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krystalxu

BBC Food - Curry: Where did it come from? - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/24432750

history culture curry

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • the word curry has "changed its meaning and become ubiquitous as a menu word",
  • there is a recipe for kari in a 17th Century Portuguese cookery book.
  • "What had been an Indian sauce to go with rice, became an English stew with a little rice in it," according to Alan Davidson.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Researchers also found wheat, barley, millet, lentils, bananas and mung beans at the site.
  • curry pub of the year, favourite restaurant, and best signature dish.
krystalxu

Why Japan is failing its women - Sep. 15, 2016 - 0 views

money.cnn.com/...index.html

history culture economic economics policy Japan women sexism

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • "This was the first time a prime minister connected women's issues to the economy -- that working women can be beneficial to growth,
  • Matsui estimates that bringing the percentage of Japanese women in work in line with that of men would lift the country's GDP by as much as 13%.
  • But one clear advance came in April, when a law came into effect that requires companies with more than 300 employees to disclose the number of female employees and managers, along with specific targets and plans to support them.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • About 70% of Japanese companies even provide a dependent allowance,
  • But more change is necessary, especially on policies that make it less appealing for women to work and instead promote the "male breadwinner model,"
  • And questions are swirling over whether the Bank of Japan has exhausted its arsenal of monetary policy weapons.
krystalxu

How Humiliation Drove Modern Chinese History - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...280878

history culture China humiliation

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • the widening of trade in new ports, and extraterritoriality for British subjects in China—a privilege obtained by American and French governments soon afterwards.
  • an imbalance that finally came to a head with the loss in the Opium Wars.
  • the British took revenge by targeting the Summer Palace.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • a century and a half later, the Communist Party continues to preserve the ruined state of the Summer Palace as a reminder of the British plunder.
  • how his role in ending this humiliation forever colored Chinese impressions of Mao Zedong.
krystalxu

China's Anti-Corruption Org Seeks 'Hidden Tigers' | The Diplomat - 0 views

thediplomat.com/...uption-org-seeks-hidden-tigers

China politics history crisis culture policy economic

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • promised that there are more high-ranking officials to be toppled.
  • China’s Supreme People’s Court just publicly released its Fourth Five-Year Reform Plan. The Supreme People’s Court Monitor (and occasional Diplomat contributor) Susan Finder, has the scoop.
  • “A positive role for China in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” (by Yiyi Chen of Peking University’s Institute for Hebrew and Jewish Studies) to analyzing “China’s interests in preserving the Israeli-Palestinian impasse” (by Robert Bianchi of the University of Chicago Law School).
krystalxu

China's 'Arab Pivot' Signals the End of Non-Intervention | The Diplomat - 0 views

thediplomat.com/...ls-the-end-of-non-intervention

US politics history culture crisis policy Chia non-intervention

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • the cutting of diplomatic ties between Iran and a handful of Sunni governments.
  • China’s growing international activities, specifically those attached to the Middle East are part and parcel to a new era of “internationalization” for China
  • China is now part of the complex geopolitical mire of the Middle East and with its increasingly dependence on oil, disengaging from the region even willingly will be a daunting task.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • China has been openly vocal about its interests in building ties with Middle East states, predominantly as a way to probe for opportunities to satisfy China’s burgeoning energy needs,
  • Another is the formulation and implementation of humanitarian assistance programs, which can easily act as coverage for establishing the presence of a conflict-ready military force.
  • Beijing’s presence in Syria brings it in closer alignment with Russia.
  • Beijing will need to turn to the pressing issues of how to operate now that its has vacated its longstanding positions of non-alignment and non-intervention.
  • Syria represents just one case in the broader Middle East, but is an instructive example of the complexities ahead.
  • Uyghur presence and an enduring insurgency in Syria and Iraq presents the great instability and a challenge to China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project.
  • China’s peacekeeping contributions began in the early 1990s, and troop deployments continued with significant contributions reaching nearly 2,000 troops by 2009.
  • China is standing at the epicenter of instability in the region.
  • Latent expectations of alignment by Beijing with specific Middle East states already exist, having been established decades prior to its present-day interactio
krystalxu

