Loud Thoughts

Last time I visited HuaLien was about 20 years ago. It is a place you remember and think of coming back once in a couple of years or so. Thanks to a very organized friend, a group of old buddies made the tour.

I was not disappointed. It was as beautiful as I remembered, and better. The rapid water shaped and polished the rocks. The sub-tropical climate gave the delicious lush. Recent rain colored some streams black. When the ink-like water rush downstream and smashed into the rock, you get memorized with this eerie feeling of being in a different world.

HuaLien is probably best visited via train. Make sure Taroko, a bit north of HuaLien city, is your destination. The beaches are clean and fun. That was the expected bonus.

Flickr gives you a teaser here.

www.flickr.com sinyaw's HuaLien, Taiwan photoset

Less known to the world that Forbidden City is more about architecture; it is the pinnacle of Ming-era royal architectural style. Its alternative name of “the Palace Museum” will disappoint visitors looking for paintings, sculptures, or ancient artifacts. For those, the National Museum, on the east side of TianAnMen square, is a better choice. Alas, it is closed for renovation.

A hidden gem and a local favorite is the Capital Museum; it has rich exhibitions of few hundreds years of Beijing and decent artistic collection. A casual stroll through all exhibitions will take about 4 hours. It is a nice break from the heat of Beijing summer or rains that disrupt the scheduled outdoor activities.

There is a special exhibition from Louvre. I found myself dumb-founded at the beauty and realism of those sculptures. If you are in Beijing before November, don't miss it.

I aged twenty years in an instant when Vicent and Niece came down the procession aisle. That would be myself, many years in the future, walking to the same bridal music with my daughter — maybe different city, different venue, different setting, but myself nevertheless, only greyer and more wrinkled. Would I be so lucky?

I watched this kid grow since her birth. Now she glowed in that beautiful gown. Decades of memory vividly flashed by. Emotions, complicated, swirled up so strongly. There was this lunch in San Diego when I casually brought up the subject, “So, how is your love life recently?” Surprised. She started carefully teaching me his name.

Will there be another wedding in a few decades where I will be the grand-uncle of the bride? Would I be so lucky to feel oh-so-old and happy at the same time again?

And I end this with Dr. Phil’s advice:

Grow your marriage.
Relationships are negotiated, and the negotiation never stops. It’s always a give-and-take, always requires work. It’s like if you planted a garden and came back six months later—you wouldn’t even be able to find it. You have to tend it, nurture it, feed it, weed it, deal with the problems.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows J. K. Rowling ISBN: 978-0545010221 Pub. Date: July 21, 2007 Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix Michael Goldenberg (screenplay) J.K. Rowling (novel) Directed by David Yates Release: 10 August 2007

There are no spoilers in this blog. Feel safe to read this even if you have not finished the book or watched the movie.

A generation grew up with Harry Potter since Sorcerer's Stone published 9 years ago. And the series ended this summer. The publishing industry will eagerly wait for the next J.K. Rowling, or her next endeaver.

Good thing that the movie series will keep everyone hooked for a few more years.

I did not dress up as one of the characters to wait for the clock to strike mid-night. Instead, we drove to Costco at 9am, July 21st, and got a copy with no wait. I woke up at 7am the next morning and took the book from the bedside of my younger daughter and started reading. I knew that she finished. The older daughter woke up few hours later, walked up to me without a word, and I surrendered the book without protest. We understood the faster reader get it first. By the afternoon of July 23rd, Monday, she handed it back to me. Then work got in the way. I attended all-day meetings from July 24th to 27th, Friday. Wife did not protest about my absence during the weekend. By Sunday morning (really early), I put down the book, sighed, and went to sleep. It ended.

Structurally, this may be J.K. Rowling's best. The main line kept its focus the sub-plots are natural. Her socio-political points are obvious and the human tragedies are just enough for older readers to understand and younger ones to feel the gravity.

Harry Potter books gave me this 9-year journey with my kids. They grew up with Harry Potter and I participated. They really have out-grown the magics and sometime the patience for J.K. Rowling's compusion became thin. The last few books are honestly obligatory readings — few days of light works in exchange of keeping up with the story line and the buzz. This finale, slightly anticlimactical, is refreshing as well as a relief.

The movie high-lighted one of my senior moments — I have forgotten what the book was about. And I remembered the cute little kid Daniel Radcliff was. How much Harry, Hermione, and Ron have grown! Maybe a 18-year-old (he was born in 1989) actor can still play the 15-year old Harry. It will be unrealistic for the next 3 movies.

This book turned mature in the series with a cold-blooded murder and the beginning of teenage romance. The movie faithfully reflected that changee. Magic is no longer the attraction; complex characters and intensive struggles are. I watched all those small kids in the theater and wondered how much they enjoyed it. They clearly did. The new director seemed to have find a good balance between keeping the little kids excited and older ones entertained too.

Soon, my senility will win and I won't remember exactly what happened in which book. It is pretty certain that there will be a box edition of all Harry Potter movies in few years. I probably will add them to my collection, together with God Father, Indiana Jones, Matrix, Lord of the Rings, etc. Nope, although I did watched them all, I do not intend to add Rocky and RoboCop to my collection.

It is not an alien concept to buy or sell intangible. Chicago hosts the largest exchange services for futures, options, and commodities. Internet, as expected, intensified this beyond traditionists' imagination and left the uninitiated bewildered and befuddled.

Korea, not USA, is the most advanced region in the world for online gaming. Gamers gain rock-star-like status. People gathered to watch game play and cheered with every impressive move. Superstar gamers get endorsement money from merchandisers not unlike sport stars in USA.

In serious gaming, a player needing an edge frequently turns to ItemBay — a web-sited serving, exclusively, the exchange of virtual items, such as weapons, armors, or even gold coins. Its moniker a pun on eBay, this company has over 35 million dollars of transactions every month. Several sources estimated that this RMT (Real Money Transaction) industry is nearly a billion dollars a year.

Entrepreneurs in China employ low-cost workers to sweep the virtual world for valuable items or laboring, virtually, for gold or other commodities. Once harvested, the company sell them for real money. Amateur gamers cried foul; wealthy gamers simply buy their ways into the prestige class, instead of earning it the honest old fashioned way. There is a law prohibiting professional gold-farming; it allows trades among true gamers. Honestly, I don't see how this law can be enforced.

Can I relate those companies with the textile industry sweat shops?

The phenomenon illustrates few points Jonathan ingrained on us during the recent executive pow-wow in Menlo Park.

• Business happens where people are. Rich as they are, only 300 million people live in USA. Internet activities and consumers now define the world economy, instead of supply chains and enterprises. This means that action will be in Asia.

• Innovation happens elsewhere. Different region chooses to invest on the infra-structures that benefit them the most. These investments will yield fruits relevant to the region. Smart businesses exploit and harvest those innovations.

• Business process innovations and technological ones complement each other. Wherever there is a demand, someone will design a business structure to exploit it.

How would we thrive in this new world? Think global ALL THE TIME. Opportunities and competitors are both waiting. Ignorance will definitely miss the opportunities; competition does not play fair and has no mercy.