Toronto, Ontario; Agincourt, Ontario; Shanghai, PR China; Wuhan, PR China; Vancouver, BC.
Riverside neighbourhood: Urban foresters pruning our city-owned tree away from electrical power lines, viewed from our second-floor bedroom window. The cutter in the bucket and driver clearing falling debris were working their way down the street. Preventive maintenance of essential infrastructure shows good long-term planning in our municipality. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20180403 Buddhist Vegetarian Kitchen: Convened a family dinner, as travel schedules have members coming and going so much that most will miss the clan’s annual spring event. Venue selected as Chinese vegan cuisine, consistent with the eco-Atkins plant-based diet almost 4 weeks in progress. Ordered goose, beef, chicken, pork dishes, all mock meats, finishing with a side order of duck and then black sesame soup dessert. (Buddhist Vegetarian Kitchen, Midland Avenue, Agincourt, Ontario) 20180409 Zhangliang Tongji United Plaza: Picking own ingredients to put into soup broth is a fast way to ensure a vegan dinner. Requesting “bu la”, or not spicy, didn’t seem to reduce the heat of malatang. Runners in the store will pick orders for phone-in takeout orders. A quick meal before an earlier bedtime, with a 12-hour time zone jump on a 14-hour direct flight. (Zhangliang Malatang, Tongji United Plaza, Zhangwu Road, Yangpu district, Shanghai, PR China) 20180414Godly Nanjing Road: Intersecting @doug_schuler to discuss pattern language research trajectories. He is at end of visit from Seattle, we are at beginning from Toronto. After vegan duck, fish belly, beef and crab meat, walked through People’s Park marriage market umbrellas. (Godly Nanjing Road, Shanghai, PR China) 20180415 Bitter: Comparing @snousala@doug_schuler radical approaches to higher education that enable students to learn differently. Signals that China is changing pedagogical approaches for new young leaders, and investing heavily in academic research and advanced education in ways not apparent in the west. (Bitter, Wuyuan Lu, French Concession, Shanghai, PR China) Fushun Road: Wicker chairs on cart pulled by worker on foot on the city street, in the old fashioned way. Had a morning walk around the neighbourhood south of Tongji U., active with early shoppers at markets. (Fushun Road, Siping district, Shanghai, PR China) 20180417 Anshan Road: Small world intercept with TL in stationery store, on random walk around the shopping streets near Tongji U. DY had expressed admiration of the variety of colours of the pen set in the office. Our chance encounter spoiled a surprise gift planned for an hour later. (Anshan Road, Siping district, Shanghai, PR China) 20170417 Hongqiao Railway Station: Long queue builds anxiety, as gates open just 20 minutes before train leaves, and platform is through the turnstiles and down stairs. Chinese crowds are pushy, in contrast to more orderly western groups. D-train Shanghai-Wuhan speed is up to 250km/h, as compared to G-train up to 300km/h. (Hongqiao Railway Station, Shanghai, PR China) 20180418 Wuhan U. of Technology: Man exercising with diabolo spinning with string between two batons, on the exercise field in the middle of campus on a warm spring morning. The short cut across the track has been closed off since our last visit, it’s a long walk from the east gate to the College of Art and Design. (Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, PR China) 20180419Donghu Lake: Docks on the west shore of East Lake, on the edge of the Wuhan University campus. Young people dangling legs over the edge, speedboats stopping to pick up passengers for a water crossing. Further south, we encountered couples posing for wedding photographs. (Donghu Lake, Wuhan, PR China) 20180420 Hongshan Pagoda: Tower built in 1280 AD, originally named Lingji Pagoda in memory of the Buddhist master, north side of Baotong Temple. We climbed the narrow steps of irregular heights to ascend to a majestic view of Wuhan. The descent was just as challenging, as stability called for me to sit at each steep step, to deliberately place my foot down. At the end, my clothes were covered with dust, and the tops of my thighs trembled from fatigue. (Hongshan Pagoda, Baotong Temple, Wuhan, PR China) 20180421 Baotong Temple Vegetarian: Our group shared the widest variety of Buddhist vegan