Why the House Always Wins

The Dream of the Red Chamber Chapter 2



That zero means millions of dollars in profit!
When Jia Yucun (賈雨村) was going out for a walk, he encounters a dilapidated temple.  The two columns at the front of the door has a couplet:

身後有餘忘縮手

When there's plenty behind, one forgets to hold back

眼前無路想回頭

When one there's nothing ahead, one thinks of turning back

There's something called the sunk costs fallacy.   It says one makes decisions about current conditions based on how one invested in the past.

Here's an example I used for my niece that simplifies gambling.

Let's say we bet on a coin toss game and I'm the house.  If it's heads, I win a dollar.  If tails, you win a dollar.  If we decide to play one round, one dollar is at stake.  If we decide to play 100 rounds, 100 dollars at stake.

If we assume the coin is fair, most likely you and I will win 50 dollars.  There might be a chance that I win 49, and you win 51, or visa versa.  There's also the possibility that I win 1 dollar, and you win 99.  But the probability of getting a 49-51 state is much higher than 1-99.

Here's a cute website about binomial probability.  You do the math.

But let's simplify things for the math inept.

Let's go back to the coin toss.  If you win, I give you a dollar.  But if I win, you have to give me 1.01.  After 100 rounds, most likely you WIN 50 dollars, and I WIN 55 dollars.  No big deal, right?

Ah, but let's look at this way, I LOST 50 dollars to pay your winnings, but you LOST 55 to pay my winnings!  If we just take the difference between what was lost and won for each person, I WON five bucks, you LOST 5 bucks.

But if you're a little sunk in the hole, you can win it back right?  SUNK COSTS FALLACY!!!!

1000 rounds?  I win $50.

10,000 rounds?  I win $500.

What if I lived in a world where many people agreed to play against much more than their odds for 24 hours a day?  It would be like some sort of cash gathering machine!

It's called a casino!

Comment to conversate!

The Book Opens with a Dream

SPOILER:  The Dream of the Red Chamber Chapter 1.

Most people fall asleep by trying to blank out their minds, or sing a tune inside their heads.  I have to the think of the weirdest possible thing and follow the logic.  For instance, I might think about the United Nations roll call with all zoo animals, or ostriches might try to sell different kinds of sand on the home shopping network.

For some reason odd situations turn into though provoking dreams.  Last week I dreamt I was a children's raffle and I was sitting next to the President Obama and the Supreme Court.  We were discussing whether the common man had the moral capacity to judge fairness for other people.  I was sitting next to Justice Kennedy, while Sotomayor dyed her hair blonde.

The Dream of the Red Chamber opens with a talking rock.  The story of the stone, which happens to be the alternative title to the book, is about the stone's dream to experience the mortal world.  The story is already written on the stone, so the author forces the reader to frame the story as a recollection of the stone's dream in the mortal world.

When we were kids, our uncorrupted imaginations dreamt of fanciful realities that felt possible to exist.  Dreams feel possible because kids lack the capacity to account for reality.

There were three things I wanted to be when I was a kid:  a power ranger, the president of China, or a food critic.  I learned about the communist party in China.  My parents discouraged me from spending my life critiquing food, there's Yelp for that.  I still want to beat up someone of comparable stature though, that's number 1 on my bucket list.

Sometimes having the temptation of a dream is better than it becoming reality. Sometimes its a reason for living.   Sometimes it can be a foolish fantasy.  Here's a blog post from Mark Mason about someone's rape fantasy almost coming true.

So what does Cao Xueqin think?  Here's his poem that sets the tone for the rock's dream:

滿紙荒唐言

Man1 zhi3 huang1 tang2 yan2

Paper full of gibberish

一把辛酸淚

yi4 ba3 xin1 suan1 lei4

All full of bitter tears

都云作者癡

dou1 yun2 xuo4 zhe3 chi1

All say the writer is crazy

誰解其中味

Shei2 jie3 qi2 zhong1 wei4

Who can understand the meaning of all this?