China's Approach to the Middle East Looks Familiar | The Diplomat - 0 views

thediplomat.com/...the-middle-east-looks-familiar

politics US history Middle East

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • China had typically offered infrastructure-for-energy and other business deals.
  • “There is hope in the East,” one Arab businesswoman in the United Arabian Emirates told me.
  • Some things about the American model of foreign affairs are beginning to seem inevitable.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Chalk it up to Beijing’s shifting global agenda or a diplomatic coming-of-age.
  • At a lackluster late-October forum on energy cooperation in Beijing this year, trade officials said Arab counterparts had to “restructure their economies,”
  • one of Saudi Arabia’s chief competitors in the race to quench China’s thirst for energy.
  • The tables had turned and Saudi Arabia now seems more eager to pursue the relationship.
  • Arab politicos and intellectuals have long decried a precarious U.S
  • The implications are clear: China has long represented an alternative in the global market for influence once dominated by Washington;
  • , UAE enterprise Dubai Ports World pulled out of a plan to manage six U.S. ports after U.S. legislators attacked the deal as a potential security risk.
  • China surpassed the United States as the Middle East’s largest export market and also as the largest importer of Middle Eastern oil.
  • In the meantime, China built a flurry of projects designed to show its embrace of the Arab world.
  • the longest highway in the entire continent of Africa. Corruption allegations over the highway are ongoing.
  • The reasons are manifold. An absence of venture capital and innovation in Arab economic planning are among the reasons why the infrastructure didn’t revolutionize the Middle East/North Africa region.
  • Beijing appears to have abandoned its principles of noninterference on the way to the top.
  • the Middle East and North Africa enjoyed a marketplace with options.
  • But as China ascends, the promise of a rising Eastern power is no more. As far as Arabs are concerned, Beijing has done little but reinvent the U.S. model of global dominance.
krystalxu

US Sanctions on Iran: Good or Bad News for China? | The Diplomat - 0 views

thediplomat.com/...ran-good-or-bad-news-for-china

US politics crisis policy trump sanctions Iran China Diplomat

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The sanctions list includes three separate networks linked to supporting Iran’s missile program, which the U.S. opposes.
  • He told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March that the JCPOA was “catastrophic for America, Israel, and the whole of the Middle East.”
  • China’s economic relations with Iran were largely untouched by the series of U.S. sanctions adopted by Trump’s predecessors over the past decade.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • some Chinese believe the new sanctions will create valuable opportunities for China’s interests in the Middle East.
  • The Iranians, while valuing China’s economic relations with their country during the past few years of intense sanctions, now hope to establish new connections with the West to get more advanced technology and management skills.
  • Besides the economic challenge for China, the more serious and long-term challenge is political.
  • it will be a challenge for China to decide whom to support.
  • sentiments after the new round of sanctions may push China into an embarrassing international position.
  • For China, the U.S. sanction may become big challenges, not only to China-U.S. relation, but also to China’s relations with Iran and to the OBOR initiative in the Middle East.
krystalxu

'How the French Invented Love' puts history of romance on map - 0 views

archive.jsonline.com/...-on-map-nj7a71d-175976411.html

French romance history culture

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • the French have shaped our understandings and expectations of love and its discontents for nearly a millennium, from Abélard and Héloise - the star-crossed lovers whose legendary love made them sort of the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor of their day - to the existential yearnings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
  • it evolved into an articulated code of conduct, codified in the romances of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult.
  • . But at its root, love was still seen as a transcendent experience - just not necessarily with your spouse.
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  • Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, the French idea of love was caught between celebrating l'amour in all its manifestations and cursing its bittersweet legacy of suffering, heartbreak and loss.
  • But Yalom's affection for the simultaneous idealism and pragmatism of l'amour a la française is infectious,
krystalxu

