I like the idea that the cosmetic company invites artists to design the package of their products and the company sponsors the artists' exhibition in fine art space (gallery or museum) in return. Fine arts, design and commercialism found a good way to work together. But the author oversimplifies the situation sometimes. For instance, one product package which was designed by an American artist, John Tremblay, did not sell and the author, who accepted the company's excuse for blaming the complicated package design, implied that the artist was responsible for the market. I think the author should further analyzed how strong the product is rather than favors the company, and she even slightly implies that female customers are not always smart enough to appreciate the design. This is absolutely a biased and impulsive conclusion.
中國太大了，人民的素質差非常多。我在 UCLA 的中國博士生朋友人都非常好，風趣，親切，熱心，聰明，對朋友又好，他們許多人明年要畢業，我心裡有點捨不得，每次和他們一起吃飯時我都覺得很開心。或者我在 Cal Tech 認識的朋友Shi and Sue, 也很親切有禮貌，但是也有中國人像那個旅行社的員工一樣，樣樣事不關己，有了問題決不認錯，自己的事情擺第一，出了狀況把責任推給別人，工作道德低落。比起來，台灣人的素質比較高，至少有一定的品質在，工作道德高。
(Eng summary: I was really pissed by the arrogant attitude of the Chinese travel agency, who left their customers waiting for 5-10 minutes only for enjoying their afternoon tea party. My eye contact with them was returned with an arrogant, careless look. Moreover, the employee even wanted us to open the door for her (she had only a stylish handbag on her shoulder). Who is serving who? The Taiwanese travel agency staff, on the other hand, is much more nicer. She has a sense of responsibility for her company. She knows that even though she is just a clerk, her attitude toward customers will greatly influence their satisfaction and impression of the whole company. She did her best to assist us, so we were willing to pay her for getting things done. The difference of workplace moral between Chinese people and Taiwanese is obvious. Chinese employees only care about their own work, and if the boss or the manager isn't there, they will start to work lazily, slowly. As long as they aren't caught, they don't care about the overall performance of the company because they think it has nothing to do with them. Taiwanese people are more stable and friendly; at least we can expect a certain service quality from them.
China now plays an important role in the international stage, economically and diplomatically, but disappointingly, the quality of its people doesn't catch up. How many years will it take before its people act like first world country people, who realize their individual responsibility for their workplace, society, and country? Besides, when will they care about the issues about public affairs and public health, understand the meaning of mutual trust, fair game principle and create a better atmosphere in the basic interaction with others?
Monet? Gauguin? Using art to make better doctors: New courses improve powers of observation From The Boston Globe
Dr. Joel Katz's class of Harvard Medical School students meets on
Friday afternoons at the Museum of Fine Arts, where they discuss the
Seated Bodhisattva, a towering figure carved in ancient China, Joseph
Mallord William Turner's Slave Ship, and other artworks Katz believes
will make them better doctors.
On
one Friday this spring, 24 of the country's most promising future
physicians circled the limestone Bodhisattva as art instructor Alexa
Miller posed a question: "What's happening here?" The students
initially observed that the figure was made of stone and appeared
peaceful. But she pushed them further. "What do you see that makes you
say that?" she asked.
After an hour at the museum, the class
walked back to Harvard Medical School to apply what they had learned
about examining art to diagnosing breathing problems, skin rashes, and
neurological disorders, and to reading lung X-rays.
Katz's class
is one of a growing number of art courses offered to medical students
nationwide and aimed at improving their observation and diagnostic
skills at a time when doctors are increasingly relying on CT scans,
Maris, biopsies, and other technology to do their work, even though it
is far more expensive - and sometimes unnecessary to pinpoint illnesses.
Nana
Aqua Judah, who graduated from Harvard in June and is now an obstetrics
and gynecology resident in Toronto, said the art class taught her to
look more carefully at patients for clues. For example, if a young
mother looks run down, it might indicate she's too stressed to take a
medication that requires five doses a day, leading Judah to prescribe a
once- or twice-a-day drug. Besides, said Judah, who was taking six or
seven classes at the time, "to me it seemed like a relief. We were
going to an art gallery for a class."
