Introduction

 

Most economists, to the extent that they think about this subject at all, regard the Great Depression of the 1930s as a gratuitous, unnecessary tragedy.  If not Herbert Hoover hadn't tried to balance the budget in the face of an econmic slump; if only the Fedral Reserve hadn't defended the gold standard to the expense of the domestic economy; if not officials had rushed cash to threatened banks, and thus calm the bank panic that developed in 1930-31; then the stock market crash of 1929 would have led only to a garden variety recession, soon forgotten.  And since econmists and policy maker have learned from their lesson-no modern treasury secretary would echo Anddrew Mellon's famous advice to "liquidate labor, liquidate the farmers, liquidate stocks, liquidate real estate...purge the rottenness out of the system"-nothing like the Great Depression can ever happen again.

 

(这一段排比句写的，真impressive，立刻有继续看下去的兴趣了）

 

Or can it? In the late 1990s. a group of Asian economies - economies that produced about a quarter of the world's output and were home to two thirds of a billion people - experienced an econmic slump that bore an eerie resemblance to the Great Depression.  Like the Depression, the crisis stuck out of a clear blue sky, with most pundits predicting a continuing boom even as the slump gathered momentum.; as in the 1930s the conventional econmic medicine proved ineffective, perhaps even counterroductive.  The fact that somthing like that could happen in the modern world would have sent chills up the spines of anyone with a sense of history.

 

(打倒一船人啊，接下去还有更猛料）

 

It certainly sent chills up my spine.  The first edition of this book was written in response of the Asian crisis of the 1990s.  Where some saw the crisis as a specifically Asian phenomenon, I saw as a troubling omen (这个词用的) for all of us, a warning that the problem of depression economics have not disappeared in the modern world.  Sad to say, I was right to be worried: as this new edition goes to press, much of the world, very much including the United States, is grappling with a financial and econmica crisis that bears even more resemblance to the Great Deression than the Asian torubles of the 1990s.

 

The kind of econmic trouble that Asia experienced a decade agao, and that we're all expereincing now, is precisely the sort of thing we thought we had learned to prevent.  In the bad old days big, advanced econmicies with stable government - like Britains in the 1920s- might have had no answer to prolonged periods of stagnation and deflation; but between John Marynards Keynes and Milton Friedman, we thought we knew enough to keep that from happening again.  Smaller countries - like Austria in 1931 - may once have been at the mercy of financial tides, unable to control their economic destiny; but nowadays sophiscated bankers and government officials (not to mentioned the IMF) are supposed to quickly orchestrate rescue pacakges (这个词在一年后的今天，已经远远被用烂掉了） that contain such crises before they spread.（这个人好像对IMF很不待见的说，那是，这个是建立在US, Europe大部分国家是健康的状况下，大国可以惺惺来挽救无法conrol their own econmic destiny的small countries，包括俄国。这个ochersterate，用的是可圈可点，谁说IMF是orchesterate，永远的是本国利益为先，哪里有一呼百应之说）。Government - like that of the Unites States in 1930-31- may once have stood by helplessly as national banking systems collapesed; but in the modern world, deposit insurance and the readiness of the Federal Reserve to rush cash to threatened insititutions are supposed to prevent such scenes.  No sensible person thought the age of economics anxiety was past; but whatever problems we might have in the future, we were sure that they were bear little resemblanance to those of the 1920s and 1930s.

 

But we should have realized a decade ago that our confidence was misplaced.  Japan spent most of the 1990s in an econmic trap（可怜的日本) that Keynes and his contemporaries found that completely familiar.  The smaller economies of Asia, by contrast, went from boom to calamity virtually overnight - and the story of their calamity reads as if it were taken straight out of a financial history of 1930s.

 

At this time, I thought of it this way: it was as if bacteria that used to cause deadly plagues, but had long been considered conquered by modern medicine, had reemerged n a form of resistant to all the standard antibiotics.  Here's what I wrote in the introduction to the first edition: "so far only a limited people have actually fallen prey to the newly incurable strains; but even those of us who have so far been lucky would be foolish not to see new cures, no prohylactic regimens whatever it takes, lest we turn out to be the next victims."

