Helping Seedlings Grow by Pulling Them Upwards

"Helping seedlings grow by pulling them upwards” is an English Translation of a Chinese idiom “Ba Miao Zhu Zhang”. The idiom originated from a story and the story goes like this:

In ancient China, there was a farmer who grew rice. He hoped the rice seedlings would grow fast and was expecting a good harvest. So he went to the field to watch the rice seedlings every day. It seemed to him the seedlings were growing very slowly. He became anxious about the seedlings and said to himself: “I should do something to help the seedlings grow faster.”

He thought and thought and then had a great idea. "Why don’t I pull the seedlings upwards a little bit and that would help them grow faster.” After thinking of this, he went down to the field and pulled every seedling upward a little bit. After doing that, the seedlings did look taller.

Looking at the taller seedlings, he was happy though exhausted from the hard work. On his way back home, he couldn’t help thinking how smart and hardworking he was. He even couldn’t understand why people hadn’t discovered this method before.

However, several days later when he went back to field, he found all the seedlings had dried up and died.

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The basic meaning of “Helping seedlings grow by pulling them upwards” is spoiling things by excessive enthusiasm. It describes behaviors of people who are too eager to get things done only to make the things worse. I know I made such mistakes. Can you find examples of “Helping seedlings grow by pulling them upwards" in history and real life, for example, in some parents who want to help their children, in some religious groups that want to influence their followers, or in some governments that want to control their people?

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The above is a 4-6 minute speech I delivered in my Toastmasters club. The speech is based on a project titled "The Moral of a Story".

The Sun and the Solar Energy

If you are interested in mythologies of sun god or goddess, you will be able to find numerous versions in different cultures including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Egyptian, Greek, Indian and many others.

The first slide shows the Indian sun god and Greek sun god. I personally like the story of Greek sun god, Apollo, very much. I think the story of Apollo is comparable to the best of William Shakespeare’s plays.

However everyone here knows that the sun is the only star in our solar system. Comparison between the sun, the earth and other planets in size is shown in the second slide. The sun is much larger than the earth and other planets. Actually the volume of the sun is over one million times larger than that of the earth.

The sun is an enormous ball of burning gases. The main elements of the sun are hydrogen and helium. Since there is no oxygen on the sun, the energy of the sun does not come from general sense of burning hydrogen, but from hydrogen nuclear fusion, a process similar to that happening in a hydrogen bomb when it explodes.

The sun produces enormous light per second and it has been doing that for billions of years. Up to now, the largest power plant in the world is the Chinese Three Gorge power plant, which can produce 18,000 Megawatts (one million) of power per year. However, the sun puts out the same amount of energy in the form of light per second as a billion of the largest power plant in the world would put out in a year. This number is enormous, even difficult to imagine.

The sun light absorbed by the earth atmosphere, oceans and land is called solar energy. The solar energy the earth receives per hour is equivalent to all the energy humans currently consume in a year.

About 0.1% of the solar energy has been captured by photosynthesis, transferring the light energy into chemical energy. Plants make their own food by Photosynthesis, and animals and humans have to eat plants or other animals to obtain their energy. So the energy to sustain almost all the life on the earth comes from the Sun.

Here lists the energy sources originally from the sun. Currently, 86% of energy we are using are form fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. Fossil fuels were solar energy fixed by plants millions of years ago; and bioenergy, hydropower, solar power, wave power, wind power are all originally from solar energy. The only exceptions are nuclear power, tidal energy, and Geothermal energy.

Without the sun, life on the earth simply wouldn’t exist. We are so blessed that the sun provides us with free and clean energy. How can we be grateful enough for the Sun? The only thing we can do is to make good use of the solar energy.

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The above is one of 5-7 min speeches I delivered in my Toastmasters Club.

Liang and Zhu, Chinese Romeo and Juliet

It is said about one thousand and six hundred years ago, in east of China, there was a beautiful and intelligent girl. Her name was Zhu. At that time, females couldn’t go to school but Zhu was eager to study.

She managed to convince her family to allow her to go to school in disguise as a man.

On her journey to school, Zhu met Liang, a young man who was going to the same school as her. They became friends at first meeting. In the next three years, they studied together and behaved like "brothers". Gradually, Zhu fell in love with Liang.