At tradition-minded
Harvard, many faculty were skeptical about the idea of using art to
make better doctors when Katz proposed the class five years ago,
especially since the first- and second-year students who enroll are
already overwhelmed with work. But Katz's belief that physicians can
improve their diagnostic skills by observing art was bolstered this
month when he and his colleagues published a study in the Journal of
General Internal Medicine showing that after completing the class,
students' ability to make accurate observations increased 38 percent.
When shown artwork and photos of patients, students were more likely to
notice features such as a patient's eyes being asymmetrical or a tiny,
healed sore on an index finger. Observations by a control group of
students who did not take the class did not change."We're trying
to train students to not make assumptions about what they're going to
see, but to do deep looking. Our hope is that they will be able to do
this when they look at patients," said Katz, an internist at Brigham
and Women's Hospital and a former graphic designer. He said several
studies show that doctors' physical exam skills, which include
observation and taking a medical history, as well as the hands-on
examination, are declining he most difficult part of the class for the high-achieving Harvard
students, Miller said, seems to be letting go of their urge to find the
one right answer. The Bodhisattva, for example, can spark a wide range
of emotions, as the statue is towering and imposing when seen from the
front but then "almost disappears into space" when looked at from the
side, Miller said. As she pushes students to look harder at the
sculpture, using a technique called visual thinking strategies,
students' observations become more complex, and they notice that the
Bodhisattva is powerful, but also small and poignant.
While
diagnosing a medical condition involves reaching the right answer,
often, to get there, doctors have to open their minds to myriad
possibilities.
"When we get fixated on getting the right answer,
we miss the diagnosis because it blocks the ability to think flexibly,"
Miller said. "We want them to puzzle through things."
Educators
at other medical schools that offer art classes have similar goals.
Weill Medical College of Cornell University has offered a noncredit art
course in collaboration with the Frick Collection in New York City for
eight years, while Yale Medical School runs an art observation course
for medical students that is now a required class.
Students in
the Harvard class study a wide range of original art, including oil
paintings by Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, and John Singer Sargent, and
sculptures from Iran and India. Students have the option of drawing a
nude model as well. Instructors draw exact parallels between some
artworks and diagnosing illness; students, for example, study texture
and pattern in Jackson Pollack's abstract Number 10, and then return to
the medical school to study how patterns in patients' rashes can
indicate specific conditions. But the course primarily trains students
to look at what they're seeing more carefully.
Dr. Robert Brown,
a pulmonologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a course
instructor, gets undressed above the waist to give his lecture on
breathing muscles. Three patients enter the classroom, including a
quadriplegic man who also is shirtless, a woman with muscular
dystrophy, and a woman with a deformed spine. Afterward, students list
what they saw. Brown wants them to notice that his upper rib cage moves
outward while the paralyzed patient's upper rib cage moves inward.
Paralysis of the diaphragm is a diagnosis doctors often miss, he said,
but inward movement of the belly while breathing is one sign.
If they look carefully "during the physical exam they can begin to put the pieces together," he said.
While
research into doctors' physical exam skills is sparse, there is a
consensus in medicine that those skills are waning. Some doctors
believe medical schools are giving short shrift to the physical exam,
but others believe these skills atrophy once doctors graduate and start
practicing their specialty.
"When I've been to Africa and the Amazon
and there are no CT scans and X-rays and it's just you and a flashlight
and a stethoscope and something to look into the patients' ears, you
have nothing to fall back on other than your clinical skills," said Dr.
Ronald Silvestri, a pulmonologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center who runs Harvard's doctor-patient course, which teaches the
physical exam.
In the United States, he said, doctors turn more
quickly to these widely available tests and tend to be very rushed when
seeing patients. "If you have a 10-minute visit, how good an observer
can you be?" While Silvestri believes the quality of care doesn't
suffer from the widespread use of diagnostic tests, he thinks the
overall healthcare system does.
"It's one reason that American medical care is so expensive," he said.
But whether art classes will have a lasting impact remains an open question.
Students
in the course run by Katz and Brigham neurologist Dr. Shahram Khoshbin
were evaluated immediately after they took the course, not as
practicing doctors, when they will face the threat of malpractice
lawsuits for wrong diagnosis.
