Book, TV, and Movie

In order or preference...

The Help (Book) - this fictional story about black maids and their employers in Mississippi is written by a white person. Perhaps that's why a white lady and a bunch of black maids tried helping each other and only the white lady made a future for herself... anyway, I shouldn't be cynical about fiction, right? The book touches hearts with light and heavy subjects at the same time, and is simply a wonderful read. It's incredibly raw, and you find yourself sucked into the lives of the three main characters, rejoicing and bleeding with them along the way. Highly recommended.

Dexter Seasons 1-3 (TV) - I'm pretty sure this is fictional as well. Just kidding... blood scientist with the Miami police is a serial killer who hunts down people who slip through the cracks of justice. Yeah, okay. Surprisingly good actually, even though outrageous. Recommended.

Harry Potter (Movie) - It's not a bad movie at all... I just don't know what is going on most of the time because I haven't read the book and I rarely remember anything from previous HP movies. Wizard fight scenes suck and the general fight scenes aren't that great either. I suppose it's real good if you are an HP fan, like my wife is. Not recommended.

Kindle changes my life... so far

I got a Kindle for Valentines Day... and so far, it has changed my life.

Instead of eating and watching movies, I now do three things: eating, watching movies, and reading on my Kindle!

In a month, I've read:

• What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell: the only reason I didn't buy the book was that it's basically a collection of his articles from way back and I thought why would I shell out US$15 for this? Oh, but it is $3 on the Kindle! Awesome book, especially the chapters on the Discovery Space Shuttle disaster and Enron. Highly recommended.
• Lost Symbol: the first time I tried the "highlight function" on the Kindle... more on this at the end of the post. Sigh. Anyway, horrible book, and I got all the twists. Dan Brown, how have I read all your novels. Arg. Not recommended.
• Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin: I can't believe that the author is only 32 years old. His account of how the US government and other Wall Street big boys raced to save their buddies is one of the most captivating stories I have ever read. Dare I say he is better than Michael Lewis (I read the Big Short on my way from HK to Brazil - and I just realized I never wrote about that... highly recommended book on how people made unbelievably easy money from the 2008 financial tsunami). The whole thing is a gripping ride. Highly highly highly recommended.
• 大江大海1949 by 龍應台: I've been reading about 4-5 chapters a day on my commute to Shenzhen. And not one day have I not welled up on my trip. 龍老師's detailed description on how lives were eternally altered during the war years in China were all so moving. I remember meeting her once and asking her if she regretted leaving out any stories. She replied by saying all of it - all stories that were told but not published deserved to be published. 

Well, I wanted to share a sentence in the Lost Symbol that has to do with bad writing and a penis. Why am I not sharing this now...? Cus my Kindle seems to be stolen at work. Mother fucker, I have 86 hours of CCTV to see who might have stolen it... or if I just left it on the bus.

But... it has changed my life... so far.

I need to blog again

Just because I haven't blogged in a month doesn't mean I didn't do anything... in sequence of the last few months.

An Education: I thought this would be better than The Hurt Locker. It was not. Now I have to turn my attention to Precious to see if there was indeed an Oscar worthy film. An Education is a classic "too much expectation" movie for me. At the core, the movie was a fun but simple depiction of when the poor meet the rich. The poor will always be "too simple, too naive" because they weren't exposed to the life of the rich. On the other hand, the rich will always be taking advantage of its inherent advantage. The girl in the movie is quite refreshing. Recommended.

Iron Man 2: not bad for a robot vs. robot blow it all up movie. Barely recommended.

Lost: I admit, it got a little dusty at home during the finale. It's too bad the series had to end like this... I felt there was still a lot of potential in it and it had a very loyal following. Unfortunately, it wrapped up in a very rushed fashion. Recommended.

Flashforward: I think I said I would boycott the show because the whole story line was just stupid to me. Well, TF convinced me to keep watching it with her. Let's just say I'm glad it is canceled after 1 season. Shouldn't they offer an alternative ending for season 1 when there is only season 1?? Anyway, the acting was horrible for the most part and the story just didn't have any punch to it. Not recommended, although the idea was great.

The Cove: this is what documentaries should be about. Facts and more facts and not opinionated pieces like Michael Moore. Don't get me wrong - I really do enjoy Moore's documentaries - it's just that sometimes his facts seem a bit far fetched to be making a political point. The Cove, on the other hand, is black and white. You may disagree on how dolphins think about being in captive, but you cannot argue with the slaughter. The Cove is a powerful documentary and I prefer it over all the so called OScar films this year. Highly recommended!

Liar Poke: Yeah, I'm about 10 years behind the time line. Awesome book with a strange similarity to the current financial crisis. Can we all agree that capitalism breeds greed and greed breeds financial crisis? And can we also all agree that this is not a bad thing? Highly recommended. And I need to read the Big Short.

