Defend the Yellow River (保衛黃河) - Yin Chengzong

This is the last movement of the concerto. It's also my favorite movement among the four. It is a little bit weird for it to show the photo of Mao Zedong near the end of the song though.. Should politics and music be separated? (O___O )

The Yellow River In Anger (黃河憤) - Yin Chengzong

This is the third movement. The melody actually sounds pretty happy in the beginning and it shows the "anger" of the Yellow River in the later half. I especially like the playing of the Chinese flute since I played it in high school before.. Not sure if I still remember how to play if I'm given one now though :P

Ode to the Yellow River (黃河頌) - Yin Chengzong

This is the second movement of the Yellow River Piano Concerto. In contrast with the vividness of the first movement, this movement praises the grandeur of the Yellow River. Third movement coming up next :)

The Song of the Yellow River Boatmen (黃河船夫曲) - Yin Chengzong

The first time I listened to the Yellow River Piano Concerto I was still very small, probably around ten years old. I have been loving it since then. This recital was performed by Yin Chengzong and I think it's one of the best performances of the Yellow River Concerto despite the fact that it was recorded long time ago (in the 60's).

Note: If you can read Chinese, here's a little story about his life after he moved to New York :)

Friends who talk to you ONLY when they need help

Do you have friends who talk to you only when they need help? Unfortunately, I do.

I never really had this experience before graduating from college. When you're young, you friends usually call you up to have fun together: watch movie, play sports, eating, hanging out, whatever.

After starting my career, I begin to notice that some people only contact me when they need certain kind of help. As soon as they discover that there's no way to gain any benefit from me, they'll stop talking to me, so suddenly that as if they intend to let me know that I'm of no value to them anymore.

Does society encourage this kind of thoughts for working professionals? If not, how come I never saw people like that when I was small?

I mean, even if you have such thought of only interacting with people who can help you in certain ways, would you make it a little bit less obvious?

Maybe that's the way the "professional" world works.

Maybe I'm still not "mature" enough to accept this as the norm of socializing (-____- )

一生何求 (What you want in your Life) - Leo Ku

Like this song very much lately. The melody is very sweet :) Sorry for the sound quality of the video though, I couldn't find a better one on YouTube..

Multilevel Marketing (MLM)? No...

I hesitated before writing this post since it may offend some of my friends who're in the business of Multilevel Marketing (MLM). However, I decided to write this post anyways because I really want to say something about it. So, if you're doing MLM business, please don't take this post personally as I'm just speaking of my general feelings about it.

Fear of MLM people

To be honest, I have a fear of MLM people (people in a MLM business). Why do a I fear them? Two reasons:

• They make me feel that they're some form of cult
• Whenever the MLM people contact me, I'll, automatically, think that they're trying to ask me to join them or sell me their products/services
  

Most of the times I'm just not interested in their products/services and I have to think of some excuse to reject their solicitations.

Rejecting a "friend"

It's pretty easy to say no to a stranger. The problem is that the MLM people are usually my "friends". I don't know about you, but I have an uneasy feeling whenever I need to reject my friends' requests. Sometimes I just don't know if I should treat the MLM people as my real friends or not since I don't like friendship with so much focus on money.

"Using" a friend

My old friend in Hong Kong once described friendship in the following way:

• if you think of friendship in a nice way, it's helping each other
• if you think of friendship in a bad way, it's using each other

Yes, what he said is kind of true. Nevertheless, I'm still not fond of the idea of "using your friends", and MLM people give me exactly that feeling (although they may not all think that way). They have every reason to persuade you to join their teams because once you do so they

1. Get a bonus just because you sign up
2. Earn a portion of your commission whenever you ask more people to join or sell some products/services

Win-win?

I know, they emphasize on the point that it's a "win-win" strategy: whenever you make money, I make money too. Yes, but this "win-win" is only in one direction. If I am one level below you,

• You make money when I make money, cool, win-win
• I don't make money when you make money, oops, no win-win

So, if I sign up at a level below you, effectively I'm working for you without getting paid!

Think about it, in an employer-employee relationship, the employer has to pay for the work the employee does for him/her. In an MLM relationship, a lower-level person works for him/herself, but then a portion of the money s/he earns goes to the upper-level person, no, actually, ALL the upper-level people, even someone s/he doesn't know. How do you feel about that? Do you feel being treated fairly? How about the fact that your "friend" or some stranger suddenly becomes your boss?


And sometimes those "friends" are just acquaintances

According to what I said above, MLM isn't really a win-win relationship. Instead, I feel that I'm doing one a favor if I join his/her MLM business.

Now, the funny thing is that those MLM people usually introduce the MLM business to the friends they just meet, some people they've only chatted for a while.

"Why would I do you a favor if I just know you? How can I not think that you're just using me?"

It's not that difficult to spend some time to get to know the person first before asking for a favor, right?

To friend or not to friend?

Actually what I just said about how "close" a friend is may not matter much: I don't like the idea of "using a friend", what's in my mind when you ask me to join a MLM business?

• if I treat you as a friend, I can't join since being used or using others violate my definition of friends
• if I don't treat you as a friend, why the hack do I want to help you?
  

Initial signup fee is a ripoff

Another bad thing about the MLM business is that people usually need to spend quite some money (usually a few hundred dollars) before they can join it. Some MLM even asks its member to pay a monthly fee.

I just hate these ideas.

I sell stuff for you and you pay me, good, it's fair. But now you're asking me to pay you even if I do nothing. Doing nothing isn't a sin but I've to pay for it? That doesn't make sense to me. If I don't have to pay anything for doing nothing and you only pay me when I help you sell stuff, I may consider joining your team.

So...

Because of the things I mentioned above, I just don't have a good feeling about MLM business in general. What're you thoughts?