Are you a Vata, Pitta or Kapha?

I have recently been reading about Ayurveda or "knowledge or science of life" from the spiritual texts of ancient India.  The basic principle of Ayurveda is that vibrant health is attained when all aspects of life: physical, mental, emotional, behavioural, spiritual, familial, social and universal, are balanced, as described in the wonderful Ayurveda guidebook and cookbook called "Eat, Taste, Heal."  The three doshas or biological energies,Vata, Pitta and Kapha determine our individual nature. The doshas ensure optimum health when we are in a balanced state while promote disease during an imbalanced state.  Living and eating in a way that balance your doshas (primary and secondary) will lead to a healthier life. This self-test will help you to determine your constitution and will provide some suggestions how to bring balance back to your doshas.

Related articles

• The Ancient World | India (guardian.co.uk)

Eat the City

In today's newsletter from the Care2 Healthy Living and Green, the concept of Food as Art was discussed.  One of the featured artist is Chinese artist Song Dong, who built up this work called "Eating the City" entirely based on cookies and biscuits.  The idea behind this work is to reflect on the rapid development of cities in China, where new infrastructures are eating away the older China housing and buildings, showing transience and short-lived nature of existence.  According to the artist, "the purpose of my work is for the city I build to be destroyed."  Literally the city is to be eaten.  The work was displayed in the famous department store, Selfridges in London in 2007, though the store had to deal with the Public Health Department ruling that the biscuits were not fit to be eaten.  Nevertheless, this is a very sweet display of the artist's concept.

What a coincidence!

Coincidence is an occasion when two or more similar things happen at the same time, especially in a way that is unlikely and surprising, according to the Cambridge dictionary. 

When I called up my insurance company last week, I was asked by the sales person some of my personal information including my date of birth.  Then after I told her, a large "wow" was uttered, and the person's voice completely brightened (I can imagine the job is not perfectly stimulating for her most of the time).  What is the chance that your sales agent would have exactly the same date of birth in the same year and have the same gender as you? We then had a most friendly chat about my insurance plan, which was nice.

This is not the first time that happened to me.  Long time ago when I worked in a large bank sitting in the trading room, the bank celebrated the birthdays with their employees every month. The employees (who had the birthday that month) would come out and cut the cake together. There it was!  A guy came out and started cutting the cake with me. When he asked me what day I was born, I told him, and then he said so was I, same year and same date! Coincidence which happens unexpectedly can really bring some smile and ah-ha to one's daily life.

Bossa Nova

Bossa Nova, ("new trend" in Portugese) is Brazilian popular music originated in the late 1950s which was a mix of samba and jazz. The music is played in syncopated 2/4 time, and is relaxing and romantic. It was described as the music of the Brazilian middle and upple classes, often reflecting love, beaches, beautiful women as opposed to samba which reflects the daily struggles of the working classes.  The founders of bossa nova are often considered to be composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and guitarist Joao Gilberto. The bossa nova movement only lasted for a few years from 1958 to 1963 though its popularity quickly spread to the U.S. in the 1960s and contributed to the jazz music.

This widely popular "The Girl from Ipanema" is best heard in its original Portugese version by its creators, Jobim, Gilberto and Vinicius de Moraes (lyrics).  I often lost myself in the romantic, carefree, hypnotic rhythms of this beautiful version especially after a hard day's work.  Try it - simply out of this world!

Related articles

• 50 great moments in jazz: Stan Getz's Jazz Samba (guardian.co.uk)
• Brazil honours 'Girl from Ipanema' writer (ctv.ca)

 

APIASF addressing the "Model Minority" myth

Yesterday I attended a very worthwhile community event organized by the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund and hosted by Wells Fargo at their penthouse in downtown San Francisco. APIASF, formed in 2003, is the largest non-profit organization nationwide providing scholarship to the APIAs.  The speech by the President revealed some interesting facts about this minority group.  Asian Americans are often labelled "model minority" while the larger APIA group masks the divergence of income, education, etc. of the 48 ethnicities within this diverse group.  Many people think that Asian Americans are all rich, and highly educated so why a scholarship fund is necessary?  African Americans and Hispanic Americans Scholarship Funds have been in existence for over 20 years while APIASF has only existed for 6 years.

