Social chameleon
One of the biggest treasures that we have in life is our individuality. Whether it is an original smile, an extraordinary sense of style, peculiar humor, deep compassion, special talent or the way we see the world – all these things make us who we are.
I noticed that sometimes we forget about our individuality and try to blend in with our surroundings. We act like chameleons who want to look exactly the same as their environment. For chameleons this is a defense strategy, is it the same for us?
Sometimes it takes a lot of effort and courage to maintain our individuality no matter what. We risk being laughed at, we risk losing friends or a job, we risk our relationships, we risk being misunderstood and feeling like losers.
You do not think about it until you meet a perfect guy or girl who you want to date and who does not support your beliefs (anything from religion to nutrition.) You do not think about it until you get a new job where everybody thinks that your style is ridiculous (and constantly mentions it to you.) You do not think about it until you get to a party where nobody understands your jokes and looks at you like you are an alien from another planet. You do not think about it until you move to a new country (and sometimes even a city) where everything is so different from what you are used to. At that point your only desire is to blend in and not to stick out like a sore thumb.
I think this is a built-in survival instinct that makes us blend in and lose our individuality. Unfortunately, when we lose our individuality we also lose happiness in life. We lose that inner balance that keeps us afloat and lets us withstand any of life's storms.
I didn't realize it until I moved to the US. For the first few months I was fascinated with the culture and with everything that this country had to offer. I wanted to embrace it all and to become as natural in this environment as possible. I tried to dress like an American girl, I was speaking only English in public places (my husband is fluent in Russian, so most of the time we speak English and Russian 50/50) and I tried my best to act like an American. After a few more months I understood that I was not happy with whom I became. I didn't want to blend in anymore and I was happy to show my individuality (cultural in my case) anywhere I went.
I do not care when people look back at me when they hear the Russian language. I feel great when I am overdressed (in the American opinion) while shopping or going to a family restaurant. I feel absolutely comfortable exercising in my backyard when all my neighbors see me doing some weird Yoga pose or fighting an imaginary punching bag.
I know that most of you do not live in foreign countries however you still face situations where the easiest route seems to blend in and to go with the flow. This is not the easiest route in the long run though. When you try to be like everybody else you become empty and blank. There is nothing that will tell people around you "WOW, what an interesting person!"
Maintaining and showing your individuality will make you bold (in a good sense of course), it will make you feel comfortable in any situation and it will definitely improve your self-esteem (if you have any issues with it.)
A year ago my husband and I went on a road trip to Florida. We stopped at St Augustine to look at the remains of the Castillo de San Marcos fortress. The fortress was amazing and the landscape was so calming and peaceful. There was a yogi meditating on one of the terraces of the fortress. He was beautiful in his calmness and stillness. There were hundreds of people walking past him but it didn't bother him a bit. Then there was a group of silly teenagers who started picking on him but he remained calm and speechless. He didn't want to blend in even though he knew that he would be laughed at and not understood by people around him. This is an image that I will always keep in my head. If you feel that you try to blend in sometimes then try this simple exercise.
First of all think of any situations when you were hiding your individuality in order to make people around you like you or treat you like an equal. What is your individual trait that makes you stick out like a sore thumb in these situations? I want to ask you to be YOU in each of these situations. After all, why do you have to adjust your behavior in order to seem "normal" in somebody else's eyes? All it takes is a big breath and a winning smile and you are ready to go (and be you!)
Please tell me about your experience in showing your individuality and trying not to blend in. Being YOU is the best and only strategy to live a balanced and happy life.
Keep it balanced.
The gold-digging game
China's first successful dating show is under attack for showcasing materialistic starlets and wannabes rather than true love.
When Jiangsu Satellite Television came out with a hit show early this year my sixth sense told me it would be axed.
If You Are the One is not China's first dating show, but it is the country's first successful one. For each episode, 24 young women stand behind a podium, in control of a light. Half a dozen bachelors are paraded, one for each 10-minute segment. The female contestants turn off the light when they decide to opt out. After several rounds of "showing off his talent", including expositions on love and marriage, the guy gets to choose one of the women who still have their lights on.
What makes the show spicy is the remarks by the female participants when they comment on the bachelor. As there are 24 of them and not everyone is given equal opportunity to pontificate, they have a tendency to make utterances that will not fall to the cutting floor during editing.
One of the women described her marital vision as such: "I'd rather be miserable sitting in a BMW than be happy riding a bicycle." As the bicycle is a mode of transport in China, not a tool of recreation or fitness, what Ma Nuo, a budding model, wants is very clear: wealth over love. She knows money may not bring her happiness, but it is her top priority nonetheless.
