Taxi drivers are an interesting group of people in the city. A veteran taxi driver knows the road like the lines on his own hand. Cruising among the streets and alleys in the city, they know almost all the anecdotes inside and around the city. A talkative taxi driver can add quite some amusement for the road trip. (Has there ever been a non-talkative taxi driver? ) This theorem applies not only to the taxi drivers in Beijing on the east globe, it also applied perfectly with the taxi drivers in Las Vegas on the west globe.
I went to Las Vegas for a business trip last Friday. When I arrived at the airport, it was around 9PM local time. The Las Vegas at night in the ocean of neon lights can be more lively and sparkling than during the day. I headed to the hotel in a taxi. There on the dashboard laid out the license of the taxi driver. His name is Suzuki. In my eyes, he seemed to be in his sixties, or maybe seventies. We began to talk on the way to the hotel. I asked if he was a Japanese, he told me he was born in Vegas, and he grew up and lived here ever since, so he called himself "Americanized". However, more precisely in a legal definition, he is an American by birth. His parents were those had migrated into American in the early years. Before he was born, they were working in the sugar plants in Hawaii, and in Texas. His spoken English showed no vestige of Japanese at all. I asked him if he can speak Japanese, he said he was able to. When he lived with his parents, they spoke Japanese in the family. After his parents died, his Japanese also faded away. Now he could listen a little bit, but could not speak the language at all. I asked if he had family in Vegas, he said he did not get married, and was by himself all the years in Vegas. As for Japan, he had never been there. Japan, or Japanese, did not leave too much trace in his mind. Only the half opened snack rice cake on his car seat, exuded a sense of Japanese in a delicate style. It might be only in my imagination, but from the way he talked, living at the cleft between two cultures, his tone of speaking illuminated a great deal of naivete while tainted with occasional lonesomeness.
On the way back to airport, this time the taxi driver was a Caucasian with a big salt and pepper mustache. He had been living in Las Vegas for seventeen years, and had been a taxi driver here for sixteen year. His first year in Vegas was in hotel management. Later he figured out he liked driving taxi better. "I am not an insider. " He summarized about himself. I asked what he had been doing before he came to Vegas. He told me he had been working in Chicago police department. He was trained at the policy academy, then became a trainer at the academy, after several different levels up the training and certification ladder, he became an officer, a detective, a hostage negotiator, later on a profiler at FBI after special training in Virginia. I was curious what a profiler did, he explained to me, it was a position to analyze all the leads to get the basic information of the suspect, to get the profile; sometimes he also participated in the arresting process. He retired and came to Las Vegas after 22 years being in the police department. He told me that he had arrested a young drugger once. From the information gathered, this young man spent approximately six thousand dollars daily for some time. Druggers were generally not hard to identify through profiling, as they would demand an abnormally high cash flow for their drug needs, which could not be met by any ordinary everyday job, therefore criminal activities to obtain cash for their drug needs entailed.
After arriving at the airport, he took out the luggage from the trunk for me. I was carrying a poster for the conference, rolled in a long tube. He joked with the tube in his arms, "Fly-fisher? " I was so squarely honest that I plainly told him it was only a poster.
I needed to make a transfer at the Los Angeles airport. Getting off the air plane with the tube on my shoulder, I was greeted by the security officer at the gate, with a big smile on his face, "Fly-fisher? " After the previous round of reinforcement learning, I finally developed some sense of humor. I smiled back, "Yes, you are exactly right. " He began to complain, "That is a good answer to avoid my further questioning. " The smiles we exchanged evolved into a good laugh.
On the road (III): Around the globe within a few square feet
Waiting for the transfer flight at Los Angeles airport, there was a three hour interval. I intended to write about the trip on my laptop. I went around to look for the power outlet, and found several below the pay phone. Curiously enough, the physical layout of the power outlet was one I never saw before: it looked like the brush in an electrical motor, with three intermittent arcs around a circle, it could not be used to hook up my laptop at all. Finally, I found one "real" power outlet outside the booth for foreign exchange, I happily plugged in my laptop and started typing.
Sitting within a few feet from the foreign exchange, I got a chance to see some interesting scenes and heard some dialogues within the range of, well, around the globe. One middle aged couple came to the counter. Their hair were both finely trimmed and tidily combed. The gentleman said he would like to exchange some Japanese Yen from Australia dollar, and would also purchase some Fiji dollar with Thailand money. He was talking with a fluent American English. Those two sentences later, my curiosity was totally aroused. They exchanged for what they want, and left without noticing my following them with two eyes over-brimmed with curiosity.
Another flight arrived. A tall and thin blond young man came to the counter, with his pony tail. He was purchasing some American dollar with New Zealand dollar. After asking for the prices, it seemed he was not satisfied by the offer he got. He inquired again about the selling price, hesitated a little bit, eventually bought the money as he had planned and left.
Next came a short young man, with Hawaiian style shirt, knee length shorts, and Nike shoes. He said he would like some dollars with Australian money. I had been sitting at the airport for a while, even with my suit on, I still began to feel cold. I admired the attire of the young man, while coaxing myself into visualizing the golden sunshine on the Brisbane beach.
