Chinese Version
06-19-2019

In 2018, while chatting with my brother about nutrition and hygiene-related education in elementary and middle school, I said that the Chinese have accumulated good eating and drinking habits over the thousand year history. Those habits helped many modern Chinese to remain healthy thanks to their knowledge of food and nutrition and they are worth carrying forward.

I told my brother: “I realized the Chinese have good eating and drinking habits when I chaperoned my son’s visit to the railroad museum at California’s capital, Sacramento, more than ten years ago.”

Ten years ago, at the railroad museum, what the tour guide said about the Chinese railroad workers who built the railroad faster than Western workers impressed me. She said the Chinese workers did not get sick often, even during the cold months, so their attendance rate was always high; they built the railroad quickly even though their body structures were short and small. On the other hand, the Western workers were often sick and their attendance rate was low so they built railroad slow, even though their body structures were tall and big. The difference of working efficiency between the Chinese workers and the Western workers was related to the fact that the Chinese workers drank boiled water, but the Western workers drank raw water which was not boiled. This story shone a light on the fact that good eating and drinking habits boost productivity and that the Chinese tend to care about food hygiene in general.

Good eating and drinking habits boosting productivity was also reflected in my very long IT career in Silicon Valley. My career as an internet software engineer started at eBay in 2000, and ended at Paypal in 2016. I cared about good eating habits at all times during my work life. Even with important tasks and rapid delivery in the early stages of eBay (around 2000 – 2005), I rarely got sick and constantly delivered reliable innovative large-scale software products thanks to my healthy eating habits.

My brother asked me to share a story about the Chinese railroad workers and Chinese good eating and drinking habits. I told him that I needed to revisit the railroad museum in Sacramento before I could write the story. More than a year has passed since then, and I still haven’t had a chance to revisit the railroad museum. So I still cannot write the story.

Recently, while cleaning my house, I found my son’s report of his day trip to Sacramento, which I mentioned to my brother last year. The day trip from San Jose to Sacramento, by a charted bus, was a required field trip at Greystone Elementary School, the school that both of my children attended. The students were required to write a report about this daytrip. My daughter missed this trip, because it was cancelled in 2001 due to 9/11.

The main points which I had chatted with my brother about were the Chinese railroad workers who had good eating and drinking habits were also captured in my son’s report. “The workers that built the railroad were Chinese, they were good workers because they didn’t get sick, because they boiled their food, also they were strong.”

With my son’s permission, I am sharing his elementary school homework about the Sacramento daytrip. In his report, he wrote about a candy shop, schools, Capital Hill, Sutter’s cannon, the big bus, and the railroad museum.

Using my son’s elementary homework, I managed to fulfill my brother’s request. The charm of writing carries forward the love between siblings, son and mother, and mankind.

My Son’s Report

Bus Ride
On the bus ride to Round Table Pizza all I did was watch movies. When I arrived at Round Table Pizza, I quickly finished my dinner of pizza and went to watch TV, I saw some kids buying toys which they weren’t allowed to do. When the teacher got out of the bathroom, she made the people stop them. we got on the bus again.
Rail Road Museum
At the Rail Road Museum, I learned about the railroad that connects California to the rest of the United States and some of the different carts of the trains that were used on it. The workers that built the railroad were Chinese, they were good workers because they didn’t get sick, because they boiled their food, also they ere strong.The two groups that built the railroad were the Union and Central Pacific. The different carts were the mail, dinner, refrigerator, and the sleeper cart.
Capital Building
In the capital building I swa many different rooms and designs. When I went into the governor’s room I saw many artifacts and some people. In another two rooms the tours guid said there was gargoly on the celling, but I didn’t find them. After the tour group, I got out the teacher took a picture of my class and I.

My Career Path

A Little Episode

In “Mathematician’s Shiva”, the mathematician, the main character, believed her mother died during the cholera epidemic because her mother drank unboiled water outside their apartment.

“My father was aware of the potential danger, and made sure that my mother boiled the water before any use. But other families weren’t so cautious and the extra wood necessary for precautionary boiling was almost impossible to find. cholera erupted that spring, and it’s likely that my mother who would occasionally visit other women at the camp, had taken a drink of water from somewhere outside our apartment.”

I suddenly realized that the common sense of drinking boiled water is good was obtained via losing a lot of lives. Similarly, in the long history of without advanced medicine, many ancient family remedies were obtained from many lives been lost.