After a day indoors writing and transferring names, ideas and chinese from paper to digital, I went outside around 17:40 to play basketball. To my surprise and delight, there were many students playing.

Stuart was in the midst of a 3 on 3. I was disappointed at myself for not getting down earlier, but content to watch, when Stuart asked,

“Do you want to sub in?”

Immediately as I ran in with a smile on my face, excited and ready, the five students left.

“We have something to do.” One said in near perfect English.

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“zhong, mary and chen at dinner.” Taken on September 5th, 2009.

Around 19:30 we made our ways to the spot where we met Mary, Chen and Zhong the previous evening, and they were there waiting for us, again. They directed us to a big, modern restaurant where we were served ko goo.

A pot divided into halves was placed in the middle of the table above an electric stove. One half was filled with spicy oil and the other with a mild one. Mary then ordered lots of uncooked meats and vegetables which we cooked ourselves.

Overall the food was delicious, but Stuart and I just ate ourselves into oblivion, finishing with this,

“looks like chocolate.” Click for what it is really. Taken on September 5th, 2009.

Following dinner we took a nice stroll to the beautiful river filled with houseboats, dancing and a stone mural depicting the history of Anqing. Just across the road we concluded our tour at the river temple.

According to Mary Anqing has been described as a boat, and the temple is the center. The tower is the mast, and on the outside they have two anchors.

“one of the anchors of Anqing.” Taken on September 5th, 2009.

The text above was mostly written on the morning of September 6th, 2009 about September 5th, 2009. The text below was written today on the date of publication.

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I would like to send a delayed kudos to Will Shipley’s Call Me Fishmeal blog for his use of the double dash “–” as a way to separate thoughts on a blog post. It’s simple, beautiful and effective.

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In addition I’d like to give a hat tip to John Gruber’s Daring Fireball for pointing me in the direction of Will’s blog, and for being the best example I have ever seen of how to effectively and elegantly advertise on the internet.

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My father was kind enough to point me in the direction of a fascinating recent study investigating the connections between living abroad and creativity, done by William Maddux and Northwestern’s Kellogg Professor Adam Galinsky.

“Gaining experience in foreign cultures has long been a classic prescription for artists interested in stimulating their imaginations or honing their crafts. But does living abroad actually make people more creative?” asks the study’s lead author, William Maddux, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD and a former visiting assistant professor and post-doctoral fellow at the Kellogg School.

The results are music to my ears,

Here again, negotiators with experience living abroad were more likely to reach a deal that demanded creative insight. In both studies, time spent traveling abroad did not matter; only living abroad was related to creativity. … “This shows us that there is some sort of psychological transformation that needs to occur when people are living in a foreign country in order to enhance creativity. This may happen when people work to adapt themselves to a new culture,” said Galinsky.

That all sounds well and nice, especially for someone like me who would like to believe it, but …

Although these studies show a strong relationship between living abroad and creativity, they do not prove that living abroad and adapting to a new culture actually cause people to be more creative. “We just couldn’t randomly assign people to live abroad while others stay in their own country,” said Maddux.

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The company owned by The Blogfather Justin Hall (so called, ’cause to some he’s regarded as the world’s first blogger, been one of my true internet inspirations) recently released a new game: Dictator Wars. While I sadly will not be able to play it because I cannot access facebook (probably wouldn’t anyway, I’m not very interested in Facebook app games) I did enjoy reading what he wrote about his company and how the game came to be. He shared some valuable knowledge that can be applied in any web setting (like for me, for example as I continue to re-design this blog).

* Be selective with your innovation. Keep as much of your product predictable, so people can find their way to the gem of awesome that you have pioneered. Too much innovation means you’ll have to individually teach each user how to love your product and you don’t have time for that. …

* First Five Minutes. If someone can’t figure out what to do in the first five minutes of your interactive experience, you are hosed. You might find a small audience who appreciates your product. But people need to enjoy themselves quickly if you want to reach more folks.

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Turning lastly to basketball, the Memphis Grizzlies made a curious move recently, signing Allen Iverson. I do like the Answer and for a one-year deal at only 3.5 million he is definitely worth the gamble, for the jersey and ticket sales plus media intrigue alone, but I am very curious to see how he fits into their roster. They have two amazing young guards in Mike Conley and O.J. Mayo already. I have trouble seeing him backing them up, and at the same time I can’t really see any reason they’d start him ahead of two players who are probably better than him right now.

If Iverson swallows his pride and plays his role this could be really good for his rep and the Grizzlies this year. These quotes indicate it might be possible,

“This year for me is so personal,” Iverson said.

“It’s basically going to be my rookie season again. It hurts, but I turn the TV on, I read the paper, I listen to some of the things people say about me having the season that I had last year and me losing a step, things like that. They’re trying to put me in a rocking chair already.”

If not, they have nothing to lose. Curious, but excellent move. That said, some critics might say every year’s been personal for Iverson, but that’s a side point.

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Bringing it full circle with basketball back to China. It appears Kobe’s here right now and shared some advice at a business forum in Hangzhou,

“There are so many metaphors between basketball and life,” Bryant said on stage with Jack Ma, the CEO of Alibaba Group, which runs China’s top e-commerce Web sites.

“When you win, you have to constantly look for ways to get better,” said the shooting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers, who won the NBA playoffs this year. “That’s what drives me in competition.”

He also made a nothing to lose comment that really means nothing, but will get him some headlines:

Bryant would be willing to consider playing in a Chinese basketball league, he said at a later press event.

“I love playing, it’s something I’m open to,” he said.

I’ve lost count of how many of my student’s English names are “Kobe” or “Bryant”. I can’t remember any “LeBron”‘s.

“the Anginq wave.” Taken on September 5th, 2009.

Correction: September 15, 2009

My Japanese intro incorrectly stated that I ate duck’s blood that looked like chocolate last Sunday. It was two Sunday’s before the date of publication.