Happy Holidays!

Escape from Academia will be taking a break over the holidays until mid-January. Thank you for all your support.

Wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Philosophy of Parkour

Imagine you jump, you run, and you free-fall all over a city. How free, or how zen, can you feel?

I read this article about a group of free-runners in Bangkok. They practice parkour not only for fun. On top of jumping off buildings and making dangerous moves without protection, parkour is also about developing self-discipline.

Parkour is a term that comes from the "obstacle course" used for military training. According to the founder of parkour, David Belle, the philosophy of parkour is to move from one point to another in the most effective way possible. In addition, the "traceurs" i.e. the practitioners of parkour, believe that parkour can improve critical thinking and mentality.

It's very interesting. I think I will begin to practice parkour someday. One day ...

Shalom to the Recession or Ben Bernanke?

Foreign Policy named Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke 2009's number one global thinker. Excerpt is as follows:

The Zen-like chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve might not have topped the list solely for turning his superb academic career into a blueprint for action, for single-handedly reinventing the role of a central bank, or for preventing the collapse of the U.S. economy. But to have done all of these within the span of a few months is certainly one of the greatest intellectual feats of recent years. Not long ago a Princeton University professor writing paper after paper on the Great Depression, "Helicopter Ben" spent 2009 dropping hundreds of billions in bailouts seemingly from the skies, vigilantly tracking interest rates, and coordinating with counterparts across the globe. His key insight? The need for massive, damn-the-torpedoes intervention in financial markets. Winning over critics who have since praised his "radical" moves (including Nouriel Roubini, No. 4 on this list), he now faces an uphill battle in his bid for permanently expanded Fed powers. The radicalism is far from over.

"Those who doubt that there is much connection between the economy of the 1930s and the supercharged, information-age economy of the twenty-first century are invited to look at the current economic headlines -- about high unemployment, failing banks, volatile financial markets, currency crises, and even deflation. The issues raised by the Depression, and its lessons, are still relevant today." --Bernanke, Essays on the Great Depression.

Though many claim Bernanke has successfully utilized his academic intelligence to save us from a worse collapse during the economic crisis, his lack of attention to the long-term economy has also put us in a potential hyperinflation (see my recent post about the current economic crisis). Well, we will see how Bernanke brainstorms and deals with it when it comes.

A Beautiful Crime

Art exists in many forms – Van Gogh found it in painting, Frank Lloyd Wright found it in architecture, and Michael Jackson found it in dancing and singing, etc. And for Philippe Petit, he once found it in crime.

I found this article about Philippe Petit, a famous French tightrope walker, and his history of crossing between the twin towers of World Trade Center on a wire back in 1974. The crossing is not only made by Philip, but by the friends of Philip and those who were entertained by such a dangerous idea. At first I thought I was watching a group of professional criminals trying to destroy the towers. They spent several years of efforts to "premeditate" the crime together - they even had an insider in one of the extremely secured towers. However, I later discovered that this "artistic crime of the century" - named by Time Magazine - is neither a crime nor a serious villainy futile. In fact, it is simply a pursuit of the passion and happiness. Perhaps the story of Philip is an extreme example of having a passion they can die for, but I think we should learn the attitude of Philip: If you have a passion, it must be pursued at any price, if you fail or even die because of the pursuit, it is a beautiful failure.

Philippe Petit's interesting quotations:
- "My crime is purely artistic. If I have to ask for permission to do it and I am refused, I will still do it anyway. To me, this is obvious: there is no need to ask for permission when we want to accomplish something beautiful. It just needs to be done."

- "Being a tightrope walker, it is not a profession but a way of life. Crossing on a wire is a metaphor for life: there is a beginning, an end, progression, and if you make a wrong step, you die."

- "To me, it seems so simple that life should be lived on the wire, meaning to see every day, every year, every idea as a real challenge."

China's Very Own Cola

As I was doing some routine blog readings, I came across this blog post about Future Cola, one of the successful Shan Zhai businesses that I mentioned in my recent article. I think it would be interesting to elaborate more on its rise.

Although it copied the packaging of Coca-Cola, Future Cola actually researched substantially on what flavor was tailored for the Chinese palate. Eventually, it came up with the taste, which it claimed to represent a healthy way to cool off the Chinese youngsters and clean out their fiery livers. With a strategy similar to BaWang’s, Future Cola targeted at overlooked consumers in lower-tier cities and rural areas. Taking advantage of Shan Zhai to achieve low production costs, Future Cola rapidly imported state-of-the-art equipment and localized production facilities. Furthermore, it leveraged the resources of its parent company, Wahaha Group, in order to establish a vast distribution network in target markets. More important, it launched an aggressive but very focused marketing campaign to build a brand image as “the Chinese people’s own cola.” Once mocked as a cheap copycat of Coca-Cola, Future Cola has now grown into the third-largest player in China’s carbonated soft drinks market after Coca-Cola and Pepsi, with a competitive edge in less developed markets. To expand its market presence further, Future Cola is even planning to challenge the two beverage giants by entering the first-tier markets.

This is just one of many stories about venturous and innovative Shan Zhai businesses.

The era of Shan Zhai seems to be on its way.

Chinese Democracy in Becoming a Star

While many people nowadays may still see China as a community nation where the Party takes total control of its people, I recently found democracy in this Chinese television show called Super Girl.

Considered as the Shan Zhai version of American Idol, Super Girl is an open competition any female contestant regardless of her age, origin, appearance, or the way she sings. But unlike the U.S. show, Super Girl judges are selected from different backgrounds in the society – some of them are even picked from the audience. And the most astounding part is that in the final stages the winners are not chosen by judges at all; instead they are elected by viewers from all over the country by telephone and text messages.

It has turned out that such fearless form of democracy has culturally conquered China. The 2005 season finale was one of the most popular shows in Chinese broadcast history, drawing over 400 million viewers, more than the China Central Television New Year's Gala – the usual number one show every year – earlier that year. Think about it. The number is even bigger than that of the U.S. population! Further, roughly over 600 million votes on average were casted in every season, making this show one of the most democratic phenomena in contemporary Chinese history.

Super Girl has evidently created incredible commercial success and unprecedented social impacts. Though there remain some opposing voices, particularly from the government, that accuse the show of polluting the Chinese culture with foreign ideologies and promoting a low culture to the youth, they have to realize that globalization, which today continues to assimilates various cultures, is inevitable and unstoppable. To put this way, Chinese people watching Super Girl is roughly the same idea as Westerners learning Chinese after all.

Probably they might change their mind after watching Jane Zhang’s spectacular performance in The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Building Earth on Earth? Save Enough Money First

The Arabs have got the bad habits of Westerners - they don't save enough money for luxuries.