Big Government in China

A friend sent me this article about some current issues in China. Among them are the perils of big government and a one party system. An excerpt is below. The full article may be read here.

July 27, 2009

Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

By SHARON LaFRANIERE

WUBU, China — For much of his education, Xue Longlong was silently accompanied from grade to grade, school to school, by a sealed Manila envelope stamped top secret. Stuffed inside were grades, test results, evaluations by fellow students and teachers, his Communist Party application and — most important for his job prospects — proof of his 2006 college degree.
Everyone in China who has been to high school has such a file. The files are irreplaceable histories of achievement and failure, the starting point for potential employers, government officials and others judging an individual’s worth. Often keys to the future, they are locked tight in government, school or workplace cabinets to eliminate any chance they might vanish.
But two years ago, Mr. Xue’s file did vanish. So did the files of at least 10 others, all 2006 college graduates with exemplary records, all from poor families living near this gritty north-central town on the wide banks of the Yellow River.
With the Manila folders went their futures, they say.
Local officials said the files were lost when state workers moved them from the first to the second floor of a government building. But the graduates say they believe officials stole the files and sold them to underachievers seeking new identities and better job prospects — a claim bolstered by a string of similar cases across China.
Today, Mr. Xue, who had hoped to work at a state-owned oil company, sells real estate door to door, a step up from past jobs passing out leaflets and serving drinks at an Internet cafe. Wang Yong, who aspired to be a teacher or a bank officer, works odd jobs. Wang Jindong, who had a shot at a job at a state chemical firm, is a construction day laborer, earning less than $10 a day.

A Way to Put Power Into Your Movements

Put your back into it!


Over at Weakness with a Twist, Scott Phillips has a very good article about the large and efficient muscles in our backs that our "normal" way of moving doesn't make much use of, but internal martial arts uses to a high degree.


Below is an excerpt. Click here to read the full article.

As someone whose job it is to translate ideas from one culture to another, the pressure to use more familiar language is always floating around in the background.


Many people would like me to describe the fine details of Chinese Internal Martial Arts using vocabulary from sports or physical therapy.  This is always problematic for two reasons.  First, one can only go so far describing kinesthetic experiences before one starts  sacrificing subtlety–language is an imperfect tool. 

Second, by discarding Chinese concepts, one loses the primary organizing metaphors of Chinese culture, and what might be simple suddenly becomes complex.

Still, sometimes we give in to the pressure.  Today is one of those days.

There are three big muscles on our backs which are extremely powerful and efficient. Unfortunately, the problem with humans is; we don’t use these big muscles very well.  Our arms are just too smart. We habitually use our many smaller arm muscles to do complex and repetitive tasks.  This is the cause of a lot of stress and tends to shorten our lives.  For this reason advanced internal martial artists have developed ways to make use of the three big muscles.

Who Needs Fiction: The Land That Time Forgot

Explorers entered an extinct volcano that has been cut off from the rest of New Guinea for 200,000 years. Life in that volcano habitat has been evolving on it's own for all that time. Below is an excerpt from an article about the expedition and what they found. If you click here, you find the whole article. Of course there is a slide show featuring some of the newly found creatures.

A lost world populated by fanged frogs, grunting fish and tiny bear-like creatures has been discovered in a remote volcanic crater on the Pacific island of Papua New Guinea.


A team of scientists from Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world.

Applying the Principles of Daoism to Everyday Life

Philosophy practiced is the goal of learning. - Thoreau

Over at The Journey Within, there is a good article about applying a very basic principle to achieve your goals. That is, following the path of least resistance. The author makes a  very good point in that the shortest distance between two points isn't necessarily a straight line, but the path of least resistance.

An excerpt is below. The full article may be read by clicking here.

I like to watch river flows. I like to watch how the water goes around the bend. I like to see how it effortlessly navigates around the rocks, whether they’re big or small. Water always seem to know how to flow. It knows that hitting the rocks head on will do it no good, so it finds the path of least resistance and go around it. Let’s face it. In the real world, the shortest distance between 2 points is not a straight line, it’s the distance of the path of least resistance. It is this path of least resistance that allows water to get from one end to the other end effortlessly.

Looking to do something on a regular basis but never got round doing it? It’s because you haven’t found your path to least resistance yet. Say you want to exercise everyday, but you just can’t seem to do it. There’s always some excuse like no time or too much effort. These all are resistance. You’ll need to find a path round these resistances. I found out that the path of least resistance to practise my Tai Chi is in the morning.

