The following was sent to Danwei from an anonymous-sounding Hotmail address:

A Daily Affirmation Generator

By Raymond P. Shaw

For Creative Artists
Who simply don’t understand why things in the Chinese media and entertainment business don’t just open up here more quickly, darnit, despite the fact that:

You can smoke pot openly in many bars;
Pimps seem to manage the flow of traffic at several major intersections and streets;
You can drink from noon to noon;
Go whoring anywhere-anytime;
And pretty much do whatever the hell you want as long as you don’t do it on paper or via a radio broadcast, website or TV / movie screen.

Below is a “daily affirmation generator” for writers, filmmakers, visual artists, musicians, poets and other creative artists who are interested in reminding themselves on a daily basis that things simply just are not as bad as you think they are.

They are worse.

And getting in touch with that worse-than-you-fool-yourself-into-believing-everyday reality can be a very liberating, rejuvenating and creative process.

Now, here’s how the affirmation works: When you wake up in the morning, perhaps after you take a shower, read the paper, or sip your daily brew, just read the following list in any direction (horizontally, vertically, diagonally, or even just skip around or repeat the same word twice or three times, it doesn’t matter).

Now, if you want get the most out of this affirmation, it’s important to really focus on the words and numbers themselves. Absorb them into your heart and mind.

Let them sink in. Meditate on them.

Sort of like a mantra.

And repeat them as many times as it takes to start feeling results, to notice subtle internal changes.

And the genius of the table format is that you can generate a new affirmation every day, with literally millions of possible new affirmations. So, basically, for the rest of your creative life in China, this chart will meet all your affirmational needs.

(What are these numbers and words? Well, it doesn’t really matter, but, just for the curious, these are, in theory, the educational backgrounds of the nine most powerful humans in China. But the affirmation works whether or not you know this.)

As an example, here’s one of my personal favorite affirmations, which I’ve been saying a lot to myself lately:

“Thermal measurement and Automatic control, Electron Tubes, 1960 to 1967, Tsinghua, Tsinghua, Tsinghua, Pressure Processing, Harbin Institute of Tech, Tsinghua, Tsinghua, 1959 to 1964.“

Here’s another really cool one that I’ve been doing a lot before starting my writing sessions:

“Electron Tubes, Electron Tubes, Electron Tubes, Electron Tubes.”

And, when I really need an extra creative boost, and to remind myself of the powerful joy I get from being so close to 5,000 years of the greatest human civilization ever to have existed --- you know, the language, culture, art, poetry, romantic heroes, porcelain artistry, kites, etc. --- I like to do the following affirmation by stepping out into my hutong and shouting at the top of lungs:

“Thermal measurement! Electric motor and appliance design! Automatic Control! Automatic Control! Power! Power! Power!”

Anyhow, you get the hang of it. So give her a spin! And I sincerely hope this affirmation generator will do the same magic for you as it has for me! Have a great day!