Green Zone: Matt Damon is a soldier on a mission to uncover state secrets! Sounds familiar? That's cus it is. Okay, I think we all know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Let's just move on. Recommended if you like Matt Damon. Else, not recommended.

Shrek Ever After: Sure, it was fun. Poor Shrek. Sometimes men just need some space to be men. Recommended.


大兵小将： a surprisingly good Jackie Chan feature where he plays a deserting soldier and not his usual general figure. This small potato runs into a bit of luck and takes the opposing general, played by an inspired pretty boy Wong Lee Hom, prisoner. He tries to take his new found luck home to claim the prize of 5 acres of land so he can be a farmer again. Evil forces have other ideas. Recommended... tho don't expect any Jackie Chan stunts.


International: Clive Owens and Naomi Watts in conspiracy theory investigation on a bank that helps bad guys deal arms and fudge with money. Awful premise still mastered by Clive Owen's crunched face and Naomi Watt's partially stare down. Not recommended.


Oh yeah, I'm getting married in 5 days!

Bad entertainment...

I'm waiting for TFs call to see if she got on the plane to Hong Kong alright (WOOHOO! Finally!)... so I resorted to watching movies on TV to pass time.

Assault on Precinct 13: someone asked me the other day, why do good actors make bad movies? Well, I say cus they really aren't that good. Great actors and actresses look at the script and has the intellect to say no to bad ones. So count Laurence Fishburne, Ethan Hawk, and Gabriel Byrne out of the "good actor" list. How can a movie about 10-20 cops trying to storm an old police station in a snow storm to kill the mob boss who is going to rat them out and are deterred by a "I've made decisions that killed my team members so I'm going to drink and drug myself to oblivion" cop be successful? (Yes, that was all in one sentence)

Nope. Not successful at all. Highly not recommended.

Super Crunchers: say this about Freakenomics - they really pioneered the "let's put some interesting research on a book and dumb it down so people understand what academics/business people do" genre. Now there's a flood of books that say the similar things. Hey guess what? Data can tell you a lot of things! REALLY!? Noooo way. Yeah, really. It can.

And yet I'm still fascinated on how Harrah's comps a person their room when they loose a lot on the tables to keep the customer "happy". Yup, just that part. I'll recommend flipping through the book, finding a few headlines that interest you, and read those sections only.

(Hey, a book review, how about that!?)

#16 Bill Simmons

Resume: 12 years, 8 quality, 8 All-Stars...

The case for Simmons as a Level 2 journalist is a long list:

He's the only journalist on the list to have a nickname, and that should count for something. He started posting his thoughts online as the Boston Sports Guy in 1997, when blog wasn't even a word yet. He's a pioneer of the "from a fan's point of view" style of writing. Biased and passionate, Simmons was unique among writers. His ability to reference pop culture was unparalleled. During his apex from 2002 to 2004, he routinely churned out a quality piece a week, sometimes two, and had readers checking his website every hour to see if a new article has popped up.

And then there's his contributions to fans: the immortal Ewing Theory, Level of Losing, the annual NBA Draft Diary, the Peyton Manning (among others) Face, in-game running diaries (since stolen by ESPN in-game chats), the Tyson/Artest Zone, the Annual NBA Trade Value column, the Atrocious GM Summit, Mailbags (actual emails from actual fans, baby!), Weekyl NFL picks (You know, if gambling were legal), Mount Rushmore of (Since stolen and popularized by other writers), and a fist fight with Isiah Thomas. As Simmons would always say, I made the last part up.

And those were only the ones that made it with fans (more on that later).

In only 12 years, he's already amassed millions of readers (some may even be fans, a rarity for sports journalists)... and counting. So why isn't the Boston Sports Guy ranked higher?

Well, you really have to put his career in perspective. From 1997 to 2001, Simmons wrote two to three columns a week on his own website. Sure, that's a lot of writing, but his readers were all die-hard Boston Red Sox/Celtics/Patriots/Bruins and wrestling fans. If you are evaluating him for the pyramid, you have to look at post 2001 numbers.

Did his rise as a sports columnist in 2001/2 coincide with the underdog New England Patriots winning the SuperBowl, with the Ewing Theory almost being changed to the Bledsoe Theory? You bet! What about the Red Sox, who were competitive enough to be an interesting topic to write and read about, but not enough to advance past the Yankees (in fact, the harder the Red Sox fell ('99, '01), the better the reaction of Simmon readers)? And then there's the Celtics, who were such an inept team even after they finally dropped the Rick "Larry Bird is not walking through that door, Kevin McHale is not walking through that door" Pitino. In 2001, they drafted Joe Johnson, Kedrick Brown, and then Joe Forte (thanks, Red, ahead of Parker), then traded the only blue chip (Johnson). What about the Bruins... oh, who am I kidding, the Bruins did nothing to enhance Mr. Simmons' career.