Romanticism in France (article) | France | Khan Academy - 0 views

www.khanacademy.org/...romanticism-in-france

history culture Romanticism France

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Artists explored diverse subjects and worked in varied styles so there is no single form of French Romanticism.
  • intimacy, spirituality, color, yearning for the infinite, expressed by all the means the arts possess
  • If David’s work reveals the Romantic impulse in French art early on, French Romanticism was more thoroughly developed later in the work of painters and sculptors such as Theodore Gericault, Eugène Delacroix and François Rude.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • “the Koran of the so-called Romantic artists.”
  • The first marker of a French Romantic painting may be the facture, meaning the way the paint is handled or laid on to the canvas.
  • The theme of man and nature found its way into Romantic art across Europe.
  • Raft of the Medusa (1819
  • Some artists, including Gericault and Delacroix, depicted nature directly in their images of animals.  
  • Lion and Serpent (1835.)
  • Another interest of Romantic artists and writers in many parts of Europe was the concept that people, like animals, were not solely rational beings but were governed by instinct and emotion.
  • Whatever he thought of being called a Romantic artist, Delacroix brought his intense fervor to political subjects as well.
  • That intensity of emotion, so characteristic of French Romantic art, would be echoed if not amplified by the sculptor François Rude’s Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 (La Marseillaise) (1833-6).
  • French Romanticism remains difficult to define because it is so diverse. Baudelaire’s comments from the Salon of 1846 may still apply:
krystalxu

10 Facts You Should Know Before Visiting The Forbidden City - 0 views

www.chinahighlights.com/...forbidden-city-facts.htm

history culture China Forbidden City Beijing

shared by krystalxu on 17 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • largest ancient palace in the world. 
  • Forbidden City has been the home 500 years of dynastic rule
  • It has 9,999 rooms filled with ancient artifacts.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The 9,999 rooms in the Forbidden City are contained within 980 magnificent wooden buildings.
  • The Fangshan Restaurant and Family Li Imperial Cuisine Restaurant are both popular places to dine like emperors. They are also located near the Forbidden City and can be reached by taxi or on foot.
  • is considered one of the best museums in the world
  • 24 Chinese emperors
  • The estimated 1 million laborers who worked to complete the structure have left their marks in the unique artistry of the paintings, carvings, and design of the palace.
  • Many tourists opt for a walking tour of the area that includes Tian'anmen Square (the National Museum there is also worth a visit), the hutongs, and Jingshan Park for an elevated overview of the Forbidden City. 
krystalxu

A Look at Gender Expectations in Japanese Society - Japan Powered - 0 views

www.japanpowered.com/...pectations-in-japanese-society

gender role tradition men women equality women role history society Japan culture

shared by krystalxu on 13 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Gender roles are defined by culture more than physical differences between men and women.
  • independence is not considered a desirable trait for a man in China
  • Men were expected to be loyal to their lords; women were to be loyal to their family and husband.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Japan was a fairly equitable matriarchal society until Confucian ideas immigrated from China.
  • women could own and inherit property and family position in feudal Japan.
  • They were encouraged by propaganda to be married to the nation.
  • Poor women were drafted by the Japanese government to sexually service military men.
  • Discrimination based on gender was forbidden by the Japanese Constitution.
  • Modern Japanese gender roles revolve around their vertical society where someone’s identity is a part of their group identity.
  • Both genders are also delaying marriage. The stigma of being single is fading for both genders, most of all for women.
  • Genders should be brought up differently
  • The roles also work within the vertical social structure of senior-junior relations
  • the typical American ideal of the “macho” alpha male is frowned upon in Japanese society.
  • Guys are expected to be well rounded in art, music, literature, and more just like in feudal Japan
  • Girls in anime make a huge deal out of making lunch for their favorite guy because it is a wifely thing.
  • the ideal male character is rather feminine
  • Cooking well shows how the character is well rounded and able to support the woman should she have a career of her own.
  • Sweets are considered unmanly.
  • some bakeries have taken to making huge portion sizes so guys can feel less feminine about having a sweet tooth.
krystalxu