One day, Zhu received a letter from her family, asking her to return home. Zhu had no choice but leave school and Liang. However, in her heart, she was deeply in love with Liang and was determined to be with him forever.

So she went to her teacher’s wife for help. The teacher’s wife actually recognized her to be a girl long time ago, and promised to help her.

On the way Liang saw Zhu off. Zhu hinted to Liang that she was a girl, but Liang was somehow a bookworm and didn’t understand Zhu’s hint. Finally Zhu came up with an idea and told Liang that she had a beautiful sister and would like to introduce her sister to be Liang’s wife. Liang was very happy and looked forward to meeting Zhu’s sister.

However, when Zhu went home, her family had already arranged a marriage for her. The man Zhu was arranged to marry was from a very rich and powerful family.

Zhu confessed her love with Liang to her parents and resisted to the arranged marriage. She even vowed that she would kill herself rather than marry another man. But his father didn’t agree to the possible marriage between Liang and Zhu, and threatened that if she didn’t agree to the arranged marriage, Liang’s life would be at risk if the powerful family got angry with her breaking the arranged marriage. Since Zhu loved Liang and didn’t want Liang to be hurt, she finally decided to submit herself to the arranged marriage.

At school, with the reminding of the teacher’s wife, Liang finally realized that Zhu was a girl and the sister Zhu wanted to introduce to him was actually Zhu herself. After knowing this, Liang was very happy and couldn’t wait any more to see Zhu again.

However, when Liang arrived at Zhu’s home, he was heartbroken to learn that Zhu had to marry another man. There was no way for them to break the feudal customs or rules set at that time.

Since then, Liang got sick and died later.

On the day Zhu was sent for wedding, a mysterious wind brought the team passing by Liang’s grave. When Zhu saw Liang's grave, she cried in bitter despair and begged for the grave to open up.

Suddenly, the grave opened with a strike of thunder. Without any hesitation, Zhu threw herself into the grave and united with Liang.

Their spirits turned into a pair of beautiful butterflies. They flied together and never separated again.

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The above is a 6 - 8 min speech I delivered in my Toastmasters club (AC#4 Tell a story)

Think Positively

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is one of the most influential sentences in English language. Life is precious to everyone. And liberty is even more precious. But under usual circumstances, most of people don't feel their life and their liberty are threatened. What they concern most is the pursuit of happiness.

To obtain happiness, we should know what makes difference to our happiness. There is an Internet survey on what factor is the key to happiness. Nine million people globally participated in that survey. Can you guess what most of people think is the key to happiness?

Money? No. Achievements or Love? No. According to that survey, 59% of people think mental attitude is the key to happiness and only 5% of people think money is the key to happiness.

What is mental attitude? There are several definitions. But basically, mental attitude is our view of the world, of the people around us, and of our situation. Simply put, mental attitude is what we think.

There are hundreds of studies that prove the importance of what we think. There was a psychological test. In that test, a psychologist asked three men to submit themselves to test the effect of mental suggestion on their strength, which was measured by gripping a dynamometer.

When he tested them under normal waking conditions, their average grip was 101 pounds.

However, when he tested them after he had hypnotized them and told them that they were very weak, they could grip only 29 pounds – less than a third of their normal strength.

When these men were tested a third time, telling them under hypnosis that they were very strong, they were about to grip an average of 142 pounds.

When their minds were filled with positive thoughts of strength, they increased their actual physical powers almost fifty per cent.

Such is the incredible power of our mental attitude.

How to think positively? Here are some tips:

1. Look for the good in every situation. It is certain that we can learn and benefit from every situation. If a person is willing to look for good in a situation, he will almost always find it.

2. Be thankful for what you have. Everyone possesses something that is truly worth being thankful for, for example, health, peace, food, fresh air, free time etc. You can be thankful only because you can hear or see if you think of Helen Keller, a famous deaf blind American author.

3. Say positive things about yourself and about other people. Always use positive words, such as, "I can", "I am able", "it is possible", "it can be done", "I like the job" etc.

4. Surround yourself with positive people. Associate yourself with people who think positively. This is also one of the reasons that I come to this Toastmasters club.