However, the facts review that APIA poverty rate at 13% exceeds that of the U.S. population of 12%.  While over 70% of Asian Indians attain a bachelor degree or more, on average less than 50% of Asian Americans attain a bachelor degree or more, with the figure for Pacific Islanders a mere 10% on average (source: American Community Survey, 2006-2008 average).  APIASF president further disclosed that out of the 1500 students the organization helped with scholarship, 45% of those funds went to students who are the first in their family to go to college. One of the recipient made a touching speech. She is a Cambodian American who would normally not go to college. With APIASF's scholarship funds, she went from being the first in the family to attend college to the first to get a PhD!

There is no better way to help our youth to gain a better life than providing as much education opportunities as we can.  APIASF indeed has a very meaningful goal.  Soon, I would volunteer to be a reader of their scholarship applications and hopefully make a donation to the Funds.

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• The Truth About the Asian-American Model Minority (race.change.org)

Simple and delightful dishes to make

I have recently been reading many vegan cookbooks and have been inspired by the delightful vegan recipes as if my palette had been introduced to an entirely new and wonderful world.  Better still, I have discovered some of the dishes are really easy to make, very tasty and certainly healthy thanks to cooks such as Lolo who created the beautiful Vegan Yum Yum website.  Vegans and non-vegans will be seduced by the beautiful photos, videos and the simplicity of the recipes and be prompted to try it out.  These 2 recipes are good for anyone who wants something quick using ingredients easily available from own fridge and is just too tired to make anything fancy after a day's work.  Both the simple fried rice with Japanese seven spice and the broccolini, cherry tomato, and butter bean udon involve only a 5 to 10 minutes job.  You got to love the video accompanying the second recipe which shows cooking is so straightforward.  Vegan cooking certainly does not taste bland because I learn that one of the ways to spice up the dishes without using salt is to use herbs, spices, vinegar and lemon juice.  I am now particularly addicted to cumin, parsley, cayenne powder, black pepper, turmeric, balsamic vinegar and Japanese seven spice.

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• Book Review: The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes by Kris Holechek (blogcritics.org)
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• Tasty Vegan Food? Cupcakes Show It Can Be Done (well.blogs.nytimes.com)

Enjoying tea

Drinking tea can be a way of relaxation, meditation, pleasure, peace, socializing, getting closer to your loved ones, and can be good for your health (tea contains many antioxidants and nutritions) and vitality.  No wonder I enjoy drinking tea so much.  Luckily, the San Francisco Bay Area is home to many tea authorities and experts such as James Norwood Pratt, Roy Fong, May Hung (a 74th descendent of Confucius), Christy Bartlett, etc. as well as at least 20 lovely tea houses, hotels, tea garden to enjoy tea.  Anyone who enjoys tea and San Francisco would love this book called "The way to tea, your adventure guide to San Francisco tea culture" by author/photographer Jennifer Leigh Sauer.  Here is also a video by the tea connoisseur James Norwood Pratt about his way of tea and how to make tea in a Gaiwan. Lovely!

How to Measure your Life?

I came across this blog by Jacki Zehner, the youngest female and the first female trader to be admitted as a partner at Goldman Sachs in 1996.  Jacki cited this wonderful essay by Professor Clayton Christensen at the Harvard Business School. He gave an address to the graduating class of 2010 to share his guidelines which have helped him to find meanings in his own life. The essay helps all the high achievers and as a matter of fact everyone of us to answer three questions: "First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?"  Professor Christensen told that 2 out of his batch of 32 Rhodes scholars spent some time in jail so the third question was not a joke.

