Wednesday, March 18, 2020

New York City The Financial Capital of the World

New York City The Financial Capital of the World unlike some of the lesser-known cities in this series, you probably don’t need to be sold on the professional and cultural advantages of   new york city. but as a reminder, here’s what’s great!culturemuseums:  they’re here, and they’re abundant: from the met to the folk art museum and weird ones like the morbid anatomy museum in brooklyn, if someone important made it, chances are we display it somewhere  in this city.theater: in addition to the fancy bright lights of broadway (hamilton is playing here and only here, just saying) and their attendant ticket prices, there are also discount tickets and off-broadway theaters offering accessible and once-in-a-lifetime shows for snobs and populists alike.music: from the grittiest underground club to dizzy’s jazz supper club at lincoln center, there are options for even the pickiest listener every night of the week.food: when people coming to the city for the first time ask me for restaurant re commendations, i just sort of laugh. there are way too many choices to offer up one option that will suit everyone. my favorite is butter midtown, alex guarneschelli’s masterpiece on 46th st, for the record. we have every cuisine you can imagine at every possible price point, from the $2 gourmet food truck special to the $$$$$ plate at [insert exclusive fancypants resto here]. periodic restaurant weeks offer prix fixe tastes to those of us with smaller wallets.job forecastaccording to the bureau of labor statistics, the top 5 industries in new york are:financial services (duh, didn’t you guys listen to hamilton yet?)health care,  especially providing assisted living services for seniorsprofessional, scientific and technical servicesretail trade and food service.  it’s a tough climate, but if you can find your audience, it can be a resilient and rewarding field.manufacturing,  particularly electronics and apparelwhile the cost of living is intense (weâ€⠄¢re always ranked in the top 5 most expensive cities in the  nation, if not higher), new york is also home to a vibrant community of freelancers and self-employed creative types, from graphic designers to copyeditors. we make our workaday homes in coffee shops and coworking co-ops, and utilize nyc’s expansive (though occasionally dysfunctional) public transit to get from place to place so we can read on the train.housing outlookas manhattan’s up-and-coming neighborhoods in this year’s roundup for aspiring buyers included jackson heights, jamaica, and ridgewood in queens; kensington, bay ridge, and sunset park in brooklyn; washington heights in manhattan; and the south bronx. new york magazine also recommends renting in ditmas park in brooklyn, sunnyside in queens, cliffside park and bloomfield in new jersey, st. george in staten island, and hudson heights in way-uptown-manhattan.nyc may not make sense for every professional or up-and-comer, but if you’ re willing to broaden the scope of your housing search and make up for the expense of, well, everything with the availability of free, cheap, and discounted cultural abundance- it may be the city you’ve been waiting for.

Monday, March 2, 2020

Sun Tzu Biography

Sun Tzu Biography Sun Tzu and his Art of War are studied and quoted in military strategy courses and corporate boardrooms around the world. There’s just one problem – we aren’t sure that Sun Tzu actually existed! Certainly, someone wrote a book called The Art of War several centuries before the common era. That book has a singular voice, so it is likely the work of one author and not a compilation. That author also appears to have had significant practical experience leading troops into battle. For simplicity’s sake, we will call that author Sun Tzu. (The word Tzu is a title, equivalent to sir or master, rather than a name - this is the source of some of our uncertainty.) Traditional Accounts of Sun Tzu According to traditional accounts, Sun Tzu was born in 544 BCE, during the late Spring and Autumn Period of the Zhou Dynasty (722-481 BCE). Even the two oldest known sources about Sun Tzus life differ as to his place of birth, however. Qian Sima, in the Records of the Grand Historian, claims that Sun Tzu was from the Kingdom of Wu, a coastal state that controlled the mouth of the Yangtze River during the Spring and Autumn Period. In contrast, the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Lu Kingdom state that Sun Tzu was born in the State of Qi, a more northerly coastal kingdom located approximately in modern Shandong Province. From about the year 512 BCE, Sun Tzu served the Kingdom of Wu as an army general and strategist. His military successes inspired him to write The Art of War, which became popular with strategists from all seven rival kingdoms during the Warring States Period (475-221 BCE). Revised History Down through the centuries, Chinese and then also western historians have reconsidered Sima Qians dates for Sun Tzus life. Most agree that based on the specific words he uses, and the battlefield weapons such as crossbows, and the tactics he describes, The Art of War could not have been written as early as 500 BCE. In addition, army commanders during the Spring and Summer Period were generally the kings themselves or their close relatives - there were no professional generals, as Sun Tzu appears to have been, until the Warring States Period. On the other hand, Sun Tzu does not mention cavalry, which made its appearance in Chinese warfare around 320 BCE. It seems most likely, then, that The Art of War was written sometime between about 400 and 320 BCE. Sun Tzu probably was a Warring States Period general, active about one hundred or one hundred and fifty years after the dates given by Qian Sima. Sun Tzus Legacy Whoever he was, and whenever he wrote, Sun Tzu has had a profound influence on military thinkers over the past two thousand years and more. Tradition avers that the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huangdi, relied on The Art of War as a strategic guide when he conquered the other warring states in 221 BCE. During the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763 CE) in Tang China, fleeing officials brought Sun Tzus book to Japan, where it greatly influenced samurai warfare. Japans three reunifiers, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, are said to have studied the book in the late sixteenth century. More recent students of Sun Tzus strategies have included the Union officers pictured here during the American Civil War (1861-65); Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong; Ho Chi Minh, who translated the book into Vietnamese; and US Army officer cadets at West Point to this day. Sources: Lu Buwei. The Annals of Lu Buwei, trans. John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riege, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Qian Sima. The Grand Scribes Records: The Memoirs of Han China, trans. Tsai Fa Cheng, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008. Sun Tzu. The Illustrated Art of War: The Definitive English Translation, trans. Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.