Amy Tan on Creativity

Amy Tan is an author, one of her latest books is called `Saving Fish from Drowning'. In this TED talk on Creativity, she explains the Chinese saying behind the title of that book. Buddhists believe in doing no harm to living creatures, but they still need to make a living. Some Chinese Fisherman justify what they do by saying that they are saving the fish from drowning, but unfortunately they die in the process... so they sell them.

That is an aside. She is not the most energetic of speakers, but a lot of what she said got me thinking... definitely worth the small investment of 18 minutes of your time.

One of the things she spoke about was her decision to visit Burma. People had told her that if she went, she would be seeing as condoning the military regime. She decided that that is not why she wanted to go, and irrespective of what others thought, she would go based on her intent.

This raises an interesting point. If you disagree with China, or rather, if you are upset by their human rights record... should you object to the Olympics being there, or doing business with the Chinese? Should you refuse to interact with the Chinese?

I am not convinced that that is the right answer.

FACT: China is going to play a big role in all of our futures.
FACT: The wests human rights record is not spotless.

I think there is a massive cultural understanding gap... with China, with the Middle East, amongst others. It is very easy for us to assume a moral high ground and not engage with those with whom we disagree. The problem is, I don't think we have any right to assume that high ground, plus without understanding underlying philosophies and cultural belief systems, honest engagement becomes very difficult.

Anyway... that has little to do with her talk. Which is the first TED talk I downloaded this month after going WAY over my bundle limit last month. Need to organise unlimited downloads soon or I am going to get very sad. In one day, I have used up 40% of my monthly allocation.

Download her talk.