Due to these blurred role expectations for adults and children, grown-ups have become a dying breed in America. According to writer and speaker Robert Bly, one-third of adult Americans are actually half-adults. “We have become a nation of squabbling siblings. We have abandoned our children to day-care centers and our elders to old folks homes, while we, like Peter Pan, simply ‘won’t grow up.’” Bly … Continue reading Yin/Yang and American Culture…. Parent /Child Relationship

This is a continuation of my Friday posts about the book “Yin/Yang and American Culture” by Kim Eun. It is a book well worth reading about the differences between America and much of the rest of the world. This post is about remaining active in our senior years. Although America is criticized for its youth-oriented culture, American elders enjoy more productive lives than their Asian … Continue reading Yin/Yang and American Culture…. Remaining Active

A few months after I came to America, one of my American friends showed me a picture of her sister. “Isn’t she precious?” she said. I was taken aback ; her sister had Down’s syndrome. On another occasion, when I first met my new neighbor, she revealed that she had a mentally retarded son who was sixteen but had the mental capacity of a five-year-old. … Continue reading Yin/Yang and American Culture…. Disabilities

This is a continuation of my Friday posts about the book “Yin/Yang and American Culture” by Kim Eun. It is a book well worth reading about the differences between American and much of the rest of the world. This post is about American Women… “There are two kinds of women in the world: American women and women.” This is a joke among Asian men doing … Continue reading Yin/Yang and American Culture…. Women

This is another post based on the book “Yin/Yang and American Culture: The Paradox”. This one will be about our obsession with winning and competition. No doubt competition has produced for the United States some of the best professionals, the best products, and the best business practices in the world. Nevertheless, there is a downside to Americans’ emphasis on winning at any cost. The pressure … Continue reading Yin/Yang and American Culture….Winning…

This is the next segment in my series of yin/yang and how that relates to American culture.  These initial posts are for the most part the positive aspects of our culture. It is appropriate that I start here so that you can understand that later I am not attacking our culture so much as showing were we could improve even more. This post is about … Continue reading Yin/Yang And The Idea Of Equality…

Many of the world’s greatest inventions are credited to Americans, from the telephone to the computer. Anesthesia, the miracle of painless surgery, is among the greatest gifts that American medicine has given to humanity. The invention of the safety device on passenger elevators by Elisha Otis in 1852 led to the construction of skyscrapers and encouraged metropolitan growth around the world. Nylon , the first … Continue reading Yin/Yang And Creativity….

Nothing is more distinctive than Americans’ disbelief in impossibilities. Every day Americans receive invitations to dream big dreams, and they give the traditional exuberant American answer, “Why not!” In contrast, many Asians believe that things happen as a result of fate: their success or failure in life, work, and marriage is determined by the year, month , date, hour, and place of their birth. Because … Continue reading The Yin/Yang Differences Between America And Asia – Dreams

    The above graphic gives a pretty simple view of yin and yang.  The characteristics on the left side are Yang and the right side Yin. As indicated a healthy balance is required for a happy life. Too much of either Yin or Yang is toxic. I must admit that I have modified this graph in that I removed the words Masculine and Feminine … Continue reading Yin and Yang – The Basic Charactistics….

The concept of Yin/Yang originated in China thousands of years ago but the thoughts behind it are common to many other traditions. The concept is all about balance. Here are some examples: Black/White — There is very little in life that is black or white; everything is a shade of grey which of course is a combination of the two. Hot/Cold — Who wants to … Continue reading Yin, Yang And The USA…

Lets continue with our study of Yin/Yang as it relates to the male/female balance within each of us. Here is a lengthy quote to start us off. I have underlined some of this quote to give it a personal emphasis. This balance of male and female is also very evident in Native American Indian culture where the earth is called ‘Mother earth’ and the sky … Continue reading Yin/Yang The Balance….