Classic literature is a portal to the human spirit and imagination, a link to our history and development, and a path in which to navigate the educated world. Its benefits include the knowledge of ourselves as human beings, the knowledge of our roots, and the knowledge of how these concepts and realities tie to our current life.

Universally binding

Literature becomes classic by embedding in its pages themes that tie humanity together. It presents conflicts, choices, human nature, character, ethics, morality-elements of life that are as relevant to someone in Beijing as they are to someone in Minot, North Dakota.

“The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck is a story of overcoming a criminal past, combating hunger and poverty, fighting to provide for one’s family, encountering corruption, and fighting for a cause larger than oneself. “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy depicts the plight of a woman who is seduced, pregnant and unwed, searching for love, fighting for survival in an unequal world, and being rejected. Even Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of Sherlock Holmes remind us that brilliant eccentrics are quirky and, despite their intellect, they sometimes choose a destructive path as evidenced in his cocaine use.

Such shared human experiences cut across national boundaries, ages, languages, religions, ethnicities and gender. They bring us together to realize we all bleed red and we all struggle on earth although the circumstances may vary.

Ties to the Past

While the themes are timeless, classic literature keeps alive the progress we’ve made as a human race. In "Le Morte D’Arthur" by Thomas Malory, we see the evolution of our language from the Old English of the 1500’s to the modern day spellings, nouns and contractions. We get a view of life in medieval times with suits of armor and swords compared to our suits with ties and intercontinental ballistic missiles of today.

Through the eyes of Charles Dickens, we see the world of Victorian England in "A Christmas Carol," along with how employees used to be treated and the conditions under which they worked. We see holiday traditions and even the limitations of medical treatments at that time. Certainly no computer or cell phone for Bob Cratchit and no MRI for Tiny Tim.

Brushing Up Our Image

While it is perhaps not critical, it is important that people understand classic literature as it is used in the course of daily interaction in a complex world. Knowledge of classic literature is the final coat of wax on a polished, educated being.

Hearing that Henry was “hoist on his own petard” in trying to undermine co-workers at the office just sounds better than telling someone Henry’s plan backfired. We’ve all lived through examples of a Catch-22 and have been told that we must show “grace under pressure”.

We’ve been warned “never a lender nor a borrower be,” yet as teams, we should be “all for one and one for all.” Do we know “for whom the bells tolls?” Certainly. It’s “elementary, my dear Watson” (while Holmes never stated that exact phrase, he is oft misquoted this way).

Classic literature opens a lifetime of thinking and feeling and experiencing life in terms larger than ourselves, and yet strikes at the essence of who we are as individuals. Its benefits are watching our humanness in others in the past as we share in it in our daily lives. It makes more relevant the things around us and polishes us in an unfinished world.

Mumbai is the most populated city in India. The stress of the population on Mumbai’s real estate has forced the city to push out the surrounding rural areas to make space for the ever-growing city. This has made Mumbai to urban agglomeration comparable to the likes of cities like Tokyo and Beijing. In fact, our financial capital stands second in this aspect just behind the capital of Japan.

The city is increasingly looking at ways to spread out and Navi Mumbai has been the go to location for businesses and residential solutions alike. However, the supply demand gap had actually caused the property market to choke. Add that to the fact that property prices are sky high, the takers for the available property are very less. And what less buyers there are is even further complicated by projects that never see the light of the day when it comes to completion.

Even with all these factors, Mumbai properties has registered the highest hike in prices of plots. The reserve realty rates in Mumbai and its satellite cities has rose up 20-25% in the past year! This however has not deterred a number of multinational organizations and investors to drop their anchor in the financial capital of India. Shopping centers, uber townships, multiplexes and other commercial facilities never fair to spring up around the city which further shoots up the price!

The hike in the reserve rates of the satellite cities will further push the land prices up. In Navi Mumbai, the dream of having affordable houses might still prove to be a distant reality ever since even the base prices of the land have been hiked by 2.5%. Base prices are set by taking into consideration the Floor Space Index and the reserve price which in itself has gone up.

