In my trip to France, I bought another book on Tin Tin. It is a book about the stamps of Tin Tin issued in France, and gives a lot of background information of these stamps. (Since it is a “collector edition”, the store owner sold this 19.80€ book at 30€.)

I remember walking by such a store when I visited Paris 5 years ago. That time, I wondered from the Notre Dame with Ray Cai.

The Tin Tin store was close to St. Germain Ave. It is just beside the METRO station called “Cluny, La Sarbonne.” In addition to this one, there is a store called Album that also sells Tin Tin souvenirs.

On the first page of the book, there is a quote by Herge:

Du plus en plus, je m’attache a connaitre et a comprendre, a rompre des barrieres, au propre comme au figure. Si je me suis mis a vioyager (enfin~), ce n’est pas seulement pure voir de nouveaux paysages, pas suelement pour me documenter, mais pour decouvrir d’autres modes de vie, d’autres facons de penser; en somme, pour elargir ma vision du monde.

— Herge, 1971

Here is my translation:

Increasingly, I establish a knowing and understanding. When I am traveling, I would not merely see new landscapes, nor would I just keep documenting. Rather, I’d uncover other lifestyles, other ways of thinking, overall, to broaden my vision of the world.

Owing to the Tibet situation, the French president suggested banning Beijing Olympics. I’m very upset with this move. Not just me, a lot of Chinese people are deeply hurt. Some people started to boycott Carrifour, a French chain store.

To me, both actions (banning olympics and boycotting carrifour) show irresponsibility.

Olympics is known to be a world event that brings hope and peace to people. In ancient Greece, even two countries at war would stop fighting during the Olympics. It is very mean to use Olympics as a political vehicle to add pressure to the hosting country. Besides, Tibet issue is more complicated. Many people, including the French president, know little about the history of Tibet, and would really not qualify to take a public position on it.

Now for Carrifour boycott. The chain store has nothing to do with the president’s position. Boycotting the store does not do any help to improve the situation.

Before the trip, even Jade felt that we should not go, in light of the tension between China and France. Part of the reason is due to the irresponsible statements by the French president, and part of the reason is due to the negative attitude of the French consulate in HK (more about this in Jade’s blog).

I decided to go because I believe that misunderstandings can be resolved when people can know more about each other. Human beings are very foolish throughout history. They fight with their neighbors, then they fight the near-by town, then another country. If some day life forms from other planets visit us, we would be fighting them for sure. Few people stopped and thought about why and for what we are fighting. The answer is clear for politicians, they fight for their power, and for their ambition to control things, and the ambition to show they have things in control. For ordinary people, there is really no such need to fight.

We went to Quimper, Bretagne for the wedding of our friends Grace and Benoit. I was deeply impressed by the buildings and landscapes. I was equally impressed by the friendship showed by the people in Quimper.

In the wedding, as the legal witness for Grace of the marriage, I made the following statement, it is very close in spirit to Herge’s view on traveling.

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If human beings really evolved from monkeys, then the French people and the Chinese people are definitely from two very different groups of monkeys. Indeed, we look so different, and there are so many things radically different in the two countries. It is easily imaginable what difficulties this couple have to overcome to stand together today. It is naturally difficult because we tend to be nervous when we meet people who are different. Owing to their overcoming the nervousness, we could all get together to celebrate their getting together. How do you overcome the nervousness? Just like the couple, you learn more about each other. Then you resolve the misunderstandings. Despite the many differences between French people and Chinese people, we have many things in common: we all love eating, the French word cuisine has a Chinese equivalence. We all love football. When French people say “tres bien”, Chinese people say “tai bang le”, they sound similar and mean the same thing. We all love freedom. We all love our own countries.

In this trip, we went to the wonderful church for the ceremony, and stayed in such a wonderful historical mansion. I can only use the word “wonderful” to describe this trip here. But more wonderful than the wonderfulness of this trip is the happy couple finding each other and finding the true love. The trip to France made me to love the French people more and more. The more I know this country, it becomes more lovable. What I hope here is that our French friends can visit us more in the future, and hope you can feel the same. Now you have the couple to visit and so many of us from China as new friends.

Looking for theoretical support?

The BPS Research Digest, reports on a study on forgiveness from the University of Sussex and the New School for Social Research. The study examines how groups which have committed atrocious acts against one another come to break the cycle of resentment and forgive.

