022613 (T) Again, on the roads, little travelled

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjA4g5Csxq4

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRkovnss7sg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qRJIBtbc2c

022413 (Sn) On the day of the 215th

                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwKc2vCQ1PE

                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjnmICxvoVY
     
                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQnAxOQxQIU

022213 (F) Mixed Blessings in Disguise

022113 (Sa) The Karma of Idealists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4IpY3wZHI4

022013 (W) A message I sent internally - Diversity Student Organization (DSO)

Greetings,

This is Crystal (Social Science instructor), saying hello to you.

It has been my great honor to be invited into our CVTC Diversity Student Organization (DSO) since last October, 2012.

Thank Diversity/Equal Opportunity Manager Mr. Michael O. and DSO President Ms. Lena M. to introduce me into this family.

At the end of last semester, President Lena was graduated and Vice President Mr. Mark W. was engaged in Internship issues. So currently, we welcome new officers and members to join our group.

So far, a couple of students expressed their interest to run for President, Vice President, Treasurer, PR and other relevant positions for our DSO.

As a faculty/ staff member, your encouragement carries powerful potency to get our students involved. So, please help spread the words, and if you are interested in co-advising DSO, I appreciate that and please inform me via email Lhuang@cvtc.edu ( or phone 833-6283).

Here are some basic, but important messages regarding our DSO for your reference and to share with our students. I attached the detailed info via this email as well.

Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Crystal

Why Does Diversity Matter to You (as a learner), to our College/Society, and to the Global Community?
Diversity is an important characteristic of the fast changing demographic trends.
Diversity enhances self-awareness.
Diversity enhances social development.
Diversity provides good business to the multicultural marketplace.
Diversity prepares students for future career success
Diversity prepares students for work in a global society.
Interactions with people different from ourselves enrich the frame of reference in innovation and creativity.
Diversity promotes critical thinking and challenges social change.

Diversity Club Mission Statement
The concept of diversity encompasses understanding, acceptance and respect. Through variety of interaction, we hence the mutual understanding and recognize that each individual is unique and important. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, or other ideologies. It is the exploration of these differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embrace and celebrate the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual.

021713 (Sn) Prisoners of Cultures

On Feb. 17 (Sunday) on fb,
I shared a post of Veganism Is The Future's photo
with my caption as follows:

"Again, this is not a time for adding stereotypes on certain people or societies, but about education, awareness, petitions, and collective actions!!!"

The original post states the concern as follows:
In China, tigers are starved to make wine from their bones. Please, sign and share this petition (http://www.tigertime.info/bantigertrade.html) to ban the tiger trade!
<< Warning! >> No racist remarks here, please. All racist comments will be removed.



FB friends' comments:
Like · · Promote · Share
Patrice Donnelly and Dawn E Comer like this.



Crystal Huang Again, this is not a time for adding stereotypes on certain people or societies, but about education, awareness, petitions, and collective actions!!!
2 hours ago · Like

David Frazer Nobody that lives in a country with enormous hog and chicken factories like we have will have any right to stereotypes.
2 hours ago · Unlike · 1

Crystal Huang Dear David, I always enjoy reading your posts. When I lecture in class, I try my best not to mention a specific country or society regarding certain unethical issues, for fear that people would pick up negative connotations and reinforce the stereotype spiral down, no matter how objective one could be. On the other hand, some societies do need international collective pressure to guide them to do things properly, though : )!
2 hours ago · Edited · Like · 1

David Frazer I don't understand the process or motive of making wine from tiger bones, nor do I especially want to. Some cultures do things with rhinoceros horn. I also don't understand the general practice of denigrating traditional practices, in the medical area especially, in favor of westernized profitized mass production. I get real worried about things like poaching elephant tusks in East Africa, of course there are struggling peasants that need to make money somehow, then there are criminal gangs that try to get rich from it. Clearly a contradiction. There must be a resolution somewhere.
2 hours ago · Unlike · 1