However, even with such factors making property investment seem a distant dream, Mumbai continues to be welcoming to those who would like to invest in real estate. Working class could buy a loft in the shady localities of the city and benefit by leasing out the place. The suburbs still are affordable enough for corporate professionals to invest in as their primary home and drive to and from work. There are satellite towns around Navi Mumbai and ones that dot the Mumbai Pune expressway that are still considerably accessible on a daily basis.

There are more than 2600 completely unsold flats in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai put together. This could be either seen as an alarming trend but in reality it is just 3.35% of the total number of homes that has been sold in the last quarter of the calendar year. Of the number of homes that are unsold, most of them are under 65 lakhs in price which clearly reinstates the fact that though Mumbai’s real estate has become costly it has still not spiraled out of control. Most of these unsold homes can still be bought by the public if the builders offer attractive deals and if the waiting buyers decide to jump in and invest.

Michael Phelps is recognized as being the greatest Olympic athlete to ever walk the earth. Phelps has collected 16 Olympic medals, eight in a magnificent fashion at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. So many accomplishments at the mere age of 23 years.

Michael Phelps is undoubtedly built for swimming. His size 14 feet, 6ft 7in arm reach, broad shoulders, and large chest muscles make him very hard to defeat. He boasts relatively short legs for his height, that give him more power in the water. He’s got double-jointed knees and feet that can rotate 15 degrees more than possible by the average person. This allows him to fully straighten his body so his feet resemble powerful flippers. He is unquestionably the closest thing to a “human dolphin.”

It’s not only these inherited advantages that make Phelps the great swimmer that he is. Phelps is the hardest working swimmer, following an inredible workout and diet schedule.

Michael Phelps Workout

Have you ever seen the Michael Phelps workout? Phelps works out for six hours a day, six days a week. Nothing to it. Phelps goes through his full day of training regardless if the day happens to be Christmas day or his mother’s birthday – simply no excuses. His unquestionable work ethic, persistence and dedication to the sport and training have made Phelp’s the greatest swimmer of all time.

Phelps enjoys combining his workouts in the pool with workouts in the gym.

In the pool…

Michael Phelps spends large portions of his time working out in the pool. The in-pool portion consists of swimming 80km each week which equals over 13km each training day. His sample workout looks like this:

End of practice:

500 abdominal exercises and static stretching

Michael Phelps loves using various training tools to accommodate his swimming workouts. This gives him much-needed variation to his workouts.

“I use a bunch of Speedo training gear, like kickboards, pull buoys, training paddles, and snorkels,” Phelps says. “I’ll also listen to music during some of my longer workouts with H20 Audio’s waterproof headphones.”

In the gym…

Phelps aims to minimize his time in the gym. He doesn’t like wasting time. He focuses on functional training and dry-land training. Those are the biggest components of the Michael Phelps workout.

“In preparation for Beijing, I started adding weightlifting to my dry-land work,” Phelps says. “Since then, we’ve expanded the amount of weights I am using, and I’m running more than I ever have. Pushups and pull-ups have also always been essential.”

To match his powerful stroke style of swimming, Phelps performs exercises such as the diagonal wood chopper and the straight wood chopper.

Michael Phelps offers advice on resting and recovering.

The best way to benefit from your toughest workouts is to let your body fully recover before training hard again. “Sleep is also a big part of my recovery,” Phelps says. “It’s really important that my body gets enough rest so that I’m ready to go for my next race or training session.”

Michael Phelps Diet

Phelps is capable of consuming more calories in a single day than many of us can in an entire week. He consumes over 10,000 calories consisting of different types of nutrients each training day. Try and compare this to an average person’s diet of 2000 calories per day. Eating this many calories is a workout in itself and takes great dedication and planning. But Phelps needs to consume this much because he burns up to 1000 calories every hour he swims. You do the math.

Yonex started in the 1940’s as a producer of wooden fishing floats but was unfortunate enough to be forced out of this production sector due to the advancement of plastic floats in the industry. This prompted founder Minoru Yoneyama to make a commitment that the company would never let technology and innovation leave them behind again and this has formed the cornerstone to the ideals and ethics and business practices of Yonex in the modern day.

