Yundi Li….

Which famous Chinese pianist was born in 1982? Easy: Lang Lang. But another Chinese pianist was also born in that year, whose victory aged 18 in the Warsaw Chopin competition earned him the title in China of “Prince of the Piano”. Step forward Yundi Li, gracefully reserved where Lang Lang is punchily ebullient: this pair are now Chinese pianism’s sun and moon. And like those spheres, they have never met (apart from one chance encounter in an airport lounge). They are signed to different labels: Lang Lang is proudly championed by Deutsche Grammophon, while Yundi Li – formerly brandished by that company in the same way – will this month make his debut as a star for EMI. But while Lang Lang’s publicity machine has broadcast his story to every home in the Western world, Yundi Li’s is virtually terra incognita.

The way Western classical music took root in Yundi’s infant soul was as mysterious as its start-stop-start implant in the Chinese national psyche. That story began in 1601, when an Italian Jesuit named Matteo Ricci sailed into Beijing with the gift of a clavichord for the emperor. It was designed to win hearts and minds for Jesus, but the emperor found the music it embodied intriguing: when other Jesuits installed church organs and set up string ensembles, Western music took root.

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Fietsen – Cycling in the Netherlands….

In the Netherlands, cycling is not just something fun to do on the weekends, but it is a way of life. For the Dutch, cycling is like breathing: you just do it. But what you may not know is that in the urban centers, cycling can become a real mess if you aren’t sure of what’s going on. Here are a few tips for cycling in the Netherlands that might make your cycling experience a little more fun and a little more safe.

Bicycle paths exist between in the space between the sidewalk and the road. Often times they are clearly marked by an extra white line, or are painted red, but sometimes they aren’t. When you are walking or crossing the road, assume that the area on the side of the road is for cyclists and look twice before walking. Please never step out into the street before checking for a cyclist.  This is really dangerous and annoys the locals. Don’t walk on the side of the road, walk on the sidewalk, unless you want to hear a lot of bicycle bells pinging and angry Dutch words.  In this photo, I was indeed standing in the middle of the bicycle path (fietspad) but I kept nervously looking over my shoulder:

Most traffic crossings have special lights designated for bicycles. They look like a small set of traffic lights that have a bicycle symbol and they hang on the right. Always follow those lights. Do not run red lights. I know, the Dutch people around you will be doing it, but it’s really dangerous and you can in theory get a fine for it if the police see you do it.  If a fine isn’t enough to deter you, bear in mind that your body is no match for a car or tram.

Bicycles have the right of way with cars, pedestrians have the right of way with everything. But I don’t recommend testing your right of way capabilities with taxis. Taxi drivers here are crazy. You know who they are by the blue license plate and if you see one of these speeding along the road, don’t test your luck with them. They don’t always stop, or slow down, and your right of way is not worth defending with your body.

If you’re not sure what to do at an intersection, just walk it. Seriously. There is this intersection I have to traverse frequently and the traffic is a mess, with 6 trams and buses, and crosswalks, and tons of cyclists, and taxis.  There is absolutely no shame in getting off the bicycle and walking, and at this intersection I see Dutch people do it too. Pedestrians have the ultimate right of way at a zebra crossing, and rather than trying to do something tricky and complicated, sometimes it really is best just to walk.

Avoid tram tracks at all costs.  Always cross a tram track so that your tires don’t fall into the tram rails.  This is one of the worst things that could happen to you on a bicycle because your bicycle will be stuck and you will get hurt.  Just remember to cross them at an angle, and you’ll be fine.

The standard Dutch bicycle has no gears and has back pedaling coaster brakes instead of handbrakes on the handlebars. This can be disconcerting at first, though I assure you there is a good reason. With my hands free from being designated to braking, I can carry a ton of stuff while cycling and still stop in time to avoid getting hit by a tram. Most of the rental companies have both styles for rent, so if you have a preference you can find a bicycle you are comfortable with.  Here are some pretty standard Dutch bicycles hanging out in front of the Universiteit van Amsterdam:

Definitely get on a bicycle if you are here. Not only is it great for your health, but it is the best way to see both the cities and the countryside. If you haven’t ridden a bicycle since you were a kid, there are lots of group tours run by professionals who can safely guide you about the city and give you some time to get reacquainted with the bicycle. An added bonus of traveling in a tourist pack is that the locals will know who you are and avoid you at all costs. If you’re a little more daring, just rent a bicycle and see what happens. There is absolutely no better way to see this country than on a bicycle.

Words of Love….

I guess it is a little late to be posting this, but I thought it might be nice to include this theme, nonetheless.

