River Town
Two Years on the Yangtze

by Peter Hessler

As a Peace Corp volunteer, American author Peter Hessler has spent two years in a remote part of Sichuan province in China as an English teacher. River Town is a book about this fascinating experience.

The town of Fuling on the Yangtze river is far from the bustling Chinese costal cities. He found himself and fellow volunteer Adam the only Westerners in this place where few foreigners have set foot in. This started a long process of adaption. It was frustrating initially. The English speakers found that it is difficult to function well in a Chinese city and they have always drawn too much unnecessary attentions. But over time, with much persistence and determination, he has picked up Chinese language. This opens him up to many wonderful dialogs and relations with local people, like his college students, his Chinese language teachers, local families, the kafkaesque communist officials and even desperated woman pursuers.

To most people, Fuling is just an unremarkable place and the people are nothing out of ordinary. But to Hessler, this is a place he has called home and they are the people he knows. In his eyes they all become very interesting. Everyone has a story to tell if only you show interest in them. With good knowledge of Chinese history and politics and a great understanding of Confucius value, Hessler has the ability to look beyond Western prejudice and see things in Chinese's perspective. This does not mean he admires everything Chinese, but he is well aware of the different value system and all the trade off between them. Thoughout the book you will find many great insight on China and Chinese through this his observant eyes.

On the personal level, I find Hessler's experience very inspirational. To immerse in and to discover a foreign culture and to associate with people from all walk of life, it is a life live to the fullest.

2007.12.18 [book] - comments (0)

A few years ago after returning from a trip to México, I took much interest in Spanish language. I started to study on my own and make some good early progress. As I was quite fascinated by Latin America novelists, I took a bold step to order a copy of Gabriel García Márquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera" in its original Spanish. I only knew basic grammar and limited vocabulary at that time, but I have vowed to learn until I can read the entire novel. Just in case, I have also brought an English copy alongside.

All these years I have never put enough time into learning Spanish. The two books are collecting dust on the bookselves. Just now I have found out "Love in the Time of Cholera" has made into a movie. The movie review is quite bad so I won't bother with it. But it has reminded me I have the novel for a long time, which I have not read beyond the first page. This time I have finally started reading it.

How is it like to read a major novel in a language I only half understand? I have found a rhythm that is quite productive. First of all I do not want to use a dictionary to look up every word I don't understand. This way will be too slow and I cannot truly enjoy the story. Instead I am reading the English edition first, one paragraph at a time. Then I turned to the same paragraph in the Spanish edition and read it again. When necessary I go back to matching sentence in the English and read them side by side. Once in a while I will looking use the dictionary to learn a vocabulary or stop to learn a sentence. Other times there will be sentences simply too difficult for me and I will just resign and move on. I am happy to find I can decode 50% of Spanish this way without other aid. At the same time I can follow the story quite well. I am very attracted to the story of Dr Urbino and Fermina Daza so far. I am going at a pace at least five times slower than if I read the English alone. On the other hand, rather than speed through the story as I usually do, I am savoring every sentence by reading it at least twice.

In truth I mostly rely on the English edition to understand the story. I am reading Spanish with a training wheel. But what a fun trip that is. It is certainly more enjoyable to take a trip on a training wheel than to study in the classroom all the time.

2007.11.25 [book] - comments (0)

Freakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Freakonomics is a fun little book that asked unconventional questions like "Is a gun or swimming pool more dangerous?", "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?", etc. It studies the data using scientific and economics methods, then present us often surprising results. It is fun because it seeks questions with great curiosity and creativity. It is surprising because it shows a lot of conventional wisdom are actually wrong. The motto - morality represents the way people would like the world to work, whereas economics represents how it actually does work.

The most provocative story is no doubt the chapter on abortion. What causes the dramatic decline in crime rate across US since the 90s? The media cite all the usual suspects. Better economy, more police, more prisons, etc. Studies show they make only minor contribution at best. The real factor is the legalization of abortion since the 70s, Steven said. Without the abortion many of these children would otherwise born into households least capable to raise them. Eventually a disproportional number of them will turn into criminals. Abortion in effect greatly shrink the pool of potential criminals. If you think about this, it makes intuitive sense. Yet no press would even mention this as a factor (I first heard about this theory from this book).

