Around New York

I heard this story over the radio: Two friends from Philadelphia, in their 80s, after one's wife passed away, made a pact to go to a museum every two weeks within 200 miles of radius. They have visited well over 50 museums so far, some spectacular, some mundane (like traveling all the way to see a horse...granted it was some special horse of historical value.) My Beinu friends and I are doing similar things right now.


New York Botanical Garden

(Special Exhibit: The Flower Art of Kiku)

The New York botanical garden is having a flower show "The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum (Kiku in japanese)", which covers a wide range of exquisite Oriental landscape objects: flowers such as chrysanthemum, camellia, lotus; trees such as red maple, pine, bamboo (Take), bonsai; settings such as lotus ponds, rock gardens, and a monumental bamboo sculpture.



The bamboo sculpture was huge bamboos being twisted and turned into a canopy. A lot of work, but not exactly beautiful.

As far as the centerpiece chrysanthemum goes, they come in all sizes and colors. I personally prefers the small, delicate kinds, which work equally well as ground covering as show pieces (or simply as the main ingredient in the Chinese chrysanthemum tea), so vibrant and effortlessly beautiful. The large breeds were too much for my taste, like peonies. It’s freakish to see how these huge flowers were “bent” (or “woven”) out of shape in the Japanese hands, like being made into a bouquet of 230-bulbs from one spindly flower stem all precariously propped up by massive amount of wires and contraption.

After the flamboyant outdoor flower shows, the indoor bonsai displays seemed a little pale, and, a little diminutive in comparison.


Very nice overall. I had all the pictures to prove it.

Admission: $20
Friends: Agnes Young, Hsiao-Hwa Hsu, Echo, Susie

Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), NY

(“Meeting with Bodhisattva” – the drum dance show by the U Theater, a Buddhist inspired dance group based in Taiwan, ROC)

In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is an enlightened being who postpones the attainment of nirvana in order to alleviate the suffering of others.

I guessed the show told how a person attained enlightenment through facing life’s many unknowns. I got only one act right: when the center character wielded his stick as an oar (Buddha’s path to enlightenment included the stint of being a ferryman.)

Ode to Buddha, my spiritual leader – I got that.

However, it would be quite difficult for the lay audience to understand the point of the dance without some preparation. There was plenty of acrobatic drumming and physical aerobics, but the movements were stealthily quiet, and there was no music.

Objectively, the dance was a bit too mystical and obtuse for popularity. Fortunately, it was not too long, lasting only 1 hour 20 minutes, and no intermission. On my way home, inside the Union Street subway station, a man and a woman were drumming vigorously on an array of improvised tin/plastic cans. They sounded almost familiar, and quite good.

Friends: Agnes Young, Hsiao-Hwa Hsu



More garden pictures are available at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/li.chungying/20082009Activities#

Susie Li (11/4/2008)

Six-Day (10/4-10/9/2008) Fall Foliage Drive to Maine

(It has been a while since I wrote. Life had been all work until this fall. Now that kids are gone - Jake went away to college at Buffalo, and Kristin works in San Francisco - the adults get to play...)

Sunshine everyday (high in the 60s, nighttime in the 30s), State of Maine (mind) goes like this: Shorelines (beautiful coasts, cold waters); meticulously preserved lighthouses; abundant seafood (lobsters, haddocks and shrimps); Arcadia state park has everything recreational one could ask for: ocean + Cadillac mountains + lakes + fjords + sea birds (Elder ducks, loons, puffins, American bald eagles, sea gulls) + plants (blueberries, cranberries, rosebuds, maple syrup) and fall foliage + hiking trails + rocks + boating or sports fishing, moose and miniature squirrels.

10/4/2008 Saturday (Day 1) Sunny and crisp day

- Drove 400 miles from Mount Kisco in the morning
- Arrived early afternoon in Maine: the “pine tree” state, the beautiful state, sunny
- Visited LL Bean at Freeport, ME. Not in a buying mood. Same stuff as in the catalogue. Too crowded.
- Stayed in Trade Winds Motel in Rockland dock side. Ate lobsters at the Big Fish Restaurant, my first. Morning breakfast at the motel was quite sumptuous.

