Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

In his work Rich Dad, Poor Dad , Robert Kiyosaki attempts to dissect the mentality of the poor, the middle class, and the rich.  Among all the differences he notes of the three, one is constantly repeated and stands out as pivotal in the difference.  The rich, he argues, invests in assets and not liabilities.  And when the rich makes these investments, they do so through incomes earned through assets, and not by taking on more liabilities in the form of loans to be repaid.  By wisely investing in income-generating assets within their means and then reinvesting resulting incomes in more assets, a small initial capital can quickly turn into a large sum.

There is an interesting fact that few foreigners know about Japan.  That is, the biggest ethnic population of Japanese people outside Japan live in Brazil, numbering more than 1.6 million for a diaspora that just 2.6 million strong worldwide.  From a modern-day perspective, the oversized presence of the Japanese in an economically struggling and geographically distant country like Brazil seem rather strange, especially when Japanese migrant populations everywhere, including in US, Europe, and Asia, are shrinking as fewer Japanese seek to go and live abroad .

在 著者幫助建立的幾家小店 中有一個共同的現象：開店不過幾周就有十幾張客戶的身份證被遺忘在店員手裏。雖説本店需要用客戶證件作爲貸款的前提，但這些證件衹需要被看到而完全無需留在店裏。當然，店員也從來沒有想要任何人的身份證。對他們來説，額外保存這些東西沒有任何實質上的意義。可也就不知爲什麽，多個客戶在知道身份證忘在店中也沒有着急，以至於即便店員多次打電話給這些客戶，這十幾張身份證還是遺留在店中達幾個月之久。照此下去，可能這些證件注重會在繁忙的店中丟失。

Chinese New Year, come to think of it, can be a very elusive holiday.  Since it follows the lunar calendar that shifts back and forth relative to the Gregorian calendar in use today, the exact date for it fluctuates every year.  There simply is not a clear reminder that "ah, it is Dec 25 today, so it is Christmas" or "ah, it is Jan 1 today, so it is New Year's Day."  Instead, to remember Chinese New Year's, one often just go with the flow as everyone else celebrates.   The local malls and streets , and at home the dinner table and the decorations certainly would not have one forget the important day.