Above all it shows that we can understand the world using objective, scientific method as oppose to the rhetorical reasoning that is all too common these days.

2006.12.13 [book] - comments (0)

Powerful Times
by Eamonn Kelly

How do we make of our increasingly complex and interconnected world today? In this transformative era, Kelly's book set off to understand the challenges of the present and find the course to the future. First of all he put forward two opposing view of the modern world - the best of times versus the worst of times.

The best of times: we are in an age of unprecedented prosperity and opportunity. Education reach everyone and information technology open up whole new way of communications. This is also an era of relative peace and a general move toward democracy...

The worst of times: human ignorance lead to over consumption and environment degradation. Progress failed to reach many people who are ravaged by crushing poverty and AIDS. The rise of fundamentalism and terrorism is threatening all of us...

No matter which view you cling to, you would find some truth from the opposing view. To see these seemingly contradictive ideas to be both valid is the thesis of the book. That is a shift from either/or mindset to a more inclusive both/and mindset.

He has identified several dynamic tensions that is at work in the world today - clarity and craziness, secular and sacred, power and vulnerability, technology acceleration and push back, intangible and physical economies, prosperity and decline, and finally people and planet. He has also outlined several likely scenarios of our future and how to prepare ourselves for it.

I find this an exciting treatment of the modern times. It calls for a broad, inclusive mindset that is that is sadly lacking from many people today.

2006.10.25 [book] - comments (0)

Work Less, Live More
by Bob Clyatt

This is a guide to early semi-retirement. Why retire early? Let's make it clear. It wasn't about making a killing in the stock market and then spend the rest of your life fishing. It is about attaining financial security to fund your retirement so that your can spend more time with the family, pursue other field work where your heart is, or simply winding down from the insanity of corporate rat race. It is about pursuing a long, healthy and fulfilling life.

Much of the book cover the financial strategy to build up the nested eggs. The new idea isn't new. Spend less, save more, invest passively in a diversified portfolio and withdraw at a sustainable rate. He make many examples to illustrate his points and also listed numerous resources.

One thing that set this book apart from other investment advices is he has a scope of life time. Most financial news focus on the action to take today. But here money is a mean to achieve financial freedom, not for profit maximization. He also has an interesting take on children's colleague expense. Although it is a large expense, he said, it is finite and can be budgeted. Just think about this, compare life long health care expense, then colleague is really one time expense. This insight can only come from a scope of life time.

While financial issues constitute a large part of the book, you will find inspiration notes throughout. For example, about different ways of giving back, he said,

Even just being a good friend and readily available to your older parents or extended family is a way to give back.

It is very basic but it rings true to me.

For myself retirement is a distant thought. Nevertheless it tells me it is important to have a goal in life. If I plan for it today I might be able to have the freedom to pursue a life that I truly long for.

2006.05.27 [book, career] - comments (0)

A package has arrived for me from an unexpected sender from Beijing. It is a book titled 'TCP/IP illustrated Volume I' except the title is in Chinese. Is this the international edition book that I have ordered? This classical networking book from Richard Stevens still commands a premium price. In search for bargain it has led me to various vendors. From Amazon, eBay, the online book marketplace Abebooks, then an unknown book seller from Hong Kong, and at the end this Beijing sender whom I have no previous knowledge of.

What is international edition? The original list price of this book is US$75. This is an astronomical amount for students from many developing countries. Publishers therefore license local companies to print international editional with the same content and sell it at a fraction of the original price affordable to the local market. These books are expected to be sold only in that country. But Internet marketplace has changed all this.

While I was bargain hunting I have no intention to buy any pirate copied. Turns out this book is a licensed reprint of the original English edition. And it appears that it is lawful to purcharse international edition from overseas. The book itself is brand new and is a good quality print. The format is both smaller and thinner than the original. I actually prefer this to hardcover as it takes up less shelf space and it consumes less raw material. The only thing I don't like is the cover does not look very original.

