云: The Cloud or the Data Storage?

In June, SilkRoad Cooperation inspired me to work on the soulful Silk Road story through the character 丝-silk https://lnkd.in/gUJFph3s. Our collaboration in bridging cultural sharing in helping business continues.

Today, we talk about 云-cloud, which connects a natural phenomenon with our digital daily life.

As an old saying goes: “云行雨施,天下平也”. It tells that clouds flow and rainwater falls, all things cycle around and take their own shape, and the world is peaceful.

Such a wonderful and shocking wish was cleverly endowed with a traditional Chinese character雲-cloud: the upper half a 雨-rain, the lower half a simplified 云-cloud.

In the ancient times when agricultural production was the core product of the society, the ancients discovered that the effect of clouds and rain on crops was similar to that of human women gestating children. And they used “cloud and rain” to metaphor the intimate relationship between men and women. This responsive vision has developed into the core of Chinese culture: Heaven and the human being are in a mutually harmonious relationship.

“云,山水气也”. As a form of water, 云-cloud has another meaning – the breathing Qi of mountains and rivers. With about 70% surface covered by water, through the tidal effect, an important way of Mother Earth’s energy cycle in flourishing the whole world, is through her water cycle, that is, the sun’s irradiation, the transpiration of seawater, the transportation of clouds, the falling back of rain and snow, and the convergence of land, returning from the river to the sea.

As the carrier of divine nature energy, 云盘- CloudStorage is a vivid metaphor we use in our modern digital world, which is the computer data storage where the digital data is stored in logical pools. The physical storage spans multiple servers in a physical environment that are owned and managed by a hosting company.

What is the energy this divine carrier carries? Data! As Columbia Journalism Review stated “The increased value of digital data comes almost entirely from its improved shareability”, it so well describes the energy flowing through the e-world is just like what the cloud carries, shared by everyone at every moment and everywhere.

Furthermore,

“The world produces 2.5 quintillion bytes of data daily, but that figure should grow at an accelerating rate as more people and devices are connected to the internet. As data collection continues to surge and new techniques to monetize data arise, it will become an increasingly valuable asset”. https://lnkd.in/gjsaNytb

Compared to its unconditional benefiting spirit in nature, in the human world, “cloud-云” becomes a symbol of a few businesses ’ serving platforms.

“The Universe creates business as a platform for accumulating blessings; careers as a platform for uplifting people; wealth as a tool for benefiting others.”

With our gratitude, all the best wishes to this great cutting-edge technology in nurturing the world for a better future.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_the-cloud-or-the-data-storage-in-june-activity-6829063142375493634-ZdSP

To the Thief

Zheng Banqiao(https://lnkd.in/e6Xfp_r) had a straightforward character and was a county governor who governed incorruptibly and intelligently with integrity.

As a result, there was nothing worthwhile at his home.

One night, a thief entered his home, and he chanted a limerick:

On this drizzle-heavy night, the gentleman hiding on the beams has entered my home.

With thousands of volumes of poems and books in the belly, there is not even half a tael of silver in bed or on the table.

Look out the yellow-tailed dog, look out the green flowerpots over the wall.

When you leave, let me give you a coat in the middle of the night.

Pack your ambitions, and become a man.

《赠小偷》

郑板桥性格直率,吏治清明,以至于家徒四壁,半点值钱的东西也没有。
一天夜里,有小偷摸进家门,便吟了一首打油诗:

细雨蒙蒙夜沉沉,梁上君子进我门。
腹内诗书存千卷,床头金银无半文。
出户休惊黄尾犬,越墙莫碍绿花盆。
夜深费我披衣送,收拾雄心重作人。

#authenticity#integrity # #history#ancientwisdom#chineseculture#love#kindness#unity

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_authenticity-integrity-history-activity-6828355593477115904-XNMO

The Hollowness Space

Have you ever noticed?
 
✅The force-bearing structure of a bicycle is a hollow tube.
✅The weight-bearing tire of a car is a hollow structure.
✅Although the ocean liners are made of metal heavier than water, they can carry weight and sail on the water because of their hollowness.
✅The load-bearing steel structure of buildings is also hollow.
 
We can find the answer in nature.
 
Wheat, barley, bamboo, etc. are all hollow structures. Because they are hollow, they do not shrink, and they are extremely elastic and tough. We learned from nature that hollow cores can carry pressure, perseverance, and even grit better than solid cores.
 
We can also find the answer in the human body.
 
The bones of the body that support the weight are basically hollow. For example, the femur, tibia, fibula, humerus, and radius of the limbs, and back spine are all hollow. And these important hollow bones are not only the supporting force for the human to stand straight and walk upright but also the container and best protector of bone marrow and spinal cord, which are the very important components for life.
 
Hollowness holds great energy.