Pearl Harbor 免費放映二次大戰日軍偷襲珍珠港紀錄片，影片欣賞之後，遊客乘船至Arizona Memorial，為在偷襲中喪生的美軍致敬。Arizona Memorial 設計的很好，建立在一艘沈船上，設計師導入開放的空間與自然光，營造肅穆又有美感的空間，就算對美軍沒興趣，光是去參觀其建築也值得。
Bicultural people may unconsciously change their personality when
they switch languages, according to a US study on bilingual Hispanic
women.
It
found that women who were actively involved in both English and Spanish
speaking cultures interpreted the same events differently, depending on
which language they were using at the time.
It
is known that people in general can switch between different ways of
interpreting events and feelings – a phenomenon known as frame
shifting. But the researchers say their work shows that bilingual
people that are active in two different cultures do it more readily,
and that language is the trigger.
One
part of the study got the volunteers to watch TV advertisements showing
women in different scenarios. The participants initially saw the ads in
one language – English or Spanish – and then six months later in the
other.
Researchers David Luna from Baruch College, New York, US, and Torsten Ringberg and Laura Peracchio from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US, found that women classified themselves and others as more assertive when they spoke Spanish than when they spoke English.
"In the Spanish-language sessions, informants perceived females as more self-sufficient and extroverted," they say.
For
example, one person saw the main character in the Spanish version of a
commercial as a risk-taking, independent woman, but as hopeless,
lonely, and confused in the English version.
Today is Stephanie's Nth birthday and our (Stephanie and me) 2nd wedding anniversary. The adjectives I can think of don't really convey how much we mean to each other. How about this:
- We have a tremendous mutual understanding. When Stephanie saw me about to write this, she said, don't worry about writing something well - I'll be glad to see "Happy Anniversary" there, because she knows I'll agonize over what to say and how to say it, which is why it's taken me 20 minutes to write this so far. And I've marginally altered a detail because I know she wouldn't want it out there.
- We really appreciate each other. Tonight after dinner I just wanted to relax, but my parents are determined to look tidier for the cleaning person's first visit tomorrow, so they dumped a bunch of stuff randomly and somewhat inconveniently, so I spent an hour late tonight moving stuff around, maximizing our use of space. I needed to do it, didn't really want to do it, but it became worthwhile when she thanked me for what I did and let me know that she knew exactly what my thinking was.
And there's more stuff from just tonight, and that's just one night. Our lives are like this, and I couldn't imagine anything, anyone better for me.
A Great Barbecue party by the Lake Michigan! The whole department is like a big family whose members are getting together from different directions (some just came back from overseas research trips). Really nice, pleasant and relaxing atmosphere. I am very glad to be part of this big family. I also celebrated the end of the first year with my classmate, a girl from Oxford (and she's going back to Oxford for a quarter soon). Look forward to the coming summer and the new autumn quarter, new challenges! My three related advisers, one French art (the Chair) and two Chinese art professors are also within the photos, though not obvious.
有時候我覺得歐洲與我們東亞文化的差異可能比我們與美國的差異更大（這個好像不是很客觀，台灣本來就親美），例如他們對人與人之間的界線更堅持，所謂家人與朋友就是不一樣，德國男人有客在家絕不穿短褲，與朋友的聚會和與家人的聚會是不一樣，不能混在一起辦。我的比利時朋友說他的朋友在荷蘭時去拜訪朋友，沒先預約，結果對方報警解決。他的荷蘭朋友與大家聚會時，從家裡拿來食物，然後當場與大家一起算帳，這個食物的食材花了多少錢，請大家一起 go Dutch。我請歐洲朋友幫忙一件事時，他也立刻與我談條件，我該做什麼事回饋，這個想法與我們就差很多，別人請我幫忙時我是先想該怎麼幫，不是先思考我想要求什麼回報。 朋友說他在荷蘭念博士的朋友很孤單，整個所五個博士生，互相不認識，也不交談，各自做研究，而且外國學生與荷蘭學生分開住，一個外國學生要打入荷蘭社會很難。
--- The J. Paul Getty Trust, which recently posted its fiscal 2007 annual report
online, last year incurred a staggering operating deficit of $49.36
million on a budget of $307.7 million. The previous year, the deficit
was $18.29 million on a $293.57-million budget.
