I\u2019m in a diner along a dusty desert highway. I\u2019ll order another cup of coffee and share some random thoughts:<\/p>\n
1) The Saipan network<\/strong> Many, probably most, of these pros long ago left the island, but, paradoxically, this strengthened the Saipan network because it pushed its elements to take root in other places. Some of my old pals are now working in the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, mainland China, South Korea, New Zealand, Japan, the Caribbean, and just about anywhere in the mainland you care to name.<\/p>\n I recently crossed paths with a couple of helicopters I had flown on Saipan almost 25 years ago. They\u2019re in the U.S heartland, and we converged during a work assignment. The copters, and their exotic, Micronesian origins, drew in a few aviation enthusiasts for a bit of a powwow and flight-story swapping.<\/p>\n I was surprised at how many people had been to Saipan, including pilots, mechanics, ex-military members, and a business owner or two.<\/p>\n One of these guys wound up exporting finished goods to Japan based on his association with a mechanic who had gone from Saipan to Japan to inspect an aircraft. The mechanic was impressed with Japan, and saw that there was a lot of opportunity there. One thing leads to another, as they say.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what makes networks so powerful in the long run, and what made, and makes, Saipan so special to so many people.<\/p>\n 2) Cassettes<\/strong> Yeah, yeah, I know how great CDs and MP3s are. But I\u2019ve always had a weak spot for cassettes. For me, in terms of utility, the leap from pre-cassette days to cassettes was a lot bigger than the leap from cassettes to CDs.<\/p>\n One reason for my allegiance is the good engineering on some of the old \u201cAM\/FM\/Cassette\u201d car stereos. Ford, in particular, had designs that you could operate by touch, without taking your eyes off the road. One of my casual ambitions is to convert an old car radio into tabletop device.<\/p>\n As for now, my old car radios are still in my cars. Most of my cars are so old they don\u2019t even have CD players.<\/p>\n The new wave group Bow Wow Wow sang a paean to cassettes in a 1980 song called \u201cC30 C60 C90 Go!\u201d<\/p>\n CD\u2019s came along shortly after that song did; the first audio CD hit the market in 1982.<\/p>\n The biggest change in all this stuff isn\u2019t technical. It\u2019s social. Electronic devices used to be merely peripheral parts of daily life but, now, for many people, they are the center of life.<\/p>\n 3) The HSK<\/strong> The HSK comes in six levels: I through VI. The higher the level, the more advanced the test. Most people I\u2019ve talked to about it regard Level IV as a good marker of having basic, street-level ability for most common situations, but I\u2019m just passing on their informal consensus. I don\u2019t have any opinion on the matter.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t sat for the HSK yet, but I\u2019ll get around to it eventually.<\/p>\n 4) Leibniz<\/strong> Anyway, here\u2019s the riff from the book Knowledge and Metaphysics: \u201cThere is always hiding in things a principle of determination which is based on consideration of maximum and minimum, such that the greatest effect is obtained with the least, so to speak, expenditure.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, nature doesn\u2019t waste effort.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot to that, I think, but for now I figured I\u2019d just share the quote before I lose that calendar again. Nature might not waste effort, but I sure do.<\/p>\n Well, I\u2019ve finished my coffee. The open road beckons, so I\u2019m going to pop a cassette into the Ford\u2019s player and hit the highway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m in a diner along a dusty desert highway. I\u2019ll order another cup of coffee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56,542,170,67],"class_list":["post-208748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-business-3","tag-caribbean-2","tag-japan","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAlthough Saipan\u2019s business heyday is long past, there were so many friendships and associations made in the good days that the Saipan network was still alive and well. I\u2019m not talking about the network of the political operatives, although that sure does exist. By contrast, I\u2019m talking about the association of professionals such as business owners, engineers, doctors, pilots, and such.<\/p>\n
\nYou can file this under old fuddy-duddy: I bought some cassettes today.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve been asked if there\u2019s a standard test of Chinese-language proficiency for foreigners. I\u2019m sure there are all sorts of those tests, but the best known is called the \u201cHSK\u201d exam, which comes from the Mandarin words for \u201cChinese Level Test\u201d (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi).<\/p>\n
\nI just found an old pocket calendar in which I had scribbled the following quote from a book by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1649-1716), the mathematician who, along with Isaac Newton, is credited for inventing calculus. Well, I didn\u2019t mean \u201calong\u201d as in \u201ccollaboration.\u201d I meant as in \u201calso.\u201d<\/p>\n