Coincidences all in Simmons' favor? I say yes.

Speaking of coincidences, more things to put into perspective: his apex from 2002 to 2004 happened the same time where he moved to LA to work on Jimmy Kimmel's staff. Hollywood, where osmosis happens. Simmons benefited immensely from hanging out with other fellow writers much like players from the '86 Celtics benefited from the Bird/Walton osmosis.

And the drop off after 2004? Well, to put it simply, the Boston Sports Guy became the Sports Guy. He left Jimmy Kimmels show where his colleagues constantly challenged him to become better and then joined ESPN to work with the very people that he has always dispised - sports journalists who report in an unbiased way. Suddenly, there's self sensorship - Simmons lamented that "certain promises were not kept" by ESPN and that ESPN "won't let me be me" (cry me a river please), there's pod-casts, and, the worst, there're less columns. Isn't this Scott Templeton in The Wire where a news writer just wants to be on better media mediums such as radios and TVs? I'm not saying Simmons made anything up... but his aspiration is to eventually be in TV, even though he looks horrible on TV. Perhaps his role as executive producer for ESPN's 30 in 30 might finally reinvent his role with ESPN and propel him to a Level 1 guy.

When looking at Simmons' career, you also cannot ignore the fact that the entire period from 1997 to 2009 was where sports stopped being fun and started to commercialize. Sky rocketing ticket prices ($100 for Red Sox bleacher tickets!?) and unimaginable free agent signings (I don't even want to list examples here) turned the casual fan off. And many of them turned to the"from a fan's point of view" style of Bill Simmons, finding a comfort place where "someone still understood how they felt". Oh, and of course, there's this thing called the Internet that aided - understatement of the century - the popularizing of the Boston Sports Guy.

Those are all circumstantial, of course. Coincidences that, looking back, may or may not have been a valid reason for Simmon's rise to #16. I say yes, and that's that. But there are also these out-right failures: discontinued cartoon series on ESPN, incomplete all-time sports movie rankings, etc.

The biggest failure ever: losing to the Sports Gal twice in picking NFL games (and possibly many more March Madness brackets) over two seasons. Look, either you never compete with your wife or you beat her soundly. There's no middle ground here.

The second biggest failuer: openly lobbied for being the General Manager of the Milwaukee Bucks and then losing to John Hammond. Actually, maybe that was a joke. I'm not sure.

And hence his ranking at #16 and on the verge of being a level 1 guy. Quick footnote: I concede that he's career is on-going and may head for higher if he does return to his roots as a writer. Perhaps 30-in-30 will put him back on the map.

I once was a huge fan of the Boston Sports Guy. TF and I still use his definition (The toothbrush rule) to mark the date when she became my girlfriend. I used to check his website all the time to see if a new article was posted. Now? Well, in 2008, his article came behind Season 2 of Lost (see entry). That should be telling, right?

So, #16 it is for now. He can still write. I just hope it will be a column instead of more pod-casts and shows.

I will say this tho: trying to write a ranking profile for Bill Simmons made me appreciate his Book of Basketball that much more. Amazing book for NBA fans. Highly recommended - again.

The Book of Basketball

I got the new Bill Simmon's "Book of Basketball" (Amazon) a week ago at a book signing. When I got to Borders for The Sports Guy to sign it, there was a ONE HOUR line. One hour! So instead of a personalized signed copy, I got signed copies only... and that's only because I was moving that day and the movers were knocking on the door

(My plan of quickly seeing the Sports Guy in person, snap a picture of him, have him sign the damn book, and back to the apartment to wait for movers fell through...)

It's actually a very thoughtfully written book so far. I loved "Now I Can Die in Peace", but "Book of Basketball" is much much better. The Sports Guy takes us through the history of basketball, several controversies, and then through a list of basketball players he deemed significant. I'm at p.620 now, and I am quite satisfied as an NBA fan.

Recommended? Of course! But only for NBA fans. It even inspired me to write a future blog entry (evil mind in works).

Dilbert should be comic only

A month after buying the Dilbert book (yes, there's a book) for $1 at a garage sale, I abandoned the attempt at page 59. The Dilbert series are made to be comic strips and they ought to stay that way.

I guess comics are like powerpoint presentations. They have one message only and that message is explained in a condense/accurate/general way. You get into the details and explain it in all different ways, it's like going back to the word version of the powerpoint!

Not recommended.

War of Necessity, War of Choice by Richard Haas

Is reading a signed copy of a book on the NY subway a good idea? Me thinks not. Luckily, nothing bad happened and the book now sits back on the bookcase in pristine condition.