* I left the pinyin and tone because

the sound of the words are rhythmic.

What are/were your dreams?  Have they changed over time?  Comment to converse!

The Power of Narrative

SPOILER ALERT!  GAME OF THRONES!

Here's a conversation between two bureaucrats of within the fictional kingdom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH7sIOBJqLA

Start from 1:48 onwards.

Narrative is the most powerful motivation behind human action.  Without narrative, action has no relation of consequence and becomes chaotic.

American history has no utilitarian purpose.  One can't build roads and bridges with this knowledge, yet American history is taught for the good majority of public school education.  Americans roughly agree that all men are created equal and the individual can determine one's fate in life.

But why aren't we taught Norwegian history?  Are the past actions of Americans more important than the peoples of Norway?  Wouldn't that imply that one group of people are more important than another?

To a large extent, American history is public propaganda.  Instead of our education system providing critical thinking tools to analyze and contextualize history and culture that an individual may value, any other culture that doesn't relate of fit within the narrative is implicitly sub-par.

One could counter by noting that studying the movement of American history charts a path of progression and improvement.  Without understanding this evolution we do not see how the thoughts of the past are relevant to our core beliefs today.

Hogwash.  Sociology and philosophy provide enough reasons to justify compassion to our fellow man, but to assume knowing history is reason enough to justify present actions and conditions is a dangerous lie.  Blind attachment to narrative is a cheap and lazy way to justify our actions.

The American narrative believes that the Constitution and democracy is the source of its current advance.  Our moral narrative justifies capitalism and our right to profit.

The Chinese narrative believes its age and history gives it precedence to be "superior" to any other foreign culture.  The name Zhongguo literally means "center country."

Narrative is not absolute truth.  It's only a frame.

This is the lesson I learned from "The Dream of the Red Chamber" (紅樓夢)。

So far my blog has been a semi-random mish mash of little curios in Chinese literature.  At first I thought following Chinese literature anthologies like DeBary and Bloom or Stephen Owen could carry an interesting narrative framework, but a chronological framework is only useful for academia and reference.

From now on my blog will discuss Chinese culture from the standpoint of "The Red Chamber."  Hopefully the narrative frame will be interesting as it was 300 years ago.

 

 

Learning Mandarin

Pai Mai is training the main character Uma Thurman in Kill Bill 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEjI0A9iMow

When I see Uma Thurman, I can't help but think about my early days in Chinese school.

My Chinese school had central A/C, but starting out was painful, boring, and repetitive.

My first Chinese teacher was a former radio news reporter in Taiwan, so her Mandarin Chinese was pitch perfect.

Everyday weekday after "English" school was 3 hours of "Chinese school."  For the first six months I didn't write a single character.  We reviewed the Taiwan phonetic table known as Zhuyin Fuhao and practiced pronouncing every permutation.  Here's a table:



Multiply this by 4 and you can pronounce any character in Chinese!  Although the list is intimidating, English fills up an entire book!

The first set of words I wrote was my Chinese name, 陳俊祥。 If a single stroke was off, you had to re-write a page worth of your name, or around 150 times!!

The first character I learned besides my name was "好。" The radical for girl and boy are smooshed together to make 好， and it makes perfect sense because that's how you greet people.  The conversation oddly turned to why procreating children is good.

Every character was written in these neat little white boxes like this.



One mistake and you had to rewrite a character in another column 14 times.

I got plenty of hand cramps like Pai Mai's training.

I wrote sentences in 1 year

I wrote paragraphs in 3 years.

I wrote essays 5 years.

Before entering college I knew HOW to study Chinese, but I didn't know WHY.

Then I knew why.

During the last day of my language class, my college Chinese teacher gave us this advice:

"Right now you are all at the peak of your Chinese ability.  For most of you will slope downward gradually and forget.  But if you want to maintain what you have I only have one word:  Read.  There is no shortcut.  No trick.  Just read as much as you can."