Depends on your point of view the publisher's pricing can either be rightful price differentiation or just price gouging. Anyway I find internation edition to be a good economic alternative.

2006.03.14 [book] - comments (0)

The Tipping Point
by Malcolm Gladwell

How does fashion trends emerge, opinions and behaviors change across society? Gladwell suggests it is analogous to epidemics. Small change spread from person to person, until it reaches a tipping point and all of a sudden ends up with big effect.

This book is wildly popular. It is also highly overrated.

It starts off with a lot of excitement. His theory hold a lot of promises and his stories are captivating. But beneath the exuberance my critical mind started to ask, "can this be true?" Further reading failed to bring forward any strong evidence. Instead the same theme grows increasing tired and the stories get more far fetched. Until it got to some absurd idea like the 'rule of 150'. Which basically says the most effective human group size is around 150, a magic number hardwired in our brain during the evolution process. It would be hard pressed to find any empirical evidence to support this. Astute reader might even notice this actually contradict with the Connectors chapter, where his studies shown the number of connects among any group of people varies greatly from very low to very high. All the same he devoted an entire chapter to this 'discovery' and went about this as enthusiastically as anything else.

Our human society is complex. It is often impossible to attribute any event to a simple cause. So when he reduce complex social phenomenon into a single cause, a lot must be missing from his interpretation. Just what does he say about the dramatic drop of crimes rate in New York subway? "Clean up the graffiti and all of a sudden people who would otherwise commit crimes suddenly don't" Magic solution? Or hasty conclusion?

Gladwell's talent is really in writing and journalism rather than sociology and science. There is a lot of excitement, big surprises, big discoveries, big theories but ultimately with weak scientific basis. Sounds familiar? This is sociology done in the style of popular psychology.

2006.03.01 [book, sociology] - comments (0)

Practical Internet Groupware
by Jon Udell

In his book "Practical Internet Groupware", former BYTE magazine editor Jon Udell layout an architecture that links human minds into collaborative relationships. Base on his actual experience in building BYTE's intranet as well as the magazine's public online services, he gave his insight on the powerful use of Internet.

Among the many IT books I have read, this book stand out as sublime, even avant-garde. Got a question? Search the Internet, send a follow up email to folks you have never met. That's something many of us have probably done without much thinking. Yet Jon would step back and reflect on the dynamic that had happened. An ad-hoc workgroup was formed between him and several person on one particular task. The collaboration was unbounded by time, geography or corporate affiliation. He strived to grasp the subtle interactions and to facilitate this flow of information on the Internet.

People are lazy and do not like to learn or adapt to complex rules impose by computer systems. On the other hand simple rules and clever UI tweak can often make interactions spontaneous and effective. Use an appropriate subject for a message is one good example. The author discussed one of the oldest groupware on the Internet, the Usenet newsgroups. He termed it conferencing and explained why it is a better channel for some kind of interactions compare to email. Many of us who get caught in lengthy email debate would be delighted to know there are more effective way to conduct this kind of discussion. Indeed a seamless integration of web, email, newsgroup and a searchable document database are the components that make a formidable groupware application.

Unlike most IT books, he did not focus on any single platform, computer language or a technology. Whether it is a tool from Microsoft or its competitors, a freeware or a commercial product, he would use it if he see fits. Throughout the book are short, unglamorous, but nevertheless working code samples. Given I read this 6 years after its 1999 publishing date, many of the code or specific technologies are already considered obsoleted. Yet the insight that stem from these early system are just as relevant today. Think just what is the core component of web 2.0 technology? User participation!

Perhaps nothing reveal more about this book than its front cover. The 'practical' in the 'Practical Internet Groupware' means everything is derived from actual experience and real code rather than a theoretical discussion. Yet it is in small print while the 'Internet Groupware' is emphasize in the banner. That's because the code and the actual systems are just starting points that spawn the exploration of threads that link people into collaborative relationship. This is an immensely powerful Internet application we have yet to master.