 

（估计这就是大师最得意的一段预言了）

 

Well, we were foolish.  And now the plague is upon us.

 

Much of this new edition is devoted to the Asian crisis of the 1990s, which turns out to have been a sort of rehearsal for the global crisis now in progress.   But I've added a lot of new materials as well, (表示不是炒冷饭），in an effort to explain how the U.S. itself look like Japan a decade earlier, how Iceland found itself look like Thailand, and how th eoriginal crisis countries of the 1990s have, to their horror, found themselves again at the edge of the abyss.

 

(小国，对外界经济体依赖强的经济，unfortunately，一定是会经历这样的命运的)

 

 

Let me admit at the outset that this book is, at bottom, an anlytical tract.  It is not much about what happened as why it happened; the importance things to understand, I believe, are how the catastrophe （这个词我第一次用在2007年，后来发现每一次之前经历的都不能算真正的catastrophe） can have happened, how the victms can recover (really?), and how we can prevent it from happening again.  This means that the ultimate objective is, as they say in business schools, to develop the theory of the case（很cynical么）-to figure out how to think about this stuff. （他不是b-school的，所以很有A-school的骄傲呢）

 

But I have tried to avoid making this dry thoeretical exprositions.  There are no equations, no inscrutable diagrams,. and (I hope) no impenetrable jargons.  As an econmist in good standing, I have quite capable of writing things nobody can read.  Indeed, unreadable writing - my own and others' - played a key role in helping me arrive at the views presented here.  But what world needs now is informed action; and to get that kind of action, ideas must be presented in a way what is accessible to concerned people at learge, not just those with econmics Ph.D.'s （小陆同学显然当时还没有读过这本书，才会有以前的那些评论）,Ayway, the equations and diagrams of formal econmics are, more often than not, no more than a scaffolding used to help construct an an intellectual edifice.  Once that edifice has been built to a certain point, the scalffolding can be stripped away, leaving only plain English behind.  （美国人那么听presentation和plain English communication一套的..）

 

It also turns out that although the ultimate goal here is analytical, much of the writing involves narrative.  Partly this is because the story line - the sequence in which events happened - is often an important clue to what theory of the case makes sense. ( for example, any fundementalist view of economic crisis - that is, a view that economies only get the publishment they deserve- must come to grips with the peculiar coincidence that so many seemingly disparate economies hit the wall in the space of a few months.)  But I am also aware of that the story line provides a necessary context for any attempts at explanation and that most people have not spent the last eighteen months obsessively following the unfolding drama (like me..) Not everyone recalls what Prime Minister Mahathir said in Kuala Lumpur in AUgust 1997 and relates it to what Donald Tsing ended up doing in Hong Kong a year later; well, thhis book will refresh your memory.

天下人都在看小团圆，我当然也不例外，最先看到小团圆要出书居然还是从gay friend那里看到。虽说如此，并不愿意太专注的读，因为调子之悲凉和冷漠，愈发的张爱的风格，不想过分的陷进去，因为于人于事无益。相比之下我宁可追八卦，把天涯上名噪一时的内线八卦给溜了一遍，其他的七七八八也顺了一眼。

 

原来如此。

 

可怜的女人。不过是一名可怜的自以为爱过然后就不能自拔的女人而已。看看年份其实和胡兰成认识不过24岁，几乎可以算作初恋，哪里就可以就这样了呢？可惜张爱虽然聪明过人，在感情上算不得聪明。被30，40岁的不知道廉耻的wsn骗了去，居然就这样了。而写书人对自己太残酷，一点点都不肯粉饰太平，甚至还写老女主角若干岁。仿佛要证明这一切和年龄无关（那和什么有关呢？大概是阅历吧）。如果将女主比作sex & city中的人物，估计最相近的就是Kerry，可惜就连Kerry也是爱自己更多。可惜女主不仅没有samantha或者mirenda这样的清醒的朋友，连号称是好友的苏青，居然也登堂入室和胡兰成上床。可惜那时候没有所谓的self help的专家兼栏目，不然女主完全可以和Oprah或者Dr. Phil对话，虽然都是垃圾节目，但好歹人家也替最近大热的因为被Chris Brown打但是心甘情愿跑回去的Rihanna抱不平，然后告诫天下无数以为可以通过xxxx就能挽回男人的心的女人们，what a joke!

