For the board game The Settlers of Catan. Makes resource distribution an easier task for the banker.
Put player’s names in the cell under the player’s color. Make a mark for each resource that each player earns for the number rolled on the dice, e.g. blue gets ii (2) lumber and i (1) grain when a 6 is rolled.
Wow. WordPress has made a lot of nice improvements since I last used it.
“Mind like water” is the concept that one react appropriately in any given situation. The concept is visual. Throw a pebble in water. A small splash rises from the water and ripples spread out from where it enters.
Unfortunately, when it comes to reacting to body language, my mind is no longer like water. The ripples usually wait a minute before rippling.
But I have a good reason for this. Body language differs between cultures. Living in China I learned not to assume someone’s body language means the same thing it might in the U.S. For example, in China, if someone nods his head it doesn’t necessarily mean he agrees with what I’m saying, as it typically does in the States. It just means he’s listening to me. So I have come to first consider what one’s body language is telling me, based on context and past experience, before I react to it. The problem for me is that people aren’t expecting the hesitation. And since body language is an important part of in-person communication, I get the feeling that this sometimes makes people feel a little awkward around me when I don’t ripple at the right time.
Lately I’ve been feeling like there is some disconnect between me and many of the people I know in Janesville, WI, where I live now. I couldn’t place the cause of it or even define precisely what it was. But then an old friend from school, who herself is from Taiwan, left a comment on my Facebook wall: “You’re so Asian.” And, I think that is it.
And now to contradict that last sentence. It’s not so much that I’m “so Asian” as I think it is that I am not quite so American. I’ve been back in the States now for two years and thought I had long since re-adjusted to life here, and I think that is true too. I have re-adjusted to life here. But I think some of my values have changed, permanently, and I think that is the cause of the disconnect.
A friend of mine from Alabama was up here a couple of weeks ago and we were discussing the fact that this blog is dormant. The main problem I’ve had ever since returning to the States is that I don’t know what to write about. The blog is supposed to be about China, but to be honest I don’t have a whole lot going on in my life related to China right now. Re-branding was one suggestion my friend made. But I really like The Weifang Radish. The best I could come up with sitting here thinking of what to write about was a conversation my wife and I had this evening over dinner about the difference in eating customs between China and the US. I even wrote a couple sentences on the topic, but then I thought, is that really what I want this blog to be about. So I put it to the reader–what should I write about?
With the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics under way, I have removed this blog’s Olympic-themed image header.
I’ll miss that header. I think it gave the blog a distinctive look and the sarcastic text concerning the Great Firewall of China was relevant to a lot of the content of this blog for a period of time.
It’s back to good old Apple-blue for now.
Tags Blogging
The legacy of Lei Feng has one major advantage over that of what will be part of Liu Xiang’s. Lei Feng was dead before he became famous, and therefore he did not have a chance to tarnish the model image the CCP created around him.
Tags Lei Feng, Liu Xiang, China, Role Models
This feed not (totally) blocked in China, (yet), (I hope).
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