OT: Chen: So freakin' cool

[Slogoin]

Not since Tiananmen Square in 89 when I was studying Chinese have
I been more impressed by the Chinese people. Chen is AWESOME!

Sorry for the OT but, man, this is brilliant!

Now bach to scales... :-^|)

[Matt Faunce]

Yes. Chen is the best guitar and violin repairman I know of. Ya know,
one time he knew I was struggling financially so Chen fixed my guitar
for free. That is pretty awesome. He did a damn good job too. Yeah.
Chen is AWESOME!

Matt

[Slogoin]

On Apr 30, 1:39 pm, Matt Faunce <mattfau...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ya know, one time he knew I was struggling
> financially so Chen fixed my guitar
> for free. That is pretty awesome.
> He did a damn good job too. Yeah.

Didn't he ask you to pay it forward?

[Matt Faunce]

No. I pulled out my wallet and he said no charge. That's it. I thanked
him profusely.

Chen at Kremona Music in Chicago.

Matt

[wollybird]

No, Bruce Chen, the pitcher for the Royals who yesterday threw to
first base 10 times and gave up 4 runs in the first inning,. The
Twins finally won a game.
Awesome

[Slogoin]

On Apr 30, 2:01 pm, Matt Faunce <mattfau...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> No. I pulled out my wallet and he said
> no charge. That's it. I thanked
> him profusely.
>
> Chen at Kremona Music in Chicago.

Very cool. Well, I'm not a great repair guy but I do mention the pay
it forward thing as I owe a lot to so many who gave freely to me. It
seems to work when they insist on paying.

[John Nguyen]

Uh uh, I think he's talking about Chen Zhi, the famed guitar professor
in Beijing Central Conservatoire whose students include Yang Xuefei,
Wang Yameng, Su Meng, and Li Jie (my favorite on cuteness), among
others :-)

[dsi1]

I've always admired the Chinese. Americans, for the most part, have
always underestimated the Chinese. No doubt we'll be in for an attitude
adjustment soon. The Chinese were the first wave of immigrants to come
to Hawaii. It was all men who came here and they found Hawaiian women to
be acceptable mates to start a family in the new land. It was a case of
the lowest of the low coming together. Something about the combination
of the two clicked and today the Hawaiian/Chinese population is one of
the richest socioeconomic groups, financially and culturally, in this
state.

My guess is that Obama does not underestimate the Chinese. No doubt he
had a lot of them as classmates at Punahou.

[wollybird]

The other way to look at it is 50 guards lost one blind guy (not that
I want to be seen as underestimating the Chinese)

[Slogoin]

On Apr 30, 2:56 pm, dsi1 <dsi...@hawaiiantel.net> wrote:

> I've always admired the Chinese.

Me too, obviously. I was totally into the culture for a few years
and took Chinese so I could go there and study it in person. What an
amazing culture(s) and history! I still have a bunch of books. I was
particularly into the turn of the century period.

> Americans, for the most part, have
> always underestimated the Chinese.

Yes, some kind of macho man crap that is still with us today.

> My guess is that Obama does not underestimate
> the Chinese. No doubt he had a lot of them as
> classmates at Punahou.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks.

[dsi1]

On 5/1/2012 1:49 AM, wollybird wrote:
>
> The other way to look at it is 50 guards lost one blind guy (not that
> I want to be seen as underestimating the Chinese)

The 50 guards are not to blame - the Chinese, in fact, do all look
alike. Even to the Chinese. :-)

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:04:19 -0700, Slogoin wrote:

> Not since Tiananmen Square in 89 when I was studying Chinese have I
> been more impressed by the Chinese people. Chen is AWESOME!

Sure he is. Now let's let all the Chinese who think
population control is immoral come over here so they can
all have ten kids and we can all starve together. Maybe
just you would starve if there were a just God, but
that's not how it is.

Idiot or Saint? I don't give a crap just so he stays
in China. Not since Saddam has there been such an
example of thuggish bad guys being in the right. It
happens much too often to suit me.

[John Nguyen]

On May 4, 9:27 am, David Raleigh Arnold <d.raleigh.arn...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Chen is a bad guy because he goes against inhuman abortion?? We are
talking about late term, 7,8,9 months forced abortion here where a
human is killed for the sake of population control. What planet are
you from?

