##Family Trees and xHTML

I've concluded that it is not possible to mark-up a complete family-tree structure in a single HTML document.  This is because child element cannot have two unrelated parents.

##Do As The Romans Do?

When travelling or living abroad, a person faces a choice:  blend in or be different.  Blending in means to hold back, observe the local customs and imitate them.  It has pros and cons:

<ul>
	<li class="pro">Make people more comfortable with your presence.</li>
	<li class="pro">Run less risk of commiting offending behaviors.</li>
	<li class="pro">Learn a new way of thinking, doing things.</li>
	<li class="con">Be more bland and uninteresting.</li>
	<li class="con">Lose sight of your native identity.</li>
	<li class="con">Lose the advantage of unapplicable social and physical skills.</li>
</ul>

Being different involves keeping original cultural identity intact and minimally intergrating into a foreign culture.  Like wise, it has it pros and cons:

<ul>
	<li class="pro">Able to communicate the positive aspects (and argue the negative) of the native culture.</li>
	<li class="pro">Live comfortably in the usual attitudes and customs.</li>
	<li class="pro">Avoid reveres culture shock on reentry into native culture.</li>
	<li class="con">Create conflict between opposing ideas in different cultures.</li>
	<li class="con">Remain ignorant of local customs and practices.
	<ul>
		<li>Lose the opportunity to expand ones mind.</li>
		<li>Miss taking advantage of distinctly local opportunities.</li>
	</ul>
	</li>
</ul>

Are these goals mutually exclusive?  Largely, they are not.  As is usually the case, the optimal behaviour is somewhere in between the two extremes.  I tend to follow the "blend in" philosophy, so I'm looking to build up skills and knowledge of behaviour that are characteristically American, eg reading books on American government and learning to play the harmonica.  That would help me to balance out my passivity and the downsides that come with it.

##Beijing Jeep

I received this book in the mail yesterday, I'll be reading it shortly.  Re-released in 1997 for forty dollars US, I got it used through Amazon for three dollars plus shipping.  Hooray for Amazon!

<quote>In <span class="book">Beijing Jeep</span>, Jim Mann, a longtime Beijing correspondent, traces the history of the stormy romance between American business and Chinese communism, from its origins in the 1970's through the stunned foreign exodus after the Tiananmen massacre.</quote>

Written in 1989, it is dated but still historically significant.  [&nbsp;<a href="http://www.kokogiak.com/amazon/detpage.asp?sb=s&asin=081333327X&field-keywords=beijing+jeep&schMod=books&type=">Link</a>&nbsp;]