cuisine that I have ever encountered. We were hosted by the restaurant manager, whose son had been guided to graduate studies abroad by SN. The luxury of a large, air-conditioned room on the second floor, meticulously prepared foods and attentive servers were a refreshing follow-on from climbing uphill through many temple halls, and navigating steep steps up the pagoda. (Baotong Temple Vegetarian, Wuhan, PR China) 20180421Jiulong Hongshan: Conference dinner with speakers and organizers for SCUD2018 on Smart Cities and Urban Design. Cajoled to consume my first alcohol of the year, thimble-sized goblets of rice wine permitted, to follow a Mongolian ritual toast for the heavens, the earth, and ancestors. (Jiulong Hotel, Hongshan district, Wuhan, PR China) 20180421 Smart Cities and Urban Design: Painting by Professor WU Xingkuan in honour of formal opening of SCUD International Smart Cities and Urban Design Conference. Our group had the first plenary session slot, and we learned more about each others’ research focus, because the prior meetings have been much more on process rather than content. We’ll refine our collective direction, with diverse perspectives and interests as our strength. (2018 International Conference on Smart Cities and Urban Design, Xiongchu International Hotel, Hongshan district, Wuhan, PR China) 20180422Tongji Huangpu School: Lecturing again to high school class, on systems thinking relevant to their current project to design a bridge. Eased into systems levels and pacing with a personal story about family and service systems at home. Whiteboard discussion on bridge led to a question: will animals be permitted to cross the bridge, or will they be prevented from following their nature? (Tongji Huangpu School, Middle Sichuan Road, Waitan, Shanghai, PR China) 20180423 Vanilla Rockbund: Colleague out of town presented an opportunity for more deeply acquainting with the spouse. Discussed life in Shanghai, the history and status of Finland over the past 25 years, and upcoming options for residencies elsewhere in the world. No alcohol consumed, it’s a school night! Venue was trendier than our usual style, the four millennial women at the next table were preoccupied with their mobile phones, and taking selfies. (Vanilla Rockbund, Beijing East Road, Shanghai, PR China) 20180423 Long Museum Pudong: Massive central hall leads to galleries on upper floors. “L’étranger mélancolie” of post-1911 exchanges between China and the west, “90th Anniversary of Army Day”, and 1700s Qing Dynasty sceptre were interesting on technique, but the subjects weren’t of our usual contemporary interests. On a Tuesday morning, we two seemed to be the only visitors to this large art museum, a long taxi ride from our hotel in the Bund. (Long Museum Pudong, Luoshan Road, Shanghai, PR China) 20180425Long Museum West Bund: Long taxi ride back over Huangpu River to newly developing West Bund neighbourhood. Enjoyed “Asian Impression” of contemporary Chinese, Japanese and South Korean art. Downstairs gallery included Shi Yongjun (2012) “Daily Routine”; Li Jikai 2009 “On a Dumped Riprap”; Tu Hongtoa (2006) “Pure Landscape”; and Luo Quanmu (2007) “Lost Deer”. Also saw the movie set of Yong Fudong (2018) “Dawn Breaking” of 30-day filming, each day complemented by a video diary of crews at work. Venue is so far upstream on the river that familiar Bund sights aren’t visible from the banks. (Long Museum West Bund, Longteng Avenue, Xuhui District, Shanghai, PR China) 20180425 Brewery Creek Mount Pleasant: Flowering cherry trees in full blossoms along many streets, planted in Vancouver since the 1930s. Visiting town for a four days to visit DY’s family, routing PVG-YVR-YYZ at no extra charge. With 9-hour time zone change over the international date line, opted for a basement apartment in a residential house towards the east side. (Brewery Creek / Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, east 12th Street, Vancouver, BC) 20180425Gaoler’s Mews: Incongruity of having lunch at vegan MeeT at Gastown restaurant, beside L’Abbatoir named for the city’s former main butchery and meat packing distict. Opted for a Beyond Burger special not on the regular menu, that looked and had the sensation of a rare beef patty. While not terrible, I prefer the denseness of the veggie burgers that we’ve had for decades. Dining al fresco in warm spring