[Slogoin]

On May 4, 9:47 am, John Nguyen <johnnguyen5...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Chen is a bad guy because he goes against inhuman abortion?? We are
> talking about late term, 7,8,9 months forced abortion here where a
> human is killed for the sake of population control. What planet are
> you from?

I think we need to kill folks like DRA. He's outlived his usefulness
and is going to (or already does) cost us all a fortune for his end of
life health care, like all the old farts do in developed nations. Now
that's the kind of population control that makes sense. Why should we
suffer just because he won't do the honorable thing and go out in the
snow to die so the rest of us can live in comfort.

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Fri, 04 May 2012 06:47:55 -0700, John Nguyen wrote:

> On May 4, 9:27 am, David Raleigh Arnold <d.raleigh.arn...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:04:19 -0700, Slogoin wrote:
>> > Not since Tiananmen Square  in 89 when I was studying Chinese have I
>> > been more impressed by the Chinese people. Chen is AWESOME!
>>
>> Sure he is. Now let's let all the Chinese who think population control
>> is immoral come over here so they can all have ten kids and we can all
>> starve together. Maybe just you would starve if there were a just God,
>> but that's not how it is.
>>
>> Idiot or Saint? I don't give a crap just so he stays in China. Not
>> since Saddam has there been such an example of thuggish bad guys being
>> in the right. It happens much too often to suit me.
>
> Chen is a bad guy because he goes against inhuman abortion??

He goes against population control. It is necessary in China.
Someday soon it will be necessary here. Let's see if we do
better. Can it be done without enforcement? We'll see. Not
our problem. Yet.

--
Guitar teaching materials and original music for all styles and levels.
Site: http://www.openguitar.com (()) eMail: d.raleig...@gmail.com
Contact: http://www.openguitar.com/contact.html"

[John Nguyen]

On May 5, 3:51 pm, David Raleigh Arnold <d.raleigh.arn...@gmail.com>

wrote:
> On Fri, 04 May 2012 06:47:55 -0700, John Nguyen wrote:
> > On May 4, 9:27 am, David Raleigh Arnold <d.raleigh.arn...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >> On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:04:19 -0700, Slogoin wrote:
> >> > Not since Tiananmen Square  in 89 when I was studying Chinese have I
> >> > been more impressed by the Chinese people. Chen is AWESOME!
>
> >> Sure he is. Now let's let all the Chinese who think population control
> >> is immoral come over here so they can all have ten kids and we can all
> >> starve together. Maybe just you would starve if there were a just God,
> >> but that's not how it is.
>
> >> Idiot or Saint? I don't give a crap just so he stays in China. Not
> >> since Saddam has there been such an example of thuggish bad guys being
> >> in the right. It happens much too often to suit me.
>
> > Chen is a bad guy because he goes against inhuman abortion??
>
> He goes against population control. It is necessary in China.
> Someday soon it will be necessary here. Let's see if we do
> better. Can it be done without enforcement? We'll see. Not
> our problem. Yet.
>
> --
> Guitar teaching materials and original music for all styles and levels.

> Site:http://www.openguitar.com(()) eMail: d.raleigh.arn...@gmail.com
> Contact:http://www.openguitar.com/contact.html"

You missed the forest for the trees! He goes against the methods of
pouplation control. Do you know how violent, cruel it was to force a
late-term abortion in China? It is a murder of a human being in the
cruelest way. Please read some materials before talking about
something you have no idea about.

Just for comparison, look at the world's birth rates by countries
here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_birth_rate

China ranked 158th in 2012. Countries with lower birth rates include
the U.K., Australia, Canada, most of the nordic countries, and its
surounding Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, Singapore, etc. Even Russia has lower birth rate.

All of those countries I mention did not have population control by
forced abortion but by education. Are you still thinking China doing
the right thing with its method of population control???

[Slogoin]

On May 5, 4:19 pm, John Nguyen <johnnguyen5...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> All of those countries I mention
> did not have population control by
> forced abortion but by education.

YES!
Thanks John, I can't respond to DRA... too pissed to read this crap.

[thomas]

On May 4, 9:27 am, David Raleigh Arnold
>

> Idiot or Saint? I don't give a crap just so he stays
> in China. Not since Saddam has there been such an
> example of thuggish bad guys being in the right.

