Don Tow's Website

Trump has been in office as the President of the U.S. for his second term for only two months, he has made numerous political moves, both in domestic policies and in international policies. I don’t think many of these policies are well thought out or follow a certain theoretical framework. His policies, besides reflecting on the characteristics of Trump as a self-centered person whose primary interest is himself, his wealth and reputation, and a narrow view on what is good for the U.S., I don’t think that these policies reflect a well-thought-out domestic or international policy, so when these policies receive critical reviews, Trump would backtrack. Nevertheless, I think politically Trump is very much against China, so his policies always reflect a policy that is critical of China and takes measures that impede the natural growth of China and the accompanying growth of the rest of the world.

This is clear from many perspectives. From his cabinet members who are always been severe critics of China, such as Secretary of State Mario Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Although he advocates the Monroe Doctrine that other countries should not have any significant involvement in North America, or even Central America or South America, he is intimately involved in forming alliances in Asia, far from the U.S.’s home base in North America. This includes forming military alliances such as with Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia. One also cannot just take his words for granted. One must see what he is doing with his actions. Even though on the surface he seems to be friends to Putin of Russia, but that may be part of his strategy to create more differences between Russia and China, to split Russia and China, to avoid having to face both Russia and China when conflicts arise.

Trump has been creating all kinds of tariffs, with many of them creating higher prices on products sold by American companies, and ultimately hurting Americans in the pocket books, thus adversely affecting the American economy in an adverse way in multiple steps of the economic ladder. Trump needs to understand the ultimate consequences of his tariffs. One also needs to understand the impacts on a country as it tries to improve the overall economic and political impacts on the country. While trying to improve its economic conditions, it must also try to make sure that it did not become a subordinate of another country for the forseeable future.

The largest advanced chip manufacufacturing plant is the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) which is located in Taiwan. U.S. is also trying to move more of its chip manufacturing capabilities from Taiwan to its new and expanding manufacturing plant in Arizona. Besides the fact that these chips may be owned by China since Taiwan is a province under China, there is also the question whether the people who staffed TSMC in Taiwan can be transpended quickly to Arizona, as the expansion to the Arizona facility was part of the Biden administration’s CHIPS Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication Facilities which was announced on April 8, 2024. But numerous set backs, including key differences between Taiwan and the U.S.’s workplace culture, have delayed the beginning of this chips production until 2025 or beyond.

Just like everything else, Trump is doing many things, shaking the foundations from well established positions, eliminating numerous jobs, creating uncertainties in the lives of numerous people, without providing a clear theoretical framework guiding these changes. But we will survive and we will live on beyond the Trump years.

I just finished writing my new book. Its title is The Yin and Yang of the Dragon and the Eagle: Tale of Two Cultures and Two Countries.

This book describes the hardships, challenges, and tragedies faced by the dragons and the eagles as they experience their lives having lived in both China and the U.S.  It is based on the real-life experiences of the Tow family intertwining the cultures of China and the U.S., sometimes exhibiting more of one type than the other, and sometimes spontaneously transforming from one type to another, like yin and yang in Taiji.

The book recollects the unrelenting political chaos and turmoil through two decades of war (the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and China’s Civil War), their family tragedy, and their personal experiences of living the lives of dragons and eagles.  The book begins with my father’s first experience as a not-yet 15-year-old coming to the U.S. as a merchant’s son to attend high school in Providence, Rhode Island,  and then college, first at Brown University in Providence, as a freshman and then the next three years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

It then describes my father’s experience after graduating in 1930 at MIT with a Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering. He then returned to China, and worked in the County Road Department in Guangzhou (also known as Canton), and started his family. All this happened during the turbulent years of the 1930s, including the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931-1945), WWII (1939-1945), and China’s civil war (1927-1949). 

It describes the family tragedy that occurred in our family. During those turbulent years of the 1930s, 1940s, and the first half of the 1950s, it describes their family needing to pull up roots multiple times, often losing everything and needing to start from scratch.  It describes “no man’s land” which was what Hong Kong was called on Christmas 1941. It describes the friendship between my father and Mr. Harold S. Prescott, (his college freshman dormitory roommate at Brown University) that lasted over half a century, across countries and across oceans.