Clean up what filled in our head and mind from time to time, leave some space for new positive things to fill in, is pursuing a refreshing mindset of mental journey.

#emotionalintelligence#mentalheath#wisdom#chineseculture#unity#love#peace#authenticity

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_emotionalintelligence-mentalheath-wisdom-activity-6827705951576039424–Ibi

稳: Stand Steady like a Mountain

In different languages over the globe, there are various ways to describe the reactions of human beings in the face of difficulties and extreme trials. In Chinese, we often use 稳如泰山 to describe the cool-headed calmness and steadfastness of a person in the face of troubles and challenges, just like the majestic Mount Tai (Tai Shan), standing high into the sky.

The key character in this idiom is 稳-calm, steady, still, firm, proper. When we close our eyes to draw an image of this character in our head, a big mountain standing out of the ground and oceans would best describe its stillness and calmness. But, if we pay a closer look at this character, we will find, half of this 稳 is a simple character 急, which means fast, urgent, rapid, and also with an extended meaning of worry.

If we say history is a mirror in reflecting the reality, then this character 稳 is a good reflection of the scientific and philosophical nature of Chinese character culture and history.

Last week, the flood in Henan Zhengzhou provided us the best demonstrations of what 稳 could mean in our reality.

There are tons of photos and videos online spreading the horrible flood and how people react to this disaster: The equivalent of a year’s worth of rain fell in just 3 days in Zhengzhou, with 1/3 of them within one hour.

It would be a common-sense that we worry about the damage such kind of natural disasters brings and we worry about people in the center of it. But what brought down my heartbeat rate were stories that described this 稳. Among countless stories and silent heroes, here are two small ones:

The first is shown in the left-up corner photo: a student stood in the flood, like a peg hammered into the ground, holding a bicycle, next to an underground drain to let the water flow away, but not to let passing vehicles fall into the underground drain.

Another one is captured in the right-down corner photo: Young people who got off work were trapped in the subway by the flood, and everyone stood in the carriage in an orderly and calm manner.

Did their hearts beat faster, more rapid, with a sense of urgency? Or, with the worries of their safeties? It was not a rehearsal of a play or a game, but it was their lives that were in danger.

But, although our hearts beat faster and more rapid for them with our worries, we feel so calm when we realize that our new generation and young people can stand steady like a mountain in crisis and disasters.

As, they are the strongest force for our better future.

#emotionalintelligence#ancientwisdom#love#kindness#stillness#steady#chineseculture#unity#climatecrisis#heart

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_emotionalintelligence-ancientwisdom-love-activity-6826523229033787392-vYp4

值: Searching for “Value”

I read a small article talking about value and it motivated me to do some research on the Chinese character “值”, which means value, worth and wealth in English.

To find some photos I can use for this post, I entered “value” into some free image download websites. Guess what I get? 80% to 90% images returned are of coins, cash, bitcoins, crowns, climbing high, wallets, money tree…

When people upload images for others to free download, they are suggested to choose some keywords to categorize the image, and then image finders can search through the search engine on keywords to find the images.

What a reality! The massive cultural value orientation is based on money!

But, what is very contrasting is that our ancestors profoundly put human-人 and straight, upright, just-直 together to make the character 值-value, worth. In their eyes, human value had nothing to do with human money, position, and power, instead, being able to stand straight, with upright #humanity and #justice makes up a human’s true value. It is valued more on a human’s basic character and innate drive and capability.

In this huge gap between reality and this “phenomenon”, I could not help to ask: to be a straight, upright, and just person, what on earth did it cost at our ancestors’ time? What on earth does it cost at our time? Why they, who lived over the old time, had this kind of social measurement standard as “value”?

But why do we take for granted money, position, and power as “value” now?

When our children are surfing the internet to learn “value”, what lessons they are given? They learn from what we do.

#ancientwisdom#chineseculture#emotionalintelligence#authenticity#love#peace#unity

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_humanity-justice-ancientwisdom-activity-6823984627397468160-4TwA

Our Boats On this Busy River

“A boat traveling across the river and suddenly hit by a boat, a grumpy man on the ark immediately shouted to the hitting boat, a call didn’t listen to, then didn’t listen to, when about to bristle, he found that the hit ship was empty. The scolding stopped, he burst into laughers!” (《庄子·山木》)

With others, we are always in a social state; only in solitude, we are close to the natural state.

But, society is like a busy river.

We drive our boats traveling across this busy river all the time, not only hitting or being hit by a boat but also drown in loud noises.

Do we need a natural state and laughter here? How?