Phew.

The book is a great account of the first Iraq War and an okay account of the second one. For that reason, the first half of the book is basically a good text book on how the government works in light of an imminent war. How decisions were made, why they were made, and their consequences. Great details into the personalities involved as well. Basically, Haas argues that it was a war of necessity as the tolerance of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait would have cause havoc in US Middle East (oil) interests and, on a grander scale, in world order and how states ought to behave.

However, the second half of the book drops off significantly. Haas himself was not involved in the decision process, so his views are limited at best. In fact, the book becomes his 80 page op-ed piece. I think his opinions are genuine and fair, but they are nonetheless opinions. Haas argues that the second Iraq war was a war of choice, one that the US could have easily avoided but chose not to. (Tell me something I don't know)

Overall, I think the book was a satisfying account of decision making in a history text book way. Slightly recommended.

Zhao ziyang's memior - Chinese version way better!

I'm reading Zhao Ziyang's memoir in Chinese (改革歷程, by 趙紫陽). When I read the prologue and the first chapter, I immediately knew this was going to be a far better read than the English version (with a horribly name Prisoner of the State, see my review before). The most significant reason is that the Chinese version are the exact words of Zhao. Every paragraph fills with wisdom of the dying man. It's not that the English version fails, but it just doesn't read like somebody's words, let alone that of a former Chinese Premier.

(Note: quick diversion... I bought this book at a upstair store 樓上舖 for $105... then promptly saw it for $168 at street level... Zhao and all the former Chinese leaders would have been proud of the capitalist way)

(Note 2: elders is 老人, not 長老 as I originally translated... see? So much is lost in translation!)

By the way, it suddenly struck me about the irony of me reading the book in Vancouver. For those of you who don't know, after the June 4th Incident, there was a massive immigration wave from Hong Kong to Vancouver (and, subsequently, Toronto) as HKers felt that the Chinese government could not be trusted. The same even probably also triggered the urgency to hastily put together democracy in HK (via elections for the Legislative branch). But sticking to the topic of Vancouver, it probably wouldn't have a chance to develop into what it is now had it not been the massive influx of capital from rich HK families - back then, families had to fork over a certain amount of cash in order to qualify for immigration. Ah, how little things in history alters the course of a city (or country, some may believe!).

For reasons detailed above, it is much easier to read the Chinese version and understand what is going on. Couple of points that I got out of the Chinese version and liked:

• How to accomodate socialism and capitalism? Zhao just gave "socialism" a new definition so it wouldn't conflict with on-going economic reform
• Economic reform: the Chinese leaders literally envisioned reform and that was it - an ad-hoc experiment that had a general vision but not much details besides looking at what others did. How the Chinese economy developed under those circumstances are both a great achievement as well as a great testiment to the workings of capitalism.
  
• Leadership change: the ad-hoc-ness of leaderships and how they come about was striking. Basically, Deng Xiaoping would design a committee that best fit his needs; likewise, conservatives tried to do the same
• Democracy: the damning assessment of democracy, where Deng basically says balance of power is not efficient and hinders the true growth that China can achieve
  

Highly recommended, much better than the English version.

Basketball book

At the recommendation of The Pretender, I read ":07 seconds or Less" by Jack McCallum. Pretty good book following the magical season of the Steve Nash-led Phoenix Suns in 2006. It closely follows the playoff run (Come from behind win against the Lakers, beating the Clippers, and finally falling to the Mavericks.) and cuts back in and out of the regular season to give personalities to all parties involved.

There were several things I leanred:

• #1 reason for winning: personalities and egos (doesn't surprise me... you can call this chemistry)
  
• #2 reason: talent matters too... but if the egos go the wrong way, nothing will work (not surprising either)
  
• What does surprise me, however, is how much coaches matter. Not the Xs and Ox of the coaching though. What matters is how they manage personalities and massage egos to make the team work
• #3 reason: actually, that's it. Personalities, egoes, and talent.

Verdict: Highly recommended if you like basketball.

Nudge by Thaler and Sustein

I am so glad that I read Thaler text book "Into Thin Air" (review, highly recommended) before I read Thaler authored "Nudge". Thaler is a great teacher and professor, but he is no author. While Nudge started off with some solid examples, it ultimately tailed off badly as it ventured into how to help society with academic research.

I guess I now have to appreciate an author like Malcolm Gladwell who only writes about the research (as opposed to administering it like Prof Thaler) and writes well. Made "Outlier" (review, recommended) that much better/ easier/ more fun to read...