weather. (MeeT at Gastown, Gaoler’s Mews, Water Street, Vancouver, BC) 20180426MeeT At Gastown: Managing to adhere to a vegan prescription with the pea-based Beyond Burger veggie patty, although the kaiser bun and french fries aren’t on the Portfolio Diet or Eco-Atkins Diet. Enjoying western style food in the clean BC air with greater spring weather, after 10 days in China. (MeeT at Gastown, Water Street, Vancouver, BC) 20180426 Tangent Cafe: Local jazz listings found @wmatsushita in Nicholas Bracewell The Collective with Chris Fraser, Daniel Howard. He was surprised to see us, since at home in Toronto is a more likely encounter. The variety of beers in this venue seems to attract customers more than the food, which was good. (Tangent Cafe, Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC) 20180426
Vancouver Harbour North Shore: View off back of the Seabus is better than that out the front, on both directions. Met with DY’s friend for lunch in Lonsdale Quay, had a view of workmen painting concrete barriers yellow. Snow on the mountaintops gradually receding in the warm spring sunshine. (Lonsdale Quay from Seabus, Vancouver Harbour, BC) 20180427
Southbound Canada Line rises in height to cross over Fraser River via the North Arm Bridge, with a gradual turn west towards a shorter Middle Arm Bridge. Rafts of log booms see bundles of timber floated downstream on the way to processing. Scenic exit from the city on the way to YVR. (Canada Line Skytrain, […]
In morning shade, Kim Adams (2001) Squid Head is two rear ends of cargo load delivery vans. Without cabs or steering wheels, the lack of human driver foreshadowed vehicles 25 years later. Initially noticed the lack of license plates on the complementary blue GMC rear end, along our journey from city centre to YVR. (Vancouver […]
Photorealistic machine feel at centre of Ewan McNeil (2023) Roller Ball acrylic on canvas. Incongruous with floral patterns in background. Part of the Pattern Language exhibition also showing Dana Cromie. (Pendulum Gallery, RBC Place, West Georgia Street, Vancouver, British Columbia) 20250505
Leisurely lunch with @chris_wiesinger discussing Language Action Perspective, Heidegger and life histories. Previous connection via @chaunceybell, followed through on idea that we should meet when in town. Offshoot threads to others we haven't met in person. (Nuba in Gastown, West Hastings Street, Vancouver, British Columbia) 20250505
Walking through Vancouver West End, encountered creatively designed public space officially opened in 2022. First new park in 10 years, full of visual interest with skybridge, play areas, pavilions, coffee shop. High urban density, serves 30,000 residents within a 10-minute walk. (Rainbow Park, Richards Street, Vancouver, British Columbia) 20250504
Still a free thrill to carefully descend and ascend the arc of the bridge, holding handrails to moderate speed. Posted sign says closure in the fall, maybe time for resurfacing that happens every 10 years. Valley for the Lynn Creek is separate from the larger Capilano River, where we visited the fish hatchery. (Lynn Canyon […]
Dyadic waterfalls may follow Shinto style of complementary Odaki (masculine) and Medaki (feminine) forces of the natural world. Original small memorial garden with kasuga style lantern honouring diplomat Nitobe Inazō builtin 1935 did not survive vandalization when Japanese Canadians were sent to internment camps in the 1940s. Norman Mackenzie, president of UBC (1944-1962) recognized Nitobe […]
Overhead sculpture, light projection onto floor, + audio recording Yuan Wen (2025) Play in the Field, part of Impos(s)able Impositions: UBC Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition. At end of hall, drawings on xuan rice paper. Noises were intruding from the installation just over the wall, with sounds set for the opening night reception two […]
Outstanding view of North Vancouver mountains, and West End city centre from second floor patio on south shore of English Bay. Club is private for sailors, but upstairs is open for public. Can't remember visiting this venue when I lived in Vancouver in the 1980s. (The Galley Patio and Grill, Jericho Sailing Centre, Discovery Street, […]