#emotionalintelligence#peace#unity#authenticity#love#ancientwisdom

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_emotionalintelligence-peace-unity-activity-6825435566805528577-i1lh

How a Computer Uses 0 and 1 to Describe Everything

When my little girl uses an iPad App to learn simple coding like {if…} {then do…} {repeat…} {elseif…} {else…}, it is fascinatingly simple and easy. And the program lets the kids debug and refine the codes to make their small codes a closed-loop process at the end.

This reminds me of my old days in learning one basic computer language BASIC. Before learning BASIC, we learned how computers translate all signals into 0 and 1 and then finally show everything on screen using code 0 and 1.

In the end, all signals on computers are shown through each of the digital cells on its screen. With each cell appearing in a different color, all cells on a screen form up a screen image which refreshes at a very high speed that human eyes could not catch up and tell the changes.

On an RGB color mode screen, each cell is a combination of the three basic colors of Red, Green, and Blue, and each color is designed in 256 levels (256=16*16) and using two hexadecimal numbers 0, 1, 2, …9, A, B… F to present.

For example, if a cell has a color of FF9A04, it means:
Red: 255 (F*16+F=15*16+15)
Green: 154 (9*16+A=9*16+10)
Blue: 4 (0*16 + 4)

And for each color, from 0 to 255, they are stored in binary digits from 00000000 to 11111111.

So, for a cell of the color of FF9A04, the computer would be sending a string of digital binary like this:

1111 1111 — 255 — Red
1001 1010 — 154 — Green
0000 0100 — 4 — Blue

Combined with processing codes which are digital binary 0 and 1 too, at a very high speed translating, sending, and reloading, our computer screen freshes, and then we can surf in this digital world freely.

The same thing happens on TV, also audio products, and all computer program-related products.

This is an amazing world that can be completely described using 0 and 1.

#authenticity#ancientwisdom#ancientscience#love#unity

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_authenticity-ancientwisdom-ancientscience-activity-6823284845716766720-lhiH

The Empty Basket

There were a grandpa and his grandson who woke up early to study every morning.

One day, the grandson asked: “Grandpa, I read like you every day, but I don’t understand it, and I forget everything when I close the book. Is it useful to read this way?”

Grandpa didn’t say a word. He turned around and took a bamboo basket that usually holds black coal and handed it to his grandson: “Go and bring me a basket of water.”

The boy tried many times, but every time the water leaked before he ran home.

Seeing the exhausted grandson, grandpa smiled and pointed to the bamboo basket. Only then did the grandson realize that the bamboo basket was different from before, that it has become clean from the inside out.

Reading more, even if you don’t understand or remember, will change you subtly, in your appearance or in your heart.

As the old saying goes, there is no useless work in the world, nor is it empty to draw water from a bamboo basket.

#ancientwisdom#authenticity#chineseculture#stillness#timeholdseverything#love#peace#unity

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_ancientwisdom-authenticity-chineseculture-activity-6822564955074781185-8z9c

本: The Hidden Root

As one of the most fundamental characters, 木-wood/tree, used to be questioned by a younger me that why during its simplification, the center of this word is completely moved to the lower part. As we may all know that the underground roots of a tree and its branches/leaves above the ground occupy almost the same size of space.

It was through a lifetime bumpy journey that I realized the reason is brilliant that, for everything, its internal root plays the fundamental role for its development and flourish externally.

This also helped me to vividly understand a very similar character 本. With “一” emphasizing the bottom part of a tree, it represents its underground part, the tree root. On top of this tree root meaning, 本 has a wide range of meanings. Here are the major ones:

1. Root; Source; Origin; Foundation
2. Agriculture: as the very basis of human living, agricultural commodity products plays a fundamental role in human daily life.
3. Book: if agriculture means the materialized fundamental root of human society, then the book alternatively plays the fundamental root role, the carrier, for human civilization and intelligence development.

Profoundly, 木 and 本 inspired me to look at another very similar character 不-no, which is in the top 10 most frequently used character lists in our daily life!

Explained in the same way, it pictographically stands for a tree not able to grow out of the ground, with an origin meaning that birds are flying away, leaving the shape of bird tail in the sky only. Were the birds flying away because trees cannot grow up? People’s wisdom was deeply embedded in the simplification of these characters. Extendedly, 不-no has meanings that include:

1) Things get bad from the root so they cannot grow up;
2) Ideas could not be expressed.

When we have a bad idea, some negative thoughts in our hearts, we are inclined to say NO more frequently, to reject, to decline, to refuse, to stop things from happening. We are filled with more negative Yin energy when we get used to saying NO. Instead of saying NO, if we chose a positive way to express the same ideas, we shape into a positive life.

For trees, their roots are hidden underground. For humans, our roots are hidden in our #hearts.

#positivemindset#emotionalintelligence#unity#wisdom#helenqiu#authenticity#love#peace#climatecrisis

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_hearts-positivemindset-emotionalintelligence-activity-6821450140977545216-FvVJ