[The researchers] surveyed 180 Bosnian Muslims about their attitudes towards Bosnian Serbs in the wake of the earlier conflict. They found that Bosnian Muslims who had more Serb friends and who identified more with a sense of being “Bosnian,” rather than “Bosnian Muslim” or “Bosniak,” also tended to show more empathy for Serbs as a group, to be more trusting of Serbs, and to see Serbs as more varied — all of which predicted greater levels of forgiveness and more positive attitudes towards the Serbs.

This pattern is consistent with what’s known as the “contact hypothesis” in social psychology, which states that more high quality contact between groups promotes intergroup reconciliation.

Something to light up the day.

Although Disney is evil as a company, what they create is indeed the dreamland for the kids.

We were planning for a trip to Xinjiang in the summer, then we learned about the riot. Terrorists in Xinjiang and Tibet set fire in the streets and killed innocent people.

These are some photos on CNN, taken by “The Economist” reporter James Miles.

I’m very upset to read about these. I still remember what it was like when a riot happened in Beijing in 1989. Nobody really benefited from the riot, except a few parties: the western media, and those so-called student leaders.

Dalai Lama was said to be behind these riots, and he seems to be involved when he “said that there should be an investigation into whether cultural genocide, intentionally or not, was taking place in Tibet”. I certainly hope he is not behind all these. I’d despise him if he exploited the sufferings of the Tibetan people to buy support from naive people in the western world. Why could not he learn from Ghandi, or Jesus if he is indeed the “living god”?

While it is understandable that the political figures may choose whatever means to fight for their political interests, I seriously got disappointed by some western media reporters who deliberately tried to bias the truth. What they have done are truly slanderous and highly offensive. Watch the following video and be amazed by how they deliberately distort what had happened:

One more comment on Tibet. Many westerners do not know what happened when Tibet was under control by the rich monks and the “living gods” before the PLA set the slaves free. Many Americans feel very proud that they won the war against slavery and highly regard Lincoln’s role in history, what had happened in Tibet is something similar. The PLA freed the slaves and did whatever can be done to help build the economy while reserving the culture. Is everyone in Tibet happy? Of course not, neither are the people who owned uncle Tom. There is just no Pareto solution for issues like these.

Below is an interview of Prof. Michael Parenti (PhD from Yale), a famous political scientist, who gives some background on the past of Tibet and what it was like when it was under slavery.

I found another piece of video broadcast at a Hong Kong TV station.  It contains uncut scenes of the riot.  The picture says for itself, no government would tolerate those people who started looting and setting fire on cars.  There were pictures of the PLA, they were deployed to protect the banks, public utilities, etc.

I went through a root canal procedure this morning.   The idea is to knock open the teeth, clean up the inside and fill in something to prevent infection.  I had to do it because for the past year, I have been suffering from tooth-pains whenever eating something.  It started when I tried to fix a cavity on another tooth at the dental clinic.  The doctor suggested to do something with this particular tooth, and the pain came with it.

I searched for information about the procedure.  It supposedly help to prevent further issues of toothache.  The downside is that the tooth will never be like before.  It will be weaker and filled with artificial stuffs.

Before the procedure, the doctor asked me to sign a consent form, which is common  whenever you go to an operation.  But  I then remembered how the pain started in the first place.  It was the same doctor who suggested a year ago to treat this particular tooth.  This situation is so vividly similar to the situation when I sent my car to the mechanic to change oil, and he suggested me to do a more expensive tune-up.  After the tune-up, my car started to give me issues here and there.  I remember I had to visit the mechanic at least once per month in Boston.

Although I have no evidence that the doctor or the mechanic did anything wrong to induce my suffering (in terms of money and in terms of physical pains), I do realize the issue of moral hazard.  In economics, moral hazard refers to a potentially unethical/illegal action that is unobservable.  As long as the action leads to favorable conditions for the  person who takes the action, we can not rule out the private incentive to take the action even if it is not to the benefit of the one who bears the cost.

In the future, is there a way to avoid a similar situation?  I don’t think so.  This morning, I did not  dare to mention that the doctor suggested to fix this previously fine tooth.  If I did, how can I prevent her from pulling out a healthy tooth of mine in the next visit?

Just received an email from MIT alumni office.  MIT will be tuition-free for nearly 30% students.

From the email:

MIT has long been a proponent of need-blind admissions and need-based
aid and this additional investment in our brilliant student body continues
to award aid based solely on need.