This growing shortfall is likely one of the reasons for the recently announced elimination of 114 jobs, including 40 layoffs. Anne-Marie O'Connor of the LA Times recently quote this explanation for the cuts by trust president James Wood:
The whole goal here is to focus the Getty on the core mission of the
visual arts. This is to ensure that we have flexible funds to devote to both
building our collections in the museum, the research institute and the
library and undertake targeted strategic initiatives where we feel we
can really make a difference...
...and
maybe also to insure something resembling a balanced budget. The main
contributing factor to the spike in the deficit from the previous year
was the decline in contributions from $36.2 million in fiscal 2006 to
only $2.2 million in fiscal 2007. Because of its already fabulous
wealth, the Getty has a hard time soliciting donations.
The
endowment, as of the June 30th end of the fiscal year, was a hefty $6.4
billion, compared to $5.6 billion in fiscal 2006, so times are not that
tough. Unlike most museums, the Getty reports the total value of its
collections on its financial statement---$1.8 billion. Capitalizing
collections in this manner is something most museums resist, because
they do not regard collections as assets than can be tapped for
operations. Getty spokesperson Ron Hartwig acknowledged to me
that "most other museums do not list their works of art on their
balance sheet. We are taking a look at this."
Despite its vast wealth, the Getty feels compelled to cut back
its window-washing to "once a year instead of three times," as revealed
by Wood to the LA Times. And I've never encountered a museum press
release like the recent Getty Goat announcement: It has hired about 60 of these beasts as landscapers, "to nibble away the flammable brush around its 110-acre hillside campus in Brentwood."
Some of the fired Getty employees may be disgruntled, but at least the new hires are happy. According to Lynne Tjomsland, manager of grounds and gardens, quoted in the Getty's press release:
UPDATE: Patricia Woodworth,
the Getty Trust's chief financial officer, has informed me that the
"large contribution of the Stark Sculpture Collection" in fiscal 2006
is what accounted for the unusually high figure for contributions that
year. She added that the Getty's operating results are significantly
impacted by the depreciation charge, which in fiscal 2007 amounted to
$47.8 million, compared to $45 million the previous year.
我從一開始一學期修四門課到現在只修三門，日子改變好多。多一門課一星期大約多兩百頁的閱讀份量，期末報告更是不得了，不用睡了。而修三門，我終於可以過比較健康的生活，睡眠多一點，偶爾去運動，參加朋友聚會和 party 。漸漸適應這樣密集的學術生活，改變思考方式，到這學期我覺得已經比較駕輕就熟，presentation 常得到美國同學的讚美，很興奮。（美國人對讚美這件事非常大方，好習慣）我也記得一開始到學校時，看到中午用餐時間時許多學生一邊吃飯一邊唸書，一分一秒都不願放過，但現在我也很習慣地一邊用餐一邊看書。
來芝加哥唸書，最可憐的是 Richard。我在這兒住九個月，他也飛到芝加哥九次。謝謝他諒解我學期中我一次也沒回家。 (Translation: Thank you, Richard. I've lived here for 9 months, and you also flew here for 9 times. Thank you for understanding that I've never been able to go home even just once.)
拉拉雜雜寫一篇沒有重點的文章。其實我要說的是，it's has been a great year for me.
p.s. I passed the French reading exam with high scores! That makes a nice ending of this year. Finally I got rid of one foreign language requirement! :) Now I can focus on my Japanese. I need to be good enough to compete for the fellowship of studying in Japan.
In the writings of E. E. Cummings (1894-1962), Paris is a city repleting with beautiful darkness.
"Where in Hell am I? What is Paris --- a place, a somewhere, a city, life, to live: infinitive...Paris. Life. Liberté. La Liberté. 'La Liberté'! --- I almost shout in agony."