10/5/2008 Sunday (Day 2) Sunny and crisp day

- Arrived in Arcadia State Park; stayed at the Seawall Motel on the Quiet Side (met Dave Loyd); met “speed bump” the cat and Dave’s daughter and guests at breakfast. It was a surprisingly warm and intimate breakfast. Lots of great conversations.
- Took a 3 mile beach loop hike around Wonderland. Ate at the “Dry Dock Café” (which was not much). Bought a cane-sugar green apple soda from Canada at a corner market, quite tasty.

10/6/2008 Monday (Day 3) Sunny and crisp day

- Visited Bar Harbor, the Sausalito of Arcadia; bought a beautiful red “father” vase at the tiny Asian/American “Eclipse” Gallery run by a lady from Beijing named Hongrun Lee (part-time resident from May-October)
- Drove to Cutler point, looked around, almost ran into a big moose on the way to the border town Lubec (the northern tip of Maine bordering the great state of Canada). Ate dinner at this cute but quite good restaurant, “Murphy’s Village Restaurant” (no more than 2 restaurants in town). Steve liked their Southern Burrito.
- The dockside motel in town is booked full. So we drove back to the next big town Machias. Retired to a roadside motel (not much of place to mention).

10/7/2008 Tuesday (Day 4) Sunny and crisp day

- Quoddy Head State Park and its Lighthouse (the Eastern most point of the US). Took a short 2.5 mile hike along the coast. Turned around at the Green Point.
- Stopped over at the Cutler Trailhead Public Conservation Land, and took a very strenuous 5.9 mile hike (1/4 along the coast, the rest was rugged, hunter trails with rocks and more rocks, not many switchbacks.)
- Had a slow leak in one tire. Went down to Machias, and stayed in an AAA-rated motel, quite nice.

10/8/2008 Wednesday (Day 5) Sunny and crisp day

- Had the tire repaired at a gas station, a very friendly neighborhood business.
- Stopped by the Jasper Beach at Machias. Jasper is a type of dark-greenish jade-like rock that forms the mountain whose erosion turned into beach pebbles. Collected Jasper stone pebbles and drift wood to complete my miniature beach garden at home.
- Back to Arcadia State Park, the Quiet side, stayed at the Seawall Motel again.
- Ate a pretty good lobster dinner at the “Gilley’s Head of the Harbor” restaurant.

10/9/2008 Thursday (Day 6) Cloudy in the morning and a little rain overnight, sunny afternoon

- Seawall breakfast with Dave: learned so much about his life story, and how he made a go of the motel business (was a Hartford Insurance executive to start out; laid off in 1999; remembered a business traveler that he met on the plane talking about Maine and Arcadia a year and half before his layoff; decided that no need for the insurance job stress, took a trip to Maine, and bought up the rundown Seawall motel on the spot and the land it sat on in 2000, renovated the place since and offered artist workshops (his wife Vicky is a painter); motel marketing through internet booking and the local chamber of commerce and word of mouth; offered breakfast as a way to communicate with guests; the reward of living in a beautiful park land with the peace of mind (in the deep winter, there is no guests, you could cuddle in an armchair, covering yourself with an afghan, with speed bump by your feet, and a good book in hand, classical music in the background, and just look out the window for the gorgeous winter coast – life cannot get any better than that.); found stage-3 testicular cancer and cured in 2006 (everyday now is a blessing, this place gives him strength to recover and fight on); final advice: follow your passion.
- Checked out of Seawall. Took a short hike of the Beech Mountain trail to the fire tower, 1.1 miles, easygoing and fantastic view of 2 autumn lakes of fall leaves (can’t be beat, like Norwegian fjord in my imagination).
- Sun came out in the afternoon. Heading home at 2pm along the same coastline.
- Arrived in Mount Kisco around 11pm.

Fearless Seagulls ..............

..... Mussel Tidal Pool

Cadillac Mountain .................