The Tow family then migrated to the U.S. in October 1955. After moving to the U.S., it describes members of the Tow family on their college education, including the author (Don Tow) living through the Free Speech Movement of 1963 at the University of California at Berkeley, the civil rights movement, the Third World Movement, and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement starting in the decade of the 1960s. This decade resulted in many changes in the psyche of Americans, especially among students on American college campuses, as well as in the American society, as well as in other societies world wide. It expanded their horizon and focus, paying much more attention to the social and economic conditions of their society, as well as the world as a whole. This seismic change also affected our contemporaries. For example, a friend from the University of California at Berkeley after finishing his master degree in engineering in 1970 returned to Hong Kong and initiated a project to start teaching high school courses in a remote part of Hong Kong which at that time did not offer high schools in that remote part of Hong Kong.  His effort resulted in several other students joining that effort. This project lasted several years until a public high school was established in that part of Hong Kong. More information on that initiative, as well as what happened after that initiative can be found in Ref. 1.

Starting in the fall of 1970, a global Diao Yu Tai (DYT) Student Movement erupted around the world.  Information on this global DYT Student Movement can be found in Ref. 2. This global student movement originated over the territorial dispute on the Diao Yu Islands (or Diao Yu Tai in Chinese and Senkaku Islands in Japanese) that made front page news in newspapers around the globe.  This dispute dates back to many years, and about 50 years ago this dispute led to a very widespread global Chinese student movement, known as the Diao Yu Tai or DYT Student Movement.  From the very beginning of that global Student Movement, it was recognized that this is not just a minor territorial dispute between two countries, but it had much larger significance involving (1) the revival of Japanese militarism, and (2) American imperialism and collusion with Japan, with the intention to weaken China. This Student Movement started in the fall of 1970 and quickly gained momentum in 1971 and spread around the world in in the following decade.  This Movement also resulted in a major shift in the study focus of oversea Chinese students from mostly science and engineering to a much broader focus covering all disciplines with their eyes on the whole world.

The worldwide Diaoyutai Student Movement resulted in a major impact on the minds and thoughts of Chinese college students across the world in the sense that they are much more focused on the problems of the world, not just on engineering and scientific problems limited to their local neighborhoods. As the years pass by, the Movement affected and drastically changed the lives and the livelihood of numerous Chinese students and as well as the adults as these students become adults.  One could say that the 1970s resulted in a change in the minds of overseas Chinese, and its impacts are reflected in some the things that will be discussed in the rest of this book. 

The book is more than one family’s memoir; it is about the dynamic transformation process of assimilation which all immigrants undergo to one degree or another.  In that sense, this book has more general validity and applicability.

We plan to publish this book in both English and Chinese later this year, including self publishing.

References

Ref. 1: The Shaping of the Life of a Young Student at the University of California at Berkeley, in the August 2011 issue of www.dontow.com.

Ref. 2: Diao Yu Tai Student Movement: Recollection 40 Years Later, and 50 years later, in the October 2010 and the September 2020 issues of the website www.dontow.com.

I had a minor stroke in September 2023, and I have been trying to recover from it in the last year and a half. I had gone through many rounds of physical therapy and accupuncture treatments. I just want to provide the latest update on the progress on my recovery.

During the last year and a half, I have made progress on my recovery, including going through many rounds of physical therapy (PT) and acupuncture treatments (AT) in the sense that I can walk without needing a cane, and basically I can manage my life, although needing to do things carefully and slowly.

Based on my understanding of acupuncture and recovering from strokes, there are two main components. One is that the nerves carrying the neural networks have to be open and those neural networks are able to transport the neural messages back and forth. For example, if we are talking about the lower part of my left legs, the neural networks for controlling that part of my lower left leg have to be open and the neural networks have to be able to transport the messages back and forth. Initially after my stroke, some of the neural networks for that part of my lower left leg might have been damaged and the neural signals might not have been transmitted back and forth. One of the things that my acupuncturist in San Francisco tried to do last December was trying to get those neural networks working again. He told me last December that he was successful in trying to get those neural networks working again. So that was successful.

However, there is also a second component. Besides getting the neural networks to communicate, the muscles controlling that part of my legs have to function properly. And this is more than a yes and no. That is, it takes time and numerous practices for those muscles to get back into shape and function properly. That was why even though my acupuncturist was able to reestablish those neural networks, I couldn’t walk consistently and properly right away, and for an extended period. It took me weeks of practice to build that back. I think I am making progress during the last month, and that progress is going to take more time. I hope that in the next few months, I can continue to make progress.

This is just my understanding of acupuncture and recovery from strokes, and I hope my acupuncture friends and experts can correct or elaborate on my understanding.