In the late 1950’s Yoneyama started to make badminton rackets for other high profile brands and soon established a reputation for producing quality rackets whilst incorporating the latest materials and introducing concepts such as the wide body racket and the isometric head. These new design features would find their way onto the rackets of all the big brand names sports rackets such as Carlton and Prince.

The Yonex Corporation itself was established in California in 1983 and became the world leader in the design and production of golf, tennis and badminton equipment. A bold claim perhaps but it would hold true today that they are without doubt the number one name in badminton – if not quite as renowned in golf and tennis.

From relatively humble beginnings Yonex has created a strong global brand that enjoys a dominance supported by corporate sponsorship and product quality. In today’s professional game over 80% of players have a Yonex badminton racket in their hand when they compete. Major names that Yonex sponsor include Peter Gade, Saina Nehwal, Ana Ivanovic and Lee Chong Wei.

In 2007 Yonex celebrated their 25th successive year as the main sponsor of the All England Badminton Championships and followed up in 2008 by gaining 24 Olympic medals at the Beijing games. A global audience at the Olympics helps to further push the name and reputation as the logo is instantly recognisable on the strings of players rackets

Yonex, through the initial determination and drive of their founder, continue to innovate and invest in new technology and introduced the first generation of slim rackets in 2009. The ArcSaber Z-Slash recorded the fastest ever speed of 421km/h and goes to show how players with a Yonex badminton racket will always have a superb competitive edge and can be inspired by the technology, success and branding behind the production of top quality products. The range incorporates rackets for all ages and abilities, catering for professionals and amateur players alike.

The world famous cartoon Haier Brothers is very popular with kids and even adults. It is integrated with entertainment, knowledge and interests. Beijing Computer Cartoons-making Company and the Haier Group spent ten years to make this excellent cartoon. As the best gift to present with the world future children, this cartoon finished in 1995 and released in 1996.

The main plot of the cartoon centers on a wisdom old person and the Haier Brothers. To deal with the disasters and untie the natural miracles, the Brothers travels around the world, from North American to South American, passing by south polar, Australia, Africa, Europe and Asia. Finally, they come back to their born place: Pacific Ocean. The entire story is full of their adventures. It mentions a lot of natural marvelous sights such as Mirage and Karst topography. This piece of plot is fluctuation and unconstrained by space and time. Moreover, it contains rich social sciences knowledge, nature, history, geography, humanities and entertainment. It is completely different from the import cartoons from American and Japan which always make weapon as the main topic.

With 212-Session-Serie in this cartoon, it produces a positive impact on kids. Kids learn a lot of knowledge when they watch this cartoon. At the same time they entertain themselves. The cute and clever haier Brothers help the cartoon gain a high Viewing ratio. Many products paint the images of the Brothers on it. The Haier electrical appliances are the typical example.

Although a lot new cartoons played on TV, the popularity of Haier Brother does not fade. For example, this cartoon is repeated on TV time by time. In addition, kids watch it time by time. And more and more new kids’ products refer to this famous cartoon such as inflatable Haier Brother Image in theme park and other kids toys.

Hosting the Olympic Games is a big deal, it puts nations on the map, and shows their first world status – it's a big honor, and it is very expensive – not all nations can afford to even consider it, and those who do, often have to cough up big bucks to host the games and deal with the economic costs later, paying off the debt and bonds taken out to make it all happen. In hindsight many countries wish they'd reconsidered their choice to bid for the big games. Brazil will host the 2016 Olympic Games, but already the troubles are mounting. Let's talk.

Well now everyone is worried about the Zika Virus in Latin America, and specifically 2016 Olympic Game tourists are considering skipping the trip, which could plague havoc on the financial challenges that Brazil already faces with a declining economy and negative GDP growth. One article in the Daily Mail published on January 30, 2016 titled; "Could rampant Zika virus that causes deformed infants stop the Olympics? Rio faces crisis as female spectators and athletes are warned not to go," by Flora Drury declared; four new important developments to this crisis:

– Panic is spreading with six months to go until the Opening Ceremony
– Australian team tells female athletes to consider taking part 'very carefully'
– Airlines offering refunds to pregnant women traveling to infected countries
– Government says they are doing everything possible ahead of the Games

Of course, this is not the only problem as the Brazilian Government has displaced slums for Olympic facilities development and moved to generally clean up crime ridden areas to prevent negative PR on the world stage during the games. All this has already come at a cost to its international reputation across the globe, possibly similar to the smog and air-pollution issue before and during the Beijing China Olympic Games.