 

一个萎缩男就这样毁了一个最最兰心惠质的女人的一生。很多人说李安的色戒简直通透张爱的神髓，可是我还是觉得李安美化了胡兰成。尤其找了梁帅哥来演。

鄙人和所在公司哈的东西不谋而合：比如我们都哈m公司，还有我们都哈P公司。这种不谋而合不知道是好事还是坏事。而这种哈的气氛在很久以前就发展成极致，比如我们用的PPT template都是m公司制作的。公司里的小团体的一群高层，或者是来自这个m公司或者是p公司。（和high school或者junior high的成帮结派估计也没啥区别）。

 

话虽如此，公司里大部分还是无味的少数民族科学家（中国人印度人等等）和无聊的新泽西美国白人，前者high IQ but low EQ，后者low IQ but high EQ。如果m公司和p公司这些IQ和EQ皆高的人和他们能够谈拢，那也是一件很惊人的事情。

 

（当然，最没劲莫过于我这类眼高手低，IQ和EQ都平平的人，哪里都进不去，反而更悲哀。）

 

因为我仍然在看A.G.lafley的The game changer和两本m公司edit的论文。 有很长一段时间公司实施的是brand centric的策略。现在看the game changer有些恍然大悟的意思。（虽然目前是和brand centric渐行渐远，部分似乎也证明了it did not work)。比如我们和IDEO也一起做过design产品prototye的项目，我们也曾经re-decorate我们的open office，希望能够通过design体现品牌的价值。（殊不知pharma的品牌价值就聊聊而已。而且Rx products能够repackage的design也有限）。

 

P&G强调的是两个和消费者的接触面，two moments of truth: #1 the moment when consumer buy the products, #2 the moment when consumer use the products。如果要转嫁到药物的消费方面，显然怎样也谈不拢。第一，我很难想象从医生手中拿过处方或者到药房fill Rx是一种愉悦的购买行为，第二，从不觉服用药物可以带来非常的感觉。当对于商品的购买和使用还停留在utility的层面，brand value实在太难体现。即便是Liptor或者Nexium这样的blockbuster。

 

tbd

 

 

P&G is the best consumer goods comany in the world, and my knowledge about this is very lagging behind what was actually going on there.  As such, it was surprising for me to know that between 2000-2006 it was not performing very well - it neither delivered the consumer's most adored products nor it was viewed as supplier's best partner.  With that, its at then new CEO  A.G.Lafley took on the tast of innovation.  That was the book "the Game Changer" was about. 

 

At first glance, when I started reading last week, I was not impressed with the show-off numbers presented by the author.  Now I went over the 2nd chapter.  I am very happy with what I read.

 

Having been a professional marketing researcher, I was very impressed with the level that P&G brought research to:

 

The story was about how P&G understands the consumer bahaviors of Mexican and how they manage to change "insights" into "innovation".  It was first eye openning to understand the completely different psycologics and bahviors of the Mexican women in laundry, and how they take pride in delivering clean and good-smelling cloths. It was then great to hear how P&G live their customers' life and transformed that into a better one.

 

Certainly it reminded me a dozen things, among which one wil be the different behaviors I know about the Chinese women.  First only a small %tage stay-at-home moms are there in China, secondly not a lot women iron every single piece of their clothes.  Again it reminded me how funny that emerging market was always viewed as one.  And one from Europe or America would always prone to think that the "transferrable knowledge" from one will prosper in another.  Not necessarily.