It is probably better to read this essay from the original author than to read my paraphrase.  In this article, he  also addressed how to create a strategy for your life, allocate your resources, create your culture, how to avoid doing things "just this once", find the metric for which your life will be judged, and remember the importance of humility.  I enjoy the important reminders and advice and find them invaluable.

Gold stocks

There are a number of reasons for gold stocks to outperform many of the market indices (except US Treasuries) in 2010 including US, world, emerging market equities, commodities, dollar, US corporate bonds, etc. Amidst the global market uncertainty and volatility, gold is viewed as a store of value (or "wealth insurance" as termed by Peter Hambro, owner of a Russian gold miner), diversification tool, inflation hedge, dollar hedge, etc. Investment demand makes up about 26% of the demand for gold (a rising share) while reduction of Central Bank gold sales this year has also been more supportive of price.  Furthermore, very low real interest rate is supportive of rising gold prices.

One way to get exposure is through ETFs (GLD for gold and GDX for gold stocks). GDX is a basket of gold companies so will be subject to equity market risk. Below is a table to show where some of the major gold companies' enterprise value are trading relative to their reserves and resources ($/oz), a useful gauge of their relative valuation.  The companies are ranked by the highest (most expensive) to the lowest (least expensive).

A simple yet very healthy vegetable soup

You will hear many people say they love soup but think cooking soup takes time and is difficult.  I recently came across this Garlic and Green soup recipe by the vegan cook and educator, Ms. Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, which is really simple to make and tasty.  The ingredients are leafy green such as kale or collard green, garlic cloves, yellow onion, Yukon potato, olive oil, vegetable bouillon or broth and 8 cups of water.  Boil them for about 25 minutes and you will get a hearty vegetable soup and get your daily servings of vegetables.  Enjoy the making of the soup here.

Beautiful painting by Johannes (Jan) Vermeer

As much as I like the famous "Girl with a Pearl Earring", "The Milkmaid" as featured above has become one of my all-time favorites with its clever use of light and dark contrast, its sense of flow and many exquisite details. All of his 35 or 36 paintings are a treasure to look at.

What leads to success?

Recently I was thinking about what makes a person or venture successful. I searched in Amazon's bestsellers and then used the keyword "success" to see if any worthwhile books came up.  The book "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Galdwell came up in the first page of search.  I immediately borrowed the book from the local library and was fascinated by his "novel" ideas of what leads to success.  A lot of times people associate success with talent, luck, mentorship, and hard work, of course.  What fascinates me is the month and year one is born could completely change one's success rate in the future, and then very hard work (not just talent), the ability to seize the opportunities and culture/legacy are some of the determinants of success.

I now believe that one happens to be born or be at the right place at the right time can get one a good start, but without the hard work (the author mentioned to do something really well, one got to log in at least 10,000 hours of hard work), there is no true success. 

So next time if I think that I cannot achieve something because I am unlucky, I first need to think whether I have really utilized all the opportunities presented and logged in that hard work.  The way I work and how much I give would determine whether I am successful or not, not luck.

Learning to detox

Recently I read a book by Thomas Rau called "The Swiss Secret to Optimal Health" which I highly recommend. Some of the suggestions for detox may shock you but the suggestions are well-supported. Dr. Rau devised a 3-week detox diet called "The Swiss Detox Diet", then followed by his maintenance diet.

Foods one must eat on the maintenance diet includes:
Plenty of raw and lightly cooked leafy greens, root vegetables and other vegetables.
Whole grains.
At least 2 tablespoons of good fats.
2 to 3 liters of uncarbonated, non chlorinated spring water and herbal teas daily between meals.

Foods you must not eat at any time (can be a shocker):
All cow's milk including yogurt, cheeses and ice cream (because of allergy to cow protein).
Pork.
Shellfish.
Bottom-feeding or large ocean fish (e.g. swordfish).
Processed foods.
White flour.
Refined sugar.
Excessive sodium.
Soda.
Commercial fruit juices
Any genetically modified foods.
Many nuts.

I would highly recommend Dr. Rau's book to help one to detox and to eat right for the rest of life.