🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦

B12 is prevalent in the diet, but not everybody has the so-called “intrinsic factor” that permits the body to actually process it. If you lack it it’s very difficult to get enough B12 no matter what you eat. (Ask me how I know…)

Oh wow. The sheer amount of tradition surrounding this, with a myriad of local variation, is impossible to keep up with. Then they make up “traditions” on the fly as well. It’s so much fun!

Have your B12 levels checked. (Don’t assume you have a B-vitamin shortage, GET IT TESTED.)

I saw someone with no fucks left to give play every step and yes, it is serious popcorn time when it happens.

You’d call it Chinese New Year.

There’s a whole lot of food involved. SO MUCH FOOD! 😱

Once you hand in notice you can start playing games so that they hustle you out the door with alacrity; you won’t have to stay for months.

First, the old tried and true tool: work to rule. Do your job, as described, and no more.

Second, the incompetence gambit. Do your job BADLY. Do what’s asked of you, but make dumb mistakes, do things slowly, “accidentally” hand in first draughts (with the correct draught already on your computer so you can produce it when they spot the problem…if they spot the problem in the first place!). You know, that kind of thing. If you’re training your replacement, key pieces of misinformation are always fun to insert.

Third, make sure all communications are in something more substantial than speech. If they tell you something vocally, follow up with email summarizing the conversation and what action items you took from the conversation. Ask them to confirm that your understanding was correct so there’s records instead of he said/she said. (This is both protection for yourself and fun.) Tinpot dictators really hate being held to account (it’s why they favour only verbal communications!), so torture her.

Finally you can play the tardy/absentee game. Come to work increasingly late. Leave work increasingly early. When the complaints start, you can make a subgame with the third technique, driving your nemesis to distraction as you roll this activity back … only to roll it forward again to test resolve and boundaries.

I mean what’s she going to do? Fire you?

I’m in the beginning stages of Spring Festival. I’ve had three feasts in five days, plus the immediate family feast (which we could better control the contents of).

I think I’ve gained about 15kg. But in the good way!

I’m still here too.

I use water and soap. For everything. Including my hair. Unscented soap with no industrial chemicals to make it “smell good”.

I horrify my coworkers when I tell them this. They’re convinced my hair is going to fall out, and that my skin will dry out and slough off despite literally years of me not showing any of this.

I’m pretty sure the makeup industry is purely a scam.

That’s the most polite way I’ve ever seen of edging away from my obsessive tendencies. 😀

I caught the 2009 total eclipse here and it was awe-inspiring. It was also the longest solar eclipse expected for the 21st century at 6 minutes, 39 seconds, so it made a deep impression on everybody standing on the roof of the apartment block to watch it.

I don’t wish to see a second, though, because the next one will be in the year 2200 and that would mean I’d still be alive in 200 years. Not something I want.

I’ve seen the Aurora Borealis hundreds of times. (Living in the high arctic does that to you.) But I have heard them only once.

I’d like to hear them again.

Blue is supposed to be the colour, yes. The verbiage is that “blue is an ancient symbol—dating back to Ancient Rome—representing love, purity, and fidelity”. This is, however, absolute poppycock. Blue was a symbol of fidelity, this is true, but to the emperor, not in love. And indeed there is no single colour that symbolizes all three things in Roman times.

White symbolized purity and innocence. Yellow represented marriage and fidelity. Red represented violence (Mars), yes, but also passion and love. Green represented beauty, fertility, and love. Purple represented passion, but chiefly reserved for the royal classes.

Blue was not related to any kind of love symbolism whatsoever. The Victorians just made stuff up. Again. Like the so-called “medieval” torture devices (like iron maidens, etc.)

You’ll disagree with it. You won’t refute it. You’ll walk away feeling better and convinced that you “won” but in reality you’ll have just marked yourself as an “enemy” to be ignored. (The human brain is very adept at compartmentalizing things.)

Actual refutation of a toxic idea whose seed has been planted requires detailed deconstruction and reconstruction. It is time-consuming, it is exhausting, and it is unreliable to boot. (C.f. above that compartmentalizing of things.) There is a reason why governments and centuries come and go but culture remains recognizable over the millennia. Once minds are set, they’re ludicrously difficult to unset.

I’m going to guess, however, that you will not take this to heart. Ironically for the same reason that your “refutation” (actually mere disagreement) won’t take.

Looks like I hang out with the wrong (right?) people then.

I have literally never seen that “tradition” followed except on television or movies. No wedding ceremony I’ve ever attended had any of that going on.

Maybe I hang out with the wrong crowd.

Ideally you’d translate it into an idiom in the target language, yes. “Red booklet” would immediately be translated to “little red book” anyway. Red Note was better, but a little off idiomatically. There’s a reason, though, why there are actual marketing professionals who get a lot money for doing translations in branding.

I did the moving to China bit almost 24 years ago. I still post in English comms. Weird, that.

No, it’s an accurate translation. It just doesn’t mean what people think it means because they don’t know what the Chinese call the so-called “Little Red Book” of Mao’s quotations.

Weird. Weird how I post about Chinese leadership quite often on Weibo and haven’t been canned.

Here’s a thought: maybe it’s how you go about it that counts?

Criticism of Mao in particular is perfectly cromulent here. The Party itself criticizes Mao, especially for the Cultural Revolution, with some fairly harsh language.

But if you don’t know how to do it or when, then … ah … yeah, you’re going to get people pissed off at you.