Lei’s official Weblog

I’ve recently started reading the famous book ‘How to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnegie, because I feel Im too retarded at dealing with people. As I read the book, I came cross one section particularly interesting. I think it illustrates a good point, so I quote the section here to share it with you.

Why do these people go insane?

I put that question to the head physician of one of our most
important psychiatric hospitals. This doctor, who has received the
highest honors and the most coveted awards for his knowledge of
this subject, told me frankly that he didn’t know why people went
insane. Nobody knows for sure But he did say that many people who
go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance that they were
unable to achieve in the world of reality. Then he told me this story:

“I have a patient right now whose marriage proved to be a tragedy.
She wanted love, sexual gratification, children and social prestige,
but life blasted all her hopes. Her husband didn’t love her. He
refused even to eat with her and forced her to serve his meals in his
room upstairs. She had no children, no social standing. She went
insane; and, in her imagination, she divorced her husband and
resumed her maiden name. She now believes she has married into
English aristocracy, and she insists on being called Lady Smith.

“And as for children, she imagines now that she has had a new child
every night. Each time I call on her she says: ‘Doctor, I had a baby
last night.’ ”

Life once wrecked all her dream ships on the sharp rocks of reality;
but in the sunny, fantasy isles of insanity, all her barkentines race
into port with canvas billowing and winds singing through the masts.

” Tragic? Oh, I don’t know. Her physician said to me: If I could
stretch out my hand and restore her sanity, I wouldn’t do it. She’s
much happier as she is.”

If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they
actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can
achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity.

Look at these wonderful long legs. Maybe he’s a terrible dictator but at least you’ve got to give him some credit for his taste of females.

Lots of people in China want to move to the west because life is often considered to be easier in those countries. But now I’ve actually discovered that lots of monks also want to move overseas. In fact, lots of them want to move to Canada because Buddism is getting hot in Vancouver these days and they now need more monks. I have read from a Chinese website that one of the monks actually applied to immigrate to Canada through the Canadian technical immigration scheme. Of couse, his application was rejected because he had no technical skills and his English was also too poor, but he refused to accept the decision and have decided to make an appeal against it. What a monk!

I’ve just read something funny on a Chinese website. Recently, a popular comedy star from China went on a tour to US with his team of actors. But without being aware of the vast cultural differences between China and US, his actors repetitively made fun of physically handicaped, mentally retarded and fat people in his shows performed on stage in New York city, in fact one of them even mimiced the way one-legged men walk. Obviously, this enraged lots of his audience, some even threatened to sue him. The name of this star is Zhao Benshan, he has a humble farmer background, is famous in China for making sitcoms related to farmers and the real life of ordinary people. If you search his name on YouTube you will find lots of his shows but they are all in Chinese.

According to recent Census Statistics from the HK government, the average life span of people in HK have actually now overtaken Japan to become the longest in the world with men expected to live an average of 79.5 years and women to 85.6 years. But this is just counter-intuitive to me, how come people live in a polluted and extremely crowded environment with high pressure in society live so long? maybe gambling and oily food helped. I first read this in Chinese, here is an article in English.

I know I can be very stupid sometimes (usually because of my bad memory), but at least I wouldn’t expect to forget the username of this blog. Well, actually this was exactly what happened today. It again reminded me how stupid I can be sometimes.

It all happened because I was no longer automatically signed in to this blog after I reintalled windows system on my computer. I was not only frustrated by this nuisance but also annoyed by my own stupidity. How could I possibly forget it after I already used it many many times. I wasted hours trying to figure out my own username, but could not find a clue. Fortunately, I was eventually able to recall the name as the software (PhpMyadmin) I was using on the server side reminded me the word ‘admin’. Of course, it has to be ‘admin’, it is the same username for every independently hosted wordpress blog. I am such a fool!

I used to think YouTube is mostly about young kids making loads of crap videos, but now I’ve just discovered there are actually lots of elderly people also on the site. In fact, I think humble and elderly people tend to make much better videos. Lots of their videos are just so raw, original and also downright hilarious. Although they don’t have many subscribers at the moment, the trend may change at any moment. Below is one I just discovered. I just love the people making these kinds of videos, they are really pretty nice people.

English language is hot in China. Actually, speaking English is considered to be quite fashionable among urban Chinese nowadays. The fact that the younger generation is devoting huge amount of time learning the language has raised the question of whether it is worth it. It is ture that learning a foreign language can be very time consuming and at times frustrating, but I personally think it’s still worth it. There are lots of reasons to this, but I think the most compelling one is that it enables quick access to information and tools. Just think about how things are changing these days, making a video, writing a song or authoring a book used to be considered to be somewhat complicated tasks, but now you can get them done easily so long as you know where to find the right tools to use. Like it or not, most of innovations, ideas are first created in English speaking communities, most of books and online materials containing vital information are first published in English language, and also most online tools and software are first released in English version. How can you possibly compete without the knowledge of the language?

Yesterday, I watched a section of a rather interesting TV programme, but I can’t remember the name of it now. Anyway, it was probably about a bunch of chavs that were taken to Italy to visit a big opera house, they were so impressed by the grandness of the place, upon entering the house some of the chavs even started crying because they had never seen anything so grand and spacious in their whole life. It was such an emotional story.

According to a very recent BBC news article, ‘up to half of the 12,000 Army recruits each year are at or below levels expected of 11-year-olds. More than half of Army managers found the poor skill levels prevented soldiers from carrying out their jobs.’ It then went on to say, ‘The report - Army Basic Skills Provision: found that while half of Army recruits had the basic skills of primary school leavers, up to 9% were at the lower standard expected of seven and eight-year-olds.’ and ‘It also found that many of the 9,500 foreign nationals serving in the British Army required additional English language training.’ Seriously, read this article yourself, it’s hilarious.