This statement quickly became the de facto motto for women like her, and by extension, this dating show, which borrows its title from an earlier hit feature film. For a while, there were so many material girls and gold diggers on China's small screens you'd be forgiven for thinking it was 1920s New York.
We Chinese, especially women, have always attached great importance to the social status of those we want to marry. Today status is mostly embodied in bank accounts, outsized housing units and luxury vehicles. In the more "idealistic" time when I was a kid, people looked at things like social class - whether one's family was "revolutionary" enough. The very first question asked about a potential date often was: What does his father do?
It is not realistic for a Chinese dating show to have a formula like The Dating Game, the classic show on ABC network, which prohibits questions about the salary and profession of one's potential date. But Chinese producers have pushed the pendulum to the other extreme when they put on guests that scream nouveaux riche. There was one bachelor on a competing show, aired on Zhejiang Satellite Television, who walked on stage and flaunted a document of ownership for a downtown apartment, a key to his Lamborghini and a diamond ring. Diminutive in size, he overshadowed all Arabian oil barons in chutzpah.
Granted, this is good drama. But do we have to stoop so low to get entertained? Do we need to add wannabe models and starlets to every stage? Do we have to turn gold diggers like Ma Nuo into instant celebrities so they can cash in on their relentless pursuit of material wealth?
To me, many of the women are not on the show for a date. They are searching for a venture capitalist that can finance their budding careers in the entertainment industry. Maybe the television producers should tweak their show to match bombshell entrepreneurs with starlet-obsessed financiers. That way, the word love would not make an inappropriate appearance.
Free lodging in China, but only if you speak English
Visitors seeking to see China on a budget would do well to brush up their English language skills to take advantage of a scheme that offers free lodging in Chinese homes in exchange for English tutoring.
With the cost of one hour of English tuition costing up to 500 yuan ($73.26) -- unaffordable for the vast majority of Chinese -- a not-for-profit Chinese organization called Tourboarding launched the initiative last month.
Lodgers must speak at least two hours of English a day in return for their keep while their Chinese hosts can learn for free from a resident live-in English teacher.
"In the past 30 days, 5,000 Chinese families have signed up," said Ken Chen, 38, one of the founding members for Tourboarding.
Chen said the aim of the company, which is run online (www.tourboarding.com/), is not to make money but to provide opportunity for the millions of Chinese keen to learn English.
Tourboarding hopes to tap into foreign demand for cheap accommodation in China, particularly in Shanghai, as hotel prices have soared since the start of the World Expo in May.
"Travel industry hates us, people love us," is the motto on its website, which prides itself on offering travelers airport pick-up and drop off, free accommodation with a family and two meals a day.
Travelers can choose to exchange their language for free accommodation, tour guiding or even Chinese cooking lessons.
Yang Yang, 16, a female student in Shanghai advertises her home on the Tourboarding website to prospective travelers: "The house is next to a lake, green is good. We can offer single rooms for you to live. My parents want me to invite a woman."
Chen said Yang is just one example of a rising number of Chinese opening their homes to foreigners in the hope of improving their English.
"We accept travelers from all over the world. In the future we will copy this model to imitate in new, booming countries such as Russia, Brazil and Vietnam," said Chen.
Chen who quit his job at Nike Sports China, joined forces with Nuno Zhang, 28, an ex-Google employee to create the Tourboarding concept. The company started up in April.
He added that the website would rely on donations from travelers until volume traffic increases.
"In the future we will bring in advertising to make the service sustainable but we will not charge hosts at all as they are from a developing country," Chen added.
People flock to Osaka cat cafe to enjoy carefree feeling
Nestled among the bars and trendy clothing outlets of the "America mura" section of Osaka's Minami district is a cafe whose primary attraction is not the quality of its coffee but the charms of its somewhat unconventional "staff."
The cafe, named "Neko no Jikan," which can be translated as cats' time, is one of the country's original cat cafes and is home to 21 felines, including a Maine Coon, a breed known for its large size.
Believed to have originated in Taiwan, cat cafes are establishments where cats are let loose indoors for customers to interact with.
Some of the cats at Neko no Jikan come to customers when called, while others sit or lie on the shelves lining the cafe's walls. Others still are stretched out on tables.
The shop is run by Yoko Yoshida, 53, who became the trailblazer for cat teahouses when she opened her first shop in Osaka's Kita Ward in 2005, when dog cafes were at the height of popularity in Japan.