5. Engage in some physical activities. Physical exercise helps to develop a positive attitude.

You can find other tips on Internet to help you build up a habit of thinking positively.

Our mental attitude is the vital factor that determines our fate. We are what we think about all day long.

To be happy, healthy and successful, we should think positively.

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The above is one of 8-10 min speeches I delivered in my Toastmasters club (CC#10).

The Seven Impacts of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

On April 20th, 2010, an explosion happened at an offshore oil rig. The explosion caused the death of eleven people and massive oil leaking. That was the well known the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill or BP Deep Water Oil Spill.

The source of the oil spill was located in Gulf of Mexico, about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. From April 20 to July 15, millions of gallons of crude oil had been leaked into ocean. It seems to me that oil leaking touched every American’s nerve.

This slide shows a satellite view of oil spill. As you can see, oil spill spread and covered a large area. On May 1st, that was 10 days after the explosion, the size of the slick was estimated to cover more than 3000 square miles, which is about half size of New Jersey. Just imagine what situation would be if half land of New Jersey were covered by oil. And that was May 1st figure.

Here is a closer look of the slick.

This oil leaking happened at a deep water oil rig. What is Deep water Oil Rig? Deep water Oil Rig is platform used for drilling oil from deep ocean bed.

The explosion caused the subsea oil well blowout. The massive amount of crude oil had been leaked into ocean. What is crude oil? The crude oil is a mixture of a large number of different hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are chemicals that are mainly consisted of carbon and hydrogen. Small parts of crude oil are heavier than water or dissolve in water; but most parts of crude oil are lighter than water and float on the surface of water.

What are the consequences of this Oil Spill?

The first and the most obvious consequence is the loss of oil and natural gas. It is not correct to think the oil spilled belongs to BP. The natural resources like oil and natural gas actually belong to all human beings. No one should have the privilege to squander or waste them. It is estimated that about 200 million gallons of crude oil was leaked. And a large amount of natural gas evaporated too. But loss of oil was only a very small part of the negative impact of this oil spill.

The second negative impact of oil spill is the damage to wild life. Crude oil is toxic to many species including fish, shrimps, craps, sea birds, turtle, whales, dolphin and marine plants such as algae. It is hard or impossible to estimate how much it worth the damage done to wildlife.

Impact three is the damage to environment. Here shows the oil spread into Mouth of Mississippi River. It will take months or years to clean up the visible pollution of oil on Wet land, River, Coasts and reefs.

Impact four is the damage to fishing industry. Fish, shrimp and craps that ingest crude oil are not only toxic to themselves but toxic to people who eat them. That is why fishing is banned in the area influenced by oil spill. Ban of fishing causes lose of job for many fishermen and increase of price of see food.

Impact five is the damage to tourism. Coasts are leading place for tourism. But no one likes to go to coasts where water and beaches are contaminated by oil. It is reported that Florida tourism industry has lost millions of dollars as a result of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, even though no confirmed oil contamination happens there.

Impact six is the potential damage to “special” relationship between US and UK. It is understandable or natural that American People felt frustration and anger about the oil spill. And the criticism of BP and making BP pay for the damage it has caused should not be considered to be attack on Britain. But BP is important to the UK economy. And BP’s interest is connected with British interest.

And impact seven is a positive impact. This oil spill can sever as a painful reminder and powerful impetus for accelerating developing renewable energy and popularizing electricity cars. After all, oil is a finite resource. And the US consume more than 20 percent of the world's oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. American’s addiction to foreign oil has to be dealt with.

Without any doubt, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has made history. It was a catastrophe. But isn’t it a powerful reminder for American government and American people that now is the time to embrace a clean energy future?

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The above is one of 10-12 min speeches I delivered in my Toastmasters club.

Ease Up

Social studies have revealed that the more industrialized and more economically developed a country is, the more fast-paced the country will be. The USA is one of the fastest paced countries in the world. However, fast pace would cause pressures; pressures would cause stress and tension: and stress and tension would cause anxiety, worry, high-blood pressure, stomach ulcer and headache.