Wish all of you well !!

Susie Li (10/31/2008)

Journal -Take A Break, Really

I’ve made a pact with myself – One day a week, on Sundays, I will completely shut down my computer, my TV, my cell phone and blackberry, fully disconnected for 24 hours. I’ve decided that living a good life requires a kind of balance, a bit of quiet. I need time to think, to reflect, to find the real me (not the virtual me.)

Unfortunately, turning off the screen did not turn off my brain. I managed to walk, nap, and read the whole New York Times, without hyperlinks. Skimming through the Sunday Times, full of thought-provoking articles, I experimented with discovering my humanity, if I still have any left. I stopped to take notes of where I wanted to revisit, stories that touched me, things that interested me:

Real Estate section - Michael Heller Chu, a flamenco guitarist, and a UN humanitarian relief worker: A peripatetic musician finds a place of his own, a one-room coop on the Lower East Side, for $500,000

My Thought: Musicians are a special breed (writing good music is extremely hard); international relief work is hard work, if not hardest of all careers; super-expensive Manhattan still has a little room left for a rambling musician (His house-hunting story reads like a romantic dating story. “This is how you find good places - by chance, by random conversations,” he said. “We met in an elevator; I told her I was apartment hunting; she told me that she had one for sale. I walked into her place, and it was just what I was looking for.”)

Political Opinion section – by Frank Rich: McCain channels his inner Hillary (trumping fear of terrorism and the prospect of perpetual war)

My Thought: Obama, on the contrary, is not naive. His upbeat campaign tone speaks to American pride and idealism. His prescient anti-Iraq war judgment is not something “experience” can buy, and the organization of his campaign superior. He is smart about talking hope and change, because he may not want to be held hostage to the policy promises he made during the campaign.

Obituaries section - John Lewis, son of a Wall Street titan who became a lawyer to fight for the rights of the poor and powerless, and in December persuaded gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York to pardon a paroled convict, died at 64 of lung cancer. He deserted his upper-class way of life, giving away his generous inheritance to the down-and-out and to causes like Indian welfare, and never stopped.

My Thought: How many heiresses have the heart and brain to do the right thing?

Ideas and Trends section - Religion is less a birthright than a good fit (author Dana Jennings eloquently wrote about his conversion from Rockweiler-like Protestant Christianity to soul-searching Judaism.) More than 1/4 of Americans left the faith of their childhood, either choosing a new one (from mega-church to Buddhist monastery, or from mosque to the Cross) or easing into a life of no faith. This isn't all bad: this cross-pollination breeds tolerance and understanding, and carries with it an unexpected energy and spiritual melting pot to all traditions.

My Thought: We seem to go through the same path. Before 40, we are indifferent, agnostic, and too busy with one thing or another. What happens after 40s, we became hungry for wisdom, meaning, and purposes, even though we are adrift in relentless shallow information. Our lives begin in mystery and end in mystery. In between, we try to explain ourselves to ourselves. We became seekers. I became a Buddhist, because I believe in the metaphors given to me from the Buddhist philosophy. And Buddhist metaphor is how I choose to lead my life - it is no better than your metaphor, and vice versa - just something deep (and beyond words) that moves my soul.

Sunday Style section - Eye of the Artist. How to work a creative mind. Mr. Gondry, the French-born film director who made “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, talked about how our brains and eyes have a way of modifying reality to fit our preconceptions of it. “Your brain is very creative,” he said. “It makes up all sorts of meanings and shapes. We build up our reality from very little information.” For example, he saw an end piece of a baquette on a Air France flight, he could see only one thing: the breast of his former girlfriend (There's some sadness in it. It was a breakup that was never explained.)

My Thought: Everything has the possibility to have a different reality. If you are a creative person, or if you are forced to make things up, just use your eyes. Be assured that you will see what you want to see. With enough practice, you can harness that creative energy too.

Finally: I picked up a few new words: peripededic, pique, prescient

My Thought: English is such a rich language that never ceased to fascinate me - Reading it has the same effect on me as writing it, or speaking it out in the Toastmaster club.