America mura is in the busy Minami district straddling the city's Chuo and Naniwa wards. The name reportedly spread after a store converted from a warehouse started selling second-hand American records and sundries from the West Coast of the United States in the 1970s.
The ambience of the tea shop is quiet except for cats' occasional mews. Managed on a time-limit basis, Neko no Jikan charges 840 yen an hour and 1,050 yen with a drink.
At a cat "cafe," the emphasis is not on food and beverages but relaxing in the company of cats.
Yoshida said she wants customers to enter the cats' "space" in order to achieve relaxation.
Yoshida said not all customers are obvious cat lovers who like to play with the animals or feed them. Many come in business suits and appear like patrons of any other cafe.
Shop manager Junichi Sakai, 39, describes the 21 felines in the cafe as his "staff," adding they take a rest in a separate room on the second floor "when they are tired."
Yoshida said she plans to move her first cat cafe out of Kita Ward in the fall to utilize the vacated space as a genuine "cat house" with a tatami mattress floor.
Slightly preterm, healthy babies do OK later on
If babies are born a couple of weeks early, but are healthy, they're not at greater risk of developmental or behavior problems later on, new research shows.
But babies born at 34 to 36 weeks' pregnancy who have problems such as difficulty breathing or eating, the study's authors say, may still be at a developmental disadvantage later in life.
Such "late-preterm" infants (a full-term pregnancy lasts from 37 to 41 weeks) are known to be at higher risk for breathing and eating difficulties. Some studies have suggested that these infants have developmental and social problems as they get older, Dr. Matthew J. Gurka of the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville and his colleagues write.
However, they add, little research has been done on long-term outcomes for late preterm infants who are otherwise healthy.
To investigate, Gurka and his team looked at about 1,300 children who had been followed from birth through age 15. Fifty-three of the children were born at 34 to 36 weeks. The study participants underwent numerous tests several times between the ages of 4 and 15 to measure their achievement, social skills, behavioral problems, and mental function.
None of the 11 tests the authors examined showed any difference in social, emotional, or mental development between the late preterm children and the children born at full term.
The researchers caution that the new findings don't mean late preterm infants with early health problems won't have problems later on; "neither do these results endorse early elective delivery of babies."
The early medical problems seen in some late preterm infants could have contributed to the "academic, development, and behavior disadvantages observed in previous studies of late preterm children," Gurka said.
"Here, we are not making any claims about all late-preterm infants, as they are definitely at higher risk of health problems, and perhaps these problems lead to later developmental disadvantages," he added. "Our study was limited to only those born healthy - hence we can only make generalizations about this subset of late preterm infants."
Chinas Vice Premier urges more efforts to fight floods
Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu Friday urged local governments to enhance weather monitoring and step up efforts to fight floods as heavy rains may continue to pound southern China.
Hui, also Director of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, made the remarks during a three-day visit to Hunan and Jiangxi provinces from June 9 to 11.
"Local authorities must step up relief efforts to provide shelter, clothing and food for flood victims. They must also help flood victims rebuild their hometowns," Hui said.
He said local governments must quickly evacuate residents in low-lying areas, ramp up flood prevention measures, and ensure the safety of dams and hydropower plants.
As of June 8, floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains had killed 147 people and left 25 missing and direct economic losses had amounted to 22.3 billion yuan (3.26 billion U.S. dollars).
Dessert
Dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food but sometimes of a strongly-flavored one, such as some cheeses. The word comes from the Old French desservir, "to clear the table." Some common desserts are cakes, cookies, fruits, and candies.
The word dessert is most commonly used for this course in U.S., Canada, Australia, and Ireland, while sweet, pudding or afters would be more typical terms in the UK and some other Commonwealth countries. According to Debrett's, pudding is the proper term, dessert is only to be used if the course consists of fruit, and sweet is colloquial.
Although the custom of eating fruits and nuts after a meal may be very old, dessert as a standard part of a Western meal is a relatively recent development. Before the rise of the middle class in the 19th-century, and the mechanization of the sugar industry, sweets were a privilege of the aristocracy, or a rare holiday treat. As sugar became cheaper and more readily available, the development and popularity of desserts spread accordingly.
Some have a separate final sweet course but mix sweet and savoury dishes throughout the meal as in Chinese cuisine, or reserve elaborate dessert concoctions for special occasions. Often, the dessert is seen as a separate meal or snack rather than a course, and may be eaten apart from the meal (usually in less formal settings). Some restaurants specialize in dessert. In colloquial American usage "dessert" has a broader meaning and can refer to anything sweet that follows a meal, including milkshakes and other beverages.
