A nice story and history lesson

Got this from a friend and found it to be so interesting, I simply copy/paste, without digging deeper:

Grandson of slaves, a boy was born in a poor neighbour hood of New Orleans, known as the “Back of Town”.
His father abandoned the family when the child was an infant. His mother became a prostitute and the boy and his sister had to live with their grandmother. Early in life, he proved to be gifted for music and, with three other kids, he sang in the streets of New Orleans and his first gains were the coins that were thrown to them.
A Jewish family, Karnovsky, who had immigrated from Lithuania to the USA, had pity for the 7-year-old boy and brought him into their home. Initially given ‘work’ in the House, to feed this hungry child. Then he remained and slept in this Jewish family  where, for the first time in his life, he was treated with kindness and tenderness. When he went to bed, Mrs. Karnovsky sang him a Russian Lullaby that he would sing with her.
Later, he learned to sing and play several Russian and Jewish songs. Over time, this boy became the adopted son of this family. The Karnovskys gave him money to buy his first trumpet; as was the custom in the Jewish families, they sincerely admired his musical talent. Later, when he became a professional musician and composer, he used these Jewish melodies in compositions, such as St. James Infirmary and Go down, Moses.
The little black boy grew up and wrote a book about this Jewish family who had adopted him in 1907. In memory of this family and until the end of his life, he wore a star of David and he said that it is in this family that he had learned “how to live real life and determination”.
This little boy was called Louis Armstrong.

Gilbert, you have weak kidneys, and forget sex

Another unpleasant attack of kidney stones in January, fortunately the doctor at SOS did a miracle and the horrible pain disappeared in 20 minutes. Grateful for that.
The Chinese mafia in my house brought in the TCM connections. Oh yes, “I have weak kidneys”. Now in Chinese TCM that is quite a sensitive subject as “kidneys” here refer not just to our Western “kidneys” but to a whole concept of well-being and of … sex. Doing some search produced totally different opinions on what “seniors” are supposed to do in bed. According to the Chinese, based on some “specialist” who lived like some 2,000 years ago, once you reach a certain age, men should limit their bed activities.

Dr. Sun Si Miao, a physician and Taoist of the Tang Dynasty who lived from 580 to 682 (101 years), gives the following guidelines for a healthy amount of sexual activity. TCM recommendations given over 2500 years ago:

  • Teens:  Contrary to what the media pressures us to believe in today’s society, in Ancient China it was thought that teenagers didn’t have enough strong, mature energy to engage in sexual activity yet.
  • 20′s: It is healthy to have sexual intercourse once every 4 days.  Engaging in sex more frequently at this age runs the risk of prematurely depleting Kidney essence.
  • 30′s: Once every 8 days
  • 40′s: Once every 16 days
  • 50′s: Once every 20 days
  • 60′s: Once a month, if the individual is fairly healthy.  If the individual had a history of health disorders or generalized weakness, then only occasional sexual activities was recommended.
  • 70′s: Whether healthy or not, sex would use up too much energy therefore sex is not recommended at all.

Needless to say, Western views are kind of very very different… Funny how Chinese still swear by all that stuff while people have changed over the ages, better nutrition, health and more open minds.
More about it: “Sex and the Kidney”, the TCM view:
http://taliamarcheggiani.com/2012/01/17/sex-and-the-kidney/

And some of the Western views: “Sexual activity is a natural and important part of a healthy lifestyle, no matter what your age.” See:
http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/health-sante/sexual-sexuelle/senior-aine-eng.php

Anyway, I am always ready to explore TCM, so I accepted to follow some weeks of drinking a pretty awful concoction, prescribed by a “very experienced TCM specialist”. We have a special brewing pot that simmers for hours. Each time it produces like 10 small bottles, enough for about 3 days (kept in the fridge).
Whatever the effect, the stones disappeared (at least for now) and the rest, well, I don’t mention.

Beijing Rotary lunch talk: The Vatican and China

On Tuesday 8 April our usual lunch at the Kempinski but with a unusual topic.
Speaker Committee Chair Joerg introduced the speaker Mr. Francesco Sisci, commentator for the Italian daily Il Sole 24ore, Commentator for Asia Times with the column Sinograph, frequent commentator on International affairs for CCTV and Phoenix TV. His topic was “Vatican and China”.
140408 rotary
Mr. Sisci has been living in China for almost 30 years and witnessed many changes in Catholics in China. Chinese Catholics are split, yet they are a tiny minority of less than 1% of the population, about 6-12 million people. In the English-language Global Times on 19 March, China signaled a more open position. The article started out claiming that the Chinese Patriotic Association does not want the Vatican to interfere in bishop appointments, but then it went on to give a positive assessment of the Pope (actually China is pretty impressed with many world leaders paying a special visit to the Vatican). The article said China and the Vatican do not have diplomatic ties, but it left out the usual warning to Rome about cutting ties with Taiwan. Pope Francis wrote to President Xi Jinping at the time of his election, and Mr. Xi replied with a letter. It is the first time China has ever admitted publicly of an exchange of messages at the highest level with the Vatican. This admission is groundbreaking, and certainly far more important than a refrain about the bishops, apparently delivered to satisfy a domestic constituency hostile to warmer ties with Rome.
Rotarian Urpo thanked Mr. Sisci for the interesting presentation on behalf of the club.

What I learned later is that the beautification of Matteo Ricci, along with another famous Chinese Catholic, could materialize this year. That would be a convenient opportunity to review the relations with the Vatican.

The World Economic Forum: talking to Beijing Rotary

On Tuesday 1 April we had our regular weekly lunch of the Beijing Rotary at Kempinski Hotel.

This time, a unique speaker: Mr. Oliver Schwab, the executive director of World Economic Forum in China about the development from Davos to China. Oliver, who is resident in Beijing since several years, gave us some historical overview on the development of WEF, in particular in China.

Oliver is the son of Professor Klaus Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, an independent, impartial, not-for-profit Foundation committed to improving the state of the world. Since its inception in 1971, the Forum has become the world’s foremost multistakeholder organization and has been a driver for reconciliation efforts in different parts of the world, as well as the catalyst of numerous public-private partnerships and international initiatives. For more information: http://www.weforum.org/

In 1998, Klaus Schwab and his wife Hilde created the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which seeks to identify, recognize and disseminate initiatives in social entrepreneurship that have significantly improved people’s lives and have the potential to be replicated on a global scale. The Foundation supports a network of 200 social entrepreneurs around the world.
In China, the next event is the “Annual Meeting of the New Champions”, in Tianjin, 10 – 12 September 2014. The previous meeting “Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2013” was held in Dalian, 11 – 13 September 2013.
You must give credit to the Professor, starting up a forum that is the talk of the business world, all over the planet.
Oliver also received a copy of my book “Toxic Capitalism”.

The rest of our lunch was filled with the usual internal updates while Sergeant-at-Arms Gilbert kept order and collected the Happy Money.

The “1890 Playboy Calendar”

Got this from a friend, did not succeed in finding the original source.

You can compose your own Playboy calendar with the twelve girls. I love the old pictures.
Interesting how fashion and taste change. All the ladies are well rounded, no chopstick legs or arms here. And most are pressed in a strong corset to have the “cintura fina” like Brazilians call it. With that waist, how they were able to breathe, I wonder; looks painful to me.
I guess some ladies wish they were born 150 years ago. Forget that diet and treadmill. Have some more chocolate.