The Guardian reported the Brazilian Police are moving in to clean areas areas where Olympic visitors may travel; "Rio de Janeiro police killed 1,500 in five years, says Amnesty International," and the article stated; "Rights group report finds almost one in six homicides in Brazil's Olympic city were by officers on duty and most victims were young, poor, black and male," and further;

"In a study of official data and newspaper reports of the Olympic host city, the civil rights groups found that almost one in six homicides were transported out on-duty policy officers as part of a" strategy of fear "in favela communities. It said more than 75% of the victims from 2010 to 2013 were black men aged between 15 and 29. Most cases were filed as "resistance followed by death" which shields the perpetrators from civil courts. Of 220 investigation, Amnesty found only one case that led to an officer being charged. "

Now some are asking not if the Games will lose money in Brazil, but rather how much. That's unfortunate, and something to consider. Think on it.

I have been doing Judo for over 22 years and I have competed and trained in some of the hardest dojos and gyms on the planet. For me personally, I was a little bit skeptical when it came to the use of grappling dummies. I had this weird belief that grappling dummies were no good because it wasn’t a real person and therefore didn’t react or feel like a real person. While I was training for the Beijing Olympics I had a fantastic training partner who was there whenever I needed him to train. With 3 months to go before the Olympics my training partner got thrown with a terrible ko soto gari and suffered a torn ACL and needed a knee reconstruction. This meant that not only did I lose a training partner but I lost the amount of repetitions of uchikomi I was doing day in and day out.

One of my friends mentioned that someone needed to invent a robot that kept standing up everything you throw it- I instantly thought of a grappling dummy.

I soon found a mixed martial arts gym on the far side of town that stocked legend grappling dummies.

I started doing hundreds and hundred of repetitions of my favourite throws such as Ippon seoi nage, double leg takedown and Te guruma (high crotch). I also began working on my top control game by doing various position changing while on top and I even began pulling guard with the dummy as a warm up.

As the Olympics were getting closer I began increasing my fitness and conditioning with various hill sprints and circuits. To further enhance my throwing technique and fitness levels I began adding throws, takedowns and top control drills to my fitness circuits. By adding throwing to my circuits I found that the power I could generate when throwing a resisting opponent increased purely because I was repeatedly exploding in order to throw the dummy. 

As a Judo and Brazilian jujitsu instructor I am constantly using the grappling dummy as an extra body if we have odd numbers in a class. A few years later I am still finding things to do with my dummy such as chin ups while holding the dummy between my legs, push ups, box jumps and zercher squats. More recently I applied for the local fire brigade and as part of the test I had to drag or carry a hundred pound dummy roughly one hundred meters and so I practice with my own dummy in order to pass the test.

I highly encourage my clients to use a grappling dummy, (especially if they are busy and cannot make it to training) because if they miss training they can still work on their footwork, speed and increase their throwing speed in the comfort of their own homes.

Here are some of my favorite throws I do using the dummy. I usually perform 1 throw and then perform 2 burpees after each throw. I usually try for 20-50 throws a set. You can do:

– Ippon seoi nage (shoulder throw)

– Koshi Guruma (cross buttocks)

– Morote gari (double leg)

– Single leg into fire mans carry (Kata guruma)

– Osoto gari (Major outer reap)

– Juji gatme (arm bar)

– Sankaku jime (Triangle choke)

– Zercher squats 

– Overhead press

– Dummy drags for 3 laps of the dojo

Give these workouts a go and watch your fitness and technical skills improve dramatically.

While there are talks suggesting that the outsourcing boom is losing ground in India, outsourcing trends are forecasting that China is going to be a major outsourcing target over the next few years. According to the IDC, outsourcing in China is growing approximately 30% each year. In the mean time, the government of China is implementing a project to establish 20 cities as hubs for outsourcing. This means that not only is outsourcing going to continue, but it is also ready to grow.