Something within me still wants to learn this beautiful ancient language. Although I can carry a basic conversation, I'm still too far from an educated Chinese person.

After 17 years, my hands still cramp.



 

La Mian Chinese Noodle Recipe in English! 牛肉拉麵

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahr-bIm6MrU

0:44  1 clear, 2 white, 3 red, 4 green, 5 yellow

0:54  Let’s introduce the ingredients! Beef, Noodle flour, scallion, daikon, cilantro, salt, msg, pepper, LYE / SODA WATER/ alkali powder (BE SURE THIS IS FOOD GRADE AND SOMETHING YOU CAN FIND IN A SUPERMARKET, NOT A HARDWARE STORE!)

1:12  PROVERB: A SOUP BEFORE A MEAL, SURPASSES GOOD MEDICINE

1:14 STEP ONE: Make beef broth *Throw the meat in like the video

1:27 It’s healthy

1:31 STEP 2: Mix the Noodle dough 1:39 For every 1 kg of noodle flour, add 10gram of salt and 5 grams of lye/soda water

1:42 As the old saying goes, “Salt is the bones, lye/soda water are the nerves”

1:50 Add water little at a time, DON’T POUR TOO MUCH!

2:01 Mix it until it barely clumps together Skim off the fat, this is a clear soup after all! LA MIAN CAN STRENGTHEN THE BODY! Making noodles is good exercise, like a dancing child!

2:29 WHEN YOU’RE READY GIVE ME A CHANCE to dance

2:31 BOIL THE BEEF ON HIGH UNTIL ROLLING BOIL, then TURN HEAT TO SIMMER AND COOK FOR 40 MINUTES

2:35 After mixing the dough to a ball, let the ball REST FOR 5 MINUTES

2:55 Get some oil and start rubbing (phrasing, lol) Come over here and feel it up (phrasing, lol)

2:57 *scrolling text Alternate with your left and right, you can exercise your upper body (phrasing, lol. Look, he’s trying to seduce you)

3:08 STEP 3: Drop the noodles (I am not kidding, the first character is also slang for male genitalia.)

3:39 Dropping the noodles is the key

3:42 When the noodles twist and rotate, make sure you go both clockwise and counterclockwise. The thinner the dough, the weaker it becomes. Also, don’t forcefully pull the noodles, feel the elasticity of the noodles and let the noodles stretch itself out.

4:05 Oh, my big stomach is in the way.

4:15 rub some more oil

4:26 Let’s flavor the soup salt, msg, pepper

4:45 1. Pull with the strength of both arms. 2. pull with uniform energy

4:55 Flatten

5:04 Pull, pull, then dust with flour

5:09 Again, don’t fight against the noodle and feel, or it will break

5:30 BOIL WATER, THEN THROW IN NOODLES. DON”T IMMEDIATELY STIRE THE NOODLES! LET SIT for 5 MINUTES BEFORE TOUCHING NOODLES

6:50 Add your toppings and you’re done!

6:58 LOSING IS SUCCESS’ MOTHER!

7:05 Let’s review!

1. Bring the meat to a boil and then simmer for 40 minutes

2. Mixing dough: 1 kg flour, 10 grams salt, 5 grams lye/soda water

3. Pulling noodles: Pull firmly and evenly, but don’t rush!


**Editor's note:  I didn't translate every detail, just the basic gist and funny stuff.  Feel free to leave comments for comments, concerns, and future requests.

Reading in Chinese and Western Literary Traditions - Tang

An interesting quote about approaching Chinese poetry

The Best Graduate Student in Religious Studies: Xuanzang

Xuanzang took a round trip from China to India by foot during the early 7th century.  Talk about the ultimate backpacking trip!   This map charts his journey:



(http://www.silk-road.com/artl/hsuantsang.shtml)

When I think about his journey, I can't help but think about graduate school.  He's arguably the best graduate student in world history:

• He realized that China didn't have comprehensive detail about Buddhism and needed more credible sources.