"The streets. Les rues de Paris. I walked past Notre Dame. I bought tobacco. Jews are peddling things with American trademarks on them, because in a day or two it's Christmas I suppose. Jesus it is cold. Dirty snow. Huddling people. La guerre. Always la guerre. And chill. Goes through these big mittens. Tomorrow I shall be on the ocean... Les rues sont tristes. Perhaps there's no Christmas, perhaps the French government has forbidden Christmas. Clerk at Norton Harjes seemed astonished to see me. O God it is cold in Paris. Everyone looks hard under lamplight, because it's winter I suppose. Everyone hurried. Everyone hard. Everyone cold. Everyone huddling. Everyone alive; alive: alive."
For those who are or have been seduced by an exotic place would find the experience similar. Beauty and darkness coexist in a city while twisting our senses. The feelings are no longer coherent but fragmentary, being cut through by displacement. Cummings created an exuberant, heterogeneous narrative mixing French with English, which reinforces the impression of a stranger's struggle, the past/ native language is racing with the the present/ foreign language. He evokes a sense of the fast pace of passersby by using short sentences; after all, he can only talk to himself. His Paris, transformed by wars, was marked with fragments of city, people, images, and collision of identities.
After I searched for the desired images for several days and still couldn't quite get them, the anxiety surfaced. Walking around on a gray day, I thought about Cummings' alienated feelings for Paris. Suddenly my qualm seemed to be relieved a little bit. His words caught me.
提到相機，我說那是去年Richard 送我的生日禮物。Richard 驚訝地道: "才一年而已嗎？" 確實是，我們常常覺得似乎已經在一起十年了，但事實上我們認識不過三年左右，結婚未滿兩年。 我告訴Richard 結婚後我蠻常流淚。 "怎麼回事？" Richard 擔心地問，他心想他已經很努力在當個好丈夫了，為什麼我會這麼說。 "因為我常常被你感動到流淚。" "呵。" Richard 也笑了。 "不過我覺得我的生日不重要。" 我真的覺得我出生這件事沒什麼大不了，我和所有人一樣。 "No, your birthday is very important。I have a biological birthday, but yours is my spiritual birthday; I was reborn with you. " Richard 立刻又說了一句佳句。
Lucky me, I have the greatest parents-in-law and husband.
I have been thinking about a question recently: how do American top universities train their students?
I observed a few undergraduates in some courses, and I found them really intelligent and critical about the issues raised by the professors. Their ability to link their previous knowledge with the current course and to articulate their thoughts systematically is surprising. On the contrary, Asian students are weaker in this aspect. For instance, Asian students are really good at those they learned before; they are good at collecting documents, integrating those teachers say in the class to their papers and make their own arguments. However, once they are exposed to something new, like something "outside their major/ specialty," they are very fragile. They are so weak that even a graduate student would write a paper like a college or high school student. Averagely speaking, Asian undergraduates are less flexible and less creative than American peers.
Some people have pointed out that Asian students are good and quick at solving basic and intermediate-level math questions, yet once they see difficult questions which they have never seen before, they would be at loss and feel anxious, not knowing how to tackle the question. I think the same situation happens to humanity students as well. My observation is that American students are better at integrating different knowledge and apply the methodology to the new sphere; they are less intimidated by the unknown and more flexible/ creative. From them, I see some really smart persons whose talent is not bound by the boundaries of professional knowledge.
