Love the post, but am not sure what you mean when you say that distinctions don't exist between he and she in the chinese language. 他 “ta” is the character for “he” which refers to males, and 她 “ta” is the character for “she” which refers to females. The radical on the left hand side of each character is different, and there are a whole host of characters that have to do with gender in the language like 姦 – which is three characters for female stacked on top of each other, and means “wicked.” (Some of the characters with negative connotations that have female radicals get lots of laughs in beginner Chinese classes.)

E Prime seems like a very interesting concept. Or should I say: Austin thinks E Prime seems like an interesting concept? haha.

Would love to see pics of you on Obama's jet any day

Anyone have any thoughts on sign language? Sign language, even in English-speaking worlds, has taken on their own meanings with words. There is a whole culture unto sign language. Sign language, I suppose, is very visual and very contextual. I grew up with the ESL, which is straight English in which you sign/mime/gesture/act out pretty much every word in decent English structure. Here's an example: I'm going to get a drink. However, ASL is a totally different structure that I have a hard time with because there is no grammar in that! Using that same example, it goes kind of like this: Drink, me get.

Spoken English is still my very first language. ESL is definitely a second “language” for me. I wonder how much perspective will be gained in learning foreign sign language as a bonus to learning to speak foreign language.

While reading your article, I was constantly thinking of Lojban, which is designed explicitly to address the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; to be culturally neutral and allow a ridiculously vast array of ideas to be expressed in virtually any combination or style.
As an active learner of Lojban, I believe that it has succeeded in that, based on my own and others' evidence: I find it makes recognizing my own and others' limited thought patterns, and thinking in a different way, much easier. In Lojban the problem is always primarily deciding what you mean… once that is established, writing or speaking in a particular style is pretty simple. This *REALLY* helps thinking.. Lojban (http://www.lojban.org) has been described as 'remorselessly precise' probably because of this. Maybe you would be interested in it?

Hmm.. I'm going to be careful here about making a broad general statement about how manipulative women can be in China, because I witness it all the time here in North America too. Women saying, “It's FINE” when it's actually NOT “fine”, or “do what you like” when you CLEARLY know that she doesn't want you to make “THAT choice”. You know what I mean? It's the pretense of freedom, yet at the same time manipulating the guilty conscience to her own gain. Perhaps this happens more in China, because it IS less acceptable for women to speak their minds in China. Sexism is more rampant there than in North America.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, I guess this kind of thing happens everywhere, but probably more so in China.

I keep hearing of college professors requiring this; I never had any that did so, but man that must've been frustrating as a college student. Haha.

I think a lot of my views on life have been based on the many things that I've read, studied and digested over the years, and in starting The Middle Finger Project, my goal was to help people gain new perspectives and think critically about the life they're living. So with that in mind, it only makes sense to include some more “academic” type ideas in here, because they've definitely had a great impact on my own mind set. As always, thanks for the kind words, Matt!

I think a lot of my views on life have been based on the many things that I've read, studied and digested over the years, and in starting The Middle Finger Project, my goal was to help people gain new perspectives and think critically about the life they're living. So with that in mind, it only makes sense to include some more “academic” type ideas in here, because they've definitely had a great impact on my own mind set. As always, thanks for the kind words, Matt!

What price would you pay for harmony and getting along? Would you subjugate yourself to your elders, especially the men, to make order of chaos?