Saddam just doesn't get enough credit for all the good things he did.

[Matt Faunce]

Reminds me of the American conservative idea of lessening the crime
rate: more police crackdowns and build more prisons. But they are
against public funding for education, and against government stimuli,
and see these as a completely different issues from crime.

I experienced this same mentality from the management of my previous
job. Morale at work was abysmal, so people made mistakes, but their
response was to crack down, restrict people's movements (literally)
and responsibilities (even very simple ones), demoralizing those near
the bottom and overwhelming those higher up who had to take on the new
responsibilities. Of course more and bigger mistakes happened, and
they just figured that the reason they're laborers and not business
owners or engineers is because they're stupid and irresponsible
people, who are only capable of understanding brute punishment. I
wanted to make and hang up a sign that read "The beatings won't stop
until morale improves!" Of course, the owners and plant manager were
hard-core conservatives.

I have no idea how China has dealt with educating their citizens, or
what their problems are.

Matt

[dsi1]

This is so true! In the end, he got the proper recognition that he
deserved. Who says that good guys always finish last?

[Matt Faunce]

In 1980 he was given the key to the city of Detroit for his generous
donations to a church here. Only five people have ever received the key
to Detroit.
--
Matt

[Cactus Wren]

Someone pressed a 5-month old baby into my arms yesterday, and I had
to hold her for about half an hour. She chewed on my shirt and just
soaked it with her drool. She had that baby smell. She didn't know
any words, but I noticed that she was interested in some kids who were
playing with some balloons. She grunted and squirmed until I took her
over there. She watched the boys playing with sword balloons that a
clown had made for them, although I don't know how much of it she
understood. She was the type of baby that looks into your eyes and
smiles and makes happy sounds when you look at her. Not all babies
are like that--some cry at strangers. I don't think she cried at all
during the three or so hours I was around her. Her mother took her
into the pool and a hot tub, too. She was a very pudgy and fat little
baby, and the world probably has enough babies and doesn't really need
any more.

I suppose I don't really have a point, but it seemed to sort of fit
into the subject.

[Cactus Wren]

Good stuff, Matt. I think you should compose a piece called "Saddam's
Key to the City of Deeetroit"

"Five people have been awarded the key to the city of Detroit: actor
James Earl Jones, neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson, football star Jerome
Bettis, businessman and sports team owner Chris Ilitch, and — in 1980,
in recognition of large donations to a church — former Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein. "

http://detroitretro.blogspot.com/p/city-facts.html

[Slogoin]

On May 6, 2:20 am, Cactus Wren <elegantspanishgui...@gmail.com> wrote:

> She was a very pudgy and fat little
> baby, and the world probably has
> enough babies and doesn't really need
> any more.

The world does not need more babies having babies. The answer is
education, real education and not the kind that is about telling
people what they can and cannot do. When given an informed choice we
see that it works, even in developing nations.

This may be a theory for many in the US but it's a reality for many
in developing nations. The only way it's going to work is for those
who have had the luck to get an education to do something rather than
pontificate.

[thomas]

Like Bush II, Saddam did the right thing by invading two countries
with oppressive regimes.

[dsi1]

Good old Saddam. If he didn't invade Kuwait, he and Bin Laden might
still be boogieing in their comfortable abodes and digging American
porn. That's the breaks.

[David Raleigh Arnold]

Education works well with starvation and high unemployment
rates.

> Are you still thinking China doing the
> right thing with its method of population control???

What was this "mother" doing before her forced abortion? Is
she sorry for not going in earlier or sorry for getting
caught? Does she have any responsibility for the "murder"?
Is it a matter of her good conscience that God tells
her, very conveniently, that she has a
right to have ten kids but other people's kids have a
right to starve? Or worse?

Our country seems to have chosen mass starvation. It's coming.

--
Guitar teaching materials and original music for all styles and levels.

[David Raleigh Arnold]

He kept a lid on Moqtada and his ilk. He invaded Kuwait,
which was a good thing. The list is not long, but
when Moqtada seizes power, you'll wish Saddam were back.