One of the earliest known sweet foods is honey
A cake is a form of food that is usually sweet and often baked. Cakes normally combine some kind of flour, a sweetening agent (commonly sugar), a binding agent (generally egg, though gluten or starch are often used by vegetarians and vegans), fats (usually butter or margarine, although a fruit puree can be substituted to avoid using fat), a liquid (milk, water or fruit juice), flavors and some form of leavening agent (such as yeast or baking powder).
Cake is often the dessert of choice for meals at ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings, anniversaries and birthdays. There are literally thousands of cakes recipes (some are bread-like and some rich and elaborate) and many are centuries old. Cake making is no longer a complicated procedure; Baking utensils and directions have been so perfected and simplified that even the amateur cook may easily become an expert baker. There are five basic types of cake, depending on the substance used for leavening.
In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a small, flat baked pastry. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have different meanings—a cookie is a bun in Scotland, while in North America a biscuit is a kind of quick bread.
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai ( March 5, 1898 – January 8, 1976), was Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1949 until his death in January 1976, and China's foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Zhou was instrumental in the Communist Party's rise to power, and subsequently in the construction of the Chinese economy and reformation of Chinese society. On the international scene Zhou was a skilled and able diplomat, having advocated peaceful coexistence and been a participant at the Geneva Conference in 1954. As a result of his moral character, he was very popular with the Chinese public, and Zhou's death brought an outpouring of support which turned out to be crucial in China's transition of power between Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. He is also remembered for saying, when asked for his assessment of the 1789 French Revolution, "It is too early to say".
Revolutionary activities
Zhou first came to national prominence as an activist during the May Fourth Movement. He had enrolled as a student in the literature department of Nankai University, which enabled him to visit the campus, but he never attended classes. He became one of the organizers of the Tianjin Students Union, whose avowed aim was “to struggle against the warlords and against imperialism, and to save China from extinction." Zhou became the editor of the student union’s newspaper, Tianjin Student. In September, he founded the Awareness Society with twelve men and eight women. Fifteen year old Deng Yingchao, Enlai’s future wife, was one of the founding female members. (They were not married until much later, on August 8, 1925). Zhou was instrumental in the merger between the all male Tianjin Students Union and the all female Women’s Patriotic Association.
Though debunking of Chinese leaders has become more common in recent years, Zhou has not shared in the personal and political charges leveled at Mao. The recent biography by Gao Wenqian raises questions, however. As a staffer at closed party archives, Gao had access to internal files, interviews, memos, and compilations. He smuggled out notes and documents with which to write an explosive Chinese language biography, published in Hong Kong in 1999, full of backstage explanations of major events. Although not as prurient as recent inside biographies of Mao, Gao's portrait implies that during the Cultural Revolution, Zhou gave in to Mao's whims rather than consistently mitigating them, and that he did not protect all of those he could have.
Why We Chose The Person We Love
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -- George Santayana
“Why do I always wind up with the wrong person? I want someone who is kind, loving, reliable and open. Yet my relationships are always with men who are angry, hostile, emotionally unavailable and cannot keep a job.”
“I want a woman who is emotionally stable and independent, but I always wind up with women who are overly dramatic, tend to hysteria and depend on me to make their decisions.”
These are common problems brought to me by clients. They blame bad luck, coincidence or accident for winding up with the exact opposite of the type of person they say they prefer in a relationship.
One very attractive female marketing manager in her mid thirties agonized - “If I went to a party and there were fifty men in the room - and 49 were college graduates who were business or professional men - and the 50th was a high-school dropout with a felony police record - number 50 and I would somehow find each other.”
We make our relationship choices based on life experiences accumulated from childhood. We subconsciously integrate these experiences and react from them to current situations.
Children’s psyches are like unwritten slates. The messages we receive from our parents are stored upon them as if etched in stone. We internalize these messages and accept them without question as we mature because in the child’s mind
What Ever Happened to Golf Psychologist Jos Vanstiphout
Back in the late 90s and early in the twenty-first century, when I started getting really interested in golf psychology, it seemed that the question everyone was asking was, \"Who is Jos Vanstiphout?\" At the 2002 Open at Muirfield, he was sharing his talents with both players in the play-off, Ernie Els and Thomas Levet. He was reported as having other irons in the fire that week, with clients including Retief Goosen, Soren Hansen