One of the biggest areas of outsourcing is the software industry and IT services, which have mainly been outsourced to India. Now China is becoming a similar, if not competitive, base for outsourcing. As China continues to develop its outsourcing services, it is going to become a major challenge to India, which is currently the dominant center for outsourcing. In fact, American companies have recently gone overseas to Beijing to discuss with officials from the Ministry of Commerce about some effective ways to outsource to China.

China trends related to this issue have been changing in the recent past. Before, China would receive orders from companies in India where as now they are receiving orders directly from both the United States and Europe.

The financial crisis that is looming across the globe is a major contribution to such outsourcing trends. In general, during a financial crisis, companies begin to make plans to outsource to a third party in order to lower costs or use their time more efficiently. When the economy is dwindling, more and more companies seek other avenues of increasing productivity along with being more efficient and resourceful.

One of the first industries to get transferred over is the information technology (IT) sector. This also opens up whole new employment opportunities for the outsource providers. While some people suggest that companies will cut their overall IT costs and therefore hold back on outsourcing, studies show that very few companies will actually reduce their budgets. In other words, outsourcing is not going to end any time soon.

Experts on this topic are professing that a globalized market will allow more outsource providers to come in to play as sources of out of country labor. This will cause smaller and developing countries to grasp on to the outsourcing trend instead of just the big countries including India, Brazil, Russia and of course China. Although this may seem to be a challenge, it could be seen as another means of creating more competition. This will allow a big and powerful country like China to dominate the outsourcing market.

The overall outlook on outsourcing is a positive and optimistic one, especially because the state of the global economy continues to fluctuate. Outsourcing not only helps companies save money and be more productive, it also allows outsource providers to generate revenue and create more jobs. People will also have the opportunity to seek further training to overcome language barriers and obtain new skills to bring a more secure and promising system of transfer.

The May 12th earthquake in western China’s Sichuan Province will have effects reaching further outside China than Beijing is letting on. Sichuan Province holds the key to China’s hydroelectric power generation plans in its renewable power targets and the area is also a hub for worldwide outsourced wind turbine equipment. Both were badly damaged.

This infrastructure will take months or years to repair, but in the meantime Chinese media report that “The quake in dollar terms is minimal and it seems unlikely to set back China’s economic growth by very much.” I beg to differ.

This earthquake cracked dams and roads, but at the same time it cracked holes in the myth that an ever-expanding China can accommodate an infinite number of companies wanting to open facilities there. We have been hiding behind a wall of outsourcing dependence to solve our domestic pollution and economic problems and that great wall is about to collapse.

The hydroelectric crutch: The quake zone area generated 62 percent of Sichuan province’s total electricity production by way of hydroelectric dams, of which “396 dams were believed badly damaged and many of the power stations on the river systems were damaged and several major reservoirs are being drained to prevent their dams from failing. The seismic safety of these dams is a concern and it is expected that many of them will need repair and strengthening,” according to Ministry of Water Resources minister Chen Lei.

Even before the quake, Beijing had admitted there are major flaws in many of the country’s 87,000 dams. “Roughly 37,000 dams across the country are in a dangerous state,” Ministry of Water Resources deputy minister Jiao Yong said earlier this year, noting that many had been built decades ago.

Two weeks after the quake, the Water Resources Ministry acknowledged that 69 reservoirs and dams were on the verge of collapse, and nearly 3,000 throughout China had sustained damage.

If the always secretive central government is publishing this type of information, I can only conclude that reliable power from that region is no longer assured. This single set of facts revolving around hydroelectric production in western China is a link in a chain that stretches from China right around to your back yard, and that link has broken.

Don’t count your renewable energy eggs before they hatch: China has more dams than any other country – about half the world’s total. And the 11th Five Year Plan pins its hopes on rapid and massive development of every metre of flowing water in the rivers of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Gansu Provinces in the west to satisfy the insatiable power demand for factories and homes. The Chinese government will now have to reconsider its aggressive dam-building program.

If hydroelectric projects are scrapped there will be continuous permanent electric shortages throughout the country. China’s hydroelectric consumption was around 7% of their total prime energy consumed in 2007.