Hoist from 1930s industrial heritage was moved opposite Sea Village in 2022. Prior location was hidden by Emily Carr University site 1980-2017 at 1399 Johnston Street, a building still vacant. Tower has become a landmark near southeast end of street, visible from Public Market. (Historic Yellow Crane, Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, British Columbia) 20250503
Two years after submitting an academic manuscript and responding to double-blind reviews, “Rethinking work, with the pandemic disruption” has now been published in the International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior (IJOTB) as earlycite. The article has a DOI (Document Object Identifier), and should be streamed with an official volume and issue number soon. The […]
The 128th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was convened in person. The classroom was filled with current students, alumni, our regular participants, and a few curious newcomers. Moderated by Zaid Khan, the conversation was sparked by Stephen Davies and myself (David Ing) on the evolving styles in learning systems thinking. Stephen has been leading SFIN-6011 […]
The “Understanding Systems” SFIN-6011 course is a requirement in the master’s program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCADU. For winter 2025, the class is now led by Stephen Davies, breaking the incremental evolving of content since 2008. While still on faculty at OCADU, the original course designer Peter H. Jones is now a Distinguished […]
In the 1970s, five ways of knowing were established by C. West Churchman in The Design of Inquiring Systtems. In the 1990s, his student Ian Mitroff carried on the tradition and extended that work in The Unbounded Mind. Now in the 2020s, the technology of Generative AI opens up opportunties to query or request responses […]
For readers with an interest deeper than the 15-minute presentation given in August, the Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Socio-Technical Perspectives in Information Systems (STPIS 2024) have now been formally publishied. The invited paper on “Reifying Socio-Technical and Socio-Ecological Perspectives for Systems Changes: From rearranging objects to repacing rhythms” was reviewed by the […]
The 125th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario coincided with the closing day for the RSD13-RSDX online program. As a regular systems convening group, we’ve had monthly meetings since January 2013. Zaid Khan moderated a discussion including me (David Ing), Tim Lloyd, Allenna Leonard, and Kelly Okamura. We recollected starting as a spinoff from Design with […]
Rhythm and pitch are primordial to language. Susan Rogers, after a career becoming Prince's recording engineer, turned to complete a PhD in psychology focused on music cognition and psychoacoustics.Read more ›
David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
Timothy F.H. Allen, president of International Society for the Systems Sciences 2008-2009, passed away peacefully in his home, surrounded by his family, on May 1, 2025. With his work on ecosystem ecology, I learned more about living systems than anyone else in the systems community. After his retirement, he was proud of putting together a […]
In 2024, WordPress Studio was released, making installation on a local computer simpler. The instructions were modified from MacOS to Ubuntu Linux, by Daniel Kossmann, “How to install WordPress Studio in Ubuntu Linux” | Jun 15, 2024 at https://www.danielkossmann.com/how-to-install-wordpress-studio-ubuntu-linux/ I already had NVM installed, but in Terminal, with the result “command not found”. In the […]
The appreciation of change is different in Western philosophy than in classical Chinese philosophy. JeeLoo Lin published a concise contrast on differences. Let me parse the Introduction to the journal article, that is so clearly written. The Chinese theory of time is built into a language that is tenseless. The Yijing (Book of Changes) there […]
In trying to place the World Hypotheses work of Stephen C. Pepper (with multiple root metaphors), Nicholas Rescher provides a helpful positioning. — begin paste — Philosophical perspectivism maintains that substantive philosophical positions can be maintained only from a “perspective” of some sort. But what sort? Clearly different sorts of perspectives can be conceived of, […]
Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method) diachronic ADJECTIVE Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233. For completeness, prochronic relates “to […]