Li-Chen Hsu The tiger looks so hopeless. I feel so sad.
2 hours ago · Like

Robert Fenton Gary You seem to be extremely concerned about the political correctness aspect of not identifying who is doing this. But if it's a terrible deed, would it not be helpful to know who is doing it? Are we to think that it could be Scandanavians, or maybe persons from Tristan de Cuna who are doing it. Keeping the perpetrators anonymous is putting political correctness above justice. If the doers of this deed wear the Ring of Gyges which you forcefully insist they must wear, then what's our takeaway from this picture? Somebody somewhere is doing a bad thing. OK Crystal, what do we do with that information? I hope you won't categorize this as a racist comment.
about an hour ago · Edited · Unlike · 1

David Frazer I took it as a matter of emphasis. Too easy to blame it on the chinks, or the prairie niggers in South Dakota who eat dog sometimes, or the jungle bunnies that poach elephants to feed their families. Know what I mean?
about an hour ago · Unlike · 1

Robert Fenton Gary I wasn't proposing denigrating any race or group of people, so I can't associate myself with your comment. I'm just saying that anonymous tips about anonymous people doing bad things and that request petitions and "collective action" are pretty misguided.
about an hour ago · Unlike · 1

David Frazer The concern was that some people would. I see the point and generally see beyond it.
about an hour ago · Unlike · 1

Patrice Donnelly There are many other good ways to make wine. This is pathetic.
about an hour ago · Like · 1

Robert Fenton Gary Right Patrice ... so I guess we know it's not France, Italy or California where this is being done. I hope it's not politically incorrect for us to know that. The tiger gets lost in the shuffle as we wring our hands over our possible political incorrectness. The victory of process over policy.
about an hour ago · Like

David Frazer Why are you so worried about it? You'd think someone was pointing fingers at you. The original post mentions China, the link goes to a page where there is a direct appeal to the Chinese premier (recently replaced but nonetheless), nobody is trying to hide anything.
about an hour ago · Edited · Unlike · 1

Crystal Huang The above status website is from a veganism group on fb. I borrowed to my wall. The original statement has the name of the country regarding the tiger-grade.

As you know that there are many Animal Rights advocate groups on the Internet (in particular, on fb pages, against bull/dog/rooster fighting, rodeo, can-hunting, over-whaling, seal-cub killing, rescue dolphins, against fin harvesting, rhino/elephant/gorilla rescue, against animal farm manufacturing...and so on so forth) and things are transparent (such as who does what, where, when and how... within a wide range of countries - rich and poor!!) for people of various interests to engage and contribute to better and enhance humane societies. Just as an individual, I don't feel like reinforcing the negative stereotype, but collectively, I always have my voice heard. Perhaps, most of us are the prisoners of our culture or tradition, but we can decode the cultural myths and reconstruct as well.

Indeed, some people/societies need an amount of positive pushing force too. Switching the gear, ironically, Taiwan in the global communities, in many international events has been horribly BULLIED by certain country for several decades, but seldom caught the international attention as a tiger, a panda, a dog, a cat, or a monkey, though ! So, the animal-right-watch might enhance the human right advancement as well - a reversal ? !

3 minutes ago · Edited · Like

Paul Mc · Friends with David Frazer
How are the animals? how are the children? how are the old ones? how are the disabled and the ill? how are the prison inmates? how are we not aware that this way of anti-life is unsustainable?
41 minutes ago · Unlike · 1

Crystal Huang @ Paul, yes. No any living sentient being's life can or should claim to be more valuable than that of any others'. Homo sapiens (some, not the majority) is the one who determines the hierarchy of the value based on socially constructed (falsified) reality, such as "blue" blood/class/aristocracy, color of skin, gender, sexuality, disability, sometimes, religion, ancestries, old-timers/new-comers, accents, original nationality,, hooves and paws, wings and fins ...and so on so forth.
3 minutes ago · Edited · Like · 1

021713 (Sn) Welcome the future Interdisciplinary Young Scientists!

