Building trust and relationships in business in E Asia

I am surprised this was only reported on WSJ recently. I thought it is an open secret.

...Karaoke in East Asia is serious, and its practitioners are far more earnest in their art than a group of giggling Americans belting out "Sloop John B" might seem.

For the unseasoned American doing business in East Asia, there is occasionally a darker and somewhat confusing side to a night of karaoke. First-time travelers could be in for a shock when they find themselves in a private room in a karaoke club -- common in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan and mainland China -- being asked to choose from a lineup of young women brought in to serve them. A visitor's first thought might be that the women are sex workers. They are young, often dressed in revealing clothes and ready to finger-feed customers fruit or whatever else they may be eating. In some low-end clubs, the women may indeed be sex workers, but foreign business travelers are unlikely to be taken to these places. At most places business guests end up, the women are simply club hostesses whose presence conveys luxury.

In some cases, it is considered rude to turn down invitations and you risk getting ostracized if you do so.

The Science Comedian - Brian Malow

This guy rocks! Three of his classic jokes:

a. Some helium gas drifts into a bar. The bartender says, 'We don't serve noble gases here.' Pause. The helium doesn't react.

b. Says the bartender to a superconductor that walks in: 'We don't serve superconductors here.' The superconductor then leaves the bar, putting up no resistance.

c. Women have passed through my life like exotic particles through a cloud chamber, leaving only vapor trails for me to study for clues to their nature.

There's more in youtube where you can watch his performances.



*

Unrelated: Chemical Party by EU. (via lancerlord)

My Intelligences

The Rogers Indicator of Multiple Intelligences created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Logical/Mathematical You like to work with numbers and ask questions. You learn best by classifying information, engaging in abstract thinking and looking for common basic principles. People like you include mathematicians, biologists, medical technicians, geologists, engineers, physicists, researchers and other scientists. Logical/Mathematical 93% Verbal/Linguistic 82% Visual/Spatial 71% Intrapersonal 64% Bodily/Kinesthetic 54% Interpersonal 43% Musical/Rhythmic 21%

This is like so...duh.

On (potential) bondbreaker from China

An email to the graduate student body was sent out last week, giving us the names of the incoming class of 2008 and the previous institutions they attended (similar to this). There is this person from one of the Singapore universities. She is obviously PRC (I don't think Singaporean Chinese have names spelled like hers, but I could be wrong), and a google-search of her name + university showed that she had topped her undergraduate class recently.

I wonder if she is one of those foreign MOE scholars who broke/is breaking bonds to come to the US for graduate study. I intend to find out when she arrives on campus in the fall.

Now you know why there is so much ill-will and resentment by the Singaporean students towards foreign undergrads in NUS/NTU/SMU when it comes to this topic of foreign MOE scholars (leeching off the goodwill and generosity of the Singaporean tax-paying public).

Happy Vesak Day

It has not been a good year for many Buddhists, with the events in Tibet and Burma. And in the world of materials science, the Lotus Effect has been a hot area of research since Barthlott's publication in 1997. The two images below show the connection between surface roughness and self-cleaning ability.







Readers might also be interested to know about the petal effect. Surfaces are interesting, no? :)

On how to win a scientific argument against your co-worker

Two professors, one an organic chemist (A) and the other a physical chemist (B), were debating the merits (or workability) of a certain synthesis pathway. Students from both groups were also present in the meeting room. Temperatures started rising when the former accused B of not being an expert in A's area and was attempting to just bullshit his way through.

B shot back: "Have you published in Science for a similar starting material? I have."

What followed was silence in the room.

Classic. A friend (later) commented: "That's just a very unfriendly way to do science."

Imagine a Nobel laureate losing a scientific argument, then s/he says: "Have you won the Nobel Prize?"

N.B. The above methods will not work if you are not as accomplished as your opponent. Then it might be better to shut up (aka the 'Asian' way of showing reverence).

On technical competency and literacy

I had a good laugh when a fellow grad student in the department sent out the following (in pdf) asking for help in translating Russian. He wanted to know the chemicals listed. There aren't any native Russian speakers in my department, although I know a few in physics. As it turns out, universities (and by extension, colleges) are one of the best places to source for competent technical translators, especially if the said personnel had completed at least a Bachelors degree in their home country.

...Our work is critical to the scientific community, and yet remains largely invisible and poorly understood.

From individual scientists to multinational corporations, clients routinely need materials translated into many languages for information, publication or patent filings. Machine translation can't handle such complex material except for crude "gisting", often with incomprehensible results in our fields. Poor translation is costly. Errors compromise safety, intellectual property, and image as well as bottom line. Incorrect terminology in translation makes research disappear in keyword searches. Therefore choosing the right translator can ultimately save money and grief.