The lady working at the foreign exchange had a round face of a Latin America, big dark eyes, with vivid lines around the corners of the eyes and the mouth, and a mellifluous contour of the face. The security officers, when they had nothing to do, would lean against the counter, and talked to her. They was speaking rapidly in Spanish, with occasional catapults of English words here and there. The English words, with their ambient Spanish, glowed the jumpy edge of a Spanish tone.
In the air (I) a FedEx cargo plane is flying with us
In the air (II) Memphis in a birdview Touchdown at Memphis airport
Reading the biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, fantasies conjured up in my mind: how wonderful it would be to become a man like Da Vinci. He was energetic, he was a genius, and he had established himself in the exploration of nature, of science, of engineering, of design, of human anatomy, of psychology, of art, of innovation. Everything he did, everything he touched, shone brilliant light along the running river of history.Even for something he merely played with out of simple curiosity, it still showed itself in a self-contained and elevated fashion.
Listening to a seminar from the boss, he mentioned about reading a biography of the Medici family at the airport during a business trip. Provided the wealth and appreciative taste for art and science of the Medici family, those geniuses could have commission opportunities to create such a brilliant piece of history. In such a time and space, those geniuses gathered together in Florence, and brought cognition of nature and science of human kind to a higher level, thus opened the door for the Renaissance in Europe, and ploughed the soil for thriving of new civilization.
Indeed, the big three in the history of Renaissance, their teachers, their peers, their pupils, a majority had been commissioned by the Medici family, and had been provided an opportunity to shine their own light under the support from the Medici's.
We can probably catch a glimpse of the way one thinks from the book he or she has read. For me, technicality is the first thing in my mind. To me, the ideal in life would be to be a visible hand, to create values in the process of creating tangible results, to have a role to play on the front theatre stage called life; for the boss, his mentality is to be an invisible hand, to create a soft environment for creation, to be a stage designer and director behind the theatre stage called life.
Technicalities or skills, those are important, but small things. To work on tangible things to provide food for oneself, is good; to work on intangibles and enable others to provide food, is greatness.
This maybe a narrow perspective to peep into the differences of the education systems of China and America. American education is more geared toward fostering social abilities, self identity, and leadership skills. With those goals in mind, more emphasis is placed on individualism and uniqueness, on personal selectiveness, do what you love; Chinese education is more geared toward acquisition of technical skills and knowledges, more emphasis is placed on technical capabilities, collective identity, and skills to be a good follower. The self identity is more or less weakened, in this way, these way of thinking are promoted, like being a best shining screw nail in the big machinery, and to love what you do.
Whichever is better, whichever is worse, there are many factors to be taken into consideration: time, place, and especially, the people within the framework of the time and place, it is hard to make a judgment for one time and from merely one aspect. However, it is the sharing of ideas that can open our eyes to different roads, to enable us to enjoy more richness in life.The roads can be converging, the roads can be diverting, if we have been walking, thinking, experiencing the growing pain and happiness along the way, although we might regret never taking another road that diverts, at least we are not shameful, because we never shut ourselves off other possibilities.
I went to a colleague’s house during the weekend. After dinner, a bunch of us gathered around the kitchen table, discussing the big and small things in life. The chit chat eventually went to the rail of education in the changing world and the always updating society. I sat there listening, and nodded to myself, “Yes, yes, if my parents have treated me so and so when I grew up, I could have been such and such.” All the colleagues around me were earnestly discussing how to treat the children appropriately if they want to be such and such when they grow up.
In a dependent, child-like thinking, if I can not achieve anything in myself, I blamed anyone else for having created those things around me, even blamed my parents for not creating me in the way I want, I grieve over the past, and the present becomes the past instantly. In an independent, adult way of thinking, if there is something one can not achieve, he will identify oneself, assess the current situation and observe the environment, to help the children grow while growing together with the children. To pave the road for the future, one would not grieve, he thinks through thoroughly when planning, while performs cautions when implementing.
秋色连波同学has said, “It is a growing process being a mom (a parent)”. There is so much truth in it.
Yesterday, I planned to go to Costco. Around noon, Little Gu asked me if I could go shopping with Little Liang, I okayed her suggestion. Therefore, I went shopping to Costco with Liang. During checkout, the cashier was a young man with large ear rings (literally ear rings, as the rings were embedded in his earlobe), we talked about the weather, he wished me a good evening, and I checked out.
There was a performance at Bellevue Church at 2 in the afternoon, and I was about to see the show with Lea. When I arrived in Costco, it was well after 1, so I hurriedly got out without too much shopping, thinking that I could come again with Lea after the show. The performance was splendid, and I enjoyed the vocalists very much. After the performance was over, it was around 4pm, and I went to Costco with Lea, AGAIN.
After going into Costco, I went to the fountain to quench my thirsty. Curiously enough, I saw the young man with ear rings coming towards me, when he saw me, his eyes widened: "Are you still here?"
"Yes, " I replied, "and again. " On this Saturday afternoon, I had stepped into the same river, twice.
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