If you must read the book, I'd recommend the first few chapters and lay off the later sections as it discusses how to nudge the public in areas such as savings, social security, health care, marriage, etc. It has some pretty neat examples of how to encourage people to do the right thing. And that's where the neatness ends too.

Not really recommended.

Great Entertainment

Ops, a bit slow on blogging lately. Here's a great movie and a great book:

The Hangover

Hold on, so you're telling me there's only a handful of movies about a bachelor party in Vegas, and the only one that comes to your mind is Very Bad Things!? VERY BAD! How is this even possible!? (Besides the very real reason that we don't want the ladies to know about it...)

The Hangover is 90 minutes of solid hilarity. This might well the funniest movie I've ever seen (东成西就 notwithstanding - it's just too classic), although my friend AT is convinced nothing can top Old School. Me thinks The Hangover is a better comedy. Then again, with a bachelor party in vegas premise, there's no ceiling for this. I wonder when will the next BPiV come out? Anyway, the actors in the movie (a collection of nobodies...) did a great job... but the screenwriters really put this thing together. Awesome job that kept the movie going and going, while the audience laughed till their jaws started to hurt. Mine certainly did. Bachelor party is Vegas, baby!

HIGHLY HIGHLY recommended. I will see it again with PNGF... and hopefully convincing her that's not how it goes down in BPs...

Into Thin Air

One thing is for sure: Into Thin Air is not funny. You already know 5 of them are going to die. You even know which 5. And you read about all the decisions and incidents that slowly builds up to the Everest climbing catastrophe in 1996.

My next book is Nudge by my former teacher at Chicago Booth Dick Thaler, who actually uses Into Thin Air as part of his teaching material on Managerial Decision Making. And that's how I read it: a book about how decisions can lead to unintended consequence. In fact, that's why I ordered this book.

Yet I digress. The author Jon Krakauer was part of a 26 member team that attempted to summit Mount Everest. In the book, he recounts what happened after interviewing all the parties involved and tries to analyze what happened in what is known as a Dead Zone (above 25,000 feet about sea level - Everest is 29,028 feet). It's an extremely well written book: Krakauer has left no stone unturned. Facts were slowly put together as the climbers ascend the mountain, and you start to cringe about every single one starting from chapter 1. Finally, in the final summit attempt, all these facts snowball into disaster.

Again, highly highly recommended. One of the best books I've read in years (sigh, how did I not get to this earlier) and great material to learn about decision making. Here're some of my learnings:

• Those who want to climb mount Everest are crazy
• Those who want to pay to climb mount Everest are stupid
  
• People who could be in danger (read: all climbers) should have a radio (And have enough batteries... sigh... I violated rule #1 in my friend AT's wedding)
• Once you've paid for something, your decision is skewed already
• Once you asked someone to pay for something, both your decisions are skewed
• Commitment to pre-defined deadlines are important
• Setting pre-defined deadlines and the conditions are important
  
• As economists have said all along, self interest comes first... especially when your life was at stake

In my opinion, most of the things that happened on top of the world was motivated by self interest - even the seemingly selfless act of waiting with the client in the blistering cold. And it's really nobody's fault that disaster struck. If any, it is the over-confidence of each individual as well as the collective team that was the main cause.

Zhao Ziyang's Memoir

I mentioned yesterday that I coincidentally finished Zhao's book on the 20th anniversary of June 4th. Here's a review... of the English version. I mentioned I wanted to read the Chinese version... so much is lost in translation, and I miss reading Chinese idioms greatly.

• Name of the book: The name "Prisoner of the State" is highly inappropriate. I do not doubt the fact that Zhao was a de facto prisoner. However, that is NOT what the book is about, as he spends a mere 20 pages (um... voice recordings) describing how he was unjustly treated. This book is a review about China's development post Mao up to June 4th, 1989 from Zhao's eyes. The Chinese name 改革歷程 (The evolution of reform) is much more appropriate.
• Lost in translation: The "Elders" were the major obstacle to Zhao's reform ideas. I don't think "Elders" captures the significance. 元老 is much better. A 元老 has achieved basically indestructible status due to his or her contributions to the party throughout his or her years. This means, in a twisted Chinese (Asian?) way, none of the wrongs should be mentioned (unless permitted) and only the rights should be celebrated.
  
• Economic reforms: a large part of the book is spent on Zhao's vision for the Chinese economy. What I found in the book is a great economic mind. Ex-ante, he was absolutely spot-on in how to run China's (then) untapped economy and unleash its powers through utilization of cheap labor and work exports and accumulate reserves to further transform the economy into higher value added industries. For a person who never finished high school, that's pretty good; Milton Friedman even called him "the greatest socialist economist" (is that a backhanded compliment?)
• Political reform: Despite what the foreign press and the foreword says, Zhao was not a advocate for parliamentary democracy when he was in power. He was a advocae for a more open and democratic Communist Party (i.e. within). Only years after his detainment did he arrived at the conclusion that Western parliamentary was the best available method. If he stayed in power, I doubt he would get to that - he did ask Deng to stay in power just to keep the opposing "elders" in check as he consolidated power and rose to prominance.
  