Being bilingual is no guarantee of written fluency or translation skill, and highly technical material requires highly developed subject area knowledge. If you don't know an alkane from an alkene - let alone understand a reaction scheme or patent abstract - chances are you can't translate it.

Translating Chemistry, CENEAR, 2008, 86 (3), 6

On a side note, I just discovered that German was required for graduation up till the 1970s in many of the chemical and physical sciences' departments around the country because so many important discoveries were published in German. Until WWII, Germany was the center of the chemical world. Already, in my research work, several important references were written in the language. Given that English is the almost universal language of science today, consider the communication problem for scientists of whom English is a foreign language. What if their native tongues is the dominant language for science and engineering? How will we feel trying to publish in their language?

As of now, I can't even write a decent Chinese essay, or a blog entry, let alone describe my experimental work using Chinese.

Alpha Chi Sigma

This boingboing post brings back memories. My dad gave me my first chemistry set as a Christmas present when I was in Primary 5. There were 6 chemicals in it, stored in opaque plastic bottles that had child-proof anti-tampering caps, along with two test tubes, a test-tube holder, a pair of tongs for handling the test-tubes and an alcohol lamp. (The alcohol was not provided, and I had no idea how to get it - the addresses of the vendors listed were all in the USA, and this was the pre-internet age). In the end, I resorted to sneaking into the kitchen late at night to use the gas stove to heat up my chemicals, and got an earful from my mum when I was found out.

Of the 6 chemicals, I remember cobalt(II) chloride, copper(II) sulfate, sodium carbonate and potassium ferricyanide. I wonder if that particular set was from the same company as that referred to by Thompson, even though this was already the late 80s. The upper primary Science syllabus given in school was very basic, and much of it devoted to botany. (Remember the Angsana tree?) It was very boring; then these chemicals fascinated me. They listed the chemical formulae, and the 11-year-old I was then couldn't fathom the combination of letters and numbers in one word. K3[Fe(CN)6]. It looked so alien, and algebra was only taught from secondary school (still into the future) onwards. But it got me hooked, and started me on my still-not-so-long association with the Central Science.

Of different subconscious attitudes towards representations of our sexual organs

A friend and I were discussing about the similar attitudes (across cultures) towards humankind representation of our sexual organs.

In particular, I find this paragraph illuminating:

...We project our archetypal terrors onto the widow. It is black; it avoids the light; it is a voracious carnivore. Its red markings suggest blood. Its name, its sleek, rounded form invite a strangely sexual discomfort: the widow becomes an emblem for a man's fear of extending himself into the blood and darkness of a woman, something like the vampire of Inuit legend that takes the form of a fanged vagina.

-Taken from The Red Hourglass. Lives of the Predators by Gordon Price (pp 41 - 42).

In Chinese, the vagina is known as 阴道, or 'dark alley'.

There are other obvious ones - caves; where as children we read many stories of them being the home of malevolent creatures who would have no qualms about eating us alive should we ever be so foolish in trespassing their territory.


"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

And then we built phallic symbols to honor our heroes and gods. Even for my university - the most prominent landmark on campus is a penis-like structure that juts into the sky and a favorite of many official school photographs. A running (sexist) joke was that a female student could get an orgasm simply by impaling herself on it, if she could climb to the top.

Towards the end of our discussion, the friend simply summarized it as "Penis Envy". In coarser terms - the difference between 'getting fucked' and 'fucking others'. The former implies submission, subordination and weakness, while the latter simply means power and control of others. Do you want to be the ruled? Or the ruler?

The Central Science...to me

God made solids, but surfaces were the work of the devil! -Wolfgang Pauli

This quote reflects the immense difficulties faced by experimentalists (ahem...) when characterizing surfaces (Rohl and Gale 2006). And the 2007 Chemistry Nobel went to a surface chemist.

So, think positively. It is a wonderful place to be in---getting paid to play with a diverse range of materials and really, there is no better company than a bunch of nerdy scientists and engineers. It's not blue-sky research, and it's comforting to know that the work will have a positive impact on increasing our quality of life.

Surfaces are the playground of Solid State Physics.
-E. W. Plummer

Or what my mentor likes to quote:

What starts here changes the world.
- (which happens to be a new theme for UT-Austin)

Internet vigilantism over the Tibetan protests

A mainland Chinese student at Duke found herself the target of her compatriots' anger after appearing to be on the side of a pro-Tibet independence protest. If you think the Wee Shumin incident was bad, this is worse. Her name, phone number, Chinese identity number and even her parents' home address and occupations were posted on the web.

Wang Qianyuan comes out at 5:16, and she's clearly standing opposite the vast majority of the Chinese students.