Gender Roles of Women in Modern Japan - Japan Powered - 0 views

www.japanpowered.com/...ender-roles-women-modern-japan

Japan women equality women role history culture tradition man family value

shared by krystalxu on 13 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Both male and female roles influence each other.
  • Japan, like China and Korea, is heavily influenced by Confucian ideals.
  • en are the heads of the household; women are dependent on the men.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Marriage was often arranged.
  • The largest shift happened after World War II.
  • Family lineage is more important than marriage.
  • (1602-1868), women did not legally exist
  • Wives could be returned to her family if she failed to produce an heir.
  • Women’s happiness is found only in marriage, according to tradition.
  • All were heads of the household. Now, should could be the head of the household (Sato, 1987)
  • Japanese men average only 30 minutes of housework, child care, and elder care each day (North, 2009).
  • Women are entitled to not much beyond motherhood; men are not entitled to much beyond work (Bae, 2010).
  • The Civil Code of 1947 granted woman every possible legal right:
  • Marriage and children are synonymous
  • women are expected to submit to male authority in three ways
  • Motherhood is adulthood in many regards.
  • Equality benefits men as much as it does women.
  • Many men want to be present fathers rather than distant father figures.
  • Increasingly, families want to have daughters rather than sons.
  • The preference for daughters points to a continuation of tradition in regards to women and a more liberal view with men.
  • Women may favor daughters because they want the daughter to help in traditional roles: care giver and companion.
  • the equality is the option to continue traditional ways if she chooses
  • Women are demure; men are assertive. These are traditional traits in both Japanese and American societies.
  • Men are able to shed the silliness of masculinity (Big boys don’t cry. Men must be strong, etc)
krystalxu

How Singapore Is Creating More Land for Itself - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ting-more-land-for-itself.html

Singapore land culture social politics crisis US economy

shared by krystalxu on 10 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • One of the island’s most distinctive features, though, remains hidden: the Jurong Rock Caverns, which hold 126 million gallons of crude oil.
  • Next year, three new vaults will be ready. Then, if all goes according to plan, there will be six more.
  • the Jurong Rock Caverns are less an emblem of the marvels of technology than of the anxiety of a nation.
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • Singapore is the 192nd-largest country in the world.
  • I remarked that the phrase “freeing up land” occurs like clockwork in conversations with Singapore’s planners. He laughed.
  • But reclaiming land from the ocean has its limits, particularly in an age of a warming planet. Scientists warn that by 2100, sea levels may rise by as much as six feet, and furious storms will pound our coasts.
  • People have begun to leave Tuvalu, in the South Pacific; the Marshall Islands; and Nauru, in Micronesia. Five of the lowest Solomon Islands have already vanished.
  • how it fends off the ocean will be of deep interest to many other populous and productive cities near the water: New York, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Guangzhou, all miniature nations of a sort.
  • “If global temperatures continue to rise,” a government official said last year, “many parts of Singapore could eventually be submerged.
  • Singapore was a tiny nation, and dire fates awaited tiny nations that could not take care of themselves.
  • On the first floor of a city museum in the Urban Redevelopment Authority building, a wall is engraved with letters that spell SMALL ISLAND.
  • At the spot where the hill was broken down and carted off to build Boat Quay, there now stands One Raffles Place, clad in steel and glass, taller, in all probability, than its rock-and-mud forefather.
  • Beach Road, in the island’s belly, at one time had a self-evident name; now it reads like a wry joke, given how much new land separates it from the ocean.
  • Once, having strayed into Indonesia’s territorial waters without a permit, they were arrested.
  • Lim is able to narrate, practically by himself, a fine-grained history of the island’s reclamation projects.
  • Several countries have tired of feeding Singapore’s endless appetite for sand; Indonesia, Malaysia and, most recently, Cambodia have halted exports altogether.
  • but it still holds more than 200,000 human remains within its 400 acres, making it one of the largest Chinese graveyards outside China.
  • As the ocean grows less shallow, it becomes harder and harder to build the wall, to stabilize the infill, to protect it all from collapse.
  • The most miserable truth about this moment of the Anthropocene is the inevitability of it all; even if the whole world switched to solar power and turned vegetarian tomorrow, we cannot remove the carbon we’ve released into the atmosphere.
  • money can expand the imagination, swell the sense of the possible.
  • “Ships sail from the Suez, where they refuel, and then the next refueling stop is Singapore.”
  • Wang urged me to visit the Float at Marina Bay, the world’s largest floating stage, a 107,000-square-foot slice of steel that clings to the lip of Singapore’s esplanade.
  • Still, unnaturalness may well be the world’s conceivable future;
  • Singapore’s, as the country prepares to terraform itself in search of space. There will be more underground caverns, David Tan told me: a warren of research laboratories within the folds of Kent Ridge, right under the university; perhaps a warehousing facility beneath Jurong Bird Park.
  • Sky bridges and midair concourses are already a part of some public-housing estates.
  • Singapore already has high-rise factories: towers occupied by dozens of manufacturing units, all sharing amenities like cargo elevators, electricity and truck ramps.
  • . Given enough ready money, thorny issues of territorial sovereignty swiftly dissolve.
  • Singapore has always held elections, but only one party — Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party — has ever ruled the island, and only three men have ever been prime minister. Opposition parties have never been permitted to be anything more than frail invertebrates, so the P.A.P. can do as it pleases.
  • Most of the infill in the reclamations under a coming shipping-container terminal — planned to be the world’s largest — is rock and soil debris from construction projects.
  • The cemetery is so overgrown with weeds that it is one of Singapore’s few truly untended spaces.
  • The two countries bickered over reclamation activities here in 2002; it took three years of negotiations before Singapore could proceed.
  • Trapped beyond the inner wall was a low pool of water, yet to be filled in. Around us, the ocean lay idle in the sun, ready to challenge Singapore’s ingenuity with its patient, adamant rise.
krystalxu