Before college education, I think Asian students perform better academically, as shown in various international high-school students competitions. But the American college education not only makes the gap smaller but also even surpass. To understand how the American college education keep students competitive, we need to look at their pre-college education altogether. They must have formed some thinking habits before coming to the college. I am curious about how American teachers guide t
Attire-moi! --- Stephani...PhotosProfileFriends
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2004、2005年兩年，植村秀與日本當代藝術家山口藍（Ai Yamaguchi）、2006年與紐約前衛藝術John Tremblay合作限量版潔顏油，其間各有不同的考量及成效。
軍
美國，且在美國市場創下佳績，在此背景下，植村秀興起以產品與美國消費者進行交流的念頭，才找來了紐約前衛藝術家John
Tremblay共同合作。張凡恬說，John
Tremblay的作品以線條和圖形為主要表現，理念與設計雖與山口藍截然不同，但他以西方人的角度並以自己的概念及觀點詮釋四罐潔顏油，也賦予了潔顏油
新的趣味和意義，張凡恬也認為，此合作的背後也象徵植村秀不只在亞洲市場，更邁向全球彩妝市場。
快，
張凡恬說，以往林明弘的作品多數尺幅較大，要創作手掌大小的作品，又是與彩妝品牌的合作，對林明弘而言可能也是一種挑戰。由於這也是台灣植村秀第一次自行
製作產品包裝，在選擇合作廠商及往來的過程也力求謹慎，作為專業彩妝品牌以及藝術家，植村秀與林明弘同樣對色彩有所要求，雙方合作過程愉快且順利，若要說
有什麼較需花時間溝通的部份，就是林明弘在設計過程中交付的作品圖稿，並不使用顏色色碼，如此一來，植村秀與廠商或林明弘在確認色彩的溝通上，就要花費較
多時間。「林明弘在設計過程選擇顏色，他要的不是號碼，他要的可能就是他在某台電腦上看到的顏色，所以這部份很難轉述給廠商或印刷商。」張凡恬說，最簡單
的解決方法是，三方同時約來一起確認顏色。「這也是我們第一次把最下游的廠商一起找進來參與整個過程。」張凡恬坦言，合作之前也不無擔心藝術家主觀較強而
與市場面不一定相符的問題，但在溝通的過程，一些不動到創作本身，單純消費者使用上的建議微調，林明弘也都欣然接受並進行調整。「比如說打開後鏡子應該如
何移動，噴霧應該如何設計……花紋不要遮到鏡子，可能會影響到使用的方便性的部份我們會加以提醒。」也因為與林明弘合作愉快，延續此次經驗，台灣植村秀也
提供經費贊助2007年底林明弘於日本的展出。
若
要論市場接受度，成績較不理想的應是與John
Tremblay合作的限量潔顏油。對此結果，張凡恬認為有兩種可能，一是這是第三年限量版潔顏油系列的推出，對消費者及媒體而言，新鮮度不如以往高，第
二是John Tremblay的設計真的太前衛，需要專櫃小姐花許多時間告訴消費者設計的意義在哪？「比方綠茶的包裝上John
Tremblay設計很多圈圈，因為綠茶搖過後會產生氣泡，氣泡即代表圈圈，而圈圈又有其涵意等……，這些設計背後的意涵如果期待消費者能完全理解，就要
在第一線銷售時，花費時間告訴消費者，但實際在櫃點要操作是有困難的，消費者也要有慧根。」John
Tremblay的作品無法直接傳達意念，似乎是John Tremblay在市場上的反應未若以往限量包裝潔顏油銷售熱絡的原因。
合
作或者捐款。2004、2005年與山口藍合作時，植村秀與「如果兒童劇團」連二年共同推動「兒童藝術扶植計畫」。2004年包含系列講座、活動劇場巡
演，以及台北、台中三場「植村秀潔顏油限量版義賣會」；2005年則是以兒童舞台劇的方式展演出04年「兒童藝術扶植計畫」的成果，植村秀並邀及名人進行
義賣，將植村秀提供之精裝限量版潔顏油及刷具等套組，以義賣組數乘以十萬元的金額捐贈「如果兒童劇團」。
其他與藝術及時尚為主軸所展開的合作也都已陸續展開。除了
林
明弘，2007年植村秀同時找來了華裔建築師Calvin
Tsao重新設計「無色限唇膏」的包裝；今年7月下旬植村秀也推出與荷蘭籍前衛設計師Viktor &
Rolf合作，以高級訂製服概念打造三款「限量訂製睫毛」，同時也已展開與攝影師蜷川實花的合作，而與蜷川實花的合作，也將延伸至台灣，台灣植村秀欲將與
蜷川實花合作的計畫，與台灣服裝設計師作一有趣的結合。張凡恬表示，台灣植村秀是植村秀海外市場中成績最好的，日本對台灣市場相當重視，也給予台灣極高的
主導性，未來植村秀鎖定與藝術、時尚合作的行銷主軸，仍然會繼續延續下去。