Welcome the future Interdisciplinary Young Scientists!

STEMSS from Xena Huang   Presented in last summer (May, 2012) at CVTC for local districts.

021513 (F) Posted on fb Feb. 15 (F), 2013- An illustration of Life Chances

In my sociology class, we discussed the concepts of Ascribed and Achieved statuses relating to individuals' "life chances" to relate to a not-very-hot-button issue currently raised by Rep. Charlie Rangel regarding the Military Draft proposal :D!

Here is a convenient example for a quick illustration to save the lecture time:
One of the "Life Chances" (from the German Socio-economist Max Weber's perspective) of mine when I (female/the 2nd sex/undesirable gender born in Taiwan during a econo-politically chaotic era)
was young (age - no clue of what the world was about due to lack of positive "cultural capitals") and
simple-minded (a typical product of a specific educational institution renowned for its Foie Gras style of teaching and learning),
circumscribed by a socio-economic condition (an extremely humble social class)
I had no says (involuntarily ascribed without a choice) :P!  

Luckily enough, I retired as a captain (based on what I was ascribed) with a psychically intact condition (no limbs lost :P), and a mentally sound system (no PTSD :D!)- Could these be counted as an Achieved Status (voluntarily, by choice or happenstance?)  Very true, things that cannot kill you make you think more and healthier.

Futhermore, a sound educational opportunity and background is nothing to do the job market "operation" at "certain time-frame", in some "particular places" when/where fairness is not a word that people need to spell out or want to write about and, no clue to the mass.

An echo to Rep. Charlie Rangel's Military Draft proposal :D! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/07/charles-rangel-military-draft-pearl-harbor-day-2011_n_1134053.html

fb friends' comments:

Li-Chen Hsu 帥！
56 minutes ago · Unlike · 1


Patrice Donnelly If women can fight, it they are trained properly and are able to pass of all the tests, what on earth are they waiting for! But no one should be thrown into battle unprepared, and frankly, how do you really prepare anyone for it? In one sense, it's an easy question to answer. It's never an easy question, though.
43 minutes ago · Unlike · 1


Crystal Huang @Patrice, yes.  From another perspective - Social class matters, which can be disguiseable or invisible to society, not like race or gender which is biologically obvious to people. In this case, it might not be so much about gender at this juncture, more, pertaining to one's life chances circumscribed by several ascribed statuses embedded in one's social class in which, some society offers less gatekeepers on people's life chances; while other societies, highly control the possibility of individuals' upward social mobility.

Class intertwines (intersects) and absorbs race/ethnicity and gender dimensions.

Crystal Huang What do "life chances" say that everyone has "equal chance" to be drawn to serve one's country, in particular, during wartime, not just heavily relying on majority of service men and women from "certain" social class via "volunteerism" to be "patriotic"?

Surely, questioning why is a war necessary, how are the causes of wars legitimized at the first place, who will be benefited from war, what is the well-being defined, and where could it happen, should be understood by the well-informed citizenry.

021513 (F) Life Chances

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/rangel-proposal-draft-men-women-article-1.1265468

020913 (Sa) On this Lunar New Year Eve of the Snake - 2013

Greetings,

This is Li-chin Crystal 向您拜年 -

祝福您- Shedding the old skin, preparing for the new!
闔家安康, 蛇年快樂! Happy the Year of the Snake on Feb 10 of 2013!

Best Wishes: 

祝好友蛇運沖天 . 福氣旺旺旺旺來.
虎躍龍騰生紫氣 . 風調雨順兆蛇年.
恰逢盛世豬如象 . 喜慶新春蛇化龍.
運勢如蛇化龍飛 . 氣勢磅礴邁金年.

Reminiscence : 蔡志忠經典動漫系列----白蛇傳 (The Love Story of the Legendary White Snake Lady) -.A culturally iconic mythology for the Lunar New Year of the Snake:

This is a well-known mythical love/loving story between species - a white snake (later, transformed into a lady) and a kindhearted gentleman. It happened when a little white snake was captured to be cooked for a meal, a gentleman sympathized and rescued her (There are several different versions regarding their first encounter). 