I dearly love the NYT. With all its reporting on the arts and sciences, commerce and humanities, politics and religion, I don’t have time (or the need) to keep up with my virtual friends.

Susie Li

Journal - Winter Snow, Dream of Spring

>>> MY VIEW OF ASIAN HERITAGE GROUP AT WORK

I’m an equal-opportunity striver. My personal American experience has made me into a “social Darwinist” – I want to be the best at what I do (being the best business decision scientist, the data-driven strategist, and middle manager.). I want to be judged on my own merits without regard to my race or class.

At the company where I work, we have 450 (~10%) Asian employees out of 5,000 in the US branch. All Asians are not the same. There is no need for preferential treatment from our employer; we don’t need to be categorized into one cultural group which tends to promote stereotypes and group psychology of self-pity (and incite unwanted suspicion and resentment, or reinforce prejudice.) We shouldn’t ask the system to lower its standards to accommodate our inadequacies. In a competitive work environment, Some, but not all, of us Asians are perfectly capable of adapting, rising up to the challenges and succeeding within the system, whereas others may fail, and that’s just fine. This thinking makes me a “Social Darwinist” - I am for an organic growth and natural selection (of the fittest) process. Although painful at times, this process ultimately results in an enduring improvement of our conditions.

I support the idea of establishing an Asian Employee Resource group at my workplace only to offer customized assistance/resources for the Asian strivers to become successful at work, but not to offer life-support help to keep those un-prepared, uninitiated, lazy, stubborn Asians alive (they are not worth the trouble saving; and they make the rest of us look bad in the long run.)

“We’ve all grown up differently. That’s why we are different…I like the way just you are.” - Fred Roger

I’ll push the idea a bit further: We are all different and unique in our own way. So, let’s celebrate our diversity as humans, and learn from each other, rather than patronizing one group while neglecting others.

>>> SPEAKING OF FAITH – LISTENING TO ELEPHANTS AND WHALE, AND OUR MORAL CONFLICTS

Elephants and whale are the most social and intelligent (and huge) mammals on earth. They use constantly changing sounds (in the case of elephants, sub-sonic) to communicate with each other.

Interview with Katy Paine of Cornell ornithology in bio-acoustics (her book is “Silent Thunders”), “If we can restrict what we want to what we need, then there will be more for everyone. After all, this is the only planet we have to live in the universe.”

We can all do our own part. For example, if the newly rich Chinese can stop desiring ivory tusks (one of their ugly cultural traits), then there won’t be poaching in poorer countries to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the rich at the expense of destroying bio-diversity. Humans need nature to make their lives richer.

>>> CANDIDATE’S VOICE

As eyes are the window into one’s soul, so is voice the window into one’s heart. A leadership voice should convey authority, passion and empathy.

For a women leader, it poses a difficult dilemma. People seem to approve of only two kinds of traditional women voices, both non-threatening: (1) A little girl’s voice (which conveys helplessness and neediness, like that of Jackie Kennedy.) (2) a siren’s voice (conveys a woman’s sexuality and mating call, like that of Lauren BeCall.) So, what should a women leader sound like? With authority and that elusive connectedness (?)

John McCain – an old voice, warm but trembling
Obama – preachy
Hillary Clinton – an angry mother (which makes her children feel insecure).

>>> HOW TO DEAL WITH TRAGIC LOSS IN LIFE

You’ll never get over it, but you’ll get used to it.

>>> WAR

Why were American soldiers failing in the war in Afghanistan? American army was too fascinated with technology, and neglected to fight the war at a political, cultural and human level.

>>> MAINSTREAMING OR BALKANIZATION – AN IMMIGRATION PARADOX

Americans have a tough time making up its mind about immigration: Republican politicians don’t want immigration, not because the immigrants take the jobs away from ordinary Americans (which they don’t), but because the bulk of the immigrants (especially the less educated Mexicans) don’t integrate well with the rest of the society. Democrats are counting on the immigrant votes, and businessmen want the cheap labor that immigrants bring.

