I love this quotation from a story about Hong Kong Cemetery: "As a Chinese, this is not my kind of thing," he says of the cemetery, which he's always viewed with a superstitious sense of dread. He reacted "with horror" when my mother decided to write about the cemetery, promptly trying to dissuade her.
Check out the audio clip here
On an icy winter day in Boston, Massachusetts, and my dear friend who was a post-doc at MIT said to me “actually, it isn’t that cold.”
“How could it possibly not be that cold?” I said. Mind you we grew up in sub-tropical climes. “Well, it is like two hundred something degrees Kelvin,” he said. In his lab they don’t operate in Celsius or Fahrenheit. They don’t particularly care about the cold that we feel; he works on superconductivity, and his focus is on atoms and even smaller, sub-atomic stuff[i]. At zero degrees Kelvin molecular motion basically stops, there is no thermal activity. In freezing Boston that day though, my friend assured me there were plenty of atoms jostling around us, vibrating and making it “hot”, like positive two hundred degrees Kelvin hot. I had a mental cutscene to the North Pole, with huskies, skis and sleds, amidst frozen whitespace where I say: “What does Kelvin say now?” And anticipating a response like “well, ain’t as much atomic jostling here. Yep, it’s getting there.” He was using labspeak in the real world; or maybe it was me who was using pidgin-science in the field. Either way, context matters.
[i] The latest science on superconductivity involves tinkering with atoms at colder and colder temperatures. See this article for a backgrounder: Howard, Jacqueline. "Absolute Zero? Scientists Push Atoms Colder, To Record-Setting 'Negative Temperature' Realm." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 04 Jan. 2013. Web. 06 May 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/absolute-zero-record-setting-negative-temperature_n_2404666.html>. One of the key applications is next generations engines, ones would be far more efficient than current internal combustion engines, which lose maybe three quarters of the energy put into them to heat.
The notable Dutch researcher Geert Hofstede, a pioneer in intercultural comparative research, is someone I owe gratitude to. His research has helped me think about what it means to be Western, and also what it means to be Chinese, from a standpoint of behaviors and values. The data behind Hofstede’s surveys informs the framework I use in Capricorn Monkey.
Hofstede calls one of his dimensions Uncertainty Avoidance. In other words, some people are more O.K. with uncertainty than others. But change itself is also an element of uncertainty that people wish to avoid. I look forward to exploring this dimension and the other five dimensions that are treated in the book, in a more casual way on this blog, drawing from pop culture, and so forth.
This calls for a fun movie example. In Luc Besson’s classic film Léon: The Professional, there is a memorable scene in which Danny Aiello’s character says to Léon: “Change ain’t good, you know Léon.” They are sitting in Tony’s Butchery, which is operated as a front for Tony’s criminal activities, and the two have just had an uncomfortable conversation about money. Léon is a contract killer for whom Tony is a sort of dual mentor and agent. Léon, to our cinematic delight, is the archetypal lovable bumpkin with a blood-splashed CV. In the scene, we learn that though Léon has been “whacking” people left and right, the payments for all that dangerous work have been made to Tony. And, reading the subplot, we learn that Tony’s assurances that no one can knock him over, like all the banks which get knocked over, starts to smell fishy. We can only assume from the wrought pregnant pauses that Léon’s money, stashed with Tony is a little less accessible than he thought. But going back to Tony’s comment, what about the talk of change? Tony is a criminal, mind you, and this is an extreme example of uncertainty avoidance; most criminals who remain uncaught are naturally very resistant to any change. But what does Tony really mean?
Well, the movie gives a few snapshots of the new reality that Tony is facing. The first is that new criminal syndicates, like Asians and Russians are encroaching on the old guard’s turf. Tony’s extreme Uncertainty Avoidance manifests itself in xenophobia. Also, we know that in most cop and robber films the bad guys only deal in cash. Tony’s continual ranting about the banking system reveals a lot about his character. He is not only the guy who stuffs wads of hundred dollar bills under his mattress, it is 1994 and he is the guy who is going to resist email. Sure, Tony is probably aware that he is foregoing opportunities by being so insistent, and then again, what is wrong with the old way of doing business, with a firm handshake, while looking into someone’s eyes? You can’t help but get the feeling that this whole new world of sophistication is unrolling itself before Tony’s eyes, but ol’ Tony just cannot help himself. In addition to being xenophobic, Tony is anti-innovation.
Again, this is an extreme example; no one wants to encourage criminals to be innovative. Tony is in the business of dealing death, a business littered with risk as the tables can turn in an instant; but he doesn’t like uncertainty. Tony’s mentality is a showcase of extreme Uncertainty Avoidance.
The generalization I will make is that Western and Chinese instincts broadly align around the need to be enterprising. That means pro-innovation, lots of reasonable balancing done between privacy protection and convenience, eagerness to meet new people; it means jumping onboard with AOL in the early 90’s- essentially everything that Danny’s Aiello’s character wasn’t. His character, Tony, portrayed a gangster ethos- something appears enterprising but is actually nothing but rent seeking. It is a key difference.
