A time waster.
Funny how your mind works ain’t it? – lately I have taken to playing Mah-jong while waiting on the telephone – listening to bloody awful music – it is a fascinating game. A stray thought – I wondered if the difference between Chess and Mah-jong could somehow hold the key to defining the differences between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ thinking – anyway I ramble. The next thought close to the surface was about China and the MH 370 search and I wished we had a ‘China watcher’ – ala the John le Carré novels; those about Smiley and the Circus where ‘experts’ on a nation where tasked with guessing what a national reaction to a certain ‘thing’ would be. That got me started; China has thus far, played a very low key game. My own humble, uneducated notion is that they are a proud, though pragmatic people; deeply attached to family; and, there is the enigma of ‘face’. We may as well throw in that like most nations, they don’t take advice from fools gladly and they appear to be long march away from being considered gullible.
The point, I’m struggling to get to is what will this great nation do once the Lord Mayors parade has passed by? I wonder what information they hold, I wonder what their forward game will be – if any. Don’t know is the short answer, same-same Mah-jong; you cannot move the pieces to influence an outcome. You may try; sometimes you are beaten, for all money, then a magic run turns the tide. Other times, no matter how you plot and scheme, defeat is inevitable; it’s just the way the tiles were laid down by fickle fate.
Anyway, as we inevitably approach the end game of MH 370 insofar as the Malaysian and Australian governments are concerned, I wonder just what, if anything, we may expect from China?
“China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.” Napoléon Bonaparte.
Aye well, just a stray, passing thought turned into a twiddle, more for my own amusement than anything else. But!
Toot toot.
Funny how your mind works ain’t it? – lately I have taken to playing Mah-jong while waiting on the telephone – listening to bloody awful music – it is a fascinating game. A stray thought – I wondered if the difference between Chess and Mah-jong could somehow hold the key to defining the differences between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ thinking – anyway I ramble. The next thought close to the surface was about China and the MH 370 search and I wished we had a ‘China watcher’ – ala the John le Carré novels; those about Smiley and the Circus where ‘experts’ on a nation where tasked with guessing what a national reaction to a certain ‘thing’ would be. That got me started; China has thus far, played a very low key game. My own humble, uneducated notion is that they are a proud, though pragmatic people; deeply attached to family; and, there is the enigma of ‘face’. We may as well throw in that like most nations, they don’t take advice from fools gladly and they appear to be long march away from being considered gullible.
The point, I’m struggling to get to is what will this great nation do once the Lord Mayors parade has passed by? I wonder what information they hold, I wonder what their forward game will be – if any. Don’t know is the short answer, same-same Mah-jong; you cannot move the pieces to influence an outcome. You may try; sometimes you are beaten, for all money, then a magic run turns the tide. Other times, no matter how you plot and scheme, defeat is inevitable; it’s just the way the tiles were laid down by fickle fate.
Anyway, as we inevitably approach the end game of MH 370 insofar as the Malaysian and Australian governments are concerned, I wonder just what, if anything, we may expect from China?
“China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.” Napoléon Bonaparte.
Aye well, just a stray, passing thought turned into a twiddle, more for my own amusement than anything else. But!
Toot toot.