It’s actually relatively easier to find the path of least resistance if I’m the only stakeholder. It gets more difficult as more people are involved. If I add just one more person into the equation, it will become that much more complicated. When I’m doing push hands with another person, when I can’t find this path of least resistance, I will create tension within myself as well, and hence creating my own resistance. If I don’t look for this path of least resistance, I myself become the resistance.

Let go of your own resistance. You might find it a lot easier to navigate the journey within yourself. You’ll also find it easier to then use this new path to create a new way of doing things. Actually, there is nothing new in this. The only thing new here, is you experiencing the power of letting go your own resistance. Stop fighting it. Start moving round the cracks. 

Learning Japanese

This could as well be me.

How To Begin Zhan Zhuang

Rick Taracks over at Wujifa has recently published some especially good articles explaining the methods of Wujilianggong. He's recently published an exceptionally good one for those beginning Zhan Zhuang practice. Please pay a visit.

Short Staff Resources

Over at Cloud Hands, there is a page devoted to the various derivations of the short staff. The author, Michael Garofalo has done a mind boggling job in pulling together resources from EVERYWHERE and put them together in one page. If you have any interest in the weapon, please check out the page here. A short description is below.

Way of the Short Staff.
By Michael P. Garofalo, M.S.

A comprehensive guide to the practice of the short staff, cane, jo, walking stick, gun, zhang, whip staff, 13 Hands Staff, and related wood short staff weapons. A detailed and annotated guide, bibliographies, lists of links, resources, instructional media, online videos, and lessons. Includes use of the short staff and cane in martial arts, self-defense, walking and hiking. Separate sections on Aikido Jo, Cane, Taijiquan cane and staff, Jodo, exercises with a short staff, selected quotations, techniques, selecting and purchasing a short staff, tips and suggestions, and a long section on the lore, legends, and magick of the short staff. Includes "Shifu Miao Zhang Points the Way." Published by Green Way Research, Valley Spirit Taijiquan, Red Bluff, California. Updated on a regular basis since October, 2008. Filesize: 300Kb+

Training for the Pressure of Battle

Unless you are out getting in fights with people all of the time, you can't. What you can do is to put yourself into situations in which you are under a lot of pressure to perform well, even when things may go wrong. That is the gist of this article. A excerpt is provided below.
The Lessons of Embu

by Diane Skoss

In martial arts training it is essential, in my opinion, to have some arena in which one is forced to put oneself on the line. Arts that have shiai provide plenty of opportunity--believe me, there's quite a lot riding on the line when you face an opponent trying to stab you with a bayonet. But in the classical arts, and arts like aikido that in general do not have competition, we must find other ways to push ourselves to the edge. Promotion examinations provide one sort of opportunity to face fear of public failure, to learn to control natural physical stress reactions, and to continue come what may. But for most of us, exams are few and far between. Demonstrations, then, are perhaps a sensible alternative.

In some styles of aikido (Tomiki aikido in particular, but by no means exclusively) formal kata embu kyogi, or kata demonstration competitions, are used to provide this sort of training. I am coming to the conclusion, however, that the resulting emphasis on what the technique and overall performance looks like in order to win a prize is misguided. I am a (now retired) kata embu competitor, and have competed quite successfully in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, in sometimes as many as four events per year. There is no question that I have gained from my experience--I have no problem with giving a demonstration of anything that I know in any art that I have studied at any time, and remain unperturbed when not all goes as planned.

I Wish You Enough

I usually don't forward or post things like this, but it struck me as such a good application of philosophical Daoism in our daily lives. Enjoy.

Recently I overheard a Father and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure.

Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the Father said, 'I love you, and I wish you enough.'

The daughter replied, 'Dad, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Dad.'

They kissed and the daughter left. The Father walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, 'Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?'

'Yes, I have,' I replied. 'Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?'.

'I am old, and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is - the next trip back will be for my funeral,' he said.

'When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?'

He began to smile. 'That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone..' He paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail, and he smiled even more. 'When we said, 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them.' Then turning toward me, he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good- bye.

He then began to cry and walked away.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them; but then an entire life to forget them.

Take Time To Live.. To all my friends and loved ones, I wish you Enough !