Uncertainty is one of those unavoidable components to enterprise, and rather than shy away from it, there is a shared bias to view change itself as opportunity. This is supported by Hofstede’s data, which shows the lowest variance between the Western values and Chinese values, in all of the dimensions tracked, is found in Uncertainty Avoidance. Wanting change doesn’t mean change for the sake of change, nor does it mean picketing for new politicians for the sake of new blood. It means enterprise as the base criterion. That doesn’t narrow to just mean business. Whether it is in education, science or medicine, Western and Chinese outlooks share optimism for the future, and confidence that people can make the world better. And then again, why wouldn’t you be O.K. with uncertainty if you believe it is in your power to live incrementally better tomorrow?
I am happy to emerge from isolation mode :) Wow. I love writing; however, as a new writer I am still learning a lot about the craft. And all of it takes time.
Now that I have a manuscript that is taking form- I am eager to connect with my audience. From now until I publish I will be much more active on this site (newly located at capricornmonkey.com), and on all the relevant social media channels.
The Mixed Chinese and Western story has many facets- many of which are totally unexplored. I look forward to getting to know those who are interested in this broader subject, as we discover together.
Knowing that I had been in Manhattan during the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001, a family member in maybe 2003 or 2004 gave me a elegantly framed New York Times front page with super-sized font saying "U.S. ATTACKED. HIJACKED JETS DESTROY TWIN TOWERS AND HIT PENTAGON IN DAY OF TERROR." Somehow it angered me. I thought it was insensitive. I was thinking "WTF!?" Only not in acronyms.
I declined the gift, something I never do.
I understand what the family member was trying to do, what they were trying to communicate to me- that they loved me and wanted to acknowledge this historic event, and my brush with it as a resident of Manhattan. I get that. Admittedly, I should have been more graceful and just accepted the gift; nonetheless, I don't want to be reminded of an event like 9/11 on as frequent a basis as a wall hanging would provide me.
I have been reticent to talk about 9/11 because it was such a horrifying day, and I am not a pundit, or a talking head that must talk about it. So I have elected to be rather silent about it. The photos that I took that day I have never shared with anyone before. I have posted them here on violet.com, and hope that I can field any and all comments or questions about that day that anyone may have.
I have just launched violet.com; I know there is plenty of content out there, on many different platforms. I want to use these initial posts to convey to my earliest of supporters that I am committed to quality content, constantly pushing for new insights, and a meaningful dialogue.
I will be talking more about violet.com, and of course the book that I have been writing Violet, in the days and weeks to come. In the next couple of posts, and as a means to introduce myself and this new blog, I would like to talk first about my experience at the "coalface," with the craft of writing itself.
Violet will be my first book. I always liked writing; I always liked reading, which as I have learned seems to be considered an essential part of the toolkit for any writer. I remember in high school a lot of emphasis on "writing to be read." Nonetheless, it seems that professional writers place a huge emphasis on being well read. Not only to glean some insights from the old masters, but as Ian McEwan alludes to, to have a sense of what has come before you. In other words you need to be well read in order not to sound cliché without even knowing you are being clichéd.
I will share some glimpses in the next couple of posts as to what my writing process has been so far. It would be great to get some feedback and other comments however unrelated.
One thing I realized rather early is that writing takes a lot of energy. It isn't a type of "constant partial attention" that will cut it; to write is to focus. The readers' attention, her or his willingness to stay with you, to pick up on details and draw inferences that you wish she or he would, is a fickle thing. Any lapse by the writer and it is "see ya" from the reader, indeed.
It takes another level of energy, to really focus. Answering phones, responding to business emails, even managing people are things that can all be done well without this type of high energy output. Sure, you need to be "switched on," you need to maintain eye contact- but the it doesn't quite require the same focus.
Stephen King call it "hypnosis." That is his word for focus; he says that writing is hypnosis. And what I think he means is that there is a windup, and of course a winddown; once you get into the hypnotic phase in-between, you are sort of like Neo in the Matrix for the first time- the trance doesn't last long but, a lot of stuff happens, and when all the fiendish activity is all over, you fall down, wrecked with exhaustion.
I doubt the writing process is ever that dramatic for most writers. Nonetheless, I realized that I could rarely go more than 4-5 hours of actual writing per day. I would take lots of mini-breaks, dive into lots of mini diversions just to re-energize a little bit before I went back into writing. Clearly I am a rookie with all of this and one would expect the process to come more smoothly with time and experience. It has been a lot of fun. I must say that I have really enjoyed the process, and the type of brain use, one very different from business, that is part of writing. Hopefully the end result is halfway decent :)
In the next couple of posts I will talk more about my writing routine and habits- of course I would love any writers or bloggers to offer critical feedback or any thoughts if appropriate.
This is my first post on the new violet.com. I am very excited about publishing my first ever book, and I must say that though the process has been taxing at times I do rather enjoy it. I am looking forward to a busy Fall, with a this project coming to fruition, a special milestone of one year of marriage coming up, and a happy re-introduction to Hong Kong, one of the best cities on the planet.
Please stay tuned for more details.