Hi,
Where do I even begin?…
So much has happened in the past few months. Firstly, I took some time off so I could try my best to inject some balance back into my life. I needed to heal from my scooter accident injury as well as my hypothyroid condition. I know that when things get left undone, they can get bigger than necessary, so I wanted to stop the vicious cycle that was my life. I needed to re-gain the balance, and mostly, I wanted to get back to doing what I love doing and back to feeling fulfilled again. Maybe I should explain? Hahaha (I am sure many of you will relate with what I’m about to tell you.)
At the time, I came to realize that I was sort of empty inside, and what I was doing was running between clients, liaising with potential clients, networking endlessly and treading water with my friends, On top of that I was filling my life up with so many more ‘on-the-go’ types of things. And really, it was just so that I could ‘fill up’ what I’ve come to realize has been a large empty feeling inside me. I wanted to take some time to get back to the real ‘Me”…. And so today, I write to tell you about it. So follow me along while I tell you what I did…
I got up and left Vancouver to ‘do nothing’ in China for 5 months. I was in Shanghai from Oct 1 until March 3rd. I went shopping, eating, sightseeing. The whole vacation/tourist thing. I did the health and wellness jaunt as well; getting seen and treated by different types of alternative Chinese doctors. I had some interesting treatments and experienced everything from being poked with acupuncture needles and fumed with incense over my various pressure points. I had ‘Chi’ balanced all over my body (Chi meaning ‘life energy’ and not the CHI hair care product, hahaha.) And yes, I even had glass suction cups therapy on my shoulders and back.
You know me, and that means you know I was able to also delight in the night-life and all things ‘cool’. I saw Kanye West live in concert, sat in some very cool and eclectic jazz bars and to top it all off, soaked my feet in the Hyatt Regency Hotel rooftop patio. I was overjoyed with drinking in the sights and sounds of the band. I was still ‘little old me’ though, and so doing what I love, I threw my dad a 60th birthday party. It was amazing. Throughout the course of the trip to China I was able to get closer to my cousins, get to know my aunts and extended relatives better, and the best part was getting to enjoy a ‘proper’ Chinese New Year with amazing fireworks!
It amazed me how in China there are so many documentaries, TV series, and programs that are dedicated to educating the masses about a range of topics, from foreign cultures and religions to different philosophies, etc. And so during my months abroad, I read books by Lao Tse, who began Daoism. I also read a biography about “Confucius”. Now, what I took away from Daoism is that everything is balanced. Sickness and health will both be a part of our life, as will be success and failure. I learned that we should not take a moment our lives too seriously, because the only constant thing in life is that time is moving forward. Lao Tse never desired fancy cloth or fame and fortune; he just lived a very humble life. He taught that if an Emperor were to value fame and fortune, then jealousy and competition would naturally arise in his nation. He knew those qualities would turn into conflict and eventually civil war. He believed that if people were taught to be happy with what they had instead of chasing ambition and greed, then the country would be harmonious and peaceful.
Confucius valued manners and etiquette. He believed in respecting the elderly, in the strength of love between siblings, and in the power of love between husband and wife. He taught that it all begins with simple respect. Many stories have proven how he used his words to avert invasions from a neighboring country, and as such he positioned his Emperor well. He was the ultimate both as a teacher and student, as he never stopped his own journey of learning.