• He defied the emperor Tang Taizong's orders went against everyone's advice.  Makes modern visa issues seem like a trifle.


• He did amazing fieldwork.  He learned dozen foreign languages and befriended many locals.  Plus there's the whole let's make a loop around India thing.


• Buddhism in India was on the wane, so he went just in time before Buddhist knowledge became irrelevant in India.


• As John Keay in A History of China puts it, he brought 500 trunks, an ENTIRE LIBRARY's worth of Buddhist text carried by HUNDREDS of monks.  He brought an ENTIRE UNIVERSITY with him!  Sadly, one of his elephants fell in a precipice.


• Emperor Tang Taizong ordered 'Great Pagoda of the Wild Goose' to house all of Xuanzang's precious text.  It's essentially a university for Xuanzang.  I use the present tense of the verb "is" because IT'S STILL THERE, 1400 years later!  Take that Cambridge!

(Shablam!  All in it's jpeg glory!)

It's easy to bash humanities graduate students and say that their work serves little to no practical purpose towards humanity.  Then I think about this pagoda, and how Xuanzang permanently changed the moral values of east Asia.

I'm still considering graduate school in Chinese literature.

I have a new twitter!  Feel free to add me: @TPolmelo.  Feel free to comment on grad school or any other thoughts as well!

Kitsch Helps Us Come to Terms With Horror

Spoiler Alert!!!: Scottsboro Boys, Bleach (Anime)

Kitsch is difficult to define, but I like to put it this way:  It's something that tries to exaggerate meaning when it's not there, like a gilded cardholder or pink flamingo garden ornaments.

Sometimes when the world pushes inhumanity to the extreme, and a serious objective narration of the account may not suffice because any attempt to recreate its essence will in some way demean it.

I recently watched the Scottsboro Boys at the Ahmanson Theater.  It's about the wrongful persecution of a group of nine African-American teenagers in Alabama during the Great Depression.  Two Caucasian Alabama women accused the boys of gang raping them.

It was doubly kitschy because it was a circus act within a broadway musical.  The audience knew that obvious inconsistencies, like African American boys playing the part of southern Alabama women, but the musical progresses and gradually stings the audience of the pain of the inmates.

My favorite song was "Southern Days."  Before the verdict was read to the boys, all of them were imagining how they would spend the moment leaving jail.  When all expound their hopes, the interlocutor enters the scene and attempts to convince the boys to remain in the South.  With forced faces they all begin to sing a folk song about the South.

These lines completely shifts the tone of the number:

HOW THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
COME BACK TO ME!
LIKE MY DADDY HANGIN’ FROM A TREE.

It completely shatters the song's attachment towards Southern nostalgia.

Nostalgia is the greatest threat to history.  At least censorship or forgetting history allows room for one to wonder if pain occurred, but nostalgia erases history AND seduces one to accept a comfortable narrative.

The danger of nostalgia also reminds me of Japanese anime.

(source)

When Ben Lewis interviews Takashi Murakami, Murakami talks about how after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after 30 years Japan creates children's television shows that depicts cartoons of this image.

I didn't realize this until I wrote this blog, but the reverberation of this incident is STILL in modern day anime.

SPOILER ALERT FOR BLEACH!!!

This video is the climax of the Bleach series.  Fast forward to 25:00:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMFTwjj7lO0

I'm skipping vital details, but the flowy hair guy has to kill the evil butterfly looking thing.  The entire Bleach series hinges on this moment, but if you have no idea what's going on, this final explosion of raw power from the protagonist is eerily similar to an atomic blast.

Victims of the atomic bomb blinded and deafened by the explosion explain how they saw something as bright as the sun, and couldn't hear anything because their eardrums would rupture from the shockwave.

When we look back into a traumatic history, we cannot recreate the event to convey the feeling.  Ironically kitsch allows us to look without altering the feelings of history.