Why Germany's current-account surplus is bad for the world economy - 0 views

www.economist.com/...ys-current-account-surplus-bad

Germeny politics US trump policy economics economic

shared by krystalxu on 10 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • the stage is set for a clash between a protectionist America and a free-trading Germany.
  • demanded the renegotiation of another, the North American Free-Trade Agreement.
  • He is weighing whether to impose tariffs on steel imports into America, a move that would almost certainly provoke retaliation.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • An imminent free-trade deal between Japan and the European Union will add substance to her rhetoric (see article).
  • Mr Trump has grasped an inconvenient truth. He has admonished Germany for its trade surplus, which stood at almost $300bn last year, the world’s largest (China’s hoard was a mere $200bn).
  • put a stop to sales of German cars—may be self-defeating, but the fact is that Germany saves too much and spends too little.
  • this is not the result of a mercantilist government policy, as some foreigners complain.
  • the increase in national saving has come from firms and the government.
  • It is an instinct that helps explain Germany’s transformation since the late 1990s from Europe’s sick man to today’s muscle-bound champion.
  • There is much to envy in Germany’s model. Harmony between firms and workers has been one of the main reasons for the economy’s outperformance.
  • This is one reason why the populist AfD party remains on the fringes of German politics.
  • Exporters do not invest their windfall profits at home. And Germany is not alone; Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands have been piling up big surpluses, too.
  • For a large economy at full employment to run a current-account surplus in excess of 8% of GDP puts unreasonable strain on the global trading system.
  • Perhaps Germany’s bumper trade surplus will be eroded as China’s was, by a surge in wages.
  • the German instinct for caution is deeply rooted.
  • Germany’s structural budget balance has gone from a deficit of over 3% of GDP in 2010 to a small surplus.
  • The economy lags behind in its readiness for digitalisation, ranking 25th in the world in average download speeds.
  • Above all, it is long past time for Germany to recognise that its excessive saving is a weakness.
krystalxu

Eiffel Tower - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com - 0 views

www.history.com/...eiffel-tower

paris Eiffel Tower France culture history

shared by krystalxu on 10 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • In 1889, Paris hosted an Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) to mark the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution.
  • The commission was granted to Eiffel et Compagnie, a consulting and construction firm owned by the acclaimed bridge builder, architect and metals expert Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel.
  • it was one of his employees—a structural engineer named Maurice Koechlin—who came up with and fine-tuned the concept
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • March 1889 stood nearly 1,000 feet high and was the tallest structure in the world—a distinction it held until the completion of New York City’s Chrysler Building in 1930.
  • Initially, only the Eiffel Tower’s second-floor platform was open to the public; later, all three levels, two of which now feature restaurants, would be reachable by stairway or one of eight elevators.
  • Not all of the city’s inhabitants were as enthusiastic, however: Many Parisians either feared it was structurally unsound or considered it an eyesore.
  • The Eiffel Tower Becomes a Permanent Feature of the Paris Skyline
  • the Eiffel Tower was almost torn down and scrapped in 1909.
  • Several years later, during World War I, the Eiffel Tower intercepted enemy radio communications, relayed zeppelin alerts and was used to dispatch emergency troop reinforcements.
  • Over the years, the Eiffel Tower has been the site of numerous high-profile stunts, ceremonial events and even scientific experiments.
  • The Eiffel Tower has also inspired more than 30 replicas and similar structures in various cities around the world.
  • Now one of the most recognizable structures on the planet, the Eiffel Tower underwent a major facelift in 1986 and is repainted every seven years.
krystalxu