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Sun, 06 May 2012 09:09:16 -1000, dsi1 wrote:

> On 5/6/2012 8:23 AM, thomas wrote:
>> On May 5, 11:23 pm, dsi1<d...@eternal-september.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 5/5/2012 4:16 PM, thomas wrote:
>>>
>>>> On May 4, 9:27 am, David Raleigh Arnold
>>>
>>>>> Idiot or Saint? I don't give a crap just so he stays in China. Not
>>>>> since Saddam has there been such an example of thuggish bad guys
>>>>> being in the right.
>>>
>>>> Saddam just doesn't get enough credit for all the good things he did.
>>>
>>> This is so true! In the end, he got the proper recognition that he
>>> deserved. Who says that good guys always finish last?
>>
>> Like Bush II, Saddam did the right thing by invading two countries with
>> oppressive regimes.
>
> Good old Saddam. If he didn't invade Kuwait, he and Bin Laden

Saddam killed Abu Nidal for us. Remember Nidal? If we'd asked
Saddam nicely, he might have killed Bin Laden for us too.

might
> still be boogieing in their comfortable abodes and digging American
> porn. That's the breaks.

[Slogoin]

On May 6, 3:42 pm, David Raleigh Arnold <d.raleigh.arn...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Is it a matter of her good conscience that God tells
> her, very conveniently, that she has a
> right to have ten kids but other people's kids have a
> right to starve? Or worse?

You are being an asshole and have no idea what you are talking
about. This thread is becoming a display of your ignorance and
bigotry.

[dsi1]

On 5/6/2012 9:49 AM, David Raleigh Arnold wrote:
> On Sun, 06 May 2012 09:09:16 -1000, dsi1 wrote:
>
>> On 5/6/2012 8:23 AM, thomas wrote:
>>> On May 5, 11:23 pm, dsi1<d...@eternal-september.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 5/5/2012 4:16 PM, thomas wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On May 4, 9:27 am, David Raleigh Arnold
>>>>
>>>>>> Idiot or Saint? I don't give a crap just so he stays in China. Not
>>>>>> since Saddam has there been such an example of thuggish bad guys
>>>>>> being in the right.
>>>>
>>>>> Saddam just doesn't get enough credit for all the good things he did.
>>>>
>>>> This is so true! In the end, he got the proper recognition that he
>>>> deserved. Who says that good guys always finish last?
>>>
>>> Like Bush II, Saddam did the right thing by invading two countries with
>>> oppressive regimes.
>>
>> Good old Saddam. If he didn't invade Kuwait, he and Bin Laden
>
> Saddam killed Abu Nidal for us. Remember Nidal? If we'd asked
> Saddam nicely, he might have killed Bin Laden for us too.

That would have been just peachy in my opinion. Too bad this did not
come to pass.

[John Nguyen]

On May 6, 3:42 pm, David Raleigh Arnold <d.raleigh.arn...@gmail.com>

I think I just gave up on you, man!!!

[John Nguyen]

On May 6, 3:42 pm, David Raleigh Arnold <d.raleigh.arn...@gmail.com>

WOW!!!!

[Richard Jernigan]

On Sunday, May 6, 2012 4:21:17 PM UTC-5, John Nguyen wrote:

> I think I just gave up on you, man!!!

What took you so long?

RNJ

[John Nguyen]

:-) I never thought he could be that much out of wack!!!

[Guitarzan]

On Apr 30, 3:56 pm, dsi1 <dsi...@hawaiiantel.net> wrote:

> On 4/30/2012 10:04 AM, Slogoin wrote:
>
>
>
> >     Not since Tiananmen Square  in 89 when I was studying Chinese have
> > I been more impressed by the Chinese people. Chen is AWESOME!
>

> >    Sorry for the OT but, man, this is brilliant!
>
> >    Now bach to scales... :-^|)
>
> I've always admired the Chinese. Americans, for the most part, have
> always underestimated the Chinese. No doubt we'll be in for an attitude
> adjustment soon. The Chinese were the first wave of immigrants to come
> to Hawaii. It was all men who came here and they found Hawaiian women to
> be acceptable mates to start a family in the new land. It was a case of
> the lowest of the low coming together. Something about the combination
> of the two clicked and today the Hawaiian/Chinese population is one of
> the richest socioeconomic groups, financially and culturally, in this
> state.
>
> My guess is that Obama does not underestimate the Chinese. No doubt he
> had a lot of them as classmates at Punahou.

