Oolong tea started as a tea that I tried one time in winter with no appreciation for it. And now I wonder how much of the exotic words hide so much of iceberg behind them whose economic lines are intertwined, whose national pride is that food nationalism part of. I thought of many places and foods during the book read. Basmatic rice, Thai iced tea, Vinacafe 3 in 1 Vietnamese Coffee and Ceylon tea to name a few.

While enjoying tea or coffee at an amateur trying to develop a taste, you think of the flavor but start to know the variables in the processing and the growing of the tea plants or coffee beans. Every step makes a difference.

Hung uses many frameworks to understand the role of place in food indigeneity, the political actions that make tea or any food a state actor. You hear in the news about coffee going to get expensive or pressure on matcha due to golobal demand. And in one such case of demand for Taiwan's bubble tea, just like assembled in America a euphonym for Made elsewhere, MIT - Made in Taiwan tea has routes to other countries like Thailand and Vietnam for not just the reason of demand but also the resilience of tea crops and how can you make your food identity without sharing something enough with the world that they like it and assign it with the terroir.

There is more complicated aspects of our food, that one could think of and go write books on say tomatoes like the Tomato Land but the book does make you think about not just the food and growers but the incentives and needs of other actors behind it.

In an ideal world, every grower gets to be the face of their product but the constraints of brand, souvenir teas and favorable pricing - souvenirs make up for those who cant travel but still taste the world from afar.

Sunday, July 26, 2026

Labour shortage resulting in technology progress

Why did England industrialise? Our research is inspired by what contemporaries saw and wrote: a giant military conflict, lasting almost a quarter of a century, pulling in vast quantities of manpower, induced labour shortages. Employers, faced with too few hands at high wages, looked to machines to keep up production.

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America

This week Mississipi is in news for its rising tide of reading scores of fourth graders.

It reminded me of the Telugu story of flood. What is referred to as "human storm" where everything different collided.

Having seen only a 6 inch rain fall, I cannot imaginehow a 15 inch rain fall would look like.

Thursday, July 23, 2026

Japanese in dream

夢の中で日本語を話して、うれしくてぴょんぴょん飛び跳ねていました。

Yume no naka de Nihongo o hanashite, ureshikute pyon pyon tobihanete imashita.

In my dream, I spoke Japanese and was so happy that I was jumping up and down.

Sunday, July 19, 2026

American Political Ideology

American Politics

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Modern Economic Analysis and Antitrust Law: A Guide

Saturday, July 4, 2026

Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache

wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the western apache

A map that would show the places as named in Western Apache Language.

toponyms-place-names

Common Ground

Cartographies of the Voice: Storying the Land as Survivance in Native American Oral Traditions

Saturday, June 27, 2026

Independent Learners

https://carlhendrick.substack.com/p/why-you-cannot-believe-your-way-into - This is quiet a read but it might help you frame the challenges in you parent/mentor role in making independent learners. "Productive struggle" is something I have relied on but have to keep monitoring what works.

https://futureofeducation.substack.com/p/teach-your-kid-what-school-doesnt - "Become their mentor, not their drill sergeant"

See what resonates with your situation.