I don’t think Valentine’s Day (Valentijnsdag) is traditionally a big deal in the Netherlands, but since we live in a world that has close contact with other cultures via the media, internet, television, etc., it’s not uncommon to do something small and special for your loved one here too. Although Dutch may not be known as the language of love, there are lots of ways of expressing how much you care about that special someone. In order to help you in your romantic endeavors and spice up your life, here are a few words and phrases about love.

houden van : to love

Houden van is very dependent on context. Thus, one can use it to express how much one likes something, or how much one loves someone. You can use this for your partner, your mother, your family, your children, anyone who you love, even your favorite food or your town.

Ik hou van mijn vriend/vriendin.

I love my boyfriend/girlfriend.

Wij houden van elkaar.

We love each other.

Ik hou van jou.

I love you.

Ik hou van dansen.

I love dancing.

verliefd zijn op : to have a crush on

This is the starry-eyed, having a crush on, lovey-dovey feeling of love instead of the very serious and intense feelings of love. For expressing deep love for someone you would still use houden van. You wouldn’t use verliefd zijn op with your mother, or your children, or other family members.

Ik ben verliefd op die leuke jongen bij mij in de klas.

I have a crush on that cute guy in my class.

Dutch doesn’t have a particular word that designates whether someone is your romantic boy/girlfriend or just a “normal” boy/girlfriend. This is very much derived from context. Sometimes to specify the relationship, the word order makes all the difference.

Hij is mijn vriend.   Zij is mijn vriendin.

He is my boyfriend.   She is my girlfriend.

This can indicate an intimate or romantic relationship with the person.  But not always. And the Dutch sometimes get this one confused as well.

Hij is een vriend van mij.   Zij is een vriend van mij.

He is a friend of mine.  She is a friend of mine.

This generally indicates that a person is just your friend. It implies that you have many friends and this person is one of them.

de liefde : love

schatje : cutie

He schatje, wil je iets van me drinken?

Hey cutie, would you like something to drink? (implying the person asking will pay)

Ik heb vlinders in mijn buik.

I have butterflies in my stomach.

Ik vind je leuk.

Literally: I find you nice, but in the right context : I really like you.

Resilience….

Last year, we heard a lot about the ‘Dunkirk spirit’. Whenever serious problems arise, it seems, someone will invoke 1940 and the unlikely rescue of the British Expeditionary Force from the French coast as Hitler’s all-conquering army looked on. Never mind that few crises in life quite match up to the threat of annihilation or invasion by a foreign army. When in doubt, do mention the war, and Dunkirk in particular.

But, if these wartime allusions are overdone, it’s not a bad idea to remember the words of the man who ordered the rescue of the British troops back then. Winston Churchill had pithy and down-to-earth advice for those facing difficulty: ‘If you are going through hell, keep going.’ And he offered a punchy mission statement for life. ‘Keep buggering on,’ he declared. KBO. But sometimes, it takes a tough kind of old bugger to do that.

So, on the topic of resilience, and based in part on my own experiences of this, especially when one factors in recent work-based shenanigans, I thought it time to reflect upon my own thoughts on this topic. Admittedly, I think it’s safe to argue that we have all just been through a pretty terrible 12 months or so, and can see few signs of relief on the horizon. It has been tough, and will remain so. Coping with today’s intense pressures and refusing to give in to them is going to require resilience from colleagues at all levels, as much as from oneself.

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The Myth of Multi-Tasking….

Take a minute to observe your colleagues. Are they tweeting while the boss talks to them from across the room? Holding a meeting while checking their BlackBerry? Speaking on the phone as they send an e-mail? With redundancies, squeezed budgets and job insecurity, doing several things at the same time would seem to make sense. At the very least, it pays to look busy.

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I will only ‘Think Bike’ if the bikers can be persuaded to ‘Think Motorist’….

Five common myths about deafness and deaf and hard of hearing people….

Sign language is a universal or international language:

• Contrary to popular belief sign language is not international. Sign languages are as diverse as spoken languages. Deaf people in different countries do not use the same sign language, but some sign languages do have a similar structure.

  British Sign Language (BSL) was officially recognised by the government in 2003 – far too late, I agree. Deaf people in the UK use various methods of communication but BSL is the most widely used method of signed communication.

  Some people use Sign Supported English. This is not a language in its own right, but more like a kind of English with signs. BSL is very different as it is structured in a completely different way to English and, like any language, it has its own grammar.

  You can read more about BSL in this leaflet “Sign Language“.

Deaf people are good lipreaders:

• Many people assume deaf people can understand everything by lipreading. But, as many words use the same lipshapes, no one can lipread everything. This is why lipreaders may welcome gesture, fingerspelling, sign or other clues to indicate the subject of conversation.