 

At the same time I am reading about Motorola's famous "Motorola University".  Although the author (who must have been the key champion of the training center) is really modest and retrospective of what they have done, for me it is sad to know that the reality was not that they "like" to do so, but they were forced, partly due to the illetearate rate of the Motorola employees.  In 1990, 40% of them would fail in tests including questions such as "4 was what percentage of 100".  While six sigma was the burning task for Motorola, the laying-off tenured employees was not then a choice for the company (or they just did not want to do so), it was not hard to imagine why "training" was turned into "education", because all the basic skills were missing from their people.

 

Again it reminded me of my own company.  I wish they offered a written test when they hired employee, just to test the basic verbal and maths skills of every single person that the company hired.  Again, to hire people is such a considerate process, because once you hire someone it would be extremely hard for you to get rid of that person, why not take another step to make it a better process.

 

Finally my thoughts are around the interesting article that I read about the "ecosystem" that all the business/companies are in.  Every company can be a prey or predator, the difference from the biological environment is that we cannot just let go those who "die", that we must help them to move ahead together, otherwise we will risk to running an unstable society.

 

这本独一无二的Warren Buffett的书让我在waitlist上等的望眼欲穿两个月，最初还是在Money magazine看到巴菲特首肯JP Morgan的analyst写自己的故事；终于拿到手里的时候失望地发现是比我看过的任何一本自传都要厚更多，典型的美国人的self-fulfilling自传的样子。

 

so far故事已经读了200多页，故事还算生动幽默。巴菲特号称股市天才，原来真是从小有真诚的兴趣，愿意不断的阅读枯燥的文字和数字的，（除却人人都知道的他喜欢造访公司而不是只看数字），终于也算让人心服口服。不过世界一贯公平，这个天才当然也是表现在与人交往非常笨拙uneasy，让我不仅怀疑花儿街那些把自己打扮得漂亮干净的公子哥儿到底内在有多少分量（好在大多数都被狠狠打击了一阵）。不过当然这也不能够成为无数脏兮兮的tecky继续脏兮兮下去的借口，毕竟只有一个Buffett，多的是无数正常的professonals.

 

同时读的另一本书是写《the 7 habits of effiective people>的Steve Covey的儿子写的《The Speed of Trust>一书，其人如同其老爸一样，诲人不倦的讲一些放之四海而皆准的大道理，希望因此感化虚伪，自大的businessmen into saints，let's see if that actually works。

 

P.S.Pfizer上周末还是欲语换休的in talk with Wyeth，今天就大张旗鼓的表示要69billion收购Wyeth，上周才不过30多块钱的wyeth自然股票疯长一气。They never change - 好心的同事一例提醒当年PFizer收购一些其他公司的时候是多么的穷凶极恶。而我突然发现Wyeth的World headquarter就在我们隔壁镇上。家门口发生的事情都不知道，啊，我真是一个闭目塞听的人啊！

Note: not new year resolution: 新的一年，继续专攻吃喝玩乐

 

昨日天气温和，去花差花差，快乐不过是在购物的一刹那，花了老价钱买包包的心痛是有的，不过更多是那一刻的快感，可是快乐不是时时有，也幸亏也不是时时有，不然感官一定受不了。

 

吃东西也是，美食入嘴不过一瞬间，唔唔赞美也不过那一会儿，可是。。。消耗卡路里确是漫漫长路。（某人嗤之以鼻，如果消耗那末容易，岂不是要时时进食，简直变成大脑和胃都渺小的鸟儿一名）。

 

赚钱太易，估计不会欣赏花钱的美好。我不信paris hilton会和我一样有收获deal买新衣服的雀跃。不！这不是吃不到葡萄的酸溜溜。相比Paris Hilton，我更羡艳Trump的女儿，美貌和智慧并重的那一类。哈！

 

