Yanwen’s blog

Yesterday I read two pieces where the authors talked big about promoting Chinese culture combined with ancient Chinese civilization, recently so boosted by the Chinese leaders.

One of the authors started with this, "When I was a graduate student, my advisor told me that, don't write if you don't have something original to say ... Otherwise, you contribute nothing valuable with your writing." Sadly to say, he produced a super long one full of empty words, yielding nothing substantial.

Talking of civilization only brought to my mind a very uncivilized murder case in Handan, China, where a teenager boy was brutally murdered by three of his classmates. Perhaps civilization needs to be restored because of its severe shortage in China now.

I remember many years ago reading about moral education in Japan. It is an integral of Japan’s educational system, with the goal of “cultivating student’s morality, including moral mentality, judgment, engagement, and attitude” through all the educational activities in school, including orderliness, mindfulness, hard work, fairness, and harmony.

It would be more down to earth and sensible if people talked about teaching morality at a young age, instead of throwing empty pompous terms like ancient wisdom and civilization.

For the health of a society, it is way more important for little kids to learn morality than to learn knowledge. A kid got the whole life to learn skills but once he turns bad morally, it will take his whole life to unlearn the bad morality.

A famous Chinese poem: 随风潜入夜，润物细无声 (Suí fēng qiánrù yè, rùn wù xì wú shēng), "quietly the rain drops with the wind at night, moistening everything without a sound." Like spring rain that moistens everything quietly, the gentle teaching nourishes and enriches children's hearts.

Sunday evening meeting my Korean student always brings something new for me to write about.

March 18, I wrote one on her husband's job loss. She told me that she used to spend money without any planning. Now she started budgeting and putting aside some savings for any uncertain events. Last week she told me the story of her five-year-old daughter. 

I told her that there were lots of things that we could learn from the children. I shared with her my writings on my children’s birthdays. She said, “OMG, it's so wonderful that you remembered all these little things of their childhood. I don’t even remember things happened yesterday."

Next I shared with her a Chinese saying, 一个烂笔头强过最好的记忆力 (yī gè làn bǐ tóu qiáng guò zuì hǎo de jì yì lì), the shortest pencil is better than the best memory. The saying emphasizes recording information, ideas, and experiences through writing can be more valuable than having a good memory alone.

Additionally, writing can help clarify thoughts and provide better reflection when you look back. It definitely can compensate for bad memory or for the limitations in our memory.

I told her writing itself comes easy with modern technology. I don’t write on paper anymore and I seldom type. I use the small mic 🎤 at the bottom of the keyboard on the cell phone and just talk to it, then do some editing. The whole thing takes about 30 minutes.

My student said she would do the same thing to record the childhood stories of her two daughters, too precious to forget.

Last Friday 4/12, a friend of mine asked me to take a look at an essay by her teenager son. While I acknowledge his language proficiency, I let my friend know that her teenager son needs to explore more complex topics and delve deeper into ideas with some maturity.

I have worked with many high school seniors before and have written many times on the importance of writing. Here's the same topic on writing for my friend and others who wish to write better.

First of all, as the starting point, find the topic that you are passionate about or really interested in. For teenagers whose life experience is very limited, you can either read widely or explore different perspectives on daily events. See if you can look at familiar topics from unique angles and develop more nuanced and engaging writing.

Second, stay curious and open-minded as you go about your daily routine. Question assumptions and seek out diverse viewpoints. Take nothing for granted and let go of nothing unexamined and unquestioned.

Third, develop critical thinking skills. When you decide to write, you are not just a writer, you are also a thinker. The quality of your thinking directly determines that of your writing. Think about the ideas you encounter in your reading and events you see around you, develop your own opinions and perspectives. Be an independent thinker. Remember to always support your argument with evidence.

Finally, like all solid skills in life, writing is a journey of a thousand miles, that takes time and nothing less than serious dedication and perseverance. Write with a growth mindset, fear not of challenges and setbacks.

When I mentioned to my sister that I wanted to meet a childhood neighbor, she mentioned this term, 无效社交 (wú xiào shè jiāo), ineffective social activities, something that I should avoid at my age.

She said, once I went to a school reunion, one person tried to sell something to us. I think everyone goes there for some purpose. Young people go for networking or searching for relationships or more connections. They all come with intended purposes.

"Nowadays people don't go to gatherings if they see nothing to gain. At our age, people start shrinking their social circles, cutting off unnecessary social activities. You are the only one who still engage in 无效社交. See no one wants to come for your college classmate reunion this year, right?"

She is right. I can understand when people don't want to waste time on gatherings that don't lead to meaningful connections or for some reasons they lose interests in learning about each other. I myself particularly don't enjoy superficial conversations or one lacking in sincerity.

Also, I understand people's priorities change as they age. Older people may be more selective about gatherings they attend. They may prioritize high quality over quantity.

Still, I think it's important to remain open to new experiences and opportunities for learning even for seniors, to broaden perspectives by engaging new people and new activities. And more importantly, keep their curiosity. Why not?

Also, I think that social interactions can fulfill a variety of functions, including emotional support, companionship, belongingness, and recreation, even a hearty therapeutic laughter, that we so need in our senior years.

This book came into my possession recently, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War by R.J. Gordon. 

Gordon divides into three periods the years from the end of the Civil War (1861- 1865) to 2015, the first two (1870-1970) witnessing the rise of American growth and the last one (1970-2015) the fall.

He attributes the rise of living standard to inventions like electricity, urban sanitation, modern inventions, and automobiles. The higher standard includes healthy foods with the passing of Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), modernized urban housing with lights, indoor plumbing, gas stove, heating and telephone, TV, refrigerator, and washing machine.

However, since 1970, American society has been going through a transformation, specifically from rise to fall with the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the shrinking of the middle class. 

We are all familiar with what has been happening since 1970s -- globalization, technological advances, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, the loss of well-paying, unionized jobs in many industries.

On the whole, the author is techno-pessimistic about the past-peak American society today. 

While American society may seem stagnant or over the hill since 1970s, it is still far advanced in the world in terms of living standards with safe food, clean water and air, modern housing, free public education, health care and decent social welfare. 

Therefore, it still has a strong appeal in the world, especially among Third World countries, and continues to draw people from around the world. 

The foundations laid prior to the 1970s have contributed to America's position as a global leader in various fields today.

That's why there are thousands of Chinese 润人润进美国 (rùn rén rùn jìn měi guó) run into America via southern border every day, together with other migrants from all over the world. 润 means run, 润人 means runner, 润进美国 means run into America. Hopefully they can realize their American dreams, whatever it may be.