• Military: conspicuously missing from the book was any mention of the military (People Liberation Army, or PLA). Surely Zhao was aware that the military sided with the elders? But there was no mention of any generals or military heavyweights in the book.

Alas, so what does the book mean? For one, it means Zhao was right from the very beginning: economic reform via the market economy was the way China would climb out of a half century funk. Ah, but he was also wrong: he thought that economic reform could only come with political reform. The last 20 years seems to have proven him wrong, as the Chinese economy has flourished under the still-authoritarian (still somewhat oppressive) government.

I also think the book is solid evidence that Deng Xiaoping was behind the wheel of everything that happened in modern China. Yes, that includes June 4th. Regarding reforms, he may not have known exactly what to do, but he got the right people to do it (such as Zhao and his predecessor Hu Yaobang) and remained a buffer between economic reform and political conservatives.

Even though I've pointed out that this book is more about the economic and political struggle of China prior to June 4th 1989, I will take a stab. Had June 4th not happened, I think the economic reforms would have still been successful. In particular, Zhao points out that his idea of political reform at the time was more transparency within the party as well as introducing different voices into the party. Neither of which would truly hinder the development of the economy.

You can of course argue this the other way... that the success of the student demonstrations would have led to yet another bigger protest when the people do not get what they want (a de facto democracy, ala Thailand style!?)... and bloodshed was inevitable. I can't relive history...

... but I 100% judge what happened in Tiananmen Square: "That's Wrong".

Adventure Capitalist by Jim Rogers

Yup, another book down. I'm actually quite excited about the next one: Prisoner of the State by Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽). By the time I am done, it might coincide with the 20th anniversary of the June 4th Incident.

First things first though. Adventure Capitalist is a book about Jim Roger's travel around the world - twice. Basically, he zig zags through the Euroasia continents via Middle East and Russia, and then takes a route along the southern shorelines across Africa, Asia, Australia, South America and back to America. The book is more about a from-the-ground view of economies that he comes across: Rogers will have a few paragraphs to a few pages dedicated to why he would or would not invest in that economy. The focus is usually on the resources and governance that the country has and the bureaucracy of doing business there.

Overall, it's a pretty entertaining book that touches on some very serious subjects (e.g. lack of accountability for NGOs) while moving along crisply with his travels. I respect a book like this - one that voices an opinion bluntly with no regard for the opposition. Sometimes I find Rogers a bit radical... but hey, it's his opinion!

And I love the last 20-25 pages on his views on the American economy. The book was published in 2003... so I sincerely hope Jim Rogers made a killing over the last year or so in this crappy economy. Highly recommended, especially if you dream of traveling around the world.

(By the way, I would love to read one that's about culture)

Off to some serious Chinese history.

The tale of two books

I re-read Touching the Void. And I ordered Into Thin Air. But here, I want to talk about Outliers, which I briefly touched on yesterday.

Compared to The World is Flat, which I reviewed a couple of days ago, I like Outliers better. Both are pulling real life examples to prove their point. But Gladwell is much better at using popular culture and writing to connect with the reader. Granted, the two discuss two topics that are very different in seriousness, but still...

Anyway, a good read doesn't mean it's a good book. Essentially, what Outlier does is to find the Outliers and then trace how they have succeeded... eventually, every success story is broken down and the author concludes that a lot of it is the situation. Yup, this sounds like organizational behavior all over again. And therein lies the problem of the book: Yes, it's the situation that made the success. But of course it is! You identify successful people and then, ex-post, examine the components:

• Yes, they were smart
  
• Yes, they were born in the right year
• Yes, they family supported what they did
  
• Yes, their cultural background benefited them
  
• Yes, all these opportunities fell ontheir laps and they seized it

Amazing stories, yes. Amazing conclusions, not really.

When I read the chapter on Korean Air, however, I found it quite odd. If the Korean hierarchy and lack of communication caused multiple accidents, why hasn't the same occurred in Japanese or Chinese airlines? A lot of these academic -> pop culture books have this problem... correlation, yes, but no causation link.

Which is why I've always like Freakenomics, who have a good academic approach to proving their point with popular data.

Verdict: Recommended.

Some random thoughts too: basically, you need to practice 10,000 hours of something to become very good at it. Hmmm... and you need to be born into an era where there's a boom somewhere so you can make your millions. Am I screwed already? I don't know. Let's hope there's a new boom coming up before I become too old to benefit from it!

Next book...

