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Q: Do you read American self help books?
You know the books I mean. The books that you read that teach you to be a winner.
Is it only Americans that read these books?
You mean like
"The Bible"
"How to make wheat grass juice taste less of ass"
"The Secret"
some Steve Jobs biography ?
Can't say that I have. I did read "The Game", then I met my wife and now I am in China...... so apart from "The Game" having no role in meeting my wife now I am in China
CHINA....
How weird is that. So don't say that self help books don't work. !!! I am sure by far most of them have made the authors rich enough to afford plane tickets away from China.
It's been a while since I've been to a bookstore in China, but as I remember, it is half self help books, a fourth magazines,24 hundreds toys/plastic crap/musical instruments and the latest Dan Brown book
Kind of. Reading is hard, but i have some of those fandangled audio books.
Flipped through one once while in Barnes & Noble; Lots of motivational crap, without saying anything useful .
Chinese people love this shit in my neck of the woods.
From what I have seen looking over some shoulders at work, it is mostly obvious advice with a bit of 'you can do it' thrown in. Basically it is bullshit for people with no direction hoping to cash up quickly without really doing any work or having an original idea. But it does make the authors bucket loads of cash. Good for them.
expatlife26:
yeah some of those books are like that just dumb get rich quick nonsense...but others do have some valuable info in them.
No but I heard (I think on here) of a Chinese self-help book called "Jews: They Don't Think Like We Do" with a picture of Einstein on the cover.
Two of my students have told me about The Secret. Both of them mentioned that it was "science".
From what I understand, it namedrops of a lot of historical scientists, with the implication that A) their understanding of the universe is somehow related to the positive energy bullshit that this book espouses, and that B) The Secret therefore has a basis in science.
I guess people are easily taken in by the idea of having some cosmic advantage just by reading a book. Which begs the question: If I want a new bike, is prayer, or sending out positive thoughts, more effective?
expatlife26:
Typical...I never heard of it but I can tell it's trash already.
sucks that those kinds of claims can make gullible people think it's real.
I always find it odd that I agree with Samsara 99.9% of the time, yet he is a secular atheist, and I'm a deist with Catholic leanings...
Samsara:
I'm particularly interested to hear about your metaphysical beliefs, rasklnik.
I'm very glad that diverse views about existence and the cosmos exist. My objections are mainly to the political effects of organised religion, and religious attempts to impede, ridicule or obfuscate the progress of science and morality.
TedDBayer:
frig, books ''Doing Business in China for Dummies'' ,,, ''Chinese for Dummies'' ?
I think you guys are too cynical. Other than some get rich quick scheme trash books, those dale carnegie style ones I think can be really helpful for some people.
I can read something like How to Win Friends and Influence People and say ahhh this is just obvious stuff. But it's obvious to me cause it's the same shit my parents were always telling me to do.
To anybody who had ignorant dumbasses for parents but wants to not be an ignorant dumbass I think something like that can be really helpful. Lot of locals fall in that category, so good on them for reading it.
a way of making up for bad social capital
Do Americans need books to know this? They can help themselves just fine. Mainlanders need self help books.
