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• Obama in China & Micro-financing in China

  Monday, Nov 16, 2009 10:46PM / Standard Entry

  President Obama in China

  

  I don't know how many of you saw this Town Hall Obama had in Shanghai today, but there was one particular response to a student's question that I really like.  One of the students asked President Obama what work or training path is necesarry to be rewarded a Nobel Peace prize.  To this question Obama chuckled and said there is no curriculum that will gurantee you a Nobel Peace prize, and then he continued to provide some general advices to the student.  The following advice stuck me the most and it is a piece of wisdom that I chose to live by. 

  This is what the President said:

  "The one last piece of advice, though, that I would have that has been useful for me is the people who I admire the most and are most successful, they're not just thinking only about themselves but they're also thinking about something larger than themselves. So they want to make a contribution to society. They want to make a contribution to their country, their nation, their city. They are interested in having an impact beyond their own immediate lives. "

  I found this to be very true in life, the more you focus on acquiring the rewards of success for yourself, the harder it is for you to become successful.  People who just limit their sight on the enjoyment from the rewards of success, they loose perspective of what true success really should be.  However, when people also focus outwardly to help contribute to success in a society, they reap far greater benefits as a whole for themselves and for the world.   The ironic thing with success is, it's not an even sum equation.  By helping others and contributing to society, you're not taking away from your own personal success.  But by doing this, the success you'll be able to achieve will be much greater than when focusing on yourself alone. 

   

  This point brings me to the second topic in this entry:

  Microfinancing in China

  

  http://www.wokai.org/

  Recently I read about wokai.org from hongkonghustle.com.  Wokai is a microfinancing non-profit organization that is helping the poor in rural China to finance small loans.  Unlike other charities, you are making loans to the businesses of these hard working men and women looking for a little assistance in improving their quality of life.  You can go onto the site and select who your contribution goes to and you can track the business and repayment progress of these lenders.  Once the loans are repaid, you get to redistrube your loan to the next lender. 

  

  For me, I think this is a great way to make a difference in these people's life.  They are not looking for handouts, but loans to help them gain greater success in their business.  For many of these people who make around US$1 a day, a loan of a few hundred dollars can be invested to help make their business bring much higher profits.  With higher profits, these borrowers will eventually be able to repay these loans.

  There will be a fundraiser for this orgainization on Friday evening in Hong Kong.  Here's a link to the event details:  http://wokai.eventbrite.com/

   

  
  

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• Who wants to go Camping?

  Tuesday, Nov 3, 2009 1:46PM / Standard Entry

  
  Nice Bag
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Imprint NYC, Soho Grand, MoCA and Alfa

  Friday, Oct 9, 2009 8:48AM / Standard Entry

  Before I flew over to New York a few weeks ago, I found out about the Imprint conference on jeffstaple's blog here on Alive Not Dead.  Since there's such a great line up of speakers, I registered for this in advance before I left HK.  This conference began a few years ago in California to discuss Asian American Youth culture, but soon it evolved to focus on different creative disciplines and talks about how to execute and make those ideas into reality, which makes for some very interesting discussions. 
  
  Here's a photo journey of my day in NYC for the Imprint conference near NYU.  During the day I got to listen to lots of great speakers who are 'pioneers' in their respective field, and then I went around to a few great events at night. 
  
  This day started with the Imprint Culture Lab conference at the Center of Architecture on LaGuardia Place near NYU:
  
  

  
  

  Speakers Paula Scher (Graphic Designer who designed the CITI group logo and many other famous designs) and Chip Kidd (Book cover designer)
  
  
  For Lunch, they served us Wasabi Potato Salad and Asian Dogs (hot dogs with Asian toppings. )  The one in the picture is a Bánh mì (Vietnamese Sandwich) topped hotdog.
  
  
  Paul Budnitz (Founder of Kid Robot) talks about his toys.
  
  
  Marc Echo and jeffstaple talks about the Barry Bonds Homerun ball that he bough for $750,000 and branded with an asteric on it before giving it to the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame
  
  
  After the conference, I walked south across Houston (pictured here) through Soho (South of Houston) to Chinatown in Downtown Manhattan
  
  
  I got here to the newly opened Museum of Chinese in America (MoCA) in Chinatown.  I had volunteer many times for this museum and knows the founder and staff well.  So I ended up getting an invite to their evening Opening Gala event.
  
  
  The Gala at the Museum was later that day, so I went over to the Imprint conference reception at the Soho Grand rootop Penthouse that has a 360 degree view.  It's a great boutique hotel with a nice penthouse for a party.
  
  
  I stayed there a bit to chat with some folks and talked to the organizer who he told me that I traveled the furthest from HK to the conference.   Coincidentally I also bumped into my friend 'Uncle Chip' who was there to DJ the party that night.  Hanging out at a Penthouse and watching the Sunset over Manhattan was a definitely a good way to start the night. 
  
  
  I had to leave the Imprint reception early to make the MoCA opening Gala.  This new place is designed by fame Architect Maya Lin (who also designed the Vietnam War memorial).  This place is beautiful inside.  It was great to see some familiar faces and some filmmaker friends there.
  
  
  In there they have this wall of famous Asian Americans including...
  
  
  Ang Lee...
  
  
  The Legendary Bruce Lee...
  
  
  And Alive Not Dead's MC Jin
  
  
  As the banquet ends, I next ran off to 'The Bitterend' back at NYU to catch my friend singer Alfa Garcia's pre-birthday performance.  It was a great show but too bad I missed most of it due to my busy line up of events. 
  
  
  Since NYC is full of great restaurants, I managed to end the night with a walk over to Mamou's Fallalfal place on McDougal for the best Fallafal in town.  There's always a line here cause they make the best Fallafal and sells it for only $2.75
  
  

  All this was a great start to my trip in NY, and this was just during my first week there.  Too bad I broke the LCD on my Camera, but I still manged all those shots above without knowing what I was shooting.  The rest of the trip was amazing too, and I was able to take many more photo on that broken camera.  I actually like it now, it's like I'm shooting with a film camera, I don't knwo what I shot until I get home to 'develop' it on a computer.
  
  
  

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• quiet as life

  Thursday, Sep 3, 2009 5:08PM / Standard Entry

  
  
  
  

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• SICK

  Friday, Aug 28, 2009 11:23AM / Standard Entry

  This video is so sick, I think I will need to go see a doctor.
  

  Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

  
  

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