After 500 years' searching for returning her gratitude via generational reincarnations, the snake got an opportunity to transform into a beautiful lady who eagerly wanted to thank the man who was identified via his many reincarnations, and then, into an impoverished family with all sorts of hardship.

The White Lady also helped a little bluegreen snake (some said fish) to reincarnate into a bluegreen lady as her friend who took on the match-maker's role to assist her to marry this nice yet dim-witted man. (Thus, you see one white and one bluegreen snakes on the stamps). 

Nevertheless, the happiness did not last long! The adversities challenged her love and life. How a strong, faithful, and intelligent lover and fighter fighting for her deep love, watch this legendary Lady in action to beat the odds in a male-dominant society via this cartoon movie-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOoQIRbDJa4

About the author of The White Snake Lady:

Feng Menglong 馮夢龍 (1574-1645 A.D.) was a vernacular writer and poet of the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) . He was born in Changzhou, now Suzhou. The White Sanke Lady was one of the parables of his Trilogy Tongyan 警世通言-Stories to Caution the World. The other two are Yushi Mingyan 喻世明言 -Stories to Enlighten the World, and Xingshi hengyan 醒世恒言 -Stories to Awaken the World. All three together was called as Gujin Xiaoshuo 古今小説- Stories Old and New or Sanyan 三言, "Three Words". Each contained 40 stories.

At one point of his life, Feng Menglong fell in love with a famous courtesan when he was young. Due to his failure of redeeming his love, Feng suffered from pain and separation which were expressed via poetry. He was a rare harbinger as a writer/poet portraying females as courageous and intelligent in a traditional patriarchal society as early as in the 16th century!

Also, enjoy the happy new year songs of jubilee!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz3rQfqwg7g&list=RD048AWSX4Aygcw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdZim9IySxM&list=RD048AWSX4Aygcw 恭喜恭喜+大拜年+年節時景+財神到!   Happy Lunar New Year of the Snake!!

020113 (F) The Theory and Practice of Inter-Disciplinary Collaborations through an Art Education Model - A Proposal

The Theory and Practice of Inter-Disciplinary Collaborations through an Art Education Model

                              Proposal of A Remapping and Reinventing Project
                          
                       An Ode of Reclaiming A Work of Art – “The Wonder of Tao”

                                                 By Li-chin (Crystal) Huang

             (The completed project was presented on the 1st Research Day in 2008 at                        University of Minnesota- Twin Cities )

           The main idea of this paper is to remap and rethink the process of cross-fertilization ideations happening in a very natural setting that can be reshaped into multilayers of meaningful and beneficial ways of learning, reinterpretation and deep understanding.

It happened when East and West met! My previous colleague professor Jim Eggert at UW-Stout showed great interest to study Lau Tisz’s “Dao Der Jing” (Tao Te Ging). Since I was the only instructor in the Social Science Department who was a cross-cultural person (from Taiwan), enthusiastically we started our weekly one on one studying project from 2004.  Six month later, Jim suggested that he want to write a book and invited me to be part of the project.

I did not realize that it was the beginning of a “cross-pollination,” as the course  named it- “Crossing Borders-Collaborations”, until I  took the class offered by Dr. Schwartzhoff- “The Theory and Practice of Inter-Disciplinary Collaborations through an Art Education Model”. The outcomes of such a beautiful tapestry woven by the author – professor Jim Eggert who was the economic educator at UW-Stout (and currently is an emeritus professor), the quilt artist-Pat Eggert, as well as Mathematician professor Dr. Steve Deckelman as video maker, as well as I - a sociology instructor and translator, imagery maker (illustration and calligraphy) providing the major artwork as part of the project, the final project – a book named “The Wonder of The Dao: A Meditation on Spirituality and Ecological Balance” was published at the end of the year.