Chess in a black box: China's five most powerful people - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US crisis policy China Communism National Congress Congress

shared by krystalxu on 10 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The country is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, in a one-party system, making whoever occupies the highest positions in the party among the most powerful.
  • Power isn't just held by the politicians either -- influential businessmen and entrepreneurs, the pioneers of China's economic rise, are also fighting for a seat at the table.
  • the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party on October 18,
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Tencent's app, WeChat, is currently the largest and most commonly used messaging system in the world, with almost 1 billion users.
  • "He's regarded as being a sort of low-profile, not particularly interlinked or interconnected premier. He's got probably the worst job in China.
  • it's not a sort of political power. It's administrative power," he said.
  • "Power is about initiating, setting frameworks, setting the agenda. Well you can see people doing that, but Li Keqiang is more of an administrator."
  • The company's founder, Ma Huateng, is China's third richest man, according to Forbes, just behind Jack Ma and Dalian Wanda founder Wang Jianlin.
  • Ma, who is also known by his nickname "Pony," founded Tencent, the company which owns WeChat, in 1998 with his university classmates.
  • , Premier Li is number two in China's power structure, but his influence is far from assured.
  • It is those restrictions which make working in the world of China's internet so complex and potentially dangerous.
  • China's Great Firewall is rising higher than ever
  • "One challenge for tech titans like Ma in the coming years is whether they can keep on the good side of the authorities
  • Since then, Wang has grown to be a powerful, feared figure among Chinese officials.
  • Jack Ma is without a doubt one of China's most powerful people and possibly the country's most public face internationally next to President Xi.
  • As a result of Xi and Wang's crackdown, conspicuous spending and flaunting of wealth by officials has shrunk dramatically and as a result, Wang's political capital has continued to rise.
  • Wang's rise could be complicated by his age. He'll be 69 at the upcoming 19th Party Congress, meaning by custom he should retire.
  • he's the flamboyant and personable former English teacher who likes to dance to Michael Jackson tunes.
  • "He's been an essential lieutenant for Xi ... the president would be a weakened force without him at the top table," he said, placing Wang second
  • Ma, whose Chinese name is Ma Yun, is the executive chairman and founder of Alibaba,
  • Ma's peer on the China rich list, has had to abandon a series of major international deals after coming under scrutiny from Beijing.
  • Most people can't see the day after tomorrow."
  • China's president and, more importantly, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, analysts say Xi is already the country's most powerful leader since Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping
  • Xi's power is only set to grow.
  • far more than his predecessors,
  • most recently Chen Min'er who was promoted as party secretary of Chongqing.
  • Guo Wengui, the US-based businessman and perennial thorn in the side of the Chinese Communist Party.
  • and the chess game itself goes on inside a highly impenetrable black box," he said.
krystalxu

How Japan Copied American Culture and Made it Better | Travel | Smithsonian - 0 views

www.smithsonianmag.com/...e-and-made-it-better-180950189

Japan culture US history

shared by krystalxu on 10 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The American presence in Japan now extends far beyond the fast-food franchises, chain stores and pop-culture offerings that are ubiquitous the world over.
  • some very rarefied versions of America to be found in today’s Japan.
  • In Japan, the ability to perfectly imitate—and even improve upon—the cocktails, cuisine and couture of foreign cultures isn’t limited to American products; there are spectacular French chefs and masterful Neapolitan pizzaioli who are actually Japanese.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Bourbon
  • But the best examples of Japanese Americana don’t just replicate our culture.
  • It’s easy to dismiss Japanese re-creations of foreign cultures as faddish and derivative
  • Nearly every bottle is bourbon, though there is a smattering of rye and sour mash. I can see bottles from the 1800s next to obscure export bottlings of Jim Beam next to standard-issue Jack Daniel’s.
  • I finally got to visit in 1984. I fell in love with America then. I’ve been back a hundred times since. I now own a house in Lexington, and I’ve even been named a colonel in Kentucky.”
  • can you be nostalgic for a time and place you never knew? These two Japanese bourbon temples represent a bold act of imagination.
  • I ask why no one in America stocks anything really old.
  • “The idea that this was a drink whose past you’d want to discover through old bottles, that’s a very new idea.”
  • I imagine Tatsumi 25 years ago roaring across the small roads of the American South and discovering bottles that only he knew to treasure.
  • dreamlands for high-fidelity obsessives
  • They offer a kind of jazz experience based on pure appreciation of the act of listening.
  • “Imported records were really expensive. Jazz kissa were the only places in the city where fans could listen to the music they loved.”
krystalxu