Back to the subject of ‘balance’, I had both positive and negative experiences in China. On one hand, I was thoroughly impressed and taken in with the fast paced, opportunistic and dynamic nature of a global metropolis like Shanghai. At the same time, I was disgusted by the poor air quality, by the citizens’ lack of manners toward one another, and by having almost been run over by a taxicab! There are so many more things that I learned I needed to open my eyes to in this life, because everything that happens in China is rooted in the notion of ‘what is not said’; a millisecond of an intonation, facial expression etc. It’s fascinating to observe and be a part of, and to see the effects of the minutia in our lives and human interactions. If you want to see pictures, click HERE
Now I am back, and I am feeling wonderful about the experiences I had in China, and with this I bring you some good news for the Vancouver front; Lorraine Murphy has became Social Butterfly Club’s first social reporter! Lorraine will be spending her time and talent roaming around various events in Vancouver and she’ll be taking photos and writing event reviews. To this end, we welcome your event invite! Also, if you’re interested in becoming a social reporter, please email me your interest. The content will be posted on our SBC blog and we hope to update it on a daily basis you can read about the Bombay Sapphire event, Clutch performance of "The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan", "Jazz in the Park", "Unite with ART" , and many more event reviews coming up HERE
Here is a short bio about Lorraine:
Lorraine Murphy has been blogging for many years, and her flagship blog, raincoaster, is ranked in the top 20,000 blogs in the world. She maintains The Shebeen Club Blog for the literary group of the same name, running through rain for students of her course Blogging to Personal Growth, and Blogger’s Blurt, a resource for beginning WordPress bloggers. She mommyblogs at TeenyManolo and celebrityblogs at Ayyyy!. Ms Murphy is the author of Terminal City: Vancouver’s Missing Women and a former Small Business Columnist at Business in Vancouver newspaper and Occupational Pursuit magazine. As one of the cornerstone volunteers in the WordPress.com technical help forums, she has long experience helping beginning bloggers develop fluency and achievement online. You can reach her at lorraine@socialbutterflyclub.ca
Roadtrip: Washington & Oregon Coast
I recently took the Victoria Day long weekend, and did a spontaneous road-trip with one of my best friends. We drove through Washington and Oregon States through what was 4 days of straight sunshine and I couldn’t have asked for more!
We spent the first night in Seattle in what has got to be the worst motel we could find for $108! We slept in cheap polyester sheets with a thin fuzzy beige layer that acted as a blanket. That said, our trip did get better from there and hey, it only added a little ‘character’ to the trip! We visited the Museum of Kites at Long beach, had a chance to make our kite and then we flew it on the beach! We had lunch at a heritage bed and breakfast place amidst the most beautiful garden landscape. We also added even more indulgence and visited a cheese factory and sampled their free cheese and bought their ice cream. My friend bought a fridge magnet for his mom of a little cute mouse climbing out of a chunk of cheddar. I got some postcards and a Swiss Army Knife with my step dad’s name on it. We drove all the way to Astoria and stayed in the Best Western Hotel, which was quite nice (swimming pool, Jacuzzi, and gym) with lots of amenities and a free breakfast. We went out for a nice dinner, where a free -roaming magician showed up and showed us some “mentalism” tricks followed by making a playing card fly around his left hand to our amazement! It’s amazing that American restaurants always serve way too much food and we each could only eat ¼ of the plate. No problem because we just had it for lunch during a picnic outside ‘The Astoria Column’, where incidentally, famed explorers, Lewis and Clark parked their canoe. The column is quite impressive, and it sure is bigger than a simple flag having been placed to claim this beautiful area.
All throughout our trip, we saw breathtaking views of hills, beaches, mountains, and farms. We were impressed that so much of the land remains in its natural state and has not undergone massive development. There was still so much land to explore without any sight of human inhabitants. After having seen all that, I find it mind boggling that a country such as The United States, which is blessed with such abundant natural resources, still presents facts that so many Americans are living below poverty.
Something interesting is that we noticed a dramatic 10 -degree difference when we drove from Washington State into Oregon. Also we noticed the geography changed quite a bit; a more coastal and warmer climate, and boasting noticeably more vegetation instead of the forests of trees and mountainous land we are used to seeing in BC. We spent an hour or two in the touristy town of Cannon Beach in Oregon. It was lovely and it reminded me quite a bit of Lahaina in Maui; a very quaint town with streets with vendors selling souvenirs, beach toys and candy. It’s a place where families with their babies and dogs put up big beach umbrellas and park there for the day. Seniors strolled the town leisurely, people watching and getting some fresh air.
