Write with Michelle

The other day, I asked ChatGPT what it thought about this issue: “Now that so many people in the workplace are using ChatGPT, what's the future of business correspondence? What can people do to make an impression?” After noting that due to widespread ChatGPT use among business employees, emails, proposals and reports are “starting to sound the same: competent, but robotic and forgettable,“ ChatGPT offered tips for standing out from the crowd. “Show personality without losing

Call me an unconventional English writing tutor, but over the years, I've discovered one crucial benchmark that can reliably predict whether students will go on to achieve high marks and retain what I’ve taught them. How much does laughter fill our sessions? I have a theory about why this happens. Students absorb new knowledge best when they’re having fun, when they’re not aware that they’re learning. To see this, just look at what materializes when the opposite happens, when

Curiously enough, among the people who have managed to make the art of writing less mysterious to me is Pietro Yantorny, an illiterate shoemaker who took pride in crafting custom-made shoes in Paris for high society at the turn of the last century. Dismissing factory-made footwear as "little boxes for feet that one calls shoes," Yantorny developed a unique approach to his trade: upon accepting a commission, he would make an effort to find out how his client distributed her we

This video on Douyin gave me a much-needed laugh as I waited with trepidation for the human cost of the Wuhan virus to come to light: a stern voice on a loudspeaker warns the inhabitants of a village against engaging in extramarital sex while the country is in the grip of the epidemic – "別個傳染給你，晚上你傳染給你婆娘，你婆娘傳染給隔壁老王，老王傳染給老王婆娘，那全村不都遭洗白了啊!" The bluntness of the alert's wording reminded me of a banner I once saw while journeying through rural Shaanxi – "寧可血流成河，不準超生一個." "Why put t

To help the audience picture the difficulty of playing the title role in the Peking opera "The Inebriated Consort" (貴妃醉酒), the producers invited an opera apprentice and a little girl to learn the part from Zhang Jing, a venerated artist who could trace her lineage back to the legendary Mei Lanfang (梅蘭芳). The child, a complete stranger to the idiom of opera, wobbled and dithered about despite her best efforts. But even the apprentice failed to replicate even a fraction of the

民國美學大師宗白華（1897-1986）的傳記作者鄒士方，80年代初撰寫宗白華的傳記期間，曾到北京圖書館報庫讀宗抗戰時期的舊作。鄒這樣形容當時看書情景：「時值酷暑，汗流浹背，但我抄錄著宗先生在《星期學燈》上的詩意怏然的『編輯後語』，只感到渾身爽快，如置身於清涼世界，我再一次被宗老那深邃的思想和優美的語言所折服。」 雖然我欣賞宗白華作品的時候有條件坐在空調房間裏，但鄒的體會我還是能感同身受的，宗白華的確有把我帶到另一個世界的魔力。而我之所以找宗白華的傳記來看，是因我想探索，他的背景和時代如何促使他寫出以下這種如此有意境的文字？ 「散步是自由自在、無拘無束的行動，它的弱點是沒有計劃，沒有系統。看重邏輯統一性的人會輕視它，討厭它，但是西方建立邏輯學的大師亞里士多德的學派卻喚做『散步學派』，可見散步和邏輯並不是絕對不相容的。中國古代一位影響不小的哲學家 – 莊子，他好像整天是在山野裏散步，觀看著鵬鳥、小蟲、蝴蝶、游魚，又在人間世裏凝視一些奇形怪狀的人：駝背、跛腳、四肢不全、心靈不正常的人，很像意大利文藝復興時大天才達・芬奇在米蘭街頭散步時速寫下來的一些『

"I know how their wicked little minds operate" When a cat owner posted a photo of her cluttered, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on Twitter and challenged her followers to find her cat among her books and knick-knacks, an interesting pattern emerged: those who had never lived with cats found it hard to locate the animal, while cat parents, already familiar with where this species likes to hide – "I know how their wicked little minds operate," noted one – could spot the kitty alm

A Master of Science and PhD at Carnegie Mellon. A postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford. Being named one of "10 Women to Watch in Tech" by Inc. Magazine, and being chosen as one of BBC's "100 Women" in 2017. These accomplishments and accolades, achieved by neuroscientist Vivienne Ming, would make any Asian parent proud. Yet Ming’s early years and young adulthood (she is 54 now) would have made her the black sheep of any Asian family. She struggled with her grades, dropped out