2006.02.26 [book, tech] - comments (0)

Free Agent Nation
by Daniel Pink

So I have worked with a number of people we called contractors. I used to think this is just a different kind of job. They do it because it pays more or just because they are not able to land a full time job. But for author Daniel Pink, being free agent is really a lot more than a different kind of job.

In this book, he has portrayed the free agent movement as a profound social transformation. Fueled by corporate downsizing and the availability of affordable means of production due to new technologies, more and more choose to work for themselves rather than working for big organizations. It is a return to the social structure before the Industrial Revolutions.

The book has covered many practicalities of being free agents. It discusses the more flexible working schedule, different ways of networking, all the infrastructure one can use to compensate for the support of offices and then going down to the mundane issues like health insurance and tax code.

Knowing the practicalities help you gain confidence to tackle the new challenges. But the best of this book is to discover what it 'means' to be self-employed. To work for yourself is to be accountable and to be authentic. Often money is not the primary subject. Freedom to define one's goal, such as how to balance between work and family, can be more important consideration. Ultimately taking on these new responsibilities would empower individuals and to drive toward self-actualization.

2006.02.19 [book, career] - comments (0)

Having read a number of great books in 2005, I was mean to write a book review for each of them. Afterall to be a blogger is to write a lot. Sadly My plan of writing thoughtful essays didn't really happened. I'm still doing lot more reading than writing. If this is too ambitious, perhaps I can write some capsule reviews? But months go by and I still haven't got to do it. Toward the Christmas holidays, I said let me at least do a year end run down. But now the year end has also passed. Fortunately there is the procrastinator's redemption: the Chinese New Year is still a month away! In the next few days, let me do a run down of the great books I have read in the year of rooster.

First of all, I'd start with a review I did written. Full review is post on Baypiggies and below is the the summary.

Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
by Paul Graham

...this book is a fun and insightful reading. For nerds, it gives a little bit of ego boost. But more importantly, Paul is a great mentor. He encourages us to nurture our creativity and unorthodox thinking. He believes being smart matters, that hackers can take on big guys and make a difference.

http://www.baypiggies.net/book_reviews/hackers/hackers.htm

2006.01.08 [book] - comments (0)

I have posted my review for Lonely Planet's latest picture book "The Travel Book, A Journey Through Every Country In The World" on Amazon. I become the first reviewer!
 

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, ... and continues on to the last country Zimbabwe, Lonely Planet has put together an extraordinary travel book that brings us to every country in the world. Listed alphabetically from A-Z, each country occupies 2 pages with vivid pictures and some impression of the lands. Even tiny Pacific islands get the same amount of space as everybody else, regardless of their size and popularity in tourism. Using a more liberal concept of 'country', it brings the total number to 230.

In just one volume, it makes no attempt to be a comprehensive reference book. Instead there are many fun ways to use it. Flipping it to a random page to get some inspiration for your next travel destination (you will likely end up in some distant place rather hard to get to.) Cover the title and try to name the country by the pictures alone (a challenging game given the pictures are more focused on people and landscape than instantly recognizable landmarks.) Or just read it cover to cover as I have prepared to do.

This book evokes the same kind of exhilaration from travelling. I was joyous like a kid while walking away from the bookstore with this 3kg book.

2004.09.20 [travel, book] - comments (2)

Just find out an upcoming O'Reilly book PDF Hacks. Like it or not PDF is a very common media format. The free acrobat reader is so limited and does not provide any editing functionality. There are so much I want to do to make the PDF publishing more usable. Check out hack 4: Speed Up Acrobat Startup. I follow the instruction and removed unnecessary plugins. Right away the launch speed improved dramatically. I highly anticipated the publishing of this book.

2004.08.11 [software, PDF, book] - comments (0)

I have been using O'Reilly Network's Safari Bookshelf for over a month. The Safari Bookshelf is an electronic reference library for programmers and IT professionals. It provides online access to over a thousand titles from O'Reilly as well as several other major publishers, like Addison Wesley. [more...]

2003.05.08 [tech, book] - comments (0)