Remember I said there's never enough time to just do the things you like to do? Well, I'm trying my darn best. After going almost two years between reading books, I've started another one already.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell: Mr. Gladwell attempts to show that innate ability (IQ) has far less to do with success than we think it does.

I'm 100 pages or so into the book, and the examples it uses is quite fascinating:

• Smartest man in America (IQ = 195, only because they can't measure anything higher accurately - and I'm curious, how do you design these tests if you aren't the smartest in the world? Can someone with an IQ of 150 design a test that can test another with an IQ of 308?) who only reads in his home and has achieved nothing of significance (in our sense of achievement)
• Historical examples such as Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller
• Contemporary examples such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Well... all nice and dandy... except that I already know this from my own life experiences and Freakenomics. Let's hope the next 200 pages are better.

By the way, I'm working on some food-photo journal-review-map thing.

Finally, I read a book

But before I get into "The World is Flat", let me quickly warn you about Wolverine.

Tom Cruise to MI:2 (For the record, MI:3 never happened) is Daniel Craig to 007 is Hugh Jackman to Wolverine. What was wrong with those movies? Well, it focused on the actor rather than the character and the story/other characters. What made the MI series so much fun was that the whole team worked together. MI:2 made it seem that only Tom could do anything. Ditto with 007 and his team of experts (Bring Q and the gadgets back please). Yet the new 007 movies have made it into a 007-does-it-all himself movie.

And so that's where Wolverine fails miserably. It's not about mutants using their respective powers to defeat a common enemy. It's about Hugh Jackman and his muscles and, uh, emotions (Laugh!). Sorry, I have no interest. Not recommended.

To the book "The World is Flat" by Thomas Freidman. By the way, last time I read a book and reviewed it was 2007-6-13. Two years ago! HOLY SHIT! I'm reading that same book, Touching the Void, again. (Also, two years since that A-hole took my camera, sun glasses, and passport - in that order of importance - in Peru)

Overall, I'm okay with the book. The idea was probably novel at the time it was written and Friedman goes to great lengths to prove his point. My main critique is that it is overly generalized and struggles a bit when it overstretches its arguments. For example, I could argue that R&D is the main driver of economies and attribute economic developments to R&D. Is that 100% of developments? 90%? 80%? Friedman really tries to do 100%...

Nonetheless, it's an interesting book. I remember when I first saw dot-com businesses pop up left and right, I thought that the "perfectly competitive" world in classic economics would finally appear and no business would profit anymore (yeah, I was naive and young at the time, please give me a break). Friedman took it much further.

With that, couple of thoughts (with the benefit of hindsight):

• Friedman argues that music and other liberal art subjects is essential in gaining an upper hand in the flat world due to the nature of the subjects focusing on collaboration - just wha the flat world needs. Yet, at the same time, he blasts the US education system (parenting too) for not putting enough time in engineering subjects and focusing too much on sports and music and teams
  
• He mentions that the openness of the capital markets is the basis of "trust" and a great differentiator of the US economy. Hm... still think that trust exists?
• He also mentions in the same section that the great consumer demand in the US is a differentiator... now we know it, along with China, is a major contributor to the current crisis
• Friedman says education, healthcare, and retirement security are three very large expenses... yes, indeed... if we can only get everybody to realize that and do things for their own good rather than waiting for the govt to do something
• Is some of China's advantage (over India, in particular) the lack of democracy? Friedman makes a weak attempt to defer to difference in leadership... just say it: a dictator that does the right thing has an advantage over a democracy in making policies happen.
• There's reference that the next party who adopts the newest technology to reach voters will win the next election. Let's just say Barack read the book. (Or... me thinks... Bush fucked up in his presidency... oh, but what do I know...)
• What causes the inflammation of terrorism? Poverty or humiliation? Friedman votes for humiliation. I vote for poverty, which fuels the humiliation. Look, if everybody was middle class, where would terrorism get its grass root support?

I wish I read the book immediately when it came out. A little late, perhaps, but still relevant now (albeit a bit obvious). Recommended.

And let me end with one of my favorite lines in the book:

"Ultimately, September 11 is about them - the bad guys - not about us" - Thomas Friedman

First day traveling... and traveling...

Yesterday at about 330pm, my family and I set off from Columbus Plaza to Peru. THIRTY hours later, we've finally settled in. Oh yes, you read that right. No disrespect to my Indian friends traveling back home, but this was still quite an ordeal.

Let's just say I haven't done anything weirder (this includes my ordeal with United in Denver and then my unbelievably timed trip to Boston) than:

• Arrive and depart from the same airport FOUR times in a day
• Fly from one airport to another TWO times in 12 hours

Our consolation prize was a great meal at a restaurant called TanTa. My god they were awesome. Maybe it was the whole travel mess; or maybe just hunger. I'm not sure. Either way, they were good, and they immediately quelled my fear of sub par food experiences instilled by 2R, whom famously said that she craved McD after her Peru trip.