The main theme of the book is focused on revealing and healing the relationship between spirituality and ecological balance drawn from multicultural disciplines, including Visual Arts (including filming/photography), Geography, Biology, Economics, Ecology, Sociology, Eastern and Western Religions, and Technology. The project explored locales embedded with rich geographical symbolism and spirituality from local prairies (Menomonie of Dunn County) and from Minnesota and Wisconsin to trace the quintessential concept of self-sufficient, sustainable ecological  “Prairie Model”  as the alternations to the dominant capitalist entrepreneurship.

That class gave an opportunity to rethink the daily activity that can be meaningful and can be reevaluated and reassessed the possibility of better future collaborative projects. For example, after the book was published in 2004, Professor Jim Eggert and I were invited to various book reading and book signing events at bookstores and local communities to disseminate the vivid and imminent information that contemporary society has to face.  Now, the burgeoning project is to translate this book into Chinese and Korean suggested by the publisher. There are vast messages and advisory wisdom in the book valuable particularly to the fast industrializing regions where the environment and spirituality tends to be the most vulnerable sphere subject to the deterioration and negligence.

In order to explore the possibility of revisiting our book with new insight on our collaborative work of art, I had a long talk and video taped Professor Jim and Pat Eggert at their prairie lands surrounding their humble yet rich home on June 18, 2005. I consulted them the possibility to reinterpret the meaning of the happening started a year ago.  They were amazed that there were so many meaningful aspects of the project left to rediscoveries and reinterpretation.

            Though this can be considered as a retro work of art, I do rediscover many ideas that I never thought about or was aware before.  The main idea of this paper is to remap and rethink the process of cross-fertilization ideations happening in a very natural setting that can be reshaped into even more beneficial ways.

            What I am trying to do is to trace each step of ideation tied to the concept of collaborations. So far, I collected the paper documents from the very beginning of ideation of the book, video taped professor Jim and Pat Eggert yesterday, borrowed the quilt of Tao from Ms. Eggert, and kept the photos and artwork that I made as needed by the chapter development. We have a big storage of memory in visiting the woods of our backyards, Red Cedar Trail, Red Wing Minnesota, Devil’s Punch Bowl to search plants, little animals, prairie lands for sketches as well as inspiration. Jim and Steve photoed my processing on making illustrations and calligraphy. We consulted faculty from other departments and organizations from the Internet to provide more accurate depiction for the contents.

          Initially, what we had done was based on the spirit of Taoism – doing things for no intentions, no functionality, and no specific purposes, which is called “wu wei” or pure art of art’s sake- if you want to name it, and it was fun for us older adults to do things in this unconventional (or naivete  fashion!  However, as the process developing, the sense of engaging in poetic meditation on responsibility and interbeing of compassionate living naturally floated within Steve and me as team members.    We did not expect that the book would be published so quickly (Jim has published several other books and articles already.) His writing this book and my doing/translating the artwork were totally based on “wu wei,” not to mention the concept of collaborations.

            Now, reviewing the whole project, I found that it was an unintended collaborative work of art, and the outcome is beneficial to our understanding our human beings’ celebration, loss, and the potential rebirth. Now I am thinking the alternate possibility if we began with carefully designed collaborative team work, there could be another kind of new experiences and productivity!

            In short, from reviewing the above mentioned process, I relearned many a

• Collaborations can enliven your work and help get you past the rough spots.
• When is the last time you were open to another artist’s ideas?
• If studio time has been a little lonely or if you have a dearth of idea lately, why not try a collaboration to spice things up a bit?
• Think about locale we find ourselves in and think about “getting lost in one’s own city, locating the other, exploring new territories, investigating locality, and notions of trespass….etc”

Green and Dao from Xena Huang

https://picasaweb.google.com/114105487411455590258/GreenAndDao#5305011044569203746

020113 (F) Untitled A-Z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJY8jJkDoMY

020113 (F) Untitled - continued