Danny ChaiI’ve been reading a lot lately. Finished off Sting’s autobiography (didn’t get it. Strange thing to say about an autobiography, but he started and ended with these strange experiences that seem to be symbolic or meaningful but I’m too stupid to figure out what), The Know-It-All (Henry was right – I loved it, laughed out loud regularly, although it dragged after a while) and Angels and Demons (pretty good page turner. I wasn’t as angered by the ridiculousness as Jieun).
I’m currently reading Yao Ming’s autobiography, which Bobby got for me. I’m only a few chapters in but it’s absolutely fascinating, especially his observations about Chinese culture. Like, in China, failure is the ultimate anathema, which he sees as bad, because success requires risk and they’re too risk-averse.
Another fascinating observation he makes is that China for a long time was based on Confucian principles, but in such a way that stifled creativity. It wasn’t even about the application of principles, but the memorization and recitation of them. They also primarily studies successful historical figures. And he has theories on that, also relating to failure. If you base your actions on the teachings of successful people in the past, if you fail, you can blame your failure on them, instead of taking the heat yourself. Fascinating.
Anyway, he attributes the Chinese system of piracy and cheap knockoffs of name brands like Rolex and Louis Vuitton to this mindset – instead of creating something new, the Chinese like to copy what’s established. He theorizes that someday, when Chinese society is less Confucian and more creative, they’ll have more Chinese watches and Chinese bags. I’m not sure I totally buy that analysis, but it’s an intriguing idea.
I dunno, it’s just a really interesting book. Language is kind of stilted, but highly recommended.