Pre-quake, the central government was thinking: ‘Sichuan possesses the country’s largest possible reserves of hydropower resources, estimated at more than 110 gigawatts. Yunnan has a number of hydropower stations under construction on the lower- and middle-reaches of the Lancang River, with 11 GW and plans for dozens more projects between now and 2016. Gansu’s abundant Yellow River hydropower resources can provide electricity for the neighbouring provinces of Qinghai, Shanxi, Sichuan and Ningxia, and their further potential is great.’

Not anymore.

The China Electricity Council believes less than 20 percent of the country’s hydroelectric resources are being utilized. According to the pre-quake governmental plan, the hydroelectric installed capacity should have reached 125 GW in 2010, accounting for 28 percent of total installed capacity; in 2015 it could have reached 150 GW and by 2020 the goal was 300 GW. These plans are not likely to go forward as planned. This will leave China far behind its electrical generation goals and far short of the capacity it needs to attract manufacturing businesses to that part of the country.

The slow decline: China’s Go West Campaign is designed to lure college graduates and businesses to western parts of the country, thereby spurring the economy in China’s less affluent interior.

The bait most frequently used by the central government is in the form of Major Economic & Technological Development Zones, Special Economic Zones and City Industry Zones, which confer tax-free status along with preferential transportation and wage agreements. This is great when there is a continuous power supply, but now in the western region that is anything but assured. China’s State Power Grid announced Sichuan’s electricity grid is running at 76% of pre-earthquake levels. Notice how they conveniently leave out the surrounding provinces, which also sustained damage.

A recent article appearing in the China Daily – “China expects power shortages amid surging demand” – quotes the State Electricity Regulatory Commission general office as saying “Guangdong Province would be short of 5.5GW, Guizhou 1GW, and Yunnan 1.5 GW.” Yet again they left out shortages in Sichuan, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanxi provinces to get a reliable total. This will be the fifth consecutive year of power shortages countrywide. Now consider this: the last four years were short with all of the country’s hydropower up and running.

This year, power is likely to be 10 GW short, so keep an eye on the power ratings – “normal shortage”, “severe shortage” and “power crisis” – to see how your favourite town or industrial zone is getting along.

It seems there is a masking of the real numbers. What business would want to set up in a country with consistent electrical shortfalls?

Devastation in Beichuan: Combine electrical shortages with the amount of factories that need to be relocated now that fewer enterprises will want to rebuild on an active fault line and the veil begins to lift on what they are hiding. Labourers are refusing to return to work until government inspectors sign off on the integrity of the buildings, despite the fact that it might take months or years before they get around to every company. The psychology of danger for the worker and investor is the overlooked factor X in the Chinese equation. Now, how appealing are the Regional Development Zones in western China??

As for us living outside China, outsourcing heavy industry to China is the norm. Even the worldwide renewable energy sector has many of its wind turbines and solar panels produced in China. Unfortunately, Deyang – a town about an hour and a half north of Chengdu – had wind turbine operations including majors from Europe, Australia and North America carrying out some of their production at Dong Fang Turbine. In the same area there were also carbon fibre blade, wind tower and ball bearing operations supplying parts to Dong Fang. Buildings in the surrounding area from Deyang to Mianyang were heavily damaged or flattened.

Business Week sums it up in an article titled “Dongfang Turbine Badly Hit.” The operations of Dongfang Turbine, China’s largest steam turbine producer and third largest domestic manufacturer of wind turbines was virtually wiped out. Dongfang, which produces 30 percent of China’s locally made turbines estimates direct losses from the earthquake will reach $1 billion. Its parent company, Dongfang Electric Corp., has seen its stock price plummet as the steam turbine business accounted for 20% of its operating revenues in 2007.

Although Chinese media reports suggest that facilities for its wind turbine business was unaffected, sources inside the company said that most of their wind business’ senior engineers have unfortunately perished and one of their wind components factory was badly damaged.

The electric shortage earthquake triangle: Where does this leave us? Peak Oil is apparent and can no longer be denied. We as a world need to begin a transition to renewable power and these circumstances will set the wind industry production in China back a year or two. China’s answer to the electrical shortage will be to build more coal-fired power plants. As outsourced production is now being limited by fault lines and electrical shortages, what will our answer be?

