So, many years ago, there was a book released by the name of Rainshine. Only 150 copies were ever made, and I still have four or five of those. Well, that book is about to be re-released, in recognition of the new company that I’ve founded and the new books that I’ve been building/writing in relation to my time in China. Indeed, there isn’t much changed other than a bit of tightening up of the packaging and the bits that…
This season is a weird one. The political thangs in Washington D.C. make the world look like it’s about to hit a wall with the madness that’s running rampant. And yet, the crops may still grow. Though, I have lingering doubts to the effect of being concerned for the health of my nation. Falsehoods are being fed to the population in a fervor of cultural chauvinism that threatens to make this country less friendly or helpful. Unchecked greed, such as…
To my friend Bonnie, A note for you, for what it means to me “to be an American” – as you request. It is a fraught notion. As you know, I’ve history of a third of my life living in Asian nations, allowing perspective, uncommon for most of our typical neighbors. As well, I left the first time, to build a book of poems for a collection of my pointed realizations, penned in our shared language in a way that…
The images that rotate in the screen behind my icons on my computer’s Desktop are of a trip that I took in the last month of visiting China where I saw a bunch of Tibetan language on signage, together with HanZi script, the panel-language of “Chinese” if you will. The place names and titles of shops or road sign images of these pictographic communication tool are still clear to me as names that speak in their image based representations. Jiu…
Realistically, I hope to update this page more often (pictures are at the end today instead of interspersed), but sometimes (as the admin at my master’s program says) “life gets in the way” ~ However, this month, I have taken some time away from the education studies to work on my next book, help friends, study some more about other subjects, and spend time scanning and organizing bits of a genealogy project that I’ve been working on back and forth…
Recently, I’ve been within situations that have been difficult to maneuver individually, so I’ve looked outward for insights from my community. A smattering of good ideas were shared with me and I’d like to share thirty-five or forty of them here, so they can be appreciated as a group of focused thoughts by both you and me from time on from now. They are slightly abridged in a sense that I have abbreviated people’s names, adjusted the format from the…
I’m saddened to hear about the 5.9 scaled earthquake that has struck the Gansu state of China in the last 24 hours. It is an area that I have a great appreciation for, having visited twice. I don’t often travel such great distances multiple times, but after my first visit to Gansu, I had to go back for more…more mountains, history, massive carvings in cliffs, temples, monasteries, noodle shops (their capital, Lanzhou, is known throughout China by name, the way…
Image of Horace Mann, by Southworth & Hawes – ImageZeno.org, ID number 20001902687, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=100101279 Written in August, 2023 for a course named: D-166, Foundations of Education, the following is a discussion of an individual who is known to Seattle residents and more, by name, but perhaps, not by actions. My goal was to share his story in brief. Below is that accounting. An historical influence that is apparent in each of the classrooms would be the influence of…
Seemingly months have passed since I’ve written in this blog, but not for lack of momentum, more for lack of digital participation. Time spent to reflect has been brilliantly analogue lately. Carrying around a leather-bound notebook while traveling a piece of the planet I’ve never been has been a pleasure that I am happy to share a shard of today. The notebook still needs to be typed at another time, but this reflection that I can share is based on…
Now I’m writing the introduction to what it was like to leave the nation I’d lived for about seven and a half years during the Covid epidemic’s breakout. China was where it began. That’s not in question. Nor is it an issue to me beyond the fact that I was a resident of China at that time, so I was near some of the early real social earthquakes as they happened, and some of what I’m writing in this book…