——————————————————————

正在读的书是< New York City, A Cultural History>。不是名人所写，但文字却真挚感人。不时心有戚戚。一向没有耐心的我居然看得非常细致（堪比我正在读的另一本护肤品宝典<The new science of perfect skin : understanding skin-care myths and miracles for radiant skin at any age >。后者的recommendation list，以后再说。）

 

摘抄：

Without living memory, the names of places soon enough lose meaning 比如霞飞路，比如仁爱路，比如忠孝东路——啊！我一定是想去台湾了， top of my must-go list。

 

Sometimes it is sheer luck, or persistent amateur, (that reconnects the city to its past.) 其实前面那句conditional也适用于无数事例

 

It is the beauty of light and air, the great scale of space, and seen far away to the west, the open gates of the Hudson, majestic in their degree, even at a distance, and annoucing stil nobler things.   But the real appearl, unmistakenly, is in that note of vehemence in the local life..for it is the appeal of a particular type of dauntless power...不敢掠美，这是Henry James说的。写到这里，想起来好久没有读正经小说了。少年时代对日本的悬疑小说和林语堂的热爱，和我的年轻岁月一样远远离去了。（至于本本都读的亦舒，和总是追读的ane的小说，是不作数的）

 

last, cited a girl known from the net:

 

 

我最喜欢的莫过于读完书后，走一圈书中提及的地点，first-handed去体会其景其人，因为地利，这本书非常满足我的愿望。

 

这一系列的书还包括Buenos Aires, Oxford, Mexico City, Rome, Madrid, Venice, Lisbon, Havana, Kingston, Brussles, Edinburg...大多都不是张扬的城市（如纽约）。我想，是否有一天有人来来写上海或者台北呢？

Predictably Irrational is my most recent reading.  As always, it is a best-seller; different from my usual reading habit, I have already finished half of the book since I borrowed it yesterday. 

 

It is an interesting book, needless to say.  I am glad that my readngs exceed the previous ones so quickly.  Not long ago, I commented that "the age of turbulance" is the best book I read, now I will not hold it true.  I guess that I do not hold high expectation toward most of my books, which makes them more suspriingly pleasant. 

 

 

The book is very easy to read, each chapter is an independent one starting from an example, followed by a series of experiments to support/disaprove/demonstrate some hypothesis, then the author tried to expand his approved theroy to other expanding topics, usually more in-depth, more abstract, to the extent that he cannot use behaviorial experience to test, finally the author may propose some useful tips.

 

Dan Ariely is a native of Iseraeli, currently the behavior econmist from MIT.  Although in his bio it is not mentioned whether his background is neuroscience, I strongly suspect he is.  Different from a lot of economists' writing I have read, all of his "theories" were supported by real experiments (rather than theory or maths or numbers).   Although we all understand it is so hard to isolate the factors that imfluence people's decision, I still admire and appreciate the efforts that he made.

 

(to be continued)

 

最近尽管大小事不断，我还是看了若干本好书。其中的非常好读的一本Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions。

作者作为深谙心理学的教授，显然知道怎样的文字可以抓人眼球，怎样的reference可以打动大众，这本书的文字浅显，风格通俗，每个章节都结构清晰：以有趣的个例和现象开始，然后根据该事例提出假设（hypothesis），作者继而用实验证明或者驳斥原来的假定，然后将原先的实验继续推进，最后用这一系列实验的结果来对更大的事件提出建议和证明。

经济学最重要的假设之一就是理性经济人（人都是理性的，在追求个人利益的最大化中达到社会利益的最大化，blahblahblah），而这也是常常被人质疑的。这本书的标题当然是

格林斯潘居然说" every time when I talk about market forces, I have to explore how it interacts with human nature", 然后说"it is not what it is, it is what they are perceived". 我就暗暗叹气。我怎么也没有想到，很多最近以来非常困惑的大问题，哲学类的问题，居然被格林斯潘的畅销书给一一解开。真是太太意外的收获。 如果说我对Clarence Thomas是impressed，那我对格林斯潘的这本书简直是几乎要占为己有。不过amazon上面这本书卖的太贵，居然要20多块钱，我更担心自己是三分钟热度。我已经久不买书。