The electric shortage earthquake triangle from Kunming in the west to Chongqing in the east and Lanzhou to the north with Chengdu in the centre is all sketchy territory from now on. The central government was funneling new business to this exact area because there is very little space along the east coast. That’s why there is a massive push to send the economy west. If you have been to coastal China you have seen how densely packed a society can be.

Price is the main reason we buy Chinese goods and have our industries there. However, when something is in short supply it costs more. Electricity is no different. There are now daily diesel shortages along the east coast, electric shortages in the west and along the coast. Add in the recently appreciating yuan and China is no longer the utopia for business it once was. Until the damage in western China is repaired, increased usage of oil, natural gas and coal will replace hydropower to an extent. This in turn creates higher prices in China’s manufacturing sector. You will pay at the check out counter.

Please understand: The rest of the world is far less dependent on China’s exports than China is dependent on the rest of the world. We need to prepare to take care of ourselves again. As oil prices continue to rise and the global economy declines, I believe we will see a resurgence of light industry returning to our home countries. China’s electric problems could be partially solved if light industry moved elsewhere and left heavy industries in China. Unemployment is going to become more and more ferocious over the next few years as our fossil fuel based economy declines.

What a great way to put millions of people to work: Bring companies back home. This will take one link out of the globalization dependency chain, and save energy along the way.

I work for a Mandarin language school in Beijing. Time and time again I am confused when I read industry promotional literature on new course material. There is always a lack of insight into the issue of motivation. I recently wrote an article for the academy newsletter where I singled out motivation as one of the absolutely key components of any language curriculum. In many ways learning mandarin is comparable to university degree. It certainly requires a similar level of commitment to reach fluency. At the same the rewards of proficiency are abstract and it is hard to motivate oneself when the destination one is working so hard to reach is not clearly defined. Because of this all course material, in my eyes, and in the eyes of the academy’s faculty, must have a clear focus on keeping students motivated. It is absolutely essential to long-term success.

In all faculty discussions two key factors are concentrated upon as the source of motivation. The first of these is fun. Studies must be interesting, entertaining or in some other way intrinsically linked to positive reinforcement of efforts made by students to sit down and study. The second of these factors is even more important as a source of positive reinforcement: results.

Results are of course an effect of studying. By any definition of a good curriculum it is certainly the case that results must be there. However, what much of the available course material fails to address is the notion of perceived results. Students must be shown how their work is leading to bigger and greater things. That when they learn a hundred new words, the effort of the hard work they put in stand in relation to he benefits they extract.

The students must perceive these results in a timely fashion. It will not do to show progress on a monthly basis by handing out a test. The students will falter before the end of the month if they are not given an indication on a fundamental level that their work is in fact producing the desired outcome. There are many ways in which this results can be shown, but almost all material leave it in the hands of teachers to do so. Optimal material should help an education in this crucial aspect.

One of the ways that results can be illustrated is by base choice of topics. There could be a much more real focus on the daily life of students instead of generally less applicable content. One favorite of the editors of these books seems to be library visits. I know, for a fact, that no person that has ever learned to speak Mandarin, has done this to visit a library, or by only visiting a library. The topics should focus on actions that students often do. Like going for a drink, or going to a restaurant, or meeting a girl or a guy for a date, playing football – not library visits, how to sing happy birthday in Chinese or how describe The Great Wall. If students are taught the stuff they need in daily life they not only practice Chinese in daily life, they are also shown, on a daily basis, that they are in fact learning heaps.

Another way of showing students their phenomenal progress, that may other way go completely unnoticed, is by not only building each new chapter on the progress of the preceding chapters, like a cake, which of course is completely the right thing to do, but to take this one dimension further an introduce an element of progress testing in the material. The books should explicitly ask grammar questions similar to those that were asked in previous chapters. That way, either by students finding similarly difficult question easier or by understanding more complex tasks that are directly linked to previously encountered easier ones, students will find direct positive reinforcement from their school books. Which must surely be something any educator in the schools that all these books go out to must consider paramount.