  Some people may find it more difficult than others to lipread. How quickly you learn to lipread will depend on your ability, your memory, your degree of hearing loss and how keen you are to learn. How other people speak can also affect how well you lipread.

  Many people don’t speak clearly and lipreading someone with an unfamiliar accent may be tricky. It may be difficult to lipread someone with a beard or a large moustache. However, many people do become skilled lipreaders and find lipreading very useful.

  For more information about lipreading read the leaflet Watch this face.

Hearing aids can restore hearing:

• Hearing aids can be a great help to many deaf and hard of hearing people, but they cannot restore hearing that has been lost. About two million people in the UK use hearing aids, but it is estimated that a further three million could benefit from them.

  While analogue hearing aids merely amplify sound, digital hearing aids are also able to convert it into information that can be “processed” by a tiny computer. In this way, professionals can finely tailor a hearing aid to suit any individual’s hearing loss.

  Background noise can be a problem, as hearing aids tend to amplify everything. Although digital hearing aids are better equipped to deal with background noise, no hearing aid can cut it out entirely. All aids work best when their wearers are having one-to-one conversations in quiet environments. Yet despite their limitations, hearing aids can make a huge difference to people’s lives.

  You can read more about hearing aids, how they work and how to get them in these hearing aids factsheets.

If I shout, the deaf person will hear me better:

• It’s not a good idea to shout at a deaf or hard of hearing person. When people shout they distort their voices and make it more difficult for hard of hearing people to identify words. You can appear to be angry and cause embarrassment if you shout. And the increased volume can actually be painful for deaf or hard of hearing people, particularly if they wear a hearing aid.

  Instead of shouting – or speaking too slowly or exaggerating your lip movements – speak clearly. To speak clearly you should form your words properly and speak at a regular volume. Try to maintain the natural rhythm of your speech. Use plain language if that helps, rephrasing where necessary; but don’t oversimplify, as that can appear patronising.

  Read the “Communication tips” card.

Deaf people only hear me when they feel like it:

• Deaf and hard of hearing people may be able to understand what you are saying some of the time, but not always. This can be confusing.

  The reasons vary. Depending on the degree of deafness, a deaf person may be able to hear some sounds at certain pitches, but hear little else. Those who lipread find that lipreading requires intense concentration. That means that someone who relies on lipreading has to concentrate all day long and may not be able to continue when they are tired. Other hard of hearing people use hearing aids. These work best in quiet environments across a distance of no more than 1.5 metres and in one-to-one conversations. If there is noise or several  people talking, or even a windy day, the hearing aid user might need the help of assistive devices like induction loops to eliminate background sounds.

  Read the “Communication tips” card to find out more.

Manners….

Manners matter. For anyone on the inside of a particular culture, they are simply assumed. Barristers know how to deal with other barristers, investment bankers with investment bankers, clerics with clerics. But for anyone trying to enter these worlds, manners can seem like a secret code barring entry to an elite. They help define the lines between ‘them’ and ‘us’.

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Intimations of Immortality….

…. by William Wordsworth.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream,
It is not now as it has been of yore;-
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth

Now, while the Birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong.
The Cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep,
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountain throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay,
Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday,
Thou Child of Joy
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd Boy!

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel – I feel it all.
Oh evil day! If I were sullen
While the Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are pulling,
On every side,
In a thousand vallies far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his mother’s arm:-
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
- But there’s a Tree, of many one,
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the East
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the common light of day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother’s mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A four year’s Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where ‘mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his Mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his Father’s eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part,
Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her Equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul’s immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, -
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find;
Thou, over whom they Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;
To whom the grave
Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight
Of day or the warm light,
A place of thought where we in waiting lie;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of untamed pleasures, on thy Being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The Years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy! That in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether fluttering or at rest,
With new-born hope for ever in his breast:-
Not for these things I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts, before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprized:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish us, and make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then, sing ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play
Ye that through your hearts today
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And o ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Think not of any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Don’t Pet The Snakes….

Sometimes when you’re the one who was unpopular and neglected for so many years, you develop a deep compassion for all others similarly suffering. And, you vow to yourself that if and when you ever make it, you’ll never be so cruel as to leave anyone all by themselves at a party or at some other similar social event. That you’ll at least make the effort to introduce yourself to them and try to make them feel included somehow. Alleviate what must be their painful sense of rejection and humiliation as a result of it. Or, at least those are some of the recurring thoughts I had whenever I saw a loner, looking either sad or angry. I always assumed the angry ones were just putting on a front to hide their shame at having no friends.

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