潘家園

This is the ultimate place to find your souvenirs and the flea market scavenger's heaven. You will save so much money, compared to the friendship stores and you will have so much more fun.

PanJiaYuan (潘家園舊貨市場) is a huge antique market at the south-eastern corner of Beijing's 2nd ring.  It is blast spending few hours here.  The whole place is a big courtyard the size of few football fields.  The courtyard empasses a cloister at the center.  The cloister, centered in the courtyard, has about 15 to 20 meters of paved space to the outer walls.

The whole place is carpeted with vendors, each one occupying 1 to 3 square meters of elongated floor space.  This means, yes, thousands of them.

I found few rubbings from the famous stelae in Xi'an. For thousands of years, Chinese erected these stelae everywhere. I don't know when, but one of the government collected them all into this place in Xi'an. That makes rubbing operations much more convenient. People put a piece of cotton paper on top of the stela and rub ink over the paper. The result is a perfect replica of whatever inscribed.

This one is from a famous and poignant general in the late Song dynasty. He was framed by the prime minster then and died tragic. After his death, the Song dynasty toppled and Mongolians began the Yuan dynasty.

Another proof that Great Walls never worked. A corruptor is always available.

滿 江 紅
怒發衝冠，憑欄處，瀟瀟雨歇，
抬望眼，仰天長嘯，壯懷激烈。
三十功名塵與土，八千裡路雲和月，
莫等閑白了少年頭，空悲切！
靖康恥猶未雪，臣子恨何時滅？
駕長車，踏破賀蘭山缺。
壯志饑餐胡虜肉，笑談渴飲匈奴血，
待重頭收拾舊山河，朝天闕。

岳飛（1103～1142)

The Red, Red River

My anger raised my hair so fast that my hat flew away.

Where I stand against the railing, I can see that rain stopped.

Looking far, I screamed to the sky, hardly can I contain my resolve.

Thirty years of career, nothing but dusts.

Eight thousand miles on the road, just clouds and moonlight.

But if the youth is wasted, there will be nothing but sorrow and regrets.

We have not revenged the insults

We have not fulfilled our duties

Let's our chariots stomp their mountains

We'll eat their meat, drink their blood

After triumph, we shall clean up the country.

To face God.

Yue Fei（1103～1142)

Posted under Tour guides by sinyaw on 星期五 24 六月 2005 at 5:00 上午

Basic Persuasion

May 19, 2005

Almost everything you do involves persuading someone to do something for you.
Three elements persuade: facts, references, and emotion. A good argument uses all three. Let'€™s try to persuade your husband to buy you that diamond:

"Your mother really likes the lusty sparkling. We all know that diamonds are forever. They really have not depreciated in the past 50 years. And honey, don't you love me?&quot

An authoritative reference, solid data, and a shameless play on emotion. The lady got the diamond.

Persuading someone at work is harder. After all, we are all highly trained professionals that are not easily influenced. But the basic elements are the same. You prepare data, you socialize the idea, and you nail it down with a punch of emotion. Among these three elements, data is the weakest one and emotion is always the final deciding one.

Let's try to get promoted.

  • Do you have data for your performance? Is your resume convincing?
  • Who will be your references? Do they matter? Are they the ones your boss listens to?
  • Does he like you? Can he communicate with you? Does he trust you?

How much time you spend polishing up your resume? Do you cultivate your references? Do your peers like you? Are you a team player?
But most importantly, can you communicate with your boss? Do you know what he thinks? Do you know how he decides? Do you know him as a person?

Try to get a proposal approved.

  • You analyze the pros and cons. Collect data, organize facts, have spreadsheets that cover the walls.
  • You send the presentation to the boss and wait for his approval.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!

Where are the references? You must socialize your proposal to stake-holders, influencers, thought-leaders, and whoever that counts.

How do you deliver the knock-down punch? Are you well-prepared, well-rehearsed?
There is no better way to deliver human emotion than face to face interface. Otherwise, use video-conferencing. As the last resort, use phone. Only very talented people can deliver emotions by written words. If you are one of them, you should make a living elsewhere.

Posted under Management Thoughts by sinyaw on 星期三 15 六月 2005 at 3:48 上午