To be happy and healthy, we have to come out of tension. How to remove tension? To prepare for this speech, I made a study. There are numerous methods to relax. However, combined with my own experience, I believe three methods are effective to ease up.

The first method is to relax your muscles. In order to relax your mind, you should start with your muscles. Experts suggest that you should check yourself three or four times a day. Ask yourself: Am I making my work harder than it actually needs? Am I hunching up my shoulders? Are the muscles of my face tense or stiff? Do I feel strains with my eyes? Remember that tense muscles are working muscles. They produce nervous tensions and nervous fatigue!

How do you relax your muscles? Suppose you want to relax your eyes. You can close your eyes, focus your attention on your eyes and say to your eyes softly, “Let go. Let go. Stop straining, stop frowning. Let go. Let go.” Repeat that over slowly for a minute…, then you will notice that the muscles of your eyes begin to obey and relax. You can do the same thing with the muscles of your face, your neck, your shoulders, and every part of you body. After you have completely relaxed your body, your mind will also be relaxed.

The second method to easy up is to adjust your breathing. Breathe in and breathe out slowly, steadily and with rhythm. For a few minutes, just pay attention to your breath and try to ignore everything else. Then you will feel peace with your mind. Believe me, it is widely proven that slow, steady and rhythmical breathing is one of the best methods to relax and quiet your mind. It is a method that has been practiced in China and India for thousands of years.

The third method to easy up is to pray. Did I say pray? Yes. Praying is very effective to remove tension, anxiety, and worry. I am not a missionary. But many social and psychological studies have shown that praying has profound effects on your health. What is praying? Different people may have different understanding. But one thing is sure: while you pray, you speak your problems out. Speaking problems out itself is a kind of relief and it clarifies your mind. I believe one function of praying is to take your burden to God and leave it there. Think about this. Isn’t this powerful? God is in control. What are you worrying about? Praying is the tested experience of billions of believers in the world. How to pray? You can master it by going to churches or other places of worship. I believe most of you here know more about how to pray than I do.

To enjoy our life and live longer, we should ease up. When you feel tense and stressful next time, please relax your muscles, adjust your breathing and pray to God.

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This is one of my 5-7 min Toastmaster speeches.

Scientific Method

The progress of science has greatly broadened our understanding of the nature and improved the quality of our life.

Science is organized knowledge on any subject. It includes facts and theories. Scientific methods are techniques used for investigating phenomena, obtaining new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.

Scientific methods differ or vary among subjects, for example, the methods used for studying biology are different from those used for studying Astrology or geology. But basically, a scientific method includes the following steps:

Step one is to define the problem. Ask what the problem is. A well defined problem is halfway to being solved. It is not an easy task to define a problem. Albert Einstein once said if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution. On many occasions, the problem is to know what the problem is.

Step two is to construct hypotheses. Hypothesis is a proposed explanation for the phenomenon or suggested answers to the question. Constructing hypothesis is to give reasonable explanation to the phenomenon based on observation and previous knowledge.

Step three is to make predictions. The prediction is logical and reasonable deduction from the hypothesis. If the hypothesis were correct, what consequences would follow?

Step four is to test the hypothesis by performing experiments or collecting data.

Step five is to draw conclusions. Analyze the results of the experiments and interpreting the data collected, check if they are consistent to the predictions made on step three. Do the results disprove the hypothesis, verify the hypothesis or prove the hypothesis is partly correct that needs to be modified?

These five steps consist of a cycle that will be repeated again and again in continuous scientific exploration.

The key point of scientific knowledge is that the scientific ideas or theories are testable, can be proved or disproved. If an idea or a theory cannot be tested, it could be either because science and technology has not developed to such a stage to provide necessary tools or means to test it, or because the idea or theory is not a scientific one. For example, without invention of microscopes, the microorganisms wouldn’t have been discovered in 19th century, or the idea of existence of invisible life could not be proved at that time.

Ideas concerning value, morality, ethnics and religion are not scientific; they are beyond science. For example, science alone cannot answer if abortion is right or wrong.

It is my belief that scientific methods are not only essential techniques for solving scientific problems but also powerful tools for solving the problems we encounter every day.

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The above is one of my 5-7 min speeches I delivered in Toastmasters Club.