There was so much more to this story, I'll tell you about the Seattle part of our trip in the next newsletter....^_^ See more pictures here
Malcolm Gladwell is a master storyteller and so while using this talent for his book ‘Outliers’, he shares unique evidence to back up his interesting and provocative social theories of how absolutely nobody goes from rags to riches. He talks about the notion of the “10,000 hours” which, according to Mr. Gladwell, these are the amount of hours that must be spent in a particular area as a key to achieving any type of ‘expertise’, be it related to the success of the Beatles or of Bill Gates. (The Beatles incidentally went to Germany for 5 years, and played 10 hours a day, 5 days a week to Germans, so according to Gladwell’s theory, only after 5 years did they really became a band! Similarly, Bill Gates’ family belonged to a private club that had invested in a computer program for youth and it subsequently offered Bill endless lab time with the most advanced computer of that time period in the 80’s. Bill also had been an intern during the summer for a high-tech company in Seattle, and then at night between 2-6am, he and Paul Allan went to University of Washington to access more free computer time. These factors were all key to their success.)
In essence Gladwell says that if you have the dedication to spend 10,000 towards a particular field, you’ll be an expert of that field. Malcolm shares his theory that the fact Chinese kids seem to be the winners of the global mathematical tests is not because of typical genetics, but due to an underlying factor, going generations back which emphasizes the importance of hard work, as these Chinese kids came from families and a long line of hard working rice farmers, who tend to work 365 days a year. The hard work is ancestral.
What I found most fascinating about this book was the story about “The smartest man in USA”, who has not led an extraordinary life, but has worked minimum wage jobs, has been kicked out of university, who spent time employed as a bouncer, and who now lives in a small town on his ranch. He was neither a leader of society nor of industry, was neither wealthy nor was he recognized for his intellectual work. The essence of what Gladwell says then, is that ‘IQ’ is not the end all and be all to one’s success; Malcolm alludes to emotional intelligence, or EQ, quoting the man who led the “Manhattan Project” and who’s charm has helped him out of sticky situations and into positions of tremendous power. Malcolm also documents a longitudinal study performed by a social scientist who followed 500 children from a young age all the way into their adulthood. During their youth, it was hard for them to not see their names in Newspapers winning contests, sports, and various activities. But as they grew into adulthood, some of them didn’t even finish high school, and some ended up on welfare. Only a handful of them became extremely successful. What was discovered was their family background was essential to how they have turned out as adults. Malcolm concludes the book with a look at school systems; comparing how children do scholastically between the Asian and North American systems. It seems that Asian children have much longer school terms, and school hours. A pilot program in Harlem Public Elementary School displayed results that prove that longer school hours and longer school term can increase students’ grades, and also help to give them a better chance at entering good high schools and Universities.
Malcolm Gladwell also cites a young American musician whose music intrigued all the music producers… Yet no record company has picked up him because his music cannot be easily categorized, and so would not be popular with radio play programming.
In the book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell also recounts how a non-English speaking Guatemalan immigrant who lived in Brooklyn, was killed at point blank by 4 policemen in his doorway when they fired 44 bullets into his body. The police thought he was holding a gun, but in reality he was holding his key and was turning around to open his door in fear. This incident quickly became a racial issue, and caused uproar. This is just one example of how jumping to conclusions can lead to deadly mistakes. Malcolm Gladwell also talks about how the amount of plane crashes can be related to the level of communication between the pilot and co-pilot, and also between pilots to the base. Cultures that have high hierarchal social structure tend to have higher rates of planes crashing, for instance Korea or some South American countries. Once the training was done to create more equality between pilot and co-pilot, plane crashes decreased dramatically.
Quote of the month:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - strawberries in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming - WOO HOO! What a Ride!" ~Sue Ashworth
I have totally missed you,
Alice