1500 years ago Chinese Buddhist monks discovered America.......

I first heard about the Chinese Buddhist discovery of America from a
gentleman scholar, Francis W. Paar of the Oriental Department of the
New York Public Library. I went to see him in 1976 while researching a
history of Buddhism in America. When I finally found my way to Dr.
Paar's office, he peered at me through his bifocals: "You've heard of
Fusang, of course?"

Of course I hadn't. But I wasn't about to let Dr. Paar know that. I
mumbled that I'd heard something about Fusang but would appreciate any
light he could shed on the subject. The librarian disappeared into the
multilingual stacks of the Oriental collection and within minutes
returned bearing a thick leather-bound volume published in 1885 by
Edward P.Vining, An Inglorious Columbus: Evidence that Hui Shan and a
Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in the
Fifth Century A.D. In eight hundred-odd pages Vining recounted the
scholarly controversy that had begun in 1761 when M. Joseph De Guignes
published Recherches sur les Navigations des Chinois du Cote de l'
Amerique. De Guignes's book included the translation of a report found
in the Chinese imperial archives that depicts a voyage to Fusang by
Hui Shan, a Chinese Buddhist monk. De Guignes identified Fusang as
North America, in general, and Mexico, in particular. He claimed that
the Chinese had therefore "discovered" America nearly one thousand
years before Columbus.


On the trail of Hui Shan, I soon discovered that compared to later
writers, Vining could be considered almost conservative. In Pale Ink
(1972), for example, Henrietta Mertz suggested that Point Hueneme in
California had received its name because Hui Shan landed there. She
noted further that the Huichol Indians, who so resemble the Chinese
that the local people refer to them as "Chinois," perform an ancient
dance carrying bowls called sakaimona, a close fit to another of
Buddha's names, Shakyamuni. It was not much of a leap to her next
hypothesis. According to Mertz, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl "was
kindly, abhorred war, was adverse to cruelty, maintained the most
exemplary manners, taught men to cultivate the soil, weave, reduce
metals from their ores, and was all that could be considered supreme
in a man," and in her view, this description perfectly fit that of a
cultivated Chinese monk such as Hui Shan. Further, she maintained that
Hui Shan was probably light-skinned, like Quetzalcoatl, since upper-
class Chinese carefully shielded themselves from the sun. Finally,
both Hui Shan and Quetzalcoatl appeared and disappeared quite suddenly
after teaching people to "forsake rude customs."
http://www.tricycle.com/ancestors/sailing-fusang

[dsi1]

On 5/7/2012 4:38 AM, Guitarzan wrote:
>
> 1500 years ago Chinese Buddhist monks discovered America.......\

I'm not so sure that finding a huge piece of land that creates a barrier
almost from pole to pole is that much of a stupendous achievement. OTOH,
it looks like they won over a few converts and left their seeds. It
would have been cool if the Chinese had been able to colonize the new
land a thousand years before we did.

[Dick Cheney]

On May 7, 9:38 am, Guitarzan <dewachen1...@gmail.com>

Finally,
> both Hui Shan and Quetzalcoatl appeared and disappeared quite suddenly
> after teaching people to "forsake rude customs."http://www.tricycle.com/ancestors/sailing-fusang

Then it didn't stick very well, did it?
http://howmanyreally.com/civilisations/aztec

[Dick Cheney]

If you believe the mormons, the jews beat everyone by a country mile

[Guitarzan]

Um Wolli, the truth takes a while to set in. I guess you believe in
miracles?

[Guitarzan]

To the credit of the Chinese/Afgan monks, I don't think they were
thinking in terms of world domination, and expanding Empire.

[wollybird]

and mel brooks, of course
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYVtGqnjrgs&feature=related

[dsi1]

On 5/7/2012 11:09 AM, Dick Cheney wrote:
>
> If you believe the mormons, the jews beat everyone by a country mile

You are correct about this. Finally, a version of the history of the
Americas that we can all agree with! :-)

[dsi1]

On 5/7/2012 11:16 AM, Guitarzan wrote:
>
> To the credit of the Chinese/Afgan monks, I don't think they were
> thinking in terms of world domination, and expanding Empire.

I wonder what they were looking for. Exotic spices would be my guess.