I’m very proud with this move.  I somehow have the impression that schools like Yale and Harvard are for rich kids. As a consequence, it means that some brilliant students can not go to those places due to financial constraints.  This artificial financial divide creates a feedback loop to discriminate kids from poorer families.  The free-tuition move at MIT will definitely help those smart and poor kids to fulfill their dreams, and more importantly help the society to benefit from better matching good education with smart kids.

I’m grateful to MIT for the support during my PhD study.   In addition to tuition waiver, I also got stipend to pay my rents, etc.  In return, I don’t know how to pay back this generosity.  Should I send my daughter to MIT in the future?  One thing for sure, her dad is richer than her dad’s dad.  If she needs to pay some tuition, I’d be happy to contribute.  The question is “Is MIT a good place for her?”

Back in Boston, we had some guests visiting,  one of them (G) asked Alantha (A),

G: Hey, Alantha, do you want to go to MIT or Harvard?
A: Hmm, I don’t want to go to either.
G: Oh, so where do you want to go?
A: Disneyland… (a sheepish smile)
Everyone else: (speechless)

I can categorize people I know into 4 groups. Well, at least theoretically, because I can’t really find an example in the (stupid,mean) domain.

Richard Feynman, among many other people who I respect belongs to the first quadrant of (smart,nice). A good example of (smart,mean) is probably Lu Xun or an assistant professor I met at Wharton (he subsequently left Wharton and went to Europe). I’ve been listening to two of his audiobooks “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”, and “What Do You Care What Other People Think”, and I feel very intellectually stimulated by his view of the world.

On my ipod, I have all sorts of audiobooks from Kung Fu novels by Jin Yong to bestsellers like “The World is Flat”, “The Devil Wears Prada” to non-fictions like one explaining E=MC^2, and a few of Stephen Hawking’s books on the universe. None of the these books can keep me awake at night. When I listen to Feynman’s audiobook, sometimes I get too excited to fall in sleep. For example, he described how he studied the process of people falling into sleep and how to examine the dreams. When I was young, I did almost exactly the same thing, and had some interesting findings such as “I can see color in dreams”, “I can control my motion consciously in my dreams”, and “I can create the situation in dream to explain the external sound I hear while I’m sleeping”.

The curiosity of finding how things work can be immensely rewarding. In the following video, Feynman explains how he appreciates the beauty of a flower. It’s amazing.

I hear, and I forget;

I see, and I remember;

I do, and I understand.

– Asian Proverb

From this paper by Nelson and Simmons.

In five studies, we [Nelson and Simmons] found that people like their names enough to unconsciously pursue consciously avoided outcomes that resemble their names. Baseball players avoid strikeouts, but players whose names begin with the strikeout-signifying letter K strike out more than others (Study 1). All students want As, but students whose names begin with letters associated with poorer performance (C and D) achieve lower grade point averages (GPAs) than do students whose names begin with A and B (Study 2), especially if they like their initials (Study 3). Because lower GPAs lead to lesser graduate schools, students whose names begin with the letters C and D attend lower-ranked law schools than students whose names begin with A and B (Study 4). Finally, in an experimental study, we manipulated congruence between participants’ initials and the labels of prizes and found that participants solve fewer anagrams when a consolation prize shares their first initial than when it does not (Study 5). These findings provide striking evidence that unconsciously desiring negative name-resembling performance outcomes can insidiously undermine the more conscious pursuit of positive outcomes.

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This figure on GPA says it all.

This is interesting. The old man can read your mind. Just click on the picture and follow the instructions.

Basically, it will ask you to look at one number and sum up the two digits, and subtract the sum from the number. If you have 31 in mind, the sum is 4, so the final number is 27. Now just click on the ball, it will show the symbol represented by number 27.

This only works when you really think hard, the man can either capture your brainwave or track the direction of your eye sight to figure out the number in your mind.

If you can figure out what is happening, leave a comment.

In Discovery Travel channel, there is a program called “Miami Ink”, it tells many stories about people getting tattoos.    Despite the way they tried to make it sound like fun and cool, I still don’t see any meaning of getting a tattoo.  I don’t think anyone I know has a tattoo, too.

The figure above is an ad for body piercing.  It shows that the risk of body piercing is very very low, compared to many other risks we face everyday.   That small number really is insignificant.  However, there is a fatal logical flaw in it. If you put the death as a result of body piercing on top of the human population as the denominator, you get such results.