一百个人看同一本书，或许就有一百种体会。看KPMG late CEO Gene O'Kelly的Chasing Daylight已经有一些日子，读的很慢，大部分的时候是因为不愿意读下去。因为人的天性是不愿意面对结局，而所有人的结局都只能归结为一个。

 

年少的时候对死并无概念。贾宝玉十五六岁的时候不也动辄拿他的死给人做赌注，连林黛玉都知道许诺了两次肯定是不作数的。最终贾宝玉也没有真的兑现诺言。只是一个人枉生着，并没有希望，也许并不是愉快地事情吧。

 

看这本书，最初惊心的其实不是对O'Kelly对死亡的沉着，而是他对自己一贯做人做事态度的描述。I am so used to things are performed to their highest standard.  If people do not perform up to my expectation, I will lose confidence on them, whether it is my daugher or my colleagues.  我想，大部分工作的professionals也许都是这样的吧。没有耐心，凡事尽可能追求尽善尽美，也许是资本主义对个体的要求，也许是个体在追求利益最大化的时候不自觉就表现出来的行为。也许有人认为没有人情味，但是我不认为相反的性格是可能做成事情的。鲁迅当年说“越来越看不起人“，其实也是他个人已经到了一定的层次了，再和闰土一类的农民混在一起，自然是一种浪费时间浪费生命。很多人愿意生活在都市的很大原因是希望所有的事情都operate effectively，但是农村（比如说中国的农村），和许多demographic又较大底层蓝领，黑人，西裔的地方是不能满足这种需求的。在那里人人无效率，大家也不以浪费别人的时间为耻，鸡同鸭讲，自然难以继续。还是离开的好。更糟糕的是那些区域的人，自己不把生死当作一回事情，惜命的人在那里弄不好就白白受伤或者有生命危险，当然还是少去为妙。有一次的Saturday Night Show的笑话说：恐怖分子据说要袭击Newark，但是，连我们自己都不去Newark，恐怖主义分子去那里干吗呢？Newark距离纽约不过数十英里，距离很多很好的大公司也不过10几英里，我们边上的Harding township，每家的房子average超过$2.5mio，几乎家家养马，距离Newark也不过10英里。不过10英里，就是天壤之别，更何况美国和中国的距离乐。看到这里的时候，我就知道，我长大的地方，曾经熟悉的那些人和事，我再也回不去了。

 

这一段话政治非常不正确，但事实确实如此，人跟人之间生命并不对等。中国农民，比如山西的矿工，就很容易变成一个数字。怜悯也好，这不起任何作用。

 

就算如此，在疾病当前，人人还是平等的。O'Kelly也许有能力找到最好的医生最好的药物，可是他患的毕竟是绝症。无可奈何，或许是很多能干的人对于绝症最好的写照。书中一笔提到当时还有一个重症的pharma executive，到了后期性情暴躁。而且他还不是唯一的例子。我深深理解，同情。毕竟绝症真的是out of control，再聪明再智慧其实反而是痛苦。

 

这个时候，我会想到那些年轻就死去的人，他们是怎么想的呢？比如30岁的陈百强，不到50岁的张国荣，还有更年轻的温美玲和ms. zhang san，不过20多岁。我经常想，ok, at least I am already 30+, I am more lucky than陈百强。有人在死后记得你当然好。可是唯物论的我不认为人在死后还会有思想。就算Gene O'kelly在书的最后说'there is no pain in the other world', 我还是相信这不过在安慰有信仰的亲人罢了。死后的灰飞烟灭，一定很不快乐。因为人间种种饮食男女，琐琐碎碎的快乐，都再也品味不到了。只有生者在那里无穷的悲伤和遗憾。

 