Immigration should be more than economics. The issue is a complex one, beyond just mainstreaming or balkanization of the Mexicans. What if we mainstream all the Mexicans in this country; and they all become better educated; and they all want what Americans want; with prosperity comes plights like those facing Americans today, the Mexicans would no longer be able to insulate themselves from the societal ills, and they will suffer the same fate as the rest of the Americans (subprime mortgage debacles, manufacturing decline, lowering of living standards.)

For me, the priority of the immigration policy should be concerned with border security and national sovereign. I have never seen any country with such a confused policy and lax control of its immigration as America.

>>> HOW TO COMPETE AGAINST CHINESE CHEAP GOODS

To differentiate your product from the cheap knockoffs from China is through superior quality and smart marketing.

Put money into R&D, quality control, and marketing, and you are likely to win over your competition. It may take a while to work, but it is not impossible. Examples: 1 in 3 of the world’s saxophones are produced in a small place in the middle of Taiwan (manufacutring high-quality products priced for the mid-range consumers, rather than the bargain hunters or luxury goods market); Toyota is noted for making quality cars with superb value.

Happy New Year!

Susie Li
February 25, 2007

Journal - Meltdown of World Stock Markets

The volatility of the world’s stock markets over the long weekend has taught me some important lessons in world economy:

>>> The emerging economies (India, China especially; less so are the developed economies) are still dependent on Americans’ spending - despite whoever told you otherwise. Therefore, their governments have been so willing to subsidize Americans’ borrowing habits in the past. The prospect of American recession has given them a rude shock and awakening.

>>> People in China or Japan are earning more than what they spend (they are countries of savers.) Their economies are cushioned by rich cash reserves and can withstand recessions. Americans are spending more than what they earn. American economy is driven entirely by borrowing and consumption; and when the credit lines dry up, Americans stop consuming, and the economy goes into a recession.

>>> America is run by “market capitalism” trumped by Wall Street financial wizards and Corporate America, while China or Arab oil countries are run by state-planned “national capitalism”. In times of duress, America will be available for sale.

>>> A nation which doesn’t produce its own goods or services for its citizens is on thin ice. A country which lives on credit (or the whims of their financial gurus) runs the risk of self-deception.

>>> George Soro was right on with his long-range economic predictions:
- Re-regulation of American financial/banking industries is needed to fix America’s subprime mess.
- FED’s lowering its key lending interest rate can only fix the problems temporarily. American recession is inevitable and cannot be solved quickly or painlessly.
- Asian economy is still healthy, and has more room to grow their own demand. Emerging economies will learn from this lesson and move on to do the right thing.

>>> It’s not so bad that the world weans itself from American economy. It’s not so bad that America cedes its economic power to other countries.

>>> The Republicans have no economic policy:
- The only thing they know is tax-cut.

Robo-Heads

A computer consultant driving a rental car drove onto train tracks Wednesday using the instructions his GPS unit gave him. A train was barreling toward him, but he escaped in time and no one was injured.

The driver had turned right, as the system advised, and the car somehow got stuck on the tracks at the crossing. He jumped out and tried to warn the engineer by waving. He got out of the way just before the train slammed into the car at 60 mph, Metro-North railroad spokesman Dan Brucker said Thursday.

The car was pushed more than 100 feet during the fiery crash. Some 500 train passengers were stranded for more than two hours during the Wednesday evening rush hour. The accident also heavily damaged 250 feet of rail, Brucker said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

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A true story that happened practically in my backyard near Bedford, New York. And the train involved in the crash was the beloved Metro-North Harlem train.

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Things like this make me wonder: Are these techno-gadgets having the effect of dumbing down human brains, or what? In the old days, to prepare for a trip, I would study the map way ahead of time, drive more attentively and cautiously on unfamiliar roads. Today, with the ever easy-to-use GPS and a car which almost drives itself (with cruise control, automatic transmission, etc), any dummy can drive anywhere with his eyes practically shut (or he thinks he can).

