.
(5) When I trained the most (45 miles a week), I did experience swollen ankles and other symptoms typically attributed to bad shoes.
(6) Even the thin minimalist midsoles get compressed unevenly after 100 miles.
(7) Racing flats are durable despite the light construction. The upper mesh looks like it'll last a long time, the sole wears out quickly and I extend its useful life with "Shoo Goo".
(8) The Asics can be worn with or without socks because the toebox is rather wide, the Brooks are narrow and I wear them sockless and get blisters sometimes (I have sweaty feet and there are some friction points between the arch support and the upper).
(9) No conclusion is possible for something so subjective. I use a GPS watch but have not done anything scientific with the data.

Phaedo Redux

Phaedo is Plato's account of Socrates' death from the perspective of Phaedo,  it is one of Plato's most well known dialogues which I read many years ago.  The only recollection I have now is how calm Socrates was while waiting for his own death, he and many of his friends and students took the occasion to discuss death and the everlasting soul. According to Phaedo, a student, he did not feel pity and Socrates himself was "happy in manner and words".  In fact,  his mourning wife was sent home so the the BS session wouldn't be disrupted.

Given Socrates' circumstances, he had little reason to be happy. he had been sentenced to death by poison and it was his final day.  His ankles hurt from the chains and he made a remark about how he wished Easop could write a fable about how pleasure and pain are always joined together, one cannot get one (the pleasure of rubbing his ankles) without the other (the pain of the chains), what a weirdo!

The reason I don't remember the rest of the dialogue is I don't believe in eternal soul. I have no patience for that sort of arguments. A cousin of ours died 2 days ago quite unexpectedly, I re-read Phaedo and I feel different reading it this time, one of the arguments "prior knowledge" makes me sit up for the first time.  Socrates believed knowledge is just recollection, we are born with all the knowledge which is passed from generation to generation which could be called the soul. In today's terminology, he's saying genetic memory is our soul.  Recently, experiments have been done to suggest we could in fact change our genetic memory (or genome by default).  For example,  a calf born of stock that is used to cattle grids but has never seen one itself and introduce it to lines painted on a road to resemble a grid. It will not cross. Another well known example is the Överkalix study in Sweden. The link is to European Journal of Human Genetics.

A plausible explanation is that some acquired information is passed from parents to children through genetic materials. I don't want to go crazy about prior lives and prior knowledge beyond hardwired instinctive behaviors, but maybe there is something in this life that can live on forever in our genes. (Unfortunately, the selfish straits may have a better chance in natural selection.)

There'a An Elephant In The Room

I suppose the opposite of "Emperor's new clothes" is "elephant in the room" when we ignore the obvious.

Dejeuner by Manet

 Dejeuner is a painting by Manet where 4 people are having a picnic lunch and at least two of them are inappropriately dressed for the weather.

Gabrielle d'Estrées

Here's a painting in the Louvre collection of Gabrielle d'Estrées and her sister. People have been looking at this picture for 500 years trying to figure out what it means.

Speaking for all men, let me tell you there is an elephant in the room, the main subject is unmistakably sex and the artists had pornographic intents. These are extremely successful paintings and we all recognize them, in fact, the second picture was hung in my office wall for a year and everyone just considered it high art.

Another elephant is the consensual best Chinese novel 紅樓夢, it's obvious to me it was written as a parody. A satire like Voltaire's Candide and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, they are meant to be funny. Author 曹雪芹was such a jokester in real life, it is a stroke of genius precisely because he made biting commentaries through humor. Take a look at 賈寶玉, his lousy poems, his messed up teenage sex experiences (both heterosexual and homosexual), and how he brown nosed everyone in power, he was nothing but a good looking brat -- the exact opposite of the author.

I suspect some of the people that can see Emperor's new clothes also don't notice the elephant, at least I am that way when it comes to certain things.


Update (3/19/11):
It occurs to me all the books mentioned were published at about the same time, turns out it's closer than I thought:

Gulliver's Travels - 1726 - 1735
 紅樓夢 1754 - many versions
Candide 1759

I'm not saying they had any influence on another, but sometimes things did go viral before the Internet, not just substantive things, also styles and feelings. Very strange.

Praising Emperor's New Clothes

Last night, we watched a Chinese movie called Spring In A Small Town 小城之春 for the first time. This movie was ignored at its release in 1948 and was almost totally forgotten until the 70s when it was re-discovered. Since the 80s, it's been critically acclaimed universally, I check some popular movie websites and it is still getting great reviews (not the remake, which is translated to Springtime In A Small Town in English). It is also voted the best Chinese movie of all time in Hong Kong. Does the Emperor have clothes? After all, the town people seem to admire his invisible clothes till the very of the parade.      

Parents think it's ridiculously bad and the plot moves too slowly, I have to watch the 2nd half twice because it moves too fast. Watching this movie is like reading a book, not only because of the heroine's monologue, it also unfolds like a novel but it won't let you slow down like a real one. I suppose it was influenced by European movies of the same period but the feelings are very Chinese. It's a very good movie in my opinion although I can understand why it may not work for some people.  You may even think the entertainment value is not very high, but at the very least, you'll appreciate the craftiness of the director, every scene has a purpose and no film is wasted to explain the past or the obvious.  

(The director, 費穆, was the father of Chinese soprano 費明儀。I think his brother was the head of newspaper 大公報 費彝民）