North Korea hackers reportedly stole US, South Korea war plans | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...-us-south-korea-war-plans.html

politics US trump policy North Korea attack

shared by krystalxu on 10 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • A plan to assassinate Kim Jong Un and preparations for a potential nuclear showdown with North Korea were among the trove of South Korean military documents reportedly stolen by Hermit Kingdom hackers.
  • South Korea’s Defense Ministry did not comment on the alleged hack
  • South Korea announced in May a “large amount of data” was stolen during a cyber attack that was possibly orchestrated by Kim Jong Un’s rogue regime.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • The hack consisted of 235 gigabytes of military documents and about 80 percent of what was stolen hasn’t been identified.
  • Kim Jong Un's regime is suspected of hacking South Korean military documents.
  • North Korea denied stealing the documents
  • Pyongyang is suspected of having expert hackers attack South Korean government websites and facilities for years.
  • you have got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our President can employ if needed
  • Trump, meanwhile, has continued his attacks against “little rocket man” Kim Jong Un and his regime
  • Policy didn’t work!”
  • Kim Jong Un promoted his sister, Kim Yo Jong, to become an alternate member of the country’s top decision-making body, the politiburo.
krystalxu

6 cultural differences between China and the US[5]- Chinadaily.com.cn - 0 views

www.chinadaily.com.cn/...content_19834344_5.htm

shared by krystalxu on 09 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Chinese people value education and career more than Americans, who in turn put more emphasis on good character and faith.
krystalxu

Japan - VALUES AND BELIEFS - 0 views

countrystudies.us/58.htm

janpanese culture value history society

shared by krystalxu on 07 Oct 17 - Cached
  • Confucianism
    • krystalxu
      krystalxu on 07 Oct 17
       
      Interesting fact : nowadays Chinese, according my previous reading, don't think this is important or needed within the society or culutre
  • This view implies that hierarchy is natural.
  • Japanese find it awkward, even unbecoming, when a person does not behave in accordance with status expectations.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • As is appropriate in a culture that stresses the value of empathy, one person cannot speak without considering the other.
  • Men and women employ somewhat different speech patterns, with women making greater use of polite forms.
  • But the kind of hierarchical sense that pervades the whole society is of a different sort, which anthropologist Robert J. Smith calls "diffuse order."
  • they may have had no direct involvement in the situation.
  • apan, like all other societies, has conflicts between individual and group.
  • most Japanese place greater emphasis on cultivating "a self that can feel human in the company of others," according to David W. Plath.
  • secular society
  • Religious practice, too, emphasizes the maintenance of harmonious relations with others
  • Harmony, order, and self-development are three of the most important values that underlie Japanese social interaction.
  • the gods display human emotions,
  • Empathy and Human Relations
  • Japan is among the societies that most strongly rely on social rather than supernatural sanctions and emphasize the benefits of harmony.
  • Children learn early to recognize that they are part of an interdependent society,
  • most Japanese tend to avoid open competition and confrontation.
  • If each individual in the group understands personal obligations and empathizes with the situations of others, then the group as a whole benefits.
  • Success can come only if all put forth their best individual efforts. Decisions are often made only after consulting with everyone in the group. Consensus does not imply that there has been universal agreement, but this style of consultative decision making involves each member of the group in an information exchange, reinforces feelings of group identity, and makes implementation of the decision smoother.
  • Symbols such as uniforms, names, banners, and songs identify the group as distinct from others both to outsiders and to those within the group.
  • It is often the individual, however, who bears the burden of these interpersonal tensions.
  • Many Japanese cope with these stresses by retreating into the private self or by enjoying the escapism offered by much of the popular culture.
  • Order and Status
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