![\"\"](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/12\/Steve-at-Mr.-Shis.jpg\" "\\"Steve")
<\/a>Famous Foreigner Forrest, Founder of the Ping Dynasty<\/p><\/div>\n
Steve is a thoughtful and thorough person, and he’s been making a serious effort to learn some Mandarin.\u00a0 Our first Chinese employee, Jackson Van, tries to help him, but Steve, like every laowai<\/em>,\u00a0stumbles\u00a0over the demanding complexities of tone and puzzles over\u00a0how tonal shifts undetectable to a non-native speakers ear can lead to dramatic shifts in meaning.<\/p>\n Steve’s also tall, and really sticks out in the rural areas where we often\u00a0go on\u00a0site visits.\u00a0 Once in a small village a group of teen-aged girls came squealing up to Steve, begging to have their pictures taken with the giant laowai<\/em>, so we started calling him Famous Foreigner Forrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n We’re in Beijing today, where it’s cold.\u00a0\u00a0 Our taxi driver started laughing when we all piled into his little cab–three big foreigners and Jackson.\u00a0 He nodded toward me and said something while smiling broadly.\u00a0 \u00a0I asked Jackson what the cab driver said.\u00a0 “You have a big nose,” Jackson said.<\/p>\n Steve’s also studying Chinese history and culture, in part so that he won’t commit a\u00a0major design faux pas<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0 The art of feng shui<\/em> is the\u00a0key\u00a0to understanding the Chinese approach to landscape design.\u00a0 It would be a mistake, for example, to have a water fall or stream flowing away from a clubhouse.\u00a0 Water\u00a0represents\u00a0wealth and good chi, so you don’t want it\u00a0floating away.\u00a0 We’re trying to avoid making major cultural blunders, although sometimes it’s hard to see past our gigantic noses.<\/p>\n Chinese history is reckoned by its dynasties–the names given to the eras of particular rulers and their descendents.\u00a0 The Shang and the Zhou and the Qin\u00a0were among the early dynasties, but the last two ruling\u00a0houses of\u00a0China are also the best known in the west: the Ming, from the 14th to the 17th centuries,\u00a0and the Qing (also known, less euphonically, as the Manchu), which lasted until the last emperor effectively relinquished power in 1912.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now that golf is booming in China,\u00a0Steve suggests that the\u00a0current age should be known as The Ping Dynasty.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n We think this has a nice ring to it, so in recognition of Steve’s coinage, this posting is, we believe, the official notice of the world’s first written use of the phrase \u201cThe Ping Dynasty<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"