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If you think too much about the ass-kicking that life gave you, you’ll stop pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules. It’s better to take it, spend some time crying, then wake up the next day and move on.

British racism vs Afrikaner racism: At least the former gave the natives something to aspire to (mission schools that offer English, literature, medicine and law), comparing to Bantu schools that does metrics and agriculture. “Why give a book to a monkey?”

Rich countries have better chances of recovery may be due to far more abundant food for nutrition, much quicker access to medical support, medical supplies.

Wow. Can’t imagine how many hardships Trevor came through to become who he is now. The shit story in Chapter 3 was hilarious.

In America you had the forced removal of the native into reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Apartheid: all 3 happening to the same group of people at the same time.

Learnings
- hurl: throw
- next to nothing: nothing

Every major character appeared in this book so far seems like a psychopath.

No wonder Elon reached his height today. He’s extremely smart, decisive, having long-term vision, and of course lucky.

醉蟹不看灯、风鸡不过灯、刀鱼不过清明、鲟鱼不过端午”。而狮子头这种一年到头都能吃到的东西，早春的时候里面加的是淡水河蚌、清明节后就加入竹笋、秋天包了蟹粉、冬天则是风鸡。

学习到了：“唐朝当时的一份文献将点心作动词用，意思是“正餐之间吃点零食”；到了宋朝，“点心”成了名词，意思是早餐吃的小零食。

“沉浸到新的文化中，是要付出代价的。这其中风险很大，可能会破坏你内心深处的自我，甚至对你的身份认同产生深远的影响。” 但这些改变未必是坏的，很多情况下甚至是非常正面的，新的文化也是在帮你认识自己、认识世界

作者好可爱：

课间休息的时候，我就和同学们一样，在学校院子里巨大的磨刀石上磨我的菜刀，保持其锋利光鲜。

我心想着，要是有人真的蠢到要打劫，会发生什么呢？“我们是先切牛舌片还是先切骨牌片？”

Wrong decision to try reading it through audiobook…

很可爱的想法：

“虽然那时候全中国都在强调说要坚定地走社会主义道路，但学校里学的每道菜都被分了严格的“阶级”：有的菜可能比较适合做“一般筵席”的热菜，有的可以做“高级筵席”的头菜。”

非常唏嘘，现在的宽窄巷子简直“不夜城”，大晚上依然摩肩接踵灯火通明。有点希望自己能穿越到那个年代去看一看。

“我们经过了明清时期的古街区宽窄巷子，那里有一排排杂乱的房子，深色原木结构的建筑，深浅斑驳的痕迹，粉白的墙壁。这些老街老巷里本来就没有街灯。”

非中文母语者的视角太有趣了：“吃熟的外国蛮夷，在必要的时候，还是可以打打交道的。而吃生的蛮夷（未开化的非中原人）就是“君子远之”了。就连在当代中国，有时候都把不认识的人称为“生人”，认识的人称为“熟人”。这样的态度反映了一个事实：中国人传统上就是不爱生食的。”

第三章:大多数欧洲语言中，可供人吃的有生命的东西很多都来自拉丁语的“anima”，代表着空气、呼吸、生命。英语里的“creature”来自拉丁语中和“创造”有关的词，似乎将动物与我们人类联系在了某个十分神圣的宇宙当中。我们也都是生灵、是动物。而中文里的“动物”（“移动的物体”）。几乎没什么生命可言

Information obtained when the interviewee was under stress could be misleading and very inaccurate.

Best example to be abstinent. Alcohol makes us become myopia and can’t make good judgment. When you are drunk, you are not showing your true self, but your understanding of your true self changes.
When both parties were drunk: it’s hard to determine consent when both were deviating from their true selves. If they didn’t consume that much alcohol, things could be very different.

Amanda Knox DID act very weird and lacked of sympathy. It totally makes sense to me that her behaviors raised so much suspicion.

I’m hoping Gladwell could give more guidance in the future chapters: We may make wrong judgment about someone despite knowing them (Chamberlain with Hitler), yet we could be wrong about strangers as their behaviors may mismatch (Knox and Madoff). Then what should we do?!

Face to face communications are socially necessary, but it might create errors as we all communicate in different ways. Facial expressions don’t really mean the same thing for everyone.

Heartbreaking stories about Sandusky and Nassar. I feel terrible for the devastating parents and kids who went through this, and I believe there are many more out there that are not uncovered yet. - how can we protect our children?

“Defaulting to truth is not a crime. It’s a fundamentally human tendency. We default to truth, even when that decision carries terrible risks, because we have no choice.”

Holy fools are the ones that challenge the authenticity of everything - “we can’t all be Holy Fools. That would be a disaster.”

It’s more cost effective to assume strangers are truthful vs time spent to validate that.

Thoughts after reading the Ana Monte’s spy story (which is a great story):

Don’t be too confident of self intuition: what I see may not reflect how this person really is. Maybe listening to others opinions is a good idea.

Belief is not absence of doubt, but not enough doubts.

Human beings always default to “oh it’s a truth”, unless doubts build up to a threshold. But is it a good habit?

Part 1: Many times we jumped on the chances to judge strangers based on the flimsiest clues we see, but they may not be accurate.