There's one spot in the video that's quite clear

At 7:05, a few classmates surround her, asking why she's calling for Tibetan independence, and not waving the red five-star flag

At 7:27 she retorts by saying that Hong Kong has a flag too.

Some of my cynical classmates claimed this was just her show to get a green card on the basis of political asylum.

The opening scene above reminds me of this movie (at the 8:38). Heh.



More on boingboing.

Stopping a physics experiment via...

a lawsuit. Possibly the most silly one I have seen so far.

Even CERN is compelled to have a webpage dedicated to addressing this *safety* concern.

Another geeky moment

Over the weekend, we were in a car driving towards our St. Patrick's Day destination. A fellow passenger (AP) was describing her recipe for baking chocolate muffins. I asked her about the type of chocolate that she used.

AP: No, it's not chocolate powder. It's like those you see coated on donuts in Singapore.
tk: Oh, you meant like nano-rods.
AP: OMG, you are so geeky! It's called chocolate rice, duh.

I am (still) amazed by my descriptions.


TEM image of gold nanorods, aka my description for chocolate rice

Happy π day!

Time to go draw circles and eat pies...

Last Public Lecture by Randy Pausch - "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"

For those of us still middling along in life and wanting to find our niche. I hope Randy's speech will be an inspiration for you as well.

You can watch his speech on google video.

Audi Car Ad - "Break the cycle"

This TV ad grabbed my attention last week. I had a really good laugh, and the first half of the commercial reminded me a lot of my family's values.



Maybe I should get one. After all, she is already driving an A4.

Brain Drain; It's personal

Long time readers of this blog would know that this is an issue that is very close to my heart. I have lost count of the number of arguments I had with my folks over it. (These two entries are the more memorable ones.) In recent months, I have started filtering out (what my cousin describes as) such *noise* from home.

"We are all grownups and have the rights to make our own decisions. You know what you like and want to do, and you do include your family in your plans, except it's not want they want. That's good enough. You can't please everyone. Your primary responsibility is yourself.

Even if i am labeled as unfilial in their opinion, I don't care as long as i think i am right in my own opinion. I think once you get the green card and show them that you are serious about settling here, they will have to accept the fact, and respect your decision."

This bit of a comment from one of Chiang Nee's readers sums it up beautifully:

All too often, people attribute reasons for emigration to general poverty (economic, individual financial, health care, etc).
I am a Malaysian doctor, and have lived in the UK for over 13 years now. As the only and eldest son of Malaysian Chinese parents (one of 3 siblings), I am expected to return to Malaysia for various reasons. My parents aren't poor. I have just told them that I do not intend to return to Malaysia, and would like to live in London instead.
However, they are unable to comprehend or accept my decision, particularly as they lead prosperous lives in Malaysia.
Your article is particularly apt, as it illustrates that in the current day and age, there are many other reasons for emigration, beyond economic strife.
Even PM Lee Hsien Long's eldest son (and we know the importance of this person's role in the families of our culture), is contemplating not returning to Singapore.
I think people forget, that as general quality of life improve, one seeks other forms of fulfillment. That is just part of natural human development.

.. In the current 'shrinking' world that we live in, where travel and communication is almost universally accessible and available, I certainly hope that people around us will have a more open-minded perception of emigration. That it is not simply attributed to economic opportunities.

What's Your Story?

I found this while web surfing randomly earlier. How many of you know your family history?

My great-great-grandparents (at least 8 of the 16 I inherited my genes from) immigrated to Singapore from Malaysia and Indonesia. This makes me a 5th generation Singaporean. On my dad's side, his ancestors were wealthy landlords who once owned multiple pig farms in Java, and whose grandfather was a well-known playboy who practiced polygamy, dropped out of RI (the equivalent of secondary school today) and nearly squandered the entire family fortune away. His son (my dad's father) became a Chinese bookshop owner, and attended the bastion of Chinese education on the island up to Sec 4. He was visibly upset when my folks told him his alma mater was not in my list of post-PSLE schools.

My paternal granny was one of the lucky few in her generation to go to school (the one with the all-white sleeveless uniform) with a maid in tow. She still blames the Japanese for cutting short her education and having to start a family while in her late teens.

One set of my mother's grandparents were grocers; I still remember I used to look forward to the visits to my great-grandfather's shop. He pampered the young ones. There seemed to be an almost endless supply of soft drinks, cakes and the likes available for us.

For the rest of the story, much of it has been said already.

Images from the World of Research

In science, images are meant to convey information. Aesthetics are secondary. But sometimes an image is so striking that it transcends its role as data and transforms into art.

My personal favorite from MRS and BASF:

Nano-Armageddon

Poster for *safe* wiring practices

If you can't figure out what is wrong with this picture, then you are in trouble.