We always compare ourselves with our previous generations. True to tell, our fathers are handier and more self-sufficient than we are; and sadly, we seem to be handier and slightly more self-sufficient than my children.

I’ve imagined a future, from how my kids have developed, of robo-heads (no arms, no bodies, just the heads) living in a techno-bubble. They can’t eat or drink, can’t drive, can’t imagine, can’t have sex, with eyes glued to the TV and Internet. They are good for little, quite dependent, and completely hopeless without their gear.

Have you read Neil Gaiman’s science fiction, “American Gods”, where the gods are what’s left of human intellect (in the novel, gods were those brought to America from the old countries by early immigrants and then forgotten), and the evil is the modern-day technology? The novel was about the big fight between the good and the evil. I don’t know who won in the end yet – I haven’t finished reading it. But I’ll be smart enough to stay away from those mind-numbing devices: TV, mall, video games, IPOD, and GPS (mind you, I’m not above using technology to make my life easier.)

This morning, I’ve heard that GM has unveiled a new electronic contraption for their future cars in this year’s Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show. This device will allow you to eat, drink, talk, do makeup, shave, watch TV, go on Internet all while you are driving – things that you are quite capable of multi-tasking now inside your car without technology (I won’t tell.) Here is just another smart invention of a master distraction in our lives, eh?

New York, New York

I asked my daughter recently if she would go work in New York after graduation from Cornell, like a lot of her young friends have done. She replied, “I don’t think so. I don’t like how my friends turn out after living in New York.” Her response gave me something to think about.

It is every small-town New Yorker’s dream to end up in the big City someday. Not just for the young boy or girl, the dream occurred even to me. Seven years ago, at the age of 46, bored of Ithaca, I packed up my belongings, and moved 220 miles south to be near New York. For the following five years, I lived in the suburbs, and took the train into the City for work everyday.

Today, I’ve retired from the City – Since November 2006, I took a job in Connecticut, doing the reverse commute away from the City.

What has caused my change of heart about New York? The City? The people? Me? All of the above? Or just me? All I remember at the time was this “I began to tire of the City” feeling.

In hindsight, there were reasons deep inside beyond me that bothered me, but I could not tell their names at the time which I only know now.

Toxic Manhattan may be nice on certain nights, but awful on other nights.

The City is but a romance. When you are younger, you live for the promise and potential that the City presents you (including high heels, cocktails, and charge cards for the new girls). When you get older, you have caught up. The magic dims, and you begin to see the ugliness around you: the lonely people; the class divide; the greed and arrogance of the Wall Street sucking the soul off the City. Good people will then move on, repulsed by the nastiness in the air.

By the time I left the City, a mere one year ago, New York was on speed: a terribly unaffordable place, a playground for the idle rich, a city financed by the dirty money from one dominant, yet infamous industry (an industry that takes in the country’s brightest and molds them into a bunch of corrupt capitalist lemmings). Underneath the gilded façade, average folks toiled, moving farther and farther away from Manhattan to save on rent, robbing the City off its vital essence of ethnic colors (now suffering the final indignity of credit crunch on their dwellings at the hands of the unscrupulous Wall Street traders of the exotic mortgage-backed securities.)

What I value in a friendship has always been intelligence, honesty and originality. I see little evidence of any in the friends I’ve made inside the City. I seemed to run into a succession of selfish, flawed, mostly single professional women. No matter how hard I tried to be nice, I knew my relationships with them would not last. Till this day, I often wonder if the City has made them, or they have made the City. (Oh, there are so many of them…Terrified to be left alone, and yet unpleasant to be around long.)

New York is Starbuck, and I am Duncan Donut. You go to Starbuck to see, to be seen, and to hang out; that’s where you spend $4 on a coffee of a cup size that you cannot even pronounce. I prefer Duncan Donut, because I can get my good-to-great cup of medium-size coffee on the run for $2.50.

I understand my daughter’s ambivalence about New York. I’ve been there myself.

But one certain thing about young people is their uncertainty.



November 27, 2007
Susie Li