A Chinese joke

Ten Chinese men were talking about how badly they were treated by their wives, and decided that it was unacceptable and something had to be done. In the midst of their discussion, the ten wives showed up and all the men hurried to run away, except one, who remained boldly in his seat.
The women, satisfied of their effect, went back to their daily routine. The 9 men were impressed with the courage of the other man and decided to appoint him as their president. He would then be resposible of leading the resistance against the dominance of women.
When they returned to inform him about his new elevated status, they found him dead of heart attack...

A 1900 chinese child description of Westerns

From the book: "Moment in Beijing" authored by Lin Yutang in 19 :

"

Oceanic people did everything upside down. Their writing went from left to right, instead of from right to left, and horizontally in "crab-walk" fashion instead of from top to bottom. They put their personal names before their family names, and strangest of all, in writing addresses they began with the house number, then the street, then the city, then the province, as if purposely to be contrary. They had to begin from the bottom if they wanted to know to which city a letter was going. And their women had large feet, a foot long, and talked in a loud voice, and had curly hair and blue eyes and went about arm in arm with men when walking.

All in all, the foreigners were the strangest imaginable sort of people.

"

Obama for China

I did a quick sondage among Chinese about the American elections. And Obama sounds a solid favorite. These are some of the impressions:


- Obama is different than other presidents. We need a new leadership.
- Obama is black. If a black person becomes president, he will inspire a whole generation of Chinese for a better future.
- Obama is young, so he wants/can make real changes.
- Obama is good looking.
- Obama is attacked for his race, just like Chinese people.
- Obama has big ears, so based on the Chinese beliefs, he will bring good luck an fortune.

Water, wealth and FengShui

Some Chinese scholars dedicate their whole career to study FengShui, I am progressively finding out that there are interesting FengShui guidelines. This blog post is about the water.

I often notice a beautiful aquarium or a mini water fountain in Chinese restaurants or banks; this is for Shengfui. In fact, this is how it goes:
- Water is the element of luck, success and wealth.

- The house, next to a flowing water, will bring luck to its occupents. However, if the water is too stagnant, this may create health problems.

- If your house is far from a river, you can always maximize the water factor, by having an aquarium or a fountain. Just make sure that the water is never dried up or idle.

There are some tweaks about the use of water for Shengfui that I will keep collecting and documenting. Make a comment if you think of other info I should add in this post..

Chinese and France

Yesterday, I talked to two Chinese people who went to France and gave me two contradictory answers:
1- I like France. French people are like us, Chinese. They love good food and they are not direct in their communication.. Just like Chinese people...
2- I don't like France. I prefer the Spanish, Turks and Arabs, because they are more social and enjoy spending time together. French are colder...

An earlier famous encounter between the Chinese and the French was back the 17th century. A Chinese Shen Fu Tsung (left picture) on 1687 demonstrated to the French king Louis 14 (the right picture) how to use chopsticks. Louis 14, was also called The Sun King because France was revolving around him, like the earth was revolving around the sun.

Gaudi and FengShui

While I am learning more about FengShui, I remember the impressive buildings of the world famous Spanish architect Gaudi.

In his construction, Gaudi considered the geography of Barcelona, the landscape of the region and the wind of the area and came up with architecture that is in harmony with nature:

















Did Gaudi study FengShui? Or is FengShui a natural phenomenon that is was felt by Gaudi but is not yet well understood by the Western culture?

Wind-Water

In the deep Chinese thinking, there is energy flowing in the universe, called Qi (pronounced Chi). This energy influences people moods and fortunes.

Chinese then pay attention to the placement and architecture of things to optimize the flow of this energy. The art (or science) of this practice is called "FengShui" (Wind-Water).

FengShui is very important in modern Chinese architecture and design. Here are an example:

This building in Hongkong optimizes the flow of FengShui by having a big square hole in the middle of the construction:

Modern science is recently catching up with this concept with all the fields theories (e.g. electromagnetic fields ).