海伦凯乐的文章“假如给我三天光明"，一定给过很多人激励。只是海伦是无法实现他的梦想了。而O'Kelly的过人之处在于，当他知道生命只有100天，能够非常organizedly做好所有事情，尤其是unwind relationships。对于是一个声望很强的consulting firm的CEO来说，认识那末多人，100天unwind relationships真是太短了。我非常理解如前文中的pharma high level executive那样失去常态，或许大部分人在同样情况下都会这样。但O;Kelly这本书无疑给更多的人一个很好的启示和指导。如果真的不幸，应该怎么做。从这点来说，我深深敬佩他。

 

或许他这样做，只是给自己最后的100天一个meaningful pursuit。是chasing sunlight也好，是要写完这本书也好。Gene O'kelly是给了自己一个继续活下去，坚持下去的信念。也许是这个信念他坚持了那末久。而且died gracefully，full of gratitude。这样的态度可以作为任何一个活着的人和即将死去的人的role model。

I was listening to my podcast one day on my way home.   Usually it is the best time during my day, on my way home.  It is always relaxing, as it is the end of one day.  Most time it is after sunset and usually it is around 6:30pm so I can listen to NPR's Market Place to make up for what I missed for the whole day's Wall Street.  

 

I guess it was either too early or too late to listen to NPR that day so I switched to my ipod.  It was an interview a while ago with Clarence Thomas , the only black judge in the Surpreme Court in the US, the most tenured one in the Surpeme Court.  (after that I read from the book that he was only around 45 when becoming the Judge).  He is well respected, with excellent background (Yale Law), flawless political history (Director of EEOC, the famous Employment Equivalence of Commitee, sth. like that, the one that imposed the regulation on every single American company and never stops its fight against discrimination).  His story is almost one of the best American dream.  Grown up from the poorest deep South, Savannah, he had to work in his grandfather's garage when he was young.   His family were illiterate.   His brother and him were the first generation that has high education.  He worked his way through to the top, with the aspiration to change the perception of the black.  

 

Knowing his story was not compelling enough for me to read his book, it is too easy to become a Great Expectations type of story  - even though that had been in my list for a while, but his interview changed my mind.   I was moved when the reporter asked him whether he viewed himself belonged to conservative, and was he always trying to defend the black.  His answer was so blank that I almost doubted that I was listening to a veteran in American politics (last night we were watching Rudy Giuliani's speech in Dartmouth, he was anything but sincere.  Just like the late KPMG CEO, Gene O'Kelly, he is a typical New Yorker and does not want to and cannot hide his shrewdness and coldness - no I am not arguing that it is not a good feature, I am just trying to say it tells so much.  He is by no means George Bush, one can be recognized by the red decks, or Bill Clinton, one can pretend very warm and friendly).  I am not particularly familiar with the American politics, but I was really surprised by the answer: "well, I am black and always black, I cannot change that.  (People make assumptions on what you should say based on what you look like). And I am supposed to have some opinions.  No I do not do that.  You do not create a box and then make generelization on people".  

 

It was only after I listened to the podcast that I went back to read the book.  It turned out to be one of the best ones that I ever read in the past five years.

 

I truely admire his courage and his commitment that he wanted to change the society (does that sound familiar? was that something that every one of us grew up and wanted to do), and to larget extent,  at least what he did made an impact.  It is too hard to stick to one's dream and too easy that one can give up, which I read his struggle a few times in the book, but he made it.  He is very different from another famous black, Barack Obama, who grew up in middle to up class (depite of his color) and his voice can be easily resonated even among the middle class and well-educated population.  The book finished when Clarence became the Judge, but it is not difficult to appreciate his sacrifice when chasing his dream, including the sacrifice he made economically: even prior to he became a judge, he still struggled to get his bills paid out every month.  No wonder it is said that the job of a Senator only belongs to the rich and do not rely on the salary fromthe government to make a living.  The most impressed part of his book, of course, has been the influence from his grandfather, who insisted to live up to a high standard spiritially, which, consequently, became a motto that Thomas always sticks to.  The reason behind that is sad: it is too easy to classify people according to the color, especially in a country so traditional such as America, and the majority of the black are still the victims of discrimination themselves, the sterotypes of blacks who are drug dealers, gangsters, beneficiaries of the social welfare.  It is too easy to exaggerate any tiny error that Thomas may have on him just because of all the perception of black and the sterotypes belonged to that race.