Anyway, it was fitting that with all this adventurous mishaps in Peru that I finished reading Touching the Void, an amazing true story of how two friends survived broken souls and legs. Reading how the author survived his certain death fall and then managed to crawl himself to safety reminded me of my Tibetan experience (at the end of the page), which of course pales in comparison but still looms big in my life as my closet death encounter. Anyway, I thought the author had a very accurate desription of how one physially and mentally feels when he or she brushes death. I don't know how lose I was to death, but I had very similar experience - the voice vs. thoughts, setting into a pattern, collapsing one help came, etc. Very good book for a quik read. I can't imagine myself in a similar situation; well, part of it is because I am a wuss and I would never plae myself in that kind of danger... but also the guilt would just bury me alive. Highly reommended. I now want to read the other hiking books!

The Alchemist

I've been meaning to write a review on The Alchemist. Good thing I waited (er... was busy with work) because a good friend from HKG gave me her review: it wasn't satisfying. Everybody else loved the book, including yours truly. Anyway, The Alchemist is basically about pursuing dreams. It's that simple. Hence my HKG friend's reaction. She thought it was too simple and was a book for people who were too lazy to read. I tend to agree with her. Because I am too lazy to read... like many of my MBA classmates. (We read the book for class)

Nonetheless, lessons well taken from The Alchemist. Everybody has a dream. Not everybody follows it for various reasons. There are subjective and objective reasosn, and some reasons are hard to overcome. The book makes an attempt to say nothing is impossible (thank you, Adidas) and that we should pursue our dreams no matter what. This is, of course, debatable. Nonetheless, The Alchemist makes me think about the paths that I have taken so far and whether those paths are by design or by luck and, most importantly, whether it's leading me towards my dream.

The one thing that bothered me is that the book thinks that everybody has a dream. It doesn't really tell us how to find or formulate this dream. The very nature of a dream, the book says, indicates that it should come to you naturally (bad English, apologies). Nobody can teach you how to identify your dream, for you are the one who knows yourself the best.

This got me thinking: what is my dream? Is it being a consultant? A partner? Travel photographer and writer? At Chicago GSB, I'm working towards the first and second maybe. Just maybe. But that's hardly my dream! The last may be a dream, but I'm good at neither photography nor writing... maybe because I'm focused on career and knowledge. By working as a consultant, am I diminishing my chances of achieving my dream (assuming that it was true and all)?

Let me end with my mother: she use to teach. Following her dream of running her own business, she quit her stable teaching job at the university and started a supermarket business in Hong Kong. Later, she started a beauty salon business. Then, she started a travel agent, capitalizing her dream of learning about other cultures and art and history. She now runs specialty tour groups for museum goers. Maybe there's more to her path... maybe there isn't... I doubt she knew she wanted to be a travel agent, and I doubt she knew of her dream of learning art and history. But by quiting teaching and being an (serial) entrepreneur, she seem to be one step closer.

So maybe, just maybe, I am one step closer. Meanwhile, at the GSB, something counter-productive to my "dream": I left my camera in the classroom. When I found out later in the afternoon, I had a temporary heart attack and felt like the biggest dumbass for not taking care of my favorite electronic equipment. Arg.

Poverty

Just finished Jeffrey Sach's "The End of Poverty," an aggressive plan laid out to terminate extreme poverty by 2025. Hmm... looking back at my blog, I started this book around mid September! Business school, you are evil.

I liked the book a lot. These types of book - as in the simplified economics / common sense / academic types - are quite prevalent in the market lately. For a person like myself, with some economic training, they are a delite to read. Not only do I understand most of the methodologies and approach, but I also can scrutinize the book with some confidence.

Back to the book. I believe in the solution Sachs has suggested. It is very comprehensive and it has proven to work in other previously struggling countries. The real question is, as he has clearly laid out, whether the donors will have enough faith in the effectiveness of the money given. Here, he credits U2 singer Bono for ingesting faith into politicians and different sections and making them believe in the solution.

Relating to what we learn in business school, this is the relationship side of business, the soft side, the LEAD side. Too often among the MBA ranks are people who are results-only-driven... which is great, we should all be results-driven; but we shouldn't forget about the soft skills. Results matter, which is why economists such as Jeffrey Sachs is retained to do developmental work again and again. Soft side also matters, which is why Sachs would have never succeeded without te help of Bono. Even Sachs acknowledges that. Results results results... but also relationships.

Read the book. At least know that there is a solution for all the bad things happening around the world, and all the good things that could happen.