A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

 Once again, I'm on my train to Linz for another week of instructor training. Just two weeks ago, I've returned from this years training camp. So, there's really plenty of topic I could post on. However, to keep things at least somewhat consistent, I've decided to finish my [Reflections series] first. Alas, here comes (II/III): Lost in translation... I had some rather amusing moments in China. You see, there's a lot going on when it comes to introducing the english language to the country. I met quite a few westerners who went to China as language teachers - there's just a huge demand for native speakers at the moment. Still, education is one thing - implementation in everday life is something completely different. Some tourist attractions, for example, have already started posting signs in english so that tourists can more easily discover the country. Unfortunately, though, most of those signs are not as good as they could be... Some were just plain wrong...

This is the first of three considerations that crossed my mind when [travelling through China] . The others will follow shortly... (I/III) Paralysis by Analysis - or: How to use a map Obviously, most of the time Sabine and I had no idea how to get from point A to point B - especially when we were travelling on foot. Luckily, we had maps for most cities, so eventually, we reached every destination we wanted to see... still, I realized that exploring a foreign country (or city, for that matter) by help of a map is a very useful analogy for how he approach many things in our everyday lives. Consider the following scenario: you're in a foreign city and try to find a certain street or alley. All street signs are descript in a foreign language, i.e. pretty much useless for your needs. Houses are not numbered. After some time, you reach a crossroads with a street sign you can actually identify (either because it's a main road an hence labelled in western characters or because ...