 

I guess there were three reasons that made me especially resonated with this book:

1) as always, an influential character in his own race while not being recgonized by his peers means something.  Thomas is someone

2) I perfectly undertand what he talks about the misperception, the implied discrimination, although I feel fortunate that it is viewed that Chinese or Asian are intelligent (even a lot of people are not so).

3) finally, grown up with the grandparents and I have an equally strict grandma, it means a lot to me. 

在遇到大事件的时候，其实绝大多数人心中没有一个确定的行动指南，包括他自己也没有。但此时如果有谁跳出来抛出让人眼前一亮的议题，大家顺理成章就把这议题接受了，就跟溺水的人捞到救命稻草一般，也不管其中有多少缺陷和不足。关键在于有谁敢承担责任，抛出议题。而人又大多不善于拒绝，就像有篇心理学文章说的，人不善于说“不”。人心被先到的议题占领了，就给先入为主了，再想扭转，需得加倍努力才行。 (agree very much - we call it leadership and not a lot of people are willing to take the lead)

宋运辉心想，他今天其实是歪打正着，凭着一腔子的责任心，意外创造出一个方案议题，将众人从迷茫不安中引导出来，找到事情可做，短暂解决盼头问题，他同时无形中成了一只头羊，他也当仁不让地做了。但究竟他能带着众人走向哪里，该轮到他迷惘了。可前狼后虎，轮不到他奢侈地迷惘。他想到会议当时隐约产生的，至此他还不敢深想的激进想法，心说他这回是自己把自己抛到风口浪尖，自己把自己送到钢丝绳上走钢丝，等待他的是成王败寇的极端命运。

他思索良久，终于还是决定照着今晚会议的工作强势，不屈不挠地继续下去。他已经厌烦每次他提出方案，被五人集团讨论来讨论去，最终还是采用他方案的官僚拖沓作风，他也已经厌烦本该属于服务部门的后勤人事办公部门人员拖延工程技术进度。他知道自己的思想受了某些西方企业管理思想的影响，但他不准备妥协，他冲出金州，要求来一个新兴企业是为了什么？就是为了自主自强，摆脱死气沉沉的官僚体制。或许，这回的困境也是一个难得的机遇，难说得很。

他推测了很多老马他们可能有的消极反应，他大胆泼辣地制定由他绝对主导的后续工作方案。他还准备用个什么办法把五大员之一的财务老刘抓到圈子里。这一晚，他想了很多很多。

而从这一晚起，他因为想得太多，经常失眠。

他搬出过去一车间改造时候独自控制工作进度的方式，不给旁人插手机会，步步为营，让手下诸人个个唯他马首是瞻。他利用当初老徐引见的上级领导关系，熟门熟路上门拜访，争取东海项目继续进行。因为他争取的项目经费落到财务口袋，财务老刘渐渐与他站到同一阵营。而东海项目的计划随着三项可行性分析的开展，和上级部门的指示，虽然已经改得面目全非，不再是最初设定的最先进最高效，可毕竟是得以延续了。

这期间，宋运辉总是抢先抛出一个又一个充满刺激的议题，裹胁着大家害怕担忧退回原单位的情绪，激励着大家一步不离地跟着他前进。外人看来，这么多人的这等努力，甚至有点疯狂。到最后他从上级部门回来，慷慨激昂地告诉大家，“我们”的东海项目，通过“我们”所有人背水一战般的不懈努力，终于又回到“我们”手中的时候，在大家的一片欢呼中，所有无法参与项目可行性调整工作的人自然而然地被边缘化了，自然而然地被排除到“我们”之外。那些人，包括老马他们三个。而曾经是老马他们三个带来的人，有些心不由己地被